April 5, 2018
Transfer UTM Parameters From One Page To Another with GTM
Updated: April 5th, 2018. Imagine this. You’re running a promo campaign which brings traffic to a certain landing page (e.g. landingpage.com). After the visitor clicks the main Call-to-action button (e.g. GET YOUR DISCOUNT), he/she is redirected to another page (2ndpage.com) which asks a visitor to do the final action, install the app, fill in the form, sign up, etc.
When the conversion is completed, a Google Analytics event is fired. Unfortunately, when you look at your GA reports, what you’ll see is that all conversions are attributed to the landingpage.com. Technically, this is correct because all visitors landed on the 2ndpage.com from landingpage.com, but you’d like to see the original source which brought the visitor, wouldn’t you?
In this blog post, I’ll show you how to transfer UTM parameters from the initial page landingpage.com to the subsequent one (2ndpage.com) if the cross-domain tracking cannot be implemented.
Update: The original script supported only one domain. At the end of this blog post, I also added another script which checks against a list of domains. If you want to transfer UTM parameters to somedomain1.com, somedomain2.com, and somedomain3.com, use the script placed at the end of this blog post.
All other chapters of this guide apply to both scripts.
The problem explained
Although this affects your conversion rate (in a bad way), sometimes it’s impossible to avoid the intermediate landing page.
Say, that you’re promoting an application which is available in the App Store. We’ll call it Lorem Appsum. Its App Store page isn’t sufficient to list all the benefits, cool features, etc. So you decided to create a separate landing page that you’ll drive traffic to. You have also marked all inbound links (stored on other websites/forums/etc.) that lead visitors to that landing page with UTM parameters.
Before we continue, here’s a quick update. Yehoshua Coren chimed in by saying that everything can be easily solved by implementing a regular cross-domain tracking. Yes, that’s totally true.
When I was writing this blog post, I actually, totally forgot to mention one more reason why cross-domain tracking isn’t always a solution. In the case of app stores, usually creators/developers are not allowed to edit Google Analytics tracking code, therefore cross-domain tracking cannot be configured properly.
This is what we faced with Omnisend at Shopify Appstore. We were allowed to set Google Analytics Tracking ID, that’s it. Unfortunately, in order to make cross-domain tracking work, we also needed to enable allowLinker option on the receiving domain (app store) but that was not possible.
So we had to improvise and this blog post is the solution to the problem.
OK, let’s go back to the topic. You have a page in the app store, so you decide to create an additional intermediate landing page on a different domain. Cross-domain tracking cannot be implemented due to limited app store’s functionality.
That new landing page contains key selling points, descriptions of features, video, and a big GET APP NOW button (Call-to-action, a.k.a. CTA). Perfect. The visitor lands on the initial page, he clicks that CTA button, lands on the App Store page and installs the app. Heres’ the scheme of the entire visitor journey:
Notice that UTM parameters are lost after the visitor clicks an appstore.com link on loremappsum.com page.
The problem is that Google Analytics will attribute this conversion to loremappsum.com, although it would be more beneficial to see the values of the initial UTMs.
The Solution – Overview
One of the solutions is to transfer UTM parameters from loremappsum.com and automatically add them to all links which redirect users to appstore.com/loremappsum. We’ll do this with Google Tag Manager and a custom script.
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<script type="text/javascript"> (function() { var utmInheritingDomain = "appstore.com", // REPLACE THIS DOMAIN utmRegExp = /(\&|\?)utm_[A-Za-z]+=[A-Za-z0-9]+/gi, links = document.getElementsByTagName("a"), utms = [ "utm_medium={{URL - utm_medium}}", // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_medium "utm_source={{URL - utm_source}}", // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_source "utm_campaign={{URL - utm_campaign}}" // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_campaign ]; for (var index = 0; index < links.length; index += 1) { var tempLink = links[index].href, tempParts; if (tempLink.indexOf(utmInheritingDomain) > 0) { // The script is looking for all links with the utmInheritingDomain tempLink = tempLink.replace(utmRegExp, ""); tempParts = tempLink.split("#"); if (tempParts[0].indexOf("?") < 0 ) { tempParts[0] += "?" + utms.join("&"); // The script adds UTM parameters to all links with the domain you've defined } else { tempParts[0] += "&" + utms.join("&"); } tempLink = tempParts.join("#"); } links[index].href = tempLink; } }()); </script> |
Once the visitor lands on loremappsum.com AND the Page URL contains utm_medium, utm_source, and utm_campaign, this script will be launched. It will scan the entire page and look for links which contain the domain of the final landing page, in this case, appstore.com.
If the script finds the link, it will:
- Fetch all 3 UTM parameters from browser’s address bar.
- And will add those UTM parameters to that spotted link (which contains “appstore.com”).
So instead of appstore.com/loremappsum, all links on loremappsum.com will be automatically modified to appstore.com/loremapsum?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=promo&utm_campain=blackfriday2017. Here’s the updated visitor flow:
The Solution – Implementation in GTM
First of