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Correct utm tags Yandex Direct. Setting up and analyzing UTM tags: a complete guide. What does a UTM tag consist of?




One of the most important tools for analytics and collecting statistical data on Yandex.Direct advertising campaigns are UTM tags. Let's figure out what they are and how to work with them.

UTM tags (Urchin Tracking Module) are markup of the landing page URL, which is carried out using special parameters in order to obtain detailed information about the source and characteristics of the traffic.

Thanks to this markup, we can see which ad, keyword, or advertising campaign was clicked on. Right down to exactly what phrase the user entered into the search bar.

An example of the data obtained using UTM tags is shown in the screenshot below. Here we can observe the following picture. The query “men's clutch” received 393 visits to the site. In total there were 404 visits for this ad, and 460 for the entire campaign.

In addition, UTM tags in Yandex.Direct allow you to see the bounce rate, time on the site, and depth of views. This allows us to identify the most effective ads, increase the maximum cost per click for them or, conversely, the least effective ones (for example, too high a bounce rate) and stop displaying them or reduce the cost per click.

StructureUTM-tags

The tags themselves are special parameters that fit into the landing page link. Each source has its own link, marked for a specific source. In our case, this is contextual advertising placed using the YaD service.

We will use the following five parameters:

  • utm_source – referral source (for example, yandex, google, site.ru, etc.);
  • utm_medium – advertising type (for example, cpc – advertisements, email – mailing, social – social networks, etc.);
  • utm_campaign – advertising campaign (usually an identification number or name);
  • utm_content – ​​ad number;
  • utm_term – key query.

For each of the above parameters, you must specify the value that will be displayed in the statistics. When working with Direct, you can use two types of values:

  • static,
  • dynamic.

Static - you must manually specify each value for each parameter. With their help, you can get more detailed statistics, but they require too much time to compile. Especially for large campaigns where hundreds or thousands of keywords are used. It is advisable to use when you have a small campaign (about 50 keywords), and not always.

Dynamic - they save time, since we specify only variables, and the system itself substitutes the necessary values ​​​​in place of them during the transition. For example, instead of a specific ad number, we put a general variable (ad_id). Later, during the transition, the system will see it and itself will substitute the identification number of the ad on which the click was made.

I’ll say right away that I only use the latter. Over the years of work, I have personally become convinced that dynamic labels in Yandex.Direct allow you to save a lot of time, without losing the quality of the received data.

If everything is clear with static ones - we write each value manually or use special UTM tag generators (there is not much difference), then with dynamic ones everything is not so simple. To use them correctly, you need to know which variables to enter.

There are 21 dynamic tags in total, but for Direct I don’t use all of them, namely the following:

  • (source_type) – site type (search, network);
  • (position_type) – position in the search results (for search);
  • (keyword) – user’s key request;
  • (addphrases) – relevant phrases (yes, no). Only for campaigns whose settings have them enabled;
  • (campaign_id), (ad_id), (banner_id), (phrase_id), (GBID) – identifier of the campaign, ad, banner, keyword and group, respectively;
  • (retargeting_id) – number of the retargeting condition (if used).

http://yandex.ru/?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=cpc& utm_campaign=(campaign_id)&utm_content=(ad_id)&utm_term=(keyword)

As you can see, I leave the referral source and ad type static, since these values ​​are the same for all ads. The rest are dynamic. During the transition, the system will automatically substitute the required values ​​in their place, and I will see them in the statistics.

How to put it correctlyUTM-tags

So, we figured out the theory a little. Now let me tell you how to use UTM tags in practice.

  • PPC-help.ru,
  • utmurl.ru, etc.

Using these services is easy. It is enough to specify the page URL and parameters. As a result, we get a ready-made marked up link.

Another simple way is to substitute the name of your site in the template that I indicated above.

Next, the resulting link must be added to the XLS file in the appropriate column. Since I use dynamic tags, I insert the same template for all key phrases that lead to the same page. When you click on such a link, the system itself will substitute the necessary values.

This completes the work of adding UTM tags to the poison. As you can see, everything is very simple.

Analytics

An equally important aspect of working with UTM tags is the analysis of the received data. The quality and effectiveness of further impressions will depend on how you use them, what conclusions you draw and decisions you make.

