UTMs: The Good, The Bad, & How to Use Them with Triple Whale
Published on
Mar 18, 2024
Rabah and Corey go over everything you need to know about UTMs and how to maximize them with Triple Whale.

Rabah (00:01):

Hello everybody. So we have a real treat. We get asked a lot why we use the UTM schema as we use, and pretty much what UTMs are a lot. So we brought in, in our attribution all star, the savant of tracking everything on the inner webs. Corey, Corey, how goes it?

Corey (00:19):

Great, man. I'm excited to, to help answer some of these questions. You know, UTMs have been around for a long time, but we haven't needed them <laugh>. And so unfortunately we're at a point where Facebook is just not printing money anymore. And so we gotta step it up a bit and start learning about UTMs and how do we get tracking down pack.

Rabah (00:39):

I love it. So just jumping out, UTMs urchin tracking module kind of comes from some history of a company that got purchased by Google. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It won't get too much into the history, but kind of give us the skinny on why UTMs are important and kind of what they do. And, uh, I can throw some visuals up when needed and let's rock and roll.

Corey (00:58):

So, cool. So I guess we can start with, uh, Facebook, right? Facebook, um, how has Facebook been tracking, right? Like, how has Facebook been finding out that someone clicked on an ad and, you know, attributing that purchase back to the ad? Well, if, if you've noticed, uh, when you click on an ad on Facebook, there'll be this fbc i d equals some jumble mumble, right? And, and this identifier only Facebook knows what it means inside of Facebook. Facebook says, Oh, we, we reserve this click ID at this moment in time of the click. So we know the user that clicked, we know the time that they clicked, we know the position that they clicked and all the, we know the campaign, we know the ad set, we know the ad. And so, um, this is why Facebook and, and Google does the same thing with Google, uh, G Cell id.

(01:39)
And, and, and so they're using URL parameters, uh, to identify where the click came from and to attribute that. So we as advertisers, um, and, and, and performance marketers know where to double down and, and where to pull off. And, and so, um, yeah, it's been around for a long time and, and we just didn't need to set up UTMs because Facebook had the F B C L I D <laugh>. Now that this F B C I I D has become, um, not as useful, uh, for a lot of us due to the tracking and all the things that are going on with privacy. Um, we won't, we won't open that, that can of worms. But, uh, <laugh>, there's a lot going on there. Uh, but now, um, some, some of us advertisers have been using UTMs for a while with Gooey Analytics, right? We have the, the source, we have the source Medium report.

(02:23)
And so Google Analytics wouldn't know what to do with the Facebook click id cuz only Facebook has that data. And so we need to add this little bit of information to the end of our url. So now in our Google Analytics accounts, we could see, you know, um, what was the source of this traffic, you know, and all these different insights that we may be interested in. Okay? So what we've done in triple well, we're recommending a set of UTMs that could be useful for you. Some people wanna put out more stuff in their UTMs, some people wanna put less stuff. Now, important to get to the important piece. If you wanna bring up the UTM builder really quick, just to kind of show them what a, what, what this will look like.

Rabah (03:02):

I mean, this is, this is high level production here, people.

Corey (03:04):

All right, <laugh>, I'm not, I'm not sure if we're gonna see this in post a little bit cleaner. Um,

Rabah (03:11):

Oh, is this, is it not? Is that better? Yeah,

Corey (03:13):

We, we got a little pixelation going though. Um,

Rabah (03:16):

Um, man, I gotta upgrade the inner web, I guess. Oh, no, that's okay. I'm at the new office. Yeah, yeah, I got, So it's, it's pixelated. It'll be actually proper in post because it's downloading a local file, but,

Corey (03:27):

Perfect. Okay. So

Rabah (03:28):

Glad we didn't stream

Corey (03:29):

It. <laugh>. Nice. Nice. So at the end of this, uh, utm, you'll see this and FB at id, and if you just wanna highlight that then for them with the mouse, if you can.

Rabah (03:40):

Yes, I can.

Corey (03:41):

Okay. So at the end of that url, we see the FB id. Aha. Yes, yes, yes, yes. There. So this, Can I stop you real quick, Corey? Yeah.

Rabah (03:52):

Why does every UTM have to start with the question mark?

Corey (03:56):

So, uh, the question mark is, uh, a precautionary for us. So, okay, if you are putting, there's two places you can put UTMs, you can put UTMs in the actual website url.

