How to Make UTM Links for TikTok, Snapchat and Google Ads

What a UTM link is and why campaigns need one

A UTM link is an ordinary web address with extra tags after a question mark, for example yourshop.com/offers?utm_source=tiktok&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=summer_sale. The page opens exactly the same for the visitor. The difference is that analytics tools such as Google Analytics read those tags and file the visit under that source, medium and campaign.

Without tags, a lot of campaign traffic arrives poorly labelled. Visits from apps often show up as direct or as a generic social source, and a printed QR code says nothing about where it was scanned. You might see that Instagram sent visitors, but not whether they came from the paid story, the bio link or a creator's post.

With tags, each link carries its own name. A clothing brand in Dubai can compare two TikTok videos, a language school in Madrid can see whether its newsletter or its Google ad brought more enquiries, and a café in Jakarta can tell whether the flyer on the counter is ever scanned. Tags cost nothing and work in nearly every analytics tool.

The five UTM parameters and what each one does

There are five standard tags. The first three describe where the visit came from and why; the last two are optional details for comparing versions inside one campaign.

A simple way to remember them: source is where, medium is how, campaign is why, and content is which one.

• utm_source is who sent the visitor: the platform or site, such as tiktok, snapchat, instagram, google or newsletter. It is the one tag every UTM link needs.
• utm_medium is the type of traffic: paid_social for paid social ads, social for unpaid posts, cpc for paid search, email for email and print for printed material.
• utm_campaign is the reason for the link: the promotion, launch or season, such as ramadan_sale, back_to_school or new_menu.
• utm_content tells you which version was clicked when one campaign has several ads, videos, buttons or creators: video_a, video_b, story_ad or creator_sara.
• utm_term is mainly for paid search, to record the keyword or the audience, such as running_shoes or past_buyers.

A naming system that stays clean in Google Analytics

Tags only help if they are consistent. Google Analytics records values exactly as written, so TikTok, tiktok and tik-tok become three separate rows and your results are split across them. Most messy reports come from several people tagging links by hand, each in their own style.

The fix is a short set of rules that everyone follows, written down where the whole team can see it.

Mediums deserve particular care, because Google Analytics uses them, together with the source, to sort visits into channels such as paid social, organic social, paid search and email. Stick to widely used values like paid_social, social, cpc and email, and your traffic lands in the channel you expect.

• Lower case only, always: tiktok, never TikTok.
• Underscores instead of spaces or mixed separators: summer_sale, not “summer sale” or Summer-Sale.
• A fixed list of sources and mediums, so nobody invents paidsocial next to paid_social.
• Campaign names that still make sense a year later: the product or offer plus the period, such as eid_2027_abayas.
• One person who approves new values, so the list stays short.

Tip: The free UTM builder applies the first two rules for you: it turns every value into lower case and replaces spaces with underscores as you type, so a team that builds all its links there stays consistent without thinking about it.

Ready-made UTM examples for each platform

Below is a starting set you can copy. Replace the campaign name with your own, keep the source and medium, and add utm_content whenever you run more than one version.

The examples follow one convention: paid ads get paid_social or cpc, unpaid posts get social. The same platform can then appear twice in your reports, once paid and once unpaid, which is exactly what you want.

• TikTok ads: utm_source=tiktok&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=ramadan_sale&utm_content=video_a
• Snapchat ads: utm_source=snapchat&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=summer_launch&utm_content=story_ad
• Instagram and Facebook ads (Meta): utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=black_friday&utm_content=carousel_1, with facebook as the source for ads shown on Facebook.
• Instagram bio or story link, unpaid: utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=bio_link
• Google Ads: utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brand_search&utm_term=your_keyword
• X: utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=product_launch. Many teams keep twitter as the source so old and new reports match; choose one name and keep it.
• YouTube: utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=how_to_series&utm_content=description_link
• WhatsApp: utm_source=whatsapp&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=weekly_offers&utm_content=status, or broadcast for a broadcast list.
• Email newsletter: utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=october_newsletter&utm_content=top_button
• Influencers: utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=eid_collab&utm_content=creator_name, with one link for each creator.
• Printed QR codes: utm_source=qr&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=store_flyer&utm_content=counter

