How to Create a Trackable Link in Google Analytics

Ever posted a link to your new blog post on Facebook, Twitter, and your email newsletter, only to see a vague spike in "Direct" or "Social" traffic in Google Analytics? You know people clicked, but you have no idea which channel drove the most results. This is where trackable links come in, giving you precise, clear data about exactly which of your marketing efforts are working. This guide will walk you through what these links are, how to build them in seconds, and where to find the data in Google Analytics.

What Are Trackable Links (and Why Should You Care)?

A trackable link is simply a standard URL with a few extra bits of information added to the end. These informational snippets are called UTM parameters, which stands for "Urchin Tracking Module." That's a throwback name from Urchin Software Corp., the company Google acquired to create Google Analytics, but the concept is as relevant as ever.

Think of UTMs as little labels you attach to your links. When someone clicks a link with these labels, Google Analytics reads them and sorts that visitor into the right bucket. Instead of just "Social" traffic, you can see traffic specifically from your "summer-sale-campaign" on your "facebook" page that came from "paid-cpc-ads." Suddenly, your data goes from blurry to crystal clear.

Why does this matter? Because good marketing is about doing more of what works and less of what doesn't. Without trackable links, you're just guessing. You might think your email newsletter is your biggest traffic driver when in reality, it's a specific influencer's Instagram story link. UTMs give you the data to make informed decisions, justify your marketing spend, and prove your return on investment (ROI).

Consider this scenario: You're running a promotion and share it across three channels:

An email to your subscriber list
A paid ad on Facebook
A bio link on your company's X (Twitter) profile

Without UTM tracking, Google Analytics will likely lump all of this traffic into broad categories. You won’t be able to tell if the 100 new sign-ups came from the expensive Facebook ad or the free post on X. With UTMs, each and every click is cataloged correctly, telling you precisely which link drove which result.

The 5 UTM Parameters, Explained

There are five standard UTM parameters you can use to tag your links. Three are required (or at least, highly recommended), and two are optional but incredibly useful for getting more granular data.

1. utm_source (Required)

This tells you where the traffic is coming from. It identifies the specific platform or referrer that sent the user to your site. Think of it as the name of the website or publisher.

Examples: google, facebook, getresponse, influencer-name, monthly-newsletter

2. utm_medium (Required)

This describes the type of traffic. It's a broader category that explains the marketing channel being used. It answers the question, "How did the user get here?"

Examples: cpc (cost-per-click), email, social, organic, referral, affiliate

3. utm_campaign (Required)

This names the specific marketing campaign, promotion, or effort you're running. It helps you group all marketing activities related to a single strategic push.

Examples: summer-sale-2024, q4-promo, new-product-launch, webinar-signup

4. utm_term (Optional)

This is typically used in paid search campaigns to track the specific keywords you're bidding on. If you're running Google Ads and have auto-tagging enabled, this is often handled for you. However, you can use it manually for other PPC campaigns.

Examples: blue-running-shoes, crm-software-for-small-business

5. utm_content (Optional)

This helps you differentiate between links that point to the same URL within the same campaign. It's perfect for A/B testing. For example, if you have two call-to-action buttons in an email, you can use utm_content to see which one gets more clicks.

Examples: blue-button, footer-link, video-ad-version-a, image-ad-with-dog

How to Create a Trackable Link: The Easy Way

You don't need to manually type out these long, complicated URLs. Google provides a free and easy-to-use tool called the Campaign URL Builder that does all the work for you.

Let's walk through building a link for a hypothetical summer sale promotion we're advertising on Facebook.

Step 1: Open the Campaign URL Builder

You can find it by searching for "GA4 Campaign URL Builder" or going there directly.

Step 2: Enter Your Website URL

In the "Website URL" field, paste the full URL of the landing page you want to send people to. For our example, it's https://www.yourstore.com/summer-sale.

Step 3: Fill in Your Campaign Parameters

Now, fill in the standard UTM fields based on your campaign details:

Campaign Source (utm_source): The traffic is from Facebook, so we'll enter facebook.
Campaign Medium (utm_medium): It's a paid social media ad, so a good medium would be cpc or paid-social. Let's use cpc.
Campaign Name (utm_campaign): We'll name our campaign summer-sale-2024.