Rabah (04:11):

Yep.

Corey (04:12):

Or you can put UTMs in a specific spot. When you scroll down in your Facebook ads set up, you'll see a section called URL on parameters. Now, if you're, if you're putting UTMs Yeah, let's, let's take 'em there. So let's go to the website URL first. Uh, so let's scroll up a little bit. All right.

Rabah (04:29):

Oops, sorry folks. Here we go. Where am I at? Here? Where is are you url? Oh, man. Oh, cuz I broke it instead of instant experience. Ah, um, we're right here. There we

Corey (04:40):

Go. Cool. So, right. Yeah, so, so you, you have your website right there. If you were to just paste the UTMs without a question mark that would break that url, and we do not wanna break that url.

Rabah (04:55):

Okay.

Corey (04:55):

So the question mark donates, uh, denotes that this is the domain and everything after is just some additional information for some, um, process later. And so that is why that question mark is needed. And, and, um, and so now if you're putting in the UTMs, if you scroll down to the tracking section, well there, you wouldn't necessarily need the question mark, but you still can put the question mark there. Um, essentially when we look at your url, we're gonna look for everything after the question mark. So if you got two question marks, if you got five question marks, if you got 10, we're just looking at whatever's after the question marks end. Okay. So that's why that question mark was there and the recommended, uh, u uh, UTM parameters. So nothing to be concerned about if you're putting them in the tracking section, you do not need the question mark. If you're putting it in the website url, you do need the question mark.

Rabah (05:49):

Okay, cool. So if you are, you don't need the question mark in here, but Facebook's smart enough to know, and to your your point, they'll just keep, they'll just going until they get data after a question mark, basically, right? Yeah.

Corey (06:01):

Facebook will automatically append the question mark on the click of the ad, um, cuz they know what you're doing there. And why don't we wasn't there. Yeah, go ahead.

Rabah (06:10):

I was, wasn't there something cool that you were telling me, um, offline about it's actually better practice to use these URL parameters Correct. Versus actually throwing everything up in just the big website url. What were you telling me? Maybe Enlight Living listeners.

Corey (06:24):

Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, uh, depending on your, you know, uh, your click through, you're trying to improve your click through rates. And so, you know, some people are putting URLs in their actual primary text. And so if you put it URL in your primary text and you've chosen to put your UTMs in this website url, what we're currently looking at, the URL in the primary text will just take them directly to your website. So if, if we had triple well.com, uh, try triple well.com in our primary text, if someone clicked that, it would just take them directly to try triple wild.com and we would have no, we, and in that situation we wouldn't really have UTM parameters because it was in the primary text. So in this, like we wouldn't see this. Um, and that's what we want to see. And so the only way we're going to see that if someone clicks a link in our primary text is if we have put UTMs in the tracking section, the, um, not in the actual url.

(07:18)
And so you can actually put them in both places. Um, but Facebook has done some of the heavy lifting. They're saying any link that someone clicks on this ad, we're gonna use the tracking parameters that the advertiser has put here. And so this is the recommended place to put them. Um, so that way right here, any, any link that you have in your primary text, now be careful if you're using Link shortenings, if you're using some kind of Bitly or some kind of link shortener in your primary text, you need to go and refactor those, those, um, short shorten URLs. Okay. And to put in your UTMs because someone clicks on that, for example, Bitly link, it's gonna resolve to whatever that Bitly link is. Our UTMs will hit Bitly, but then Bitly will send them to the website without the UTMs. So we can, you know, Bitly should probably, actually, I don't know, maybe they shouldn't do that. But anyway, <laugh>, you need to be careful with your shorteners and the recommended places to put it into tracking, you know, too long, didn't read. Love it. UTMs in the tracking section, confirm your short links have UTMs as well.

Rabah (08:20):

I love it. So you can take your UTMs, we have all the UTMs that you need in the UTM builder. I can pull that back up. Um, but it's super easy peasy. All you do is grab this, throw 'em at the end of your UTMs. Um, life is good. We have 'em for all the channels. All of these are dynamic. Um,

Corey (08:38):

And let's discuss something here for a second, Robert. Cuz some, some of, some, some people may already have UTMs, right? They may have, uh, UTM site source. Uh, they, they may be doing all different kinds of UTMs UTM placement. I I I've seen people Yep. Uh, using all different types of UTMs and so they don't necessarily need to change their current UTMs. Okay. Correct. All they need to do is copy the and FB ADD ID equals ADD id. Right. They only need to copy that specific part and add it to what they're already doing. Right. You don't have to change your UTMs. Okay. Now,

Rabah (09:12):

Interesting. Correct. I did not know that.

