How to build a UTM In the UTM.io Chrome Extension
Building UTMs are important for any marketer. If done correctly, UTMs enable us to track the successes, and even failures, of all our marketing efforts.
Install the Extension
To do this in the UTM.io Chrome Extension you will first need to install the extension in your Chrome Browser: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/utmio-google-analytics-ur/eoaapiimcaimddnfhfnifgkinmpcbccp?hl=en
Visit the Correct Page
Once the Chrome Extension is installed you can visit any page on the internet which you want to build a UTM for and open the extension and it will pull in the URL from that page so you can start building your UTM.
Please remember, if you change pages, the extension will automatically update the URL in the extension. That means if you switch pages before you click “Copy,” you’ll get a UTM that directs to the new page you are on. Make sure you remain on the correct page while building, copying, and saving the UTM.
Select Team or Workspace
To create the UTM just go to the URL you want in the UTM. Then open the extension and the link is automatically pulled in.
You can select your team or workspace at this time as well. This will allow you to save your UTMs to the team or workspace the UTM is for. You can easily update the team or workspace by clicking on the dropdown and giving it a few seconds to load in your templates.
Select Templates
After you have selected the team or workspace you can decide to choose a template to be used with the URL. While templates aren’t required, they can help you maintain a cohesive naming strategy for your UTMs, which can help you stay organized. You can learn more about Templates and how to build or use them here
If you would like to use a template just click the drop-down and select the appropriate one and it will fill in the fields. Templates do not have to fill in all fields, please double check the fields to make sure you have everything filled in correctly. You do not have to have all fields filled in, but the more details you add the great your analytics segmentation becomes later.
Add UTM Values
Whether you use a template or not you will have the ability to set your own UTM values directly in the Chrome extension.
We recommend only using lower case words in the fields as it prevents duplicate mistakes later. If you use a capital one time and a lower case another time your analytics tools will look at that as two separate values. This tends to break our tracking and is often frustrating.
To set any value you can click in the cell and start typing. You can use, the tab button on your keyboard to go to the next cell. At any point you are done making your UTM you can just hit enter and it will copy the link to your clipboard.
If you do not know what you should set as your UTMs you can check out this helpful article on what you should be using as your UTMs.
Shorten your UTM
If you would like to shorten your UTM link, click the box that says “Shorten Link.” You can use either Bitly or UTM.io as your shortener, but you’ll need to configure whichever one you choose. To learn more about configuring Bitly or UTM.io, visit our link shortener support article.
Save to the Cloud
Once your UTM is finished, you can choose to save the link, it’s UTMs, notes about the link and who made it and when to the UTM.io admin section. To save this information, check the box that says “Save to Cloud.” Once this box is checked it will save your data for your future reference. To learn more about the UTM logging feature please visit the support article. [LINK TO LINK SHORTENING ARTICLE COMING SOON]
Share your UTM
After you have decided whether or not to shorten your UTM link, and if you'd like to save it to the cloud, you can choose how you would like to share the UTM Url. The most common way to share your UTM is to copy it to your clipboard and then paste the link wherever you want. If you have the shorten link box check the link will be shortened once you click copy and the shortened version is what will be copied to your clipboard. At this time if the save to cloud box is checked it will also save to your UTM.io dashboard when you click the copy button.
Another way you can use your UTM link is to share directly to Twitter or Facebook from the Chrome extension. If you click on the Twitter option it will open a new window for you to share the link on twitter. If you have pop-ups blocked please make sure to check your chrome URL bar and unblock the pop-up from coming up. If you have the shortened link or saved to cloud boxes checked the link will also be shortened and saved to the cloud once you click the twitter button.
The same thing goes for the Facebook share. Once you click it a Facebook popup will appear with the link prefilled. All you have to do is fill in your content and your UTM’d url has been shared on Facebook. If you have the shortened link or saved to cloud boxes checked the link will also be shortened and saved to the cloud once you click the facebook button.
If you have additional questions or think this article can be improved, please reach out to us at [email protected]