Below are templates to use for the different channels, including:

• Social channels like Facebook and Twitter
• SEM channels like AdWords and Bing
• Email programs like Intercom and Mailchimp
• And on affiliate websites linking to your site

Use this URL builder to help you out.

Social channels (Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat etc.)

• utm_source
  • facebook
  • instagram
  • facebook+instagram
  • linkedin
  • pinterest
  • snapchat
  • quora
  • reddit
  • taboola
• utm_medium
  • prospecting
  • retargeting
• utm_campaign
  • For this we actually want to include both the campaign and the adset’s name so we can see both in our analytics:
  • [Name of campaign]_[Name of adset]
    • For example, with a campaign of Prospecting US and Ad Set of US Lookalike 5% —Customers we would have: Prospecting-US_Lookalike-5-Customers
• utm_content
  • A description the specific ad’s copy/creative

SEM channels

SEM have a lot better automated URL tracking templating with automatic variable insertion.

For example on AdWords you can do the following:

{lpurl}/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign={campaignid}_{adgroupid}&utm_content={creative}&utm_term={keyword}

The values within { and } are variables automatically filled in by Google. You can also add a lot more information using their variables depending on what you may find useful to track. You can see the full list here.

You can add a tracking template at the account, campaign, ad group, and even ad level. We normally do a template targeted at the account level for Search campaigns, then add a template at the campaign level for Display, Shopping, and YouTube campaigns. We find this is the least amount of work for best results.

Custom Parameters

If you look at the example template above, you use we use campaignid and adgroupoid. Unfortunately, you can’t use a built-in variable to pass in the campaign or ad group’s name—only the ID’s.