Corey (09:14):

Correct. Yeah, because if, if we have the ad id, we, the, the ad ID knows what ads that it's in and the ad ID also knows the campaign it's in. So we can infer that information.

Rabah (09:27):

You're right, it's like in a weird way, the the social security number of, uh, Facebook ad, right? Because all of 'em, every Facebook ad is essentially its own post. And so you can't have any duplicate posts Correct. Or duplicate websites. And so, uh,

Corey (09:42):

Great, great. Eg great segue. Great segue actually. Uh, it's completely unique. And so if you're using names, you know, some people have said like, why can't you just use our, our names, uh, we don't wanna update, uh, you know, our UTMs cuz that could push things back into review. And first things first is if you have some things that are, you know, to the moon and they're, and, and, and they're, they're very profitable for you, I, I would be cautious of, of changing those because it's already profitable. And so what are you really looking to really, really learn there? Um, you would definitely have some more insights. You get realtime orders, right? There are some fancy things that you get inside a triple L that may be advantageous, but I don't know if it's worth playing that game. Blowing

Rabah (10:20):

Up the

Corey (10:21):

Ship. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you know, maybe start with your, your, your, your ads that you're definitely interested in or you're willing to potentially send back into review. Um Yep. And, and then for people that are using names and say like, why, why can't you just use my names? Well, names changes, um, campaign names change a ad set names change, uh, ad names change. Okay.

Rabah (10:43):

And casing issues.

Corey (10:45):

And then also you may have another ad, uh, and another, you may have another campaign. Listen, I've seen some crazy UTM setups and, and just naming conventions.

Rabah (10:56):

The dash copy baby. Like how many times did you duplicate this

Corey (11:00):

Thing <laugh>? Yeah, we, we did a survey, just so you guys know, we did a survey of all, all of the, all of the triple, the triple cus and UTMs are all over the place. Okay. Um, so if, if you have something that you think should work, you know, shoot it over to us, we'll check it specifically and, and let you know if that's gonna work. Um, but for the most part, just throw in the ad ID if you already have UTMs and if you don't have any UTMs, just copy what you give you and slap that in and let's, you know. Brilliant. Let's start seeing the success. I

Rabah (11:30):

Love it. So just to recap then, so let me get back to our fun. So if you have, so basically all you'll need is UTM source and a id. Those are the only things we need for Facebook. And then we can infer everything else so they can use,

Corey (11:46):

We even, we even don't even need UTM source because we said FB A id. So because it's FB a ID tweet. No, it's Facebook. And so damn I purposely did that.

Rabah (11:57):

Big brain moves. This is big brain moves, so you literally don't need to. Wow. Yeah, that's actually really cool. I mean, so the too long didn't read though, is you would still be changing the destination link, therefore you're, um, changing the ad in such a way that it is gonna set it back into the learning phase. So what Corey was saying is you, if you have some colors crushers or some evergreen ads that are doing really well, it might not be advantageous to break them just to add this. But launching future ads, the only thing that you would have to do is actually add this, um, AMPER percent FB A id and then the, uh, dynamic ad id. Wow, I

Corey (12:39):

Didn't even know that. And listen, you know, like we got the, we got the bro science going that this is sending it back into review. You know, we're, we're, we're, we're all scared of learning phases and stuff like that. Um, but I can say there's been a lot of products out there. I won't drop any names. Um, but there are a lot of, there are a lot of companies that have been asking you to change UTMs and we haven't heard Yep. Any horror stories, uh, from that. So, you know, tread lightly. Yeah, exactly. Don't, don't do it if you don't need to, but, uh, I I don't think it's gonna be a, a significant issue. Just air on the side of caution. Yeah. I guess if you have something that's extremely profitable Yep. What are, what are, what are you, you know, looking to get from it? So just leave it alone I guess in that case.

