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Tracking parameters in Ometria

Louise MacBean
  • Updated

Tracking parameters (sometimes 'UTM parameters') are link tracking codes which you can add to URLs to link email activity and visits to the sources (e.g. email, paid ads, etc.)

In Ometria you can add these tracking parameters to the links in your campaigns so that any email activity (opens, clicks, etc.) - therefore orders and revenue - can be attributed to the correct email campaign when reporting in platforms other than Ometria - e.g. Google Analytics.

This means that if a contact clicks on a link in your email campaign, your Google Analytics account can identify that the contact came from a particular traffic source (e.g. Ometria), via a specific medium (email, in this example), or from a specific campaign.

Note: Ometria itself doesn’t use UTM parameters to track and report - it uses proprietary, unalterable link tracking parameters.

Tracking parameters are only added to links that redirect to your site. 

Other links, e.g. to google.com, are not appended with tracking parameters.

See also:

Tracking parameters hierarchy

Account level parameters overwrite the Ometria default parameters. 

You can define these in Email settings. 

If you have links in your campaign templates, Ometria merges the tracking with the parameters defined at account or campaign level:

  • If a parameter exists both inside the template link and in the account level parameters, the parameters defined at account level overwrite the ones in the template.
  • If a parameter exists only in the template link or only in the account level parameters, then Ometria uses whichever is available. 

Using symbols in tracking parameters

URLs and appended tracking parameters cannot contain spaces, so other characters are used to separate words. 

However, some keyboard symbols already have specific meanings when it comes to link tracking, including &, ?, # and =

Ampersands - &

The ampersand (&) is used to separate two or more tracking parameters, and shouldn’t be used for anything else in your links. 

Instead, you can use +, - or _ to separate words and ensure accurate tracking and analysis of your marketing activities. 

You can also use ‘%26’ to separate words in any tracking tag.

Be aware: Certain analytics software might convert '+' to a space.

Example:

Do Don't
Any of the following:
  • utm_campaign=red+lipstick
  • utm_campaign=red_lipstick
  • utm_campaign=red-lipstick
  • utm_campaign=red%26lipstick
 utm_campaign=red&lipstick

If you were to analyse this campaign, it would be listed as "utm_campaign=red", because the word after the ampersand is disregarded.

Question marks - ?

Your final URL can only contain one question mark. 

Only the first tag needs a question mark placed before it - other tags should be preceded by an ampersand (&). 

So if there’s already a ‘?’ in the URL, you don’t need to add it again before adding the tracking parameters.

Example:

If... then...
there is no question mark in the URL:
http://www.beautystore.com/red-lipstick		 a campaign link with the tracking parameters should look like this:
http://www.beautystore.com/red-lipstick?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newlipsticks
there is a question mark in the URL:
http://www.beautystore.com/product?id=red-lipstick		 a campaign link with the tracking parameters should look like this:
http://www.beautystore.com/product?id=red-lipstick&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newlipsticks

Hash - # and double hyphens - =

You cannot use either the hash (#) or the double hyphen (=) inside your tracking parameter value.

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