Guide
What UTM parameters are
UTM parameters are short tags added to the end of a link that say where a visitor came from. When someone clicks yourbusiness.com/book?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=spring-promo, the page they land on can read those tags and record that the visit came from your spring promotion on Facebook.
They don't change the page. Visitors land in the same place either way. The tags simply travel along with the click so your tools can attribute the lead correctly, instead of filing it under “direct” or “unknown”.
| Parameter | Answers | Example |
|---|---|---|
utm_source | Which site or platform? | facebook, google, newsletter |
utm_medium | What type of channel? | paid_social, cpc, email, text |
utm_campaign | Which promotion? | spring-whitening-2026 |
utm_content | Which ad or link? | video-ad-a, header-button |
utm_term | Which keyword or audience? | teeth-whitening |
Source, medium and campaign are the essentials. Content and term are optional but useful when you test several ads or keywords in the same campaign.
How HighLevel uses UTM data
When a visitor arrives on a HighLevel funnel or website with UTM tags and then submits a form, survey or booking, HighLevel records the source information on the new contact. You can see it in the contact's attribution details, usually as the first touch that brought them in and the latest touch before they converted.
That attribution flows into reporting, so you can see which channels and campaigns actually produce leads and booked appointments rather than just clicks. It also means you can build smart lists and workflows on it, for example sending leads from a specific campaign into their own follow-up sequence.
Attribution only works if the tags are on the link people actually click. A beautifully configured CRM can't tell a Facebook lead from a Google one if the ad points to a bare URL.
A naming convention that keeps reports clean
UTM values are case-sensitive and literal. Facebook, facebook and fb show up as three different sources. Most messy attribution reports come down to inconsistent naming, not missing tags. Pick a convention and stick to it:
- Always lowercase. The “Clean up values” option above does this for you.
- Hyphens instead of spaces —
spring-promo, notspring promoorspring%20promo. - Use the presets for source and medium so every team member tags the same channel the same way.
- Put the date or season in the campaign name, like
black-friday-2026, so next year's campaign doesn't merge with this one. - Write it down. Keep a shared list of the names you use. The history panel above helps, but it only lives in your browser.
Tagging by channel
Facebook and Instagram ads
Paste the Parameters only output into the ad's URL parameters field in Meta Ads Manager rather than editing the website URL. Turn on Meta dynamic values and Meta fills in the real campaign, ad set and ad names when the ad is clicked, so you don't have to tag each ad by hand.
Google Ads
Google Ads can track clicks automatically with its own click ID, but adding UTM tags as well means the source also reaches HighLevel. Add them in the final URL suffix or the tracking template at campaign level.
Email and SMS
Tag every link in a broadcast with the email or SMS preset and a campaign name for that send. For texts, watch the length: a long tagged URL can use most of a 160-character segment. A HighLevel trigger link or a short path on your own domain keeps texts compact. The SMS segment calculator shows exactly what a link costs.
Print and QR codes
Offline is where attribution is usually lost. Tag the link with the QR preset, generate the QR code here, and print it on flyers, yard signs or vehicle wraps. Leads from the flyer then show up as their own source instead of “direct”.
Common mistakes
- Tagging internal links. UTMs are for links from outside your site. Tagging links between your own pages overwrites the real source.
- Putting tags after the
#in a URL. Anything after a hash isn't sent to the page. This builder always places the tags before it. - Tagging a shortened link instead of the real landing page.
- Forgetting the medium. Without it, many reports can't group the traffic by channel.
- Sharing a tagged link publicly for something other than its campaign, such as copying an ad link into a social post. The visits will be credited to the ad.