Before you start
Naming conventions have to be decided first. UTM values are drawn from the same closed lists as campaign names, and event names come from event naming conventions.The path
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1. Understand what a UTM does
Read UTM parameters once. It covers what each parameter is for and why the values have to be consistent rather than descriptive.
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2. Fill in your UTM standard
Fill in UTM standards: a closed list of allowed values per parameter, the case rule, and the separator.Rule that matters most: the
utm_campaign value has to match the campaign name field it corresponds to. If they diverge, spend and conversions cannot be joined.3
3. Name your events
Decide the event pattern in event naming conventions. Do this before anything is implemented, because renaming an event splits its history in two.
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4. Build the event tracking plan
Fill in the event tracking plan: every event, its properties, where it fires, and who owns it.Then: save it to the event library so there’s one version rather than one per implementation ticket.
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5. Connect it to reporting
The marketing reporting data dictionary defines what each metric means. The flat file is where tagged clicks and recorded events meet as rows. Check that the dictionary’s grain matches what your events actually produce.
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6. Apply it per campaign
From then on, every campaign tags its links from the standard at build time. See step 3 of make a campaign.
The join that has to hold
If any one of these drifts, the row splits and every report downstream is wrong in a way that’s hard to spot, because both halves still look plausible.
Related resources
- UTM standards The workbook for step 2.
- Event tracking plan The workbook for step 4.
- Data quality and rollup concepts What breaks when tracking and reporting disagree.
- Report on results What this tracking feeds.
- Name something The conventions UTM values draw from.
- Tracking best practices The failures that only surface weeks later.