UTM parameters

How they work

A link like example.com/?utm_source=producthunt&utm_medium=launch&utm_campaign=v1 carries its own label. When someone clicks it, analytics tools such as Google Analytics record the source, medium and campaign, so the visit is attributed correctly even when the referring site hides its referrer.

Why launches need them

On launch day, traffic arrives from a dozen places at once. Without tags, much of it lands in "direct" or "referral" with no way to tell which post or platform brought the users who stayed. One tagged link per channel answers the question that matters after a launch: which channels to use again.

Keep them consistent

Use lowercase and the same names every time: "producthunt", not "ProductHunt" one day and "product_hunt" the next, or the reports split. Never put personal information in UTM values, since they end up in analytics and server logs.

The five parameters

utm_source names the site or platform (producthunt, newsletter). utm_medium names the type of channel (social, email, launch). utm_campaign names the effort (launch-v1). utm_term and utm_content are optional: term for paid keywords, content to tell apart two links in the same post or email, such as a header button and a footer link.

Example

A founder uses utm_source=hackernews for the Show HN link and utm_source=producthunt for the Product Hunt listing, and finds that the Hacker News visitors activate twice as often.

Questions people ask

Do UTM parameters hurt SEO?

Not when your pages have a canonical URL without them, which tells search engines which address to index.

Should I tag internal links with UTM parameters?

No. Tagging links between your own pages starts a new session in analytics and overwrites the real source. Use them only on links placed elsewhere.