Where to put the tagged link in each case

A tag only works if the tagged link is the one people actually tap. For paid ads, it goes in the ad's destination or website URL. Several ad platforms, Meta and TikTok among them, also offer a separate field for URL parameters, sometimes with placeholders that fill in the campaign or ad name for you. Both approaches work; pick one and use it consistently.

In Google Ads you can add the tags to each final URL, or once for a whole campaign or account in the tracking settings. If auto-tagging is on and Google Ads is linked to Google Analytics, ad clicks are already identified there; manual tags still help other tools that read the campaign from the link.

For unpaid posts, put the tagged link wherever the platform allows one: the bio link, a story link sticker or the description under a video. Long tags look untidy in a bio, so many people point the bio to one short page and tag that instead. For print, put the tagged link inside the QR code; the code hides the length completely.

How to build a UTM link in under a minute

You can type tags by hand, but a builder avoids the small typing mistakes that split your reports. Here is the routine with the linkom UTM builder, which is free, needs no account and runs in your browser, so nothing you type is sent to linkom.

The builder also remembers your last links on your device. Keep a simple shared sheet as well, with one row per link: the date, where it was used, the full link and who made it. That sheet keeps your results readable months later.

1. 1Paste the address you want people to land on, such as a product page, a booking page or your link-in-bio page.
2. 2Tap the preset for the platform, for example TikTok, Snapchat, Google Ads, WhatsApp, influencer or QR and print, to fill in the source and medium.
3. 3Type the campaign name from your team's list, and add utm_content if you are comparing versions.
4. 4Copy the finished link, paste it into the ad, post or message, and open it once to check that the page loads with the tags still in the address.
5. 5For print, download the QR code of the same link as a PNG and test it with two different phones before the file goes to the printer.

Common UTM mistakes to avoid

Most tracking problems come from a handful of habits, and each is easy to fix.

• Tagging links inside your own website. A tag on a menu button or banner can restart the visit's attribution, so a sale that came from a TikTok ad is credited to your own homepage. Tag only links that lead to your site from outside.
• Mixed case and spelling. Facebook, facebook and fb split one source into three. Lower case and a fixed list prevent it.
• Renaming in the middle of a campaign. Changing summer_sale to summer_sale_v2 halfway through splits the results. Decide the name before launch and use utm_content for new versions instead.
• Tagging unpaid posts like paid ads. If your unpaid stories also use paid_social, the ad looks better than it is. Keep paid and unpaid mediums separate.
• One link everywhere. The same tagged link in your bio, your ads and your newsletter tells you nothing new. Use one link for each place.
• Personal data in tags. Never put customer names, phone numbers or email addresses into UTM values; they show up in reports and in the address bar.

How to read the results

Give a campaign a few days before you judge it, then compare sources and campaigns side by side. In Google Analytics, the acquisition reports let you view visits by source and medium or by campaign; narrow them to one campaign to compare its versions through utm_content.

Look beyond the number of visits. A video that brings many visitors who leave at once may be worth less than a small newsletter that brings people who order. Compare what visitors did after they arrived, such as WhatsApp taps, bookings or orders, and let that decide where the next budget goes.

If your link in bio is a linkom page, it reads utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign on every visit, as well as its own ?src= tracked links, and its analytics show which source and which campaign brought visits and taps. That breakdown is part of full analytics on Starter and above; the Free plan shows basic numbers. Pages connected to Google Analytics or the Meta Pixel (Pro and up) pass the tags on to those tools as well. The analytics guide explains each report, and the examples gallery shows finished pages for different kinds of business.

Tip: Review results on the same day each week and write one line per campaign: what it cost, what it brought and what you will change.