When to utm tag and when to campaign?

Recently I came across a thought that I realised it was salient for a long time. It’s about utm tags, and originating campaigns. More specifically, I noticed that I never store utm tags in my CRM (Salesforce) on any object (contact, lead, payment), and that the only way I’m storing a source is by using campaigns, or for that matter originating campaigns.

But here, the level of granularity depends on how many campaigns you’ve got.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you store your utms in CRM?

It’s an interesting question - when to use UTM parameters and when not to.

Hopefully, the following will help guide you:

  1. Should UTM events be stored in a CRM on the contact or lead?
    No. A contact may receive many campaigns, resulting in multiple UTM events. Storing these directly on the contact or lead doesn’t seem like best practice.
  2. Should UTM events be stored in a CRM on a payment transaction?
    It depends on whether there’s value in understanding what ultimately triggered the payment.

If you’re using your CRM as an email automation marketing platform to send campaigns that direct contacts to content (websites) where UTM events can be collected. If that’s the case and you see value in collecting aggregate campaign send data for use in tools like Google Analytics or a CDP, then yes, I would recommend it.

A question to ask: Does your email automation platform already record which campaigns are sent to the contact? If so, instead of a UTM strategy, a report within the CRM might provide the results you’re looking for.

If you’re new to UTMs, have a read of the following for more information: Understanding UTM parameters for tracking digital marketing campaigns

@almaryus thanks for this question - it has got me thinking about including UTM strategies for the soon to be released influencerTips getting personalised matters workshop.