To view statistics in Yandex.Direct, we need to turn to Metrica. Here you need to go to the section “Reports” – “Sources” – “UTM Tags”.

Next we will see a picture as in the first screenshot. By clicking on “+”, you can see which campaign, which ad and which key phrase the transition was made for, as well as detailed statistics for each item.

UTM tag - special parameters written into URL pages, with the help of which we can find out information about the transition to our advertising.

https://yandex.ru/ ?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=remont_dmitrov

Yandex Direct has its own system of tags for Yandex Metrics yclid, while Direct puts these tags automatically, the question immediately arises, why then do we need UTM tags in Direct.

Parameters of UTM tags in Yandex Direct.

Each UA TM mark consists of a set of parameters, in which it carries information about following the link.

The UTM tag parameters for Yandex Direct have a number of features.

All parameters are divided into 2 types:

    Dynamic

    Static

Dynamic parameters as the name suggests, they carry information that may change depending on conditions. Be it automatic detection of a search phrase or YAN site from where the transition was received.

Static parameters on the contrary, they are set once and accordingly do not change until we change them ourselves. For example, the name of an advertising campaign in Yandex Direct.

The UTM tag must contain 3 required parameters:

    utm_source– transition source type

    utm_medium– channel or type of traffic

The remaining parameters are optional, but we still cannot do without some of them.

Value to insert into link Description Passed value
(ad_id) or (banner_id) Ad ID number
(addphrases) Is this impression triggered by additional relevant phrases? yes - display for an additional relevant phrase;
no - display based on one of the original phrases
(addphrasestext) Text of additional relevant phrase phrase text - when displayed using an additional relevant phrase;
none - the impression was not triggered by an additional relevant phrase
(campaign_type) Campaign type type1 - Text and image ads;
type2 - Mobile application advertising;
type3 - Dynamic declarations;
type4 - Smart banners
(campaign_id) Campaign ID number
(creative_id) Creative ID from the designer number
(device_type) Type of device on which the display was made desktop - desktop;
mobile - mobile phone;
tablet - tablet
(gbid) Group ID number
(keyword) Key phrase for which the ad was shown (text-graphic or mobile application advertising) Key phrase text without negative words
(phrase_id) Keyphrase ID for text/image ads or mobile app ads number
(retargeting_id) ID of the audience targeting condition that associates the ad set with audience conditions or mobile app interests. Read more about the audience targeting condition in the Direct API documentation number
(coef_goal_context_id) Bid adjustment ID for the audience selection condition number
(interest_id) Mobile App Interest ID number
(adtarget_name) Dynamic ad targeting condition name of the targeting condition
(adtarget_id) Dynamic ad targeting condition ID number
(position) The exact position of the ad in the block. Passes only the position number, which cannot be used to determine the type of block where the ad is shown (use with (position_type)) position number in the block (for example, 1);
0 - the ad was shown in networks (YAN or external networks)
(position_type) Block type, if the display occurred on the Yandex search results page premium - special accommodation;
other - block on the right or block at the bottom;
none - the ad was shown in networks (YAN or external networks)
(source) Display location site domain (for example, travel.ru) - when displayed in networks (YAN or external networks);
none - when displayed on Yandex search
(source_type) Type of platform where the ad was shown search - search;
context - networks
(region_name) Region where the ad was shown region name
(region_id) ID of the region in which the ad was shown number

Agree, there are too many parameters, and not all of them are so important.

So, we come to the most interesting part of creating high-quality and useful UTM tags.

Creating UTM tags in Yandex Direct.

Of all the parameters presented in the previous table, we will highlight the truly important ones.

I will repeat immediately:

Three required parameters:

1. utm_source– transition source type (static)
For Yandex Direct you can use “utm_source=yandex”

2.utm_medium– channel type, also the static parameter “utm_medium=cpc” means that the payment is per click or simply means that the click came from Direct.

This is the only parameter that needs to be changed manually. This is because there is NO dynamic parameter for UTM tags that determines the Name of the advertising campaign. Dynamically, we can only pull out the number that Yandex Direct assigns to an advertising campaign, which in turn does not carry any significant information.