Rabah (13:19):

I love that. Corey, you, you, you talked us all things UTMs. So stands for urchin tracking module so you can impress your friends at the next dinner party <laugh>. Um, what they are is just little pieces, parameters, if you will, if you want to be precise in the nomenclature. Um, and the reason why people think of source median campaign term and content as the only UTMs that exist are because without a app like Triple Whale or ga, UTMs don't have any purpose because there, there's two point, It's always how your, your beautiful little bifurcation of tracking and reporting, right? Like UTMs are the tracking part. But if there's no way to visualize and report on that data, it doesn't matter if you have the best UTM structure. And so this way switch,

Corey (14:05):

So this is where exactly you see people doing all kinds of crazy things. I think, I think maybe, um, I think it would've been, oh, one of the largest, uh, Facebook media buyer groups, uh, they gave a specific snippet that you should use. And so they started to stuff things in UTM stores. They started to stuff things into Medium because in GA you can't see these other UTM placements. So now you've gotta stuff UTM placement inside of UTM source because GA will show it. And so yeah, listen, just, um, start, start asking questions. The Triple L get on the call, set up a demo and we'll get you straight <laugh>.

Rabah (14:39):

That's it. Um, and like always, all the schemas are in the UTM builder, so you can get that. Uh, what else do we not cover? So we covered all the ads, it will send it back into the learning phase. Um, so be cognizant of that. Um, TikTok works, Snapchat works, Pinterest works, Google Ads works. Um, we do have a generic Euro URL builder if that tickles your fancy, but yeah, folks pretty easy peasy. It's a, it's a, it's a confusing but yet actually fairly simple subject once you kind of get your head around it where, um, you're essentially just kind of putting little tags around this, uh, url and then those tags are passed on to either GA or triple oil or whatever, uh, platform you're using to report on that traffic. And then, uh, if you have a trip pixel, it's even better because we're doing even more. Yeah. But, uh, anything else? Corey, what else do we miss?

Corey (15:28):

If you're not on Triple A, I don't know. I, I don't know what you're doing <laugh>.

Rabah (15:31):

What, what are you doing? Well, what are you doing here? People? Yeah, Corey, always a pleasure, my man. You're the best. Uh, go follow Corey on the Twitters. He's amazing. What's your handle?

Corey (15:41):

Um, good luck spelling it. If, if you end up following me from this kudos to you. It's at Corey Canray can. C a n establi e s t rare. R a r e. <laugh>. I had to learn that. I had

Rabah (15:55):

To learn that <laugh> UTMs might, learning UTMs might be easier than remember that name, but hey, we're here for you people if you need us. Um, Oh yeah. One last thing. Like Corey said, uh, we do have, uh, complimentary if you are a Triple L user and you want us to check out your schema, um, Corey and the team will check it out. Make sure you have, um, everything that is operational and you're not sending things to dead URLs. Cuz um, like Corey said, if you do mess this up and you forget that question mark, you will break your URLs. Um, and so you'll be sending traffic to exactly, uh, basically, uh, a 4 0 4. It was

Corey (16:27):

More important for me to protect customers URL than it was to do it the way it could have been done. Right. Like, if I didn't put the question mark there and someone accidentally placed that in the wrong spot, it would've, it would've, it would've, the ad would've got rejected and then a whole nother slew of things. So I did it as a precautionary measure to make sure nothing broke in your account.

Rabah (16:47):

Exactly. We're not about problems, we're about solutions here at Triple Well, here we go, <laugh>. All right folks, thanks again for stopping in, Corey. You're man. We'll talk soon. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye-bye.

LOREM IPSUM

more webinars

Turpis neque, sed sed accumsan dignissim tempor lectus nisl. Posuere volutpat egestas tortor erat enim imperdiet.

2022 BFCM Recap & Dec. Prep | Whale Webinar #011

Saunder, Logan and Rabah do a review over some BFCM metrics and then we jump into what you can do to make your December uber awesome. We also take some Q/A from our viewers.

Tools & Tips

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Watch now

Live CRO Breakdowns with Shaun Brandt from Oddit | Whale Webinar #012

The fellas break down a bunch of landing pages, homepages and PDPs in this complete CRO breakdown with Shaun Brandt.

Tools & Tips

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Watch now

Automated Rules Engine | Whale Webinar #13

Rabah, Logan, Saunder and Ilya give a rundown on the new Automated Rules Engine.