Optionally, if we were running multiple ad variations, we could add a value to utm_content, like video-ad-variant1, to identify this specific ad creative.

Step 4: Generate Your Link

As you fill out the fields, the builder automatically generates the trackable URL at the bottom of the page. For our example, it would look like this:

https://www.yourstore.com/summer-sale?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=summer-sale-2024

That long URL is now ready to use! Just copy it and paste it into the destination URL field for your Facebook ad.

Pro-Tip: That generated URL is long and a bit ugly. While that's fine for the background of a paid ad, you wouldn't want to post it directly on social media or in an email. Use a free link-shortening service like Bitly or a built-in shortener from your social media platform to create a clean, user-friendly link.

Best Practices for Naming Your UTM Parameters

Creating UTM links is easy, but creating messy data is even easier. The key to clean reporting is consistency. If half your team tags Facebook links as facebook and the other half uses Facebook, Google Analytics will treat them as two separate sources. Follow these rules to keep your data organized.

Always use lowercase. Google Analytics is case-sensitive. To avoid splitting your data, make a rule to only use lowercase characters for all your UTMs. facebook is distinct from Facebook.
Use dashes or underscores for spaces. URLs cannot contain spaces. Use a dash (-) or an underscore (_) to separate words, like paid-social or summer_sale. Pick one format and stick with it. Dashes are generally more common and readable.
Keep it simple and descriptive. Someone on your team should be able to look at a UTM and understand what it means without a decoder ring. q4-black-friday-promo is much clearer than promo_123.
Create a UTM spreadsheet. The best way to maintain consistency, especially on a team, is to create a shared spreadsheet doc. This serves as your single source of truth for all campaign links. List the campaigns you're running, the parameters you've agreed on, and the final shortened URLs.

Where to Find Your Campaign Data in Google Analytics 4

Great, you've built your trackable links and they're collecting clicks. Now, where do you see the results? Here's how to find your custom campaign data in GA4.

Navigate to your Google Analytics 4 property.
In the left-hand menu, go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.
By default, this report shows traffic grouped by the "Session default channel group." This gives you broad categories like Organic Search, Direct, and Paid Social.
To see your UTM data, click the small plus sign (+) icon next to the primary dimension heading to add a secondary dimension.
In the search box that appears, type "Session campaign" and select it. You can also look for "Session source / medium," "Session source," and other parameters.

Just like that, the report will now show your campaign data! You’ll see the custom campaign name, source, and medium flowing in from the trackable links you created. This allows you to compare the performance (users, sessions, conversions, revenue) of your summer-sale-2024 campaign against other initiatives.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

As you get started, be mindful of these common slip-ups:

Tagging internal links: Never, ever use UTM parameters on links within your own website (e.g., a link from your homepage to your blog). If a user clicks an internal UTM-tagged link, it will overwrite their original attribution source and start a new session, completely breaking your data.
Using different parameters for the same thing: Be consistent! Don't tag one email link with utm_medium=email and another with utm_medium=e-mail. This will fracture your data and make analysis difficult. Refer back to your spreadsheet.
Sharing unwieldy URLs: For links you're sharing publicly, especially in text or on social profiles, use a URL shortener. No one wants to click a 200-character link full of confusing characters.

Final Thoughts

Creating trackable links shifts you from marketing by guesswork to marketing by data. By consistently applying UTM parameters using Google's Campaign URL Builder, you gain a clear, accurate understanding of which channels and campaigns are actually driving your business forward, allowing you to invest your time and budget more effectively.

Analyzing campaign performance is crucial, but it often involves more than just digging through Google Analytics. It means connecting your GA data to your ad platforms, your CRM, and your e-commerce store to see a complete picture. At Graphed, we simplify this process by bringing all your data sources into one place. Instead of spending hours building manual reports, you can just ask questions in plain English - like "show me my top-performing campaigns from Google Analytics by conversion rate" - and we generate a live, real-time dashboard for you in seconds.