A Look At Edgar’s UTM Tool: What It Is & Why You Need It

New feature alert! We just made it so much easier for you to measure your social media efforts with Edgar with our brand new UTM tool!We have a feeling this is going to become one of your go-to tools in your Edgar account.Don’t worry, if you’re wondering, “Uh what the heck is UTM?”, we’re going to break it down for you.UTM actually stands for “Urchin Tracking Module.” Edgar likes this name because it reminds him of his friends the sea urchins but most humans find it odd so we just call it UTM parameters or UTM codes.So what are exactly are UTM codes? UTM codes are pieces of text added to your website link that make it easier for Google Analytics or any other analytic software to track your traffic.If you look at the link below, the UTM parameter starts after the “?” and includes utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign. See an example below:

Think of it this way, that question mark in a URL is like you’re asking the internet to tell you exactly where your traffic originated.The tag doesn’t change the actual content, but it allows Google Analytics to better track where your traffic comes from and how your audience engages with your content.There are three main parameters in your UTM: source, medium and campaign.Source: Which platform the traffic originates, like social media or your newsletter.Medium: The marketing method of your content such as social media, paid traffic, affiliate traffic, etc.Campaign: The category or theme of your content.These parameters give a little bit more context to your links and make your web traffic much easier to understand and evaluate…. Which makes it easier for you to find ways to improve your traffic.Now that you’re a little bit clearer on UTM codes, here’s the big question:

Why do UTM parameters matter?

Well, let’s face it, as a solopreneur, you don’t have much time to be wasting your efforts on strategies or platforms that don’t work. When you use UTM parameters, you can more accurately measure how your social media strategy and your content is performing.

via GIPHYAlso, you are probably sharing tons of content all over the internet and that content might be shared by many of your readers too so it can be tricky to understand exactly where you’re traffic is originating.For example, if you share a link on Twitter and one of your followers shares that link on Facebook, then Google Analytics will attribute the traffic from your follower's share to Facebook. But this really doesn't accurately show the right attribution from your marketing because your Twitter efforts are what brought in that traffic, not your Facebook.But if you use a UTM link on Twitter and one of your followers reshares the link on Facebook, you'll be able to see that it was actually a link from Twitter, thanks to the UTM code.According to 33Across, 82% of content sharing is by copy and pasting a link. If lots of your followers are copy and pasting your link and you're not using UTM codes, you could be wrongly attributing your traffic and making mistakes in your social media efforts.When you use a UTM code, you’re giving yourself an easy way to really measure your social media strategy. And who doesn’t want an easy way to do something?Using UTM codes, you can see which days your social media brought traffic to your website, how long this traffic spends on your website, if they are new visitors and what they do once they are on your site.Basically, it gives you a detailed look at how your social media translates into web traffic and perhaps, even more importantly, how your audience behaves once they get to your page.By using UTM parameters you might find out that you’re driving tons of traffic but that traffic isn’t actually converting or they aren’t spending any time on your site, which would call for an adjustment in your strategy.Or you may find out that your traffic is converting but you just need more of it, which would also call for an adjustment in your strategy.No matter what it is, UTM codes bring a little clarity to your online marketing.They are super powerful tools and luckily, they don’t have to be complicated to create!Edgar can now automatically enable UTM parameters for you so you never have to worry about setting them up when you load your content into Edgar!

Here’s how it works:

You can turn UTM parameters on or off here at any time. The following UTM tags will be added to your links:

• Campaign name: meetedgar
• Campaign source: meetedgar.com
• Campaign medium: social

Note that at this time, these tags cannot be changed or customized.Once you’ve set up your UTM parameters, they will be automatically added to every link you add into Edgar. You can drop your links in as normal.Then once your content is posting, you can view your results in Google analytics.

• Click Acquisition at the left
• Then click Campaigns
• Then go to All Campaigns

This is where you will see all of your campaigns that your tracking.We recommend creating UTM parameters for all of your marketing activities. For example, you could create UTMs for your emails newsletter, social media advertising, PPC campaigns, partnerships or affiliates. This way you can have a clearer understanding of all of your different marketing efforts.We’re just going to say it: measurement could be your key to success in 2019. Make it easier on yourself and set up your UTM parameters now and start measuring how your content performsYou’ll be thanking yourself at the end of the year that you did!