Product Launches

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Watch now
UTMs: The Good, The Bad, & How to Use Them with Triple Whale
Published on
Mar 18, 2024
Rabah and Corey go over everything you need to know about UTMs and how to maximize them with Triple Whale.
LOREM IPSUM

more webinars

Turpis neque, sed sed accumsan dignissim tempor lectus nisl. Posuere volutpat egestas tortor erat enim imperdiet.

2022 BFCM Recap & Dec. Prep | Whale Webinar #011

Saunder, Logan and Rabah do a review over some BFCM metrics and then we jump into what you can do to make your December uber awesome. We also take some Q/A from our viewers.

Tools & Tips

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Watch now

Live CRO Breakdowns with Shaun Brandt from Oddit | Whale Webinar #012

The fellas break down a bunch of landing pages, homepages and PDPs in this complete CRO breakdown with Shaun Brandt.

Tools & Tips

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Watch now

Automated Rules Engine | Whale Webinar #13

Rabah, Logan, Saunder and Ilya give a rundown on the new Automated Rules Engine.

Product Launches

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Watch now

Transcription

Rabah (00:01):

Hello everybody. So we have a real treat. We get asked a lot why we use the UTM schema as we use, and pretty much what UTMs are a lot. So we brought in, in our attribution all star, the savant of tracking everything on the inner webs. Corey, Corey, how goes it?

Corey (00:19):

Great, man. I'm excited to, to help answer some of these questions. You know, UTMs have been around for a long time, but we haven't needed them <laugh>. And so unfortunately we're at a point where Facebook is just not printing money anymore. And so we gotta step it up a bit and start learning about UTMs and how do we get tracking down pack.

Rabah (00:39):

I love it. So just jumping out, UTMs urchin tracking module kind of comes from some history of a company that got purchased by Google. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It won't get too much into the history, but kind of give us the skinny on why UTMs are important and kind of what they do. And, uh, I can throw some visuals up when needed and let's rock and roll.

Corey (00:58):

So, cool. So I guess we can start with, uh, Facebook, right? Facebook, um, how has Facebook been tracking, right? Like, how has Facebook been finding out that someone clicked on an ad and, you know, attributing that purchase back to the ad? Well, if, if you've noticed, uh, when you click on an ad on Facebook, there'll be this fbc i d equals some jumble mumble, right? And, and this identifier only Facebook knows what it means inside of Facebook. Facebook says, Oh, we, we reserve this click ID at this moment in time of the click. So we know the user that clicked, we know the time that they clicked, we know the position that they clicked and all the, we know the campaign, we know the ad set, we know the ad. And so, um, this is why Facebook and, and Google does the same thing with Google, uh, G Cell id.

(01:39)
And, and, and so they're using URL parameters, uh, to identify where the click came from and to attribute that. So we as advertisers, um, and, and, and performance marketers know where to double down and, and where to pull off. And, and so, um, yeah, it's been around for a long time and, and we just didn't need to set up UTMs because Facebook had the F B C L I D <laugh>. Now that this F B C I I D has become, um, not as useful, uh, for a lot of us due to the tracking and all the things that are going on with privacy. Um, we won't, we won't open that, that can of worms. But, uh, <laugh>, there's a lot going on there. Uh, but now, um, some, some of us advertisers have been using UTMs for a while with Gooey Analytics, right? We have the, the source, we have the source Medium report.

(02:23)
And so Google Analytics wouldn't know what to do with the Facebook click id cuz only Facebook has that data. And so we need to add this little bit of information to the end of our url. So now in our Google Analytics accounts, we could see, you know, um, what was the source of this traffic, you know, and all these different insights that we may be interested in. Okay? So what we've done in triple well, we're recommending a set of UTMs that could be useful for you. Some people wanna put out more stuff in their UTMs, some people wanna put less stuff. Now, important to get to the important piece. If you wanna bring up the UTM builder really quick, just to kind of show them what a, what, what this will look like.

Rabah (03:02):

I mean, this is, this is high level production here, people.

Corey (03:04):

All right, <laugh>, I'm not, I'm not sure if we're gonna see this in post a little bit cleaner. Um,

Rabah (03:11):

Oh, is this, is it not? Is that better? Yeah,

Corey (03:13):

We, we got a little pixelation going though. Um,

Rabah (03:16):

Um, man, I gotta upgrade the inner web, I guess. Oh, no, that's okay. I'm at the new office. Yeah, yeah, I got, So it's, it's pixelated. It'll be actually proper in post because it's downloading a local file, but,

Corey (03:27):

Perfect. Okay. So

Rabah (03:28):

Glad we didn't stream

Corey (03:29):

It. <laugh>. Nice. Nice. So at the end of this, uh, utm, you'll see this and FB at id, and if you just wanna highlight that then for them with the mouse, if you can.