I would like to clarify right away that in this parameter you can specify both various test data for ad groups and for the ads themselves, which in turn will reduce your UTM tag from unnecessary parameters.

Example:

In fact this is the minimum UTM tag, which will already work.

utm_term is responsible for the keyword in the UTM tag– this parameter should be left dynamic, because when using large semantic cores with 1000 or more keywords, manually specifying this parameter is clearly illogical.

utm_term=(keyword)

Now we have received a fairly simple, working UTM tag with which we can find out from which advertising campaign and key phrase (word) there was a click, which, for example, led to an application for phone repair.

https://yandex.ru/ utm_source=yandex& utm_medium=cpc& utm_campaign=remont_odintsovo& utm_term=(keyword)

So, we know the name of the advertising campaign and the keyword from which the click was made, what else could we need?

There's not much left:

Let's say our transition in the ad group had 2 ads with different images

and we want to know which ad, and therefore image, led to the repair request. For this we use the parameter utm_content, there are 2 options for using this parameter to define an ad:

1. Static – manually enter the ad name, for example, utm_content=image_1

2. Dynamic - utm_content=(ad_id) this UTM tag parameter will take the value ad number, assigned to it by Yandex Direct.

The difference is that the first one will have to be entered manually, but when collecting statistics, ad options will be immediately visible, while the dynamic parameter collects statistics itself, but after that it will have to be analyzed using the ad number.

Everyone decides for themselves which option is easier for them.

And the last parameter, or more precisely the value of the parameter, is

utm_content=(source)

source is responsible for the site where the click came from, for search campaigns these are Yandex search partners, but most importantly, this value shows from which YAN sites the click was made.

It will help you determine which sites on YAN are draining your budget without bringing in a single application and can later be turned off.

In total, from all these parameters of the UTM tag, we get a powerful and high-quality tool for analyzing our advertising:

View collected UTM tag statistics.

The “UTM Tags” report is responsible for the collected statistics in Yandex Metrica.


In Google Analytics, the report can be found in Traffic Sources - All Traffic - Source Channel


To learn how to quickly create more complex UTM tags, see a separate article about them:

In conclusion I will say that UTM tags are great for integrating Yandex Direct into Google Analytics for further analysis and improvement of advertising campaigns.

The level of detail and segmentation of traffic from various channels is impressive: you just need to set the UTM tag correctly, and you can see how much traffic came from a specific VKontakte post or Yandex ad. Direct or a banner in an email newsletter.

Set up UTM tags and you will have complete information on transitions and conversions from all sources.

This guide will help you understand setting up, tracking, and analyzing UTM tags.

What are UTM tags

UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) - web page address parameters that transmit information about visitor transitions from each source to analytics systems. Simply put, these are additional “tails” that are added to URLs.

The ultimate goal is to find out which sources bring in more traffic. Most often, tags are used to analyze advertising traffic, but not only. They can and should be inserted everywhere - posts on social networks, email newsletters, publications in third-party media where there is a link to your website.

Analytics services (Yandex.Metrica and Google Analytics primarily) take information from UTM and register page views. You will know where the visitor came from and what path he took to get to your site.

Here is an example of a report in Google Analytics:

Google tracks traffic using cookies, but UTM allows you to change the standard method to your own: with the parameters that you need.

Yandex.Metrica has the same principle.

The only thing where tags are not needed is internal transitions: every time a link with UTM is clicked, the analytics system registers a new visit.

For example, a visitor came to you from an ad in Yandex.Direct. Then he clicked on a banner on the site leading to another page, and this page is marked with a utm tag.

The analytics system will record a new session with a new referral source, resulting in two sessions with different sources, but in fact there was only one. This will turn the statistics into chaos.

To track internal actions on a website, it is better to use JavaScript events. UTM tags are intended for tracking external traffic.

Anatomy of UTM tags

http://site/blog/kontekstnaya-reklama

http://site/blog/kontekstnaya-reklama/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=digest&utm_campaign=01_09

http://site/?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=course_rsya

Standard Variables

The label consists of:

1) utm_source - the channel where the traffic comes from.

