In the last article we talked about UTM codes, what they were, why they were so important and how to build your own. In this article we’re going to be covering the different approaches the most popular advertising platforms have when it comes to building UTM codes.

If you wish to, you can watch our video on this subject right here!

Facebook and Instagram

This is by far the most advanced and better implementation we’ve seen so far, as it allows you not only to automatically create UTM codes that mimic your naming convention perfectly, but you can also duplicate them and keep using them in other ads or alter them all the same.

When building your FB/IG UTM, you just need to paste these parameters in the suitable field and the system will do the rest:

{{campaign.name}} {{adset.name}} {{ad.name}}

Once you’ve built your UTM code, head over Ads manager and add the url in the website url field.

Then copy everything after the ? and paste it in the box called URL parameters (optional)

utm_medium=social&utm_source=instagram&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{adset.name}}&utm_term={{ad.name}}

This trick will come in handy if you want to duplicate the ad and change any parameter but would like to keep the same url. Alternatively, you can also modify the url and UTM directly on the ad section. It’s up to you!

Snapchat

This is a very interesting case as Snapchat is one of the last platforms to add a native UTM builder to it, and it could not have been better! Up until a few months ago, you needed to create all the UTM codes for each ad, preventing you from re-using them in other campaigns. However, this changed a while back and now they have a pretty comprehensive tool that allows you to build UTM in the ads manager.

In summary then, it’s great to see platforms evolving their interfaces in order to make it simpler for marketers. Online marketing is a complex process with tons of elements to take into account, so having the choice of being a bit more relaxed is great!

Thanks for reading!