Rabah (03:40):

Yes, I can.

Corey (03:41):

Okay. So at the end of that url, we see the FB id. Aha. Yes, yes, yes, yes. There. So this, Can I stop you real quick, Corey? Yeah.

Rabah (03:52):

Why does every UTM have to start with the question mark?

Corey (03:56):

So, uh, the question mark is, uh, a precautionary for us. So, okay, if you are putting, there's two places you can put UTMs, you can put UTMs in the actual website url.

Rabah (04:11):

Yep.

Corey (04:12):

Or you can put UTMs in a specific spot. When you scroll down in your Facebook ads set up, you'll see a section called URL on parameters. Now, if you're, if you're putting UTMs Yeah, let's, let's take 'em there. So let's go to the website URL first. Uh, so let's scroll up a little bit. All right.

Rabah (04:29):

Oops, sorry folks. Here we go. Where am I at? Here? Where is are you url? Oh, man. Oh, cuz I broke it instead of instant experience. Ah, um, we're right here. There we

Corey (04:40):

Go. Cool. So, right. Yeah, so, so you, you have your website right there. If you were to just paste the UTMs without a question mark that would break that url, and we do not wanna break that url.

Rabah (04:55):

Okay.

Corey (04:55):

So the question mark donates, uh, denotes that this is the domain and everything after is just some additional information for some, um, process later. And so that is why that question mark is needed. And, and, um, and so now if you're putting in the UTMs, if you scroll down to the tracking section, well there, you wouldn't necessarily need the question mark, but you still can put the question mark there. Um, essentially when we look at your url, we're gonna look for everything after the question mark. So if you got two question marks, if you got five question marks, if you got 10, we're just looking at whatever's after the question marks end. Okay. So that's why that question mark was there and the recommended, uh, u uh, UTM parameters. So nothing to be concerned about if you're putting them in the tracking section, you do not need the question mark. If you're putting it in the website url, you do need the question mark.

Rabah (05:49):

Okay, cool. So if you are, you don't need the question mark in here, but Facebook's smart enough to know, and to your your point, they'll just keep, they'll just going until they get data after a question mark, basically, right? Yeah.

Corey (06:01):

Facebook will automatically append the question mark on the click of the ad, um, cuz they know what you're doing there. And why don't we wasn't there. Yeah, go ahead.

Rabah (06:10):

I was, wasn't there something cool that you were telling me, um, offline about it's actually better practice to use these URL parameters Correct. Versus actually throwing everything up in just the big website url. What were you telling me? Maybe Enlight Living listeners.

Corey (06:24):

Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, uh, depending on your, you know, uh, your click through, you're trying to improve your click through rates. And so, you know, some people are putting URLs in their actual primary text. And so if you put it URL in your primary text and you've chosen to put your UTMs in this website url, what we're currently looking at, the URL in the primary text will just take them directly to your website. So if, if we had triple well.com, uh, try triple well.com in our primary text, if someone clicked that, it would just take them directly to try triple wild.com and we would have no, we, and in that situation we wouldn't really have UTM parameters because it was in the primary text. So in this, like we wouldn't see this. Um, and that's what we want to see. And so the only way we're going to see that if someone clicks a link in our primary text is if we have put UTMs in the tracking section, the, um, not in the actual url.

(07:18)
And so you can actually put them in both places. Um, but Facebook has done some of the heavy lifting. They're saying any link that someone clicks on this ad, we're gonna use the tracking parameters that the advertiser has put here. And so this is the recommended place to put them. Um, so that way right here, any, any link that you have in your primary text, now be careful if you're using Link shortenings, if you're using some kind of Bitly or some kind of link shortener in your primary text, you need to go and refactor those, those, um, short shorten URLs. Okay. And to put in your UTMs because someone clicks on that, for example, Bitly link, it's gonna resolve to whatever that Bitly link is. Our UTMs will hit Bitly, but then Bitly will send them to the website without the UTMs. So we can, you know, Bitly should probably, actually, I don't know, maybe they shouldn't do that. But anyway, <laugh>, you need to be careful with your shorteners and the recommended places to put it into tracking, you know, too long, didn't read. Love it. UTMs in the tracking section, confirm your short links have UTMs as well.