In essence, utm_source is the only required parameter. Without it, the tag will not work - more precisely, the analytics system will not record such a transition.

Although the value of this parameter can be set arbitrarily. There are no uniform rules here. The main thing is that you understand what kind of channel it is when analyzing statistics.

Utm_source is the top level, and all subsequent parameters specify the specific source of traffic from this channel.

2) utm_medium - channel type (usually campaign type).

It can be used to distinguish one advertising model from another. Contextual and media advertising, for example. Hence the generally accepted designations for this parameter are cpc, cpm (pay per click and per impression). Separately - retargeting (for retargeting campaigns).

As a rule, this is a transliteration of the full name.

http://site/?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=context

Here the Campaign Name is context, which means that the traffic came as part of a strategy aimed at those who are looking for information related to contextual advertising.

When choosing Campaign tags, pay attention to what really matters to you. Don't try to be super secretive to hide something from your competitors. This will only mislead you.

Try to ensure that your Campaign name is unique to your specific campaign or product. However, the same Campaign can be used in different Sources and Channels.

You can only compare campaign performance across different channels if these three metrics don't interfere with each other.

Traffic sources -> campaigns -> all campaigns.

For example:

This shows that visitors from the zamena campaign (1st position) spend the least time on the site, while they account for 43% of all traffic, 80% of which are new visitors.

And visitors from the remont_stekla campaign (2nd position) have the lowest bounce rate and view more pages on the site.

UTM tags provide enough data to draw conclusions about the success of sources, channels and campaigns.

4) utm_content - usually identifies a specific ad in an advertising campaign.

Suitable for testing different ad placements, designs, text wording or any other variable that needs to be tested.

5) utm_term - as a rule, these are keywords or a set of targeting.

Most often, utm_term is relevant for contextual advertising in Yandex.Direct and Google Ads, as well as advertising on the myTarget network.

Attention! UTM parameters are case sensitive.

site.ru/?utm_medium=CPC and site.ru/?utm_medium=cpc will be recognized as two different sources

Dynamic parameters

These are additional parameters in UTM tags that allow you to do two things.

1) Make it easier to fill in the utm_campaign, utm_content and utm_term variables. You can, of course, enter them manually. But this is only acceptable for very small volumes, when you have only a few ads in your advertising campaign.

It is much more convenient to specify dynamic parameters. With their help, the ID of a campaign, ad, key phrase or set of targeting will be automatically substituted. ID is a unique identifier, a combination of several numbers. Each advertising system has its own meanings.

2) Transfer deeper data to analytics systems. Campaign type, device type, type of site where the ad was shown; region, ad position number in the ad block, and so on.

For example, you want to automate filling of the utm_campaign variable for traffic from Yandex.Direct. To do this, use the dynamic parameter (campaign_id).

For advertisements - (ad_id).

For key phrases - (keyword).

That is, you make a construction like

http://site.ru?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=(campaign_id)&utm_content=(ad_id)&utm_term=(keyword)

and insert it into every ad. When visitors move to the site from a particular ad/phrase, their ID will be automatically inserted into the UTM tag.

How to use UTM tags

In advertising systems, UTM tags show which ads, which key phrases or targeting brought traffic and conversions. Without them, running an advertising campaign turns into chaos, “shooting sparrows from a cannon.”

This is what a report looks like in Yandex.Metrica for phrases taking into account UTM tags:

Here are all user requests and data on them- number of visits, time on the site, bounce rate, etc.You can disable impressions for ineffective phrases, thus, analytics using UTM tags allow you to spend your advertising budget more wisely.

You can find it here: Reports -> Standard Reports -> Sources -> UTM Tags.

Auto-tagging of advertising systems and UTM tags: when and how to combine

Yandex.Direct and Google Ads have their own markup for recording conversions from advertisements.

If you enable the appropriate option when setting up a campaign, each time you click on an ad, the system will automatically add a special tag to the link to the site. In Yandex this is a label like yclid, in Google it is gclid.

What is their difference?

UTM parameters transmit data on source transition.

At the same time, its task is to record only transitions from advertising. Any other sources (posts on social networks, email newsletters, etc.) are not included in the scope of auto-tagging.

