Lesson plan

UTM parameters

Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) parameters are five variants of URL parameters used by marketers to track the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns across traffic sources and publishing media. They were introduced by Google Analytics' predecessor Urchin and, consequently, are supported out of the box by Google Analytics. The UTM parameters in a URL identify the campaign that refers traffic to a specific website, and attribute the browser's website session and the sessions after that until the campaign attribution window expires to it. The parameters can be parsed by analytics tools and used to populate reports. This example URL has four of the five UTM parameters highlighted: : https://www.example.com/page? utm_content=buffercf3b2 & utm_medium=social & utm_source=snapchat.com & utm_campaign=buffer

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Article summary

Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) parameters are five variants of URL parameters used by marketers to track the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns across traffic sources and publishing media. They were introduced by Google Analytics' predecessor Urchin and, consequently, are supported out of the box by Google Analytics. The UTM parameters in a URL identify the campaign that refers traffic to a specific website, and attribute the browser's website session and the sessions after that until the campaign attribution window expires to it. The parameters can be parsed by analytics tools and used to populate reports. This example URL has four of the five UTM parameters highlighted: : https://www.example.com/page? utm_content=buffercf3b2 & utm_medium=social & utm_source=snapchat.com & utm_campaign=buffer

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Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.