Rabah (08:20):

I love it. So you can take your UTMs, we have all the UTMs that you need in the UTM builder. I can pull that back up. Um, but it's super easy peasy. All you do is grab this, throw 'em at the end of your UTMs. Um, life is good. We have 'em for all the channels. All of these are dynamic. Um,

Corey (08:38):

And let's discuss something here for a second, Robert. Cuz some, some of, some, some people may already have UTMs, right? They may have, uh, UTM site source. Uh, they, they may be doing all different kinds of UTMs UTM placement. I I I've seen people Yep. Uh, using all different types of UTMs and so they don't necessarily need to change their current UTMs. Okay. Correct. All they need to do is copy the and FB ADD ID equals ADD id. Right. They only need to copy that specific part and add it to what they're already doing. Right. You don't have to change your UTMs. Okay. Now,

Rabah (09:12):

Interesting. Correct. I did not know that.

Corey (09:14):

Correct. Yeah, because if, if we have the ad id, we, the, the ad ID knows what ads that it's in and the ad ID also knows the campaign it's in. So we can infer that information.

Rabah (09:27):

You're right, it's like in a weird way, the the social security number of, uh, Facebook ad, right? Because all of 'em, every Facebook ad is essentially its own post. And so you can't have any duplicate posts Correct. Or duplicate websites. And so, uh,

Corey (09:42):

Great, great. Eg great segue. Great segue actually. Uh, it's completely unique. And so if you're using names, you know, some people have said like, why can't you just use our, our names, uh, we don't wanna update, uh, you know, our UTMs cuz that could push things back into review. And first things first is if you have some things that are, you know, to the moon and they're, and, and, and they're, they're very profitable for you, I, I would be cautious of, of changing those because it's already profitable. And so what are you really looking to really, really learn there? Um, you would definitely have some more insights. You get realtime orders, right? There are some fancy things that you get inside a triple L that may be advantageous, but I don't know if it's worth playing that game. Blowing

Rabah (10:20):

Up the

Corey (10:21):

Ship. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you know, maybe start with your, your, your, your ads that you're definitely interested in or you're willing to potentially send back into review. Um Yep. And, and then for people that are using names and say like, why, why can't you just use my names? Well, names changes, um, campaign names change a ad set names change, uh, ad names change. Okay.

Rabah (10:43):

And casing issues.

Corey (10:45):

And then also you may have another ad, uh, and another, you may have another campaign. Listen, I've seen some crazy UTM setups and, and just naming conventions.

Rabah (10:56):

The dash copy baby. Like how many times did you duplicate this

Corey (11:00):

Thing <laugh>? Yeah, we, we did a survey, just so you guys know, we did a survey of all, all of the, all of the triple, the triple cus and UTMs are all over the place. Okay. Um, so if, if you have something that you think should work, you know, shoot it over to us, we'll check it specifically and, and let you know if that's gonna work. Um, but for the most part, just throw in the ad ID if you already have UTMs and if you don't have any UTMs, just copy what you give you and slap that in and let's, you know. Brilliant. Let's start seeing the success. I

Rabah (11:30):

Love it. So just to recap then, so let me get back to our fun. So if you have, so basically all you'll need is UTM source and a id. Those are the only things we need for Facebook. And then we can infer everything else so they can use,

Corey (11:46):

We even, we even don't even need UTM source because we said FB A id. So because it's FB a ID tweet. No, it's Facebook. And so damn I purposely did that.

Rabah (11:57):

Big brain moves. This is big brain moves, so you literally don't need to. Wow. Yeah, that's actually really cool. I mean, so the too long didn't read though, is you would still be changing the destination link, therefore you're, um, changing the ad in such a way that it is gonna set it back into the learning phase. So what Corey was saying is you, if you have some colors crushers or some evergreen ads that are doing really well, it might not be advantageous to break them just to add this. But launching future ads, the only thing that you would have to do is actually add this, um, AMPER percent FB A id and then the, uh, dynamic ad id. Wow, I

Corey (12:39):

Didn't even know that. And listen, you know, like we got the, we got the bro science going that this is sending it back into review. You know, we're, we're, we're, we're all scared of learning phases and stuff like that. Um, but I can say there's been a lot of products out there. I won't drop any names. Um, but there are a lot of, there are a lot of companies that have been asking you to change UTMs and we haven't heard Yep. Any horror stories, uh, from that. So, you know, tread lightly. Yeah, exactly. Don't, don't do it if you don't need to, but, uh, I I don't think it's gonna be a, a significant issue. Just air on the side of caution. Yeah. I guess if you have something that's extremely profitable Yep. What are, what are, what are you, you know, looking to get from it? So just leave it alone I guess in that case.