As a rule, traffic to a site is not limited to advertising in search engines. Therefore, it is necessary to combine auto-tagging and UTM tags. Even in Direct / Google Ads, using them simultaneously is not a bad idea.

Create your own labels or use generally accepted standards?

Some experts use their own designations for parameters in labels. A template is created in Excel, formulas are configured and you can generate anything. Frankly speaking, this is a normal, working method. In the case when you do analytics at the level of advertising systems, without transferring data externally.

Everything changes when you need end-to-end analytics - to combine advertising costs with sales from CRM in order to understand which advertising works and which does not. To calculate the ROI in the end.

It is impossible to equate the number of a specific ad with a utm tag, which, at best, is a transliteration of the name of this campaign; at worst, it is a combination of many campaigns in which a specific product is advertised. The correspondence is clearly not 1:1.

In such a situation, it is better to conduct analytics in those sections that are understood by statistics on advertising platform expenses. In this case, you can easily consolidate data on expenses and sales from CRM. In other words, use standard parameters - they are in UTM generators.

Generating UTM tags

If you have a small or one-time campaign, you can use the builder utmurl.

Enter the site address, parameter values, click “Generate link” at the bottom and you’re done.

Pros: there is transliteration (automatic translation of Russian text in the parameters into Latin) and shortening of links (by default through the clck.ru service).

Minuses:

  • No help on dynamic parameters;
  • Autofilling of required parameters (utm_source and utm_medium) is configured only for two systems - Yandex.Direct and Google Ads;
  • There is no automatic error correction (the service will simply highlight in red the field where you made a mistake).

For larger campaigns, you can use a UTM tag generator Alexey Yaroshenko.

Pros: There are preset standard parameters for advertising in Google Ads, Yandex.Direct, VKontakte, myTarget + dynamic insertion parameters with help for Direct and Google Ads.

Minuses:

  • There is no transliteration (when entering Russian text, the final link will contain “abracadabra”);
  • No bug fixes. At all. That is, the service, for example, will not react in any way to an extra sign in the parameters;
  • No link shortening.
  • There is no copying of links (in the final line you need to first select it, then Ctrl+C and then paste it where you need it).

We created our own service, where we took into account everything that is most important for users.

And in the fields with the variables utm_camaign, utm_content and utm_term - dynamic parameters for automatic substitution of campaign IDs, ads, key phrases / targeting.

In the final line below, immediately as you fill out, a specific label is automatically generated.

Example from Yandex.Direct:


The Yagla generator has:

  • Transliteration function (when entering parameter values ​​in Russian, they are automatically changed to Latin);
  • Automatic error correction (when you enter extra question marks/slash/hash/ampersand, they are not taken into account in the final label);
  • A complete reference book of dynamic parameters for each advertising system;
  • Copying and shortening links (four services to choose from);
  • Video guide to use, help on common errors in generating UTM tags and their correction;
  • Technical support from live specialists.

Instead of a conclusion

UTM tags have 2 advantages at once.

Firstly, you get excellent detail and its results broken down by channels, sources and campaigns in one place.

Secondly, you receive all the information about how and where the traffic came to you. This is what every marketer should do.

Note #1. For those concerned about SEO, be sure to use canonical tags in page titles. This will eliminate any duplicate content issues due to UTM tags.

Note #2. Before running UTM tags, you MUST check that the site opens the tagged URL correctly. Due to a security conflict in site settings, clicks on such links may lead to a 404 page.

In this case, you need to contact your site's support service with a request to resolve this conflict and allow the use of UTM tags.

Note #3. With all the tails received, the link becomes too long and inconvenient to share and share, for example, on social networks.

For this purpose in Yagla generator There is a URL shortener - right above the result line there is a corresponding option.

Choose one of the services:

And you get the result:

After that, all you have to do is click “Copy shortened link” and paste it where you need it.

High conversions to you!

How to set up tracking of transitions to the necessary links so that you don’t get lost in Google Analytics later? Do I need to fill in all the fields in the UTM tag builder, or are the basic ones sufficient? And which ones are basic? WordFactory asked these questions to Anton Astakhov (Head of Mello Internet Advertising Department and Web Analyst for the PixelBuddha Project).

