UTM Parameters

UTM parameters are tags appended to a URL's query string that tell web analytics tools which marketing campaign sent a visitor. "UTM" stands for Urchin Tracking Module, after the analytics company Google acquired to build Google Analytics. They're the web's standard, manual campaign-labeling convention.

The five standard UTM tags

• utm_source — where the traffic came from (e.g. newsletter, google, tiktok).
• utm_medium — the channel type (e.g. cpcGlossaryCost Per Click (CPC)The price an advertiser pays each time a user clicks their ad. CPC sits between CPM (paying per impression) and CPI (paying per install) on the risk spectrum., email, social).
• utm_campaign — the specific campaign name.
• utm_term — the paid keyword (for search campaigns).
• utm_content — which creativeGlossaryAd CreativeThe visual and audio content of an ad — video, image, copy, sound. The single most important variable in modern mobile UA, lifting IPM and lowering effective CPI./link variant, for A/B testingGlossaryA/B Testing (Mobile App)Running controlled experiments where users are randomly assigned to variants of a feature or design, then comparing results to identify the better-performing version..

Where UTMs meet mobile. Native app-install attributionGlossaryInstall AttributionThe process of assigning credit for a new install to the ad, campaign, and network that drove it — so advertisers know what's working and can compensate networks acc... doesn't use UTMs directly — it uses [[mmpGlossaryMobile Measurement Partner (MMP)A third-party attribution provider (AppsFlyer, Adjust, Singular, Branch, Kochava) that adjudicates which ads drove which installs across multiple ad networks, with i...]] attribution links, the Google Play install referrerGlossaryInstall Referrer (Android)Google Play's official mechanism for passing referral / attribution data from the play-store click to the freshly installed app — the cleanest Android attribution si..., and SKAdNetworkGlossarySKAdNetwork (SKAN)Apple's privacy-preserving attribution framework for iOS — returns install credit to ad networks with a deliberate delay and aggregation, without exposing any device.... But UTMs are central to [[web-to-appGlossaryWeb-to-AppA user acquisition flow where users discover and engage with your product via web first, then are converted to install the mobile app — often with deferred deep link...]] journeys: when a user lands on a campaign-tagged web page and then installs the app, the UTM context can be captured and carried into the app via [[deferred-deep-linking]], preserving campaign attribution across the web-to-app handoff.