Rabah (13:19):

I love that. Corey, you, you, you talked us all things UTMs. So stands for urchin tracking module so you can impress your friends at the next dinner party <laugh>. Um, what they are is just little pieces, parameters, if you will, if you want to be precise in the nomenclature. Um, and the reason why people think of source median campaign term and content as the only UTMs that exist are because without a app like Triple Whale or ga, UTMs don't have any purpose because there, there's two point, It's always how your, your beautiful little bifurcation of tracking and reporting, right? Like UTMs are the tracking part. But if there's no way to visualize and report on that data, it doesn't matter if you have the best UTM structure. And so this way switch,

Corey (14:05):

So this is where exactly you see people doing all kinds of crazy things. I think, I think maybe, um, I think it would've been, oh, one of the largest, uh, Facebook media buyer groups, uh, they gave a specific snippet that you should use. And so they started to stuff things in UTM stores. They started to stuff things into Medium because in GA you can't see these other UTM placements. So now you've gotta stuff UTM placement inside of UTM source because GA will show it. And so yeah, listen, just, um, start, start asking questions. The Triple L get on the call, set up a demo and we'll get you straight <laugh>.

Rabah (14:39):

That's it. Um, and like always, all the schemas are in the UTM builder, so you can get that. Uh, what else do we not cover? So we covered all the ads, it will send it back into the learning phase. Um, so be cognizant of that. Um, TikTok works, Snapchat works, Pinterest works, Google Ads works. Um, we do have a generic Euro URL builder if that tickles your fancy, but yeah, folks pretty easy peasy. It's a, it's a, it's a confusing but yet actually fairly simple subject once you kind of get your head around it where, um, you're essentially just kind of putting little tags around this, uh, url and then those tags are passed on to either GA or triple oil or whatever, uh, platform you're using to report on that traffic. And then, uh, if you have a trip pixel, it's even better because we're doing even more. Yeah. But, uh, anything else? Corey, what else do we miss?

Corey (15:28):

If you're not on Triple A, I don't know. I, I don't know what you're doing <laugh>.

Rabah (15:31):

What, what are you doing? Well, what are you doing here? People? Yeah, Corey, always a pleasure, my man. You're the best. Uh, go follow Corey on the Twitters. He's amazing. What's your handle?

Corey (15:41):

Um, good luck spelling it. If, if you end up following me from this kudos to you. It's at Corey Canray can. C a n establi e s t rare. R a r e. <laugh>. I had to learn that. I had

Rabah (15:55):

To learn that <laugh> UTMs might, learning UTMs might be easier than remember that name, but hey, we're here for you people if you need us. Um, Oh yeah. One last thing. Like Corey said, uh, we do have, uh, complimentary if you are a Triple L user and you want us to check out your schema, um, Corey and the team will check it out. Make sure you have, um, everything that is operational and you're not sending things to dead URLs. Cuz um, like Corey said, if you do mess this up and you forget that question mark, you will break your URLs. Um, and so you'll be sending traffic to exactly, uh, basically, uh, a 4 0 4. It was

Corey (16:27):

More important for me to protect customers URL than it was to do it the way it could have been done. Right. Like, if I didn't put the question mark there and someone accidentally placed that in the wrong spot, it would've, it would've, it would've, the ad would've got rejected and then a whole nother slew of things. So I did it as a precautionary measure to make sure nothing broke in your account.

Rabah (16:47):

Exactly. We're not about problems, we're about solutions here at Triple Well, here we go, <laugh>. All right folks, thanks again for stopping in, Corey. You're man. We'll talk soon. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye-bye.

One Tab
To Replace Them All

Supercharge your growth with a purpose-built ecomOS for brands and agencies.

Before ...
Shopify
Ads Manager
Klaviyo
TikTok
Pinterest
Bliss
Triple Whale