UTM tag (Urchin Tracking Module) is a variable that is added to the URL of a page and allows the web analytics system to obtain additional information about the click on the link.

You've probably already used UTM tags, but you might find a few life hacks in this article.

In what cases and why are UTM tags used?

— UTM tags should be used when you place information with a link to your website on various resources, advertising platforms/systems/social networks/letters/qr codes and plan to analyze all this. It is at least possible to identify most transitions from sites/advertising systems without UTM. A UTM tag is needed if you want to not only identify this site, but also receive additional data. For example, you are not only interested in the fact that the user came from VKontakte, you want to clearly know which post/group he came from.

How to create a UTM tag correctly? Step by step. What, why and in what column should it be?

— Before describing the process of link formation, I would like to note that advertising campaigns can be carried out on the Internet (hereinafter referred to as online) and on various printed media - media, handouts (hereinafter referred to as offline). To create a proper tag link, you will need a URL Builder.

Stage 1. Enter the URL of your site or the address of the page you plan to go to. For example: http://www.example.com/zagruzka.html.

Stage 2. Enter unique data for the UTM tag.

Including:

1. Campaign source (utm_source)— the source from which the transition will be made. For online advertising: a domain without a site domain zone (or the site address to the dot) on which the link will be placed. For example:

2. Campaign channel (utm_medium). Imagine that you are watching TV, you have sports, news, entertainment and other channels. UTM tags also have a specific list of generally accepted channels.

3. Campaign keyword (utm_term) and campaign content (utm_content)— optional fields. But, if you, say, mark an advertising campaign in Direct, then it would be stupid not to pass the keyword (utm_term). If the required fields are missing, you can use these two fields to add additional information (banner size used in the ad, its version, etc.).

4. Campaign name (utm_campaign) used to indicate an advertisement for a specific product or strategic campaign. For example:

After filling in the required fields, click the “Submit” button. A final link will be formed below the button, which can be selected and copied.

How to automate the process of creating UTM parameters if you need hundreds of tags?

— You can use free services available on the Internet (for example, from Semantica). Unlike the standard Google builder, they provide various nice features: tagging a list of links, advertising platform parameters that can be passed to a UTM tag, and others. But I don’t use such services in my work. If you need to tag hundreds of links, then, in my opinion, there is nothing better than Excel :). You can always create a database very quickly by adding additional information as columns that you will not insert into the label (the cost of placing this link, the date of publication, and so on). In addition, Excel gives you freedom of action. For some task, you can always turn a regular Excel file into a tool that solves a specific problem.

Recently, Maxim Uvarov, in his Excel course, gave a great idea that you can use smart tables to create a UTM generator in Excel.

“Tell me who your friend is, and I’ll tell you who you are.” For UTM tags, this can be rephrased like this: tell me what information you entered into the tag, and I’ll tell you what you can see. If tagging is done correctly, using the capabilities of advertising platforms (for example, Yandex.Direct provides an excellent list of parameters to transfer to the tag), then the possibilities are endless. And in combination with the bi.owox.com cost upload service and calculated indicators in Google Analytics, you can upload cost data from various services/platforms, calculating the cost of conversion. Using this data, you can create the following customized report in Google Analytics:

Why (and is it necessary) to shorten UTM tags?

— Some people think that the more complex/longer the tag, the longer the page loading speed. This is a myth because a UTM tag does not affect loading speed. It can affect the display of the site, but this point is easily tested in practice. In the last three years, I've only seen two sites where UTM caused display problems, but they were both developed a long time ago and were generally problematic.

If you want your link to look short, punchy, and memorable, you can use a link shortening service like bitly. You paste the UTM link into the service, and as a result you get a short version. And if you pay extra, you will get the opportunity to style the short link for yourself/the company’s brand. Short links are usually needed if they are used on business cards, outdoor advertising, presentations, stands and other sources where the user has the opportunity to see it.

What could be the negative effects of using UTM tags from an SEO point of view? How to avoid them?

- From an SEO point of view, these are duplicate pages with all the ensuing consequences - for example, sanctions from search engines. Therefore, just close the UTM tags in the robots.txt file using the clean-param directive (how to do this is described) - and everything will be OK.

Hello everyone!

UTM tags are used as an additional tool for tracking and analyzing traffic. With their help you can understand things like:

  • The effectiveness of a specific advertising campaign;
  • The effectiveness of a particular traffic channel;
  • The effectiveness of the key phrase as a condition for displaying an ad;
  • Well, and other additional parameters.

Each item listed above has its own label.

Let's take a closer look at what UTM tags are, how to create them, what reports to use to analyze them, and something else. Let's go!

What is a UTM tag?

UTM tags are specially designed link parameters that convey information about the transition. You can use them in absolutely any links: be it Yandex.Direct ads or clicks on links from social networks.

There are two types in total:

  1. Regular tags (static), which I'll talk about right now;
  2. Dynamic ones, which I’ll talk about a little later.

And the number of main UTM tags is limited to five, each of which solves its own problem:

UTM - tag Task
UTM-source Campaign source. The search engine or site from which the traffic comes is written here. For example, yandex or google. This label is required! Example: utm-source=yandex
UTM-medium Campaign channel. The campaign channel you are using is written in this label. For example, cpc is a pay-per-click channel. This label is required! Example: utm_medium=cpc
UTM-term Campaign keywords. Used to identify the keyword that triggered the ad. Example: utm_term=buy_iphone_6s
UTM-content Campaign content. This tag is great for testing different ad variants. Example: utm_content=variant1
UTM-campaign Campaign name. This parameter specifies the number or name of the campaign. Perfect for analyzing a specific category of product or service. This label is required! Example: utm_campaign=iphone6s

As you can see, thanks to UTM tags, Yandex Direct, and other traffic channels, becomes almost transparent, that is, we can measure the effectiveness of absolutely all elements. In addition, they can be used to conduct A/B tests of ads.

How to create UTM tags?

For this task, the World Wide Web provides a large number of services, because there is nothing complicated in creating a website. Until recently, one of the most popular services was the UTM tag compositor from Google, but it was later closed, leaving a link to another, no less good, service, which also belongs to Google.

Working with this UTM tag generator is simple: just fill in all the fields and it will automatically generate a link for you:

It happens that you don’t really want to use some third-party services and constantly enter data into fields. In this case, the so-called dynamic UTM tags of Yandex Direct or any other traffic channel come to the rescue.

Dynamic parameters of UTM tags

Dynamic UTM parameters differ from standard ones in that the transition data is inserted into the link automatically by the contextual advertising and analytics system. And they are inserted there through the use of special macros responsible for transmitting certain data:

Parameter Description Possible values
(source_type) site type: search or context search (means display on search) or context (utm tag for YAN)
(source) platform for ads displayed in the Yandex advertising network - YAN site address (when displayed on a website from YAN) or none (when displayed on search)
(position_type) special accommodation block or guarantee premium - special placement, other - guarantee or none - advertising network
(keyword) keyword keyword
(addphrases) showing ads using additional relevant phrases yes - display by additional phrase or no - display by keyword
(param1) First keyword parameter The value of the first parameter for this keyword.
(param2) Second keyword parameter The value of the second parameter for this keyword.
(campaign_id) Advertising campaign number (ID) Number
(ad_id) or (banner_id) Ad number (ID) Number
(phrase_id) Key phrase number (ID) Number
(retargeting_id) Number (ID) of the retargeting condition Number
(GBID) Group ID Number

Http://site.ru/?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=(source_type)&utm_campaign=(campaign_id)&utm_content=(ad_id)&utm_term=(keyword)

As I already said, all data will be entered automatically, which means there is no need to enter any additional information. In addition, with the help of such UTM tags we can get a little more information if we combine the parameters:

Utm_content=(ad_id).(position_type)

Thus, we learned how to create UTM tags for Yandex Direct, for Google Adwords, for social networks and in general any channels from which traffic comes to your website.

Use the tables!

How to analyze using UTM tags?

Any analytics system provides the ability to analyze traffic using UTM tags. So, for example, in Yandex.Metrica there is a report “UTM Tags” (Reports > Standard reports > Sources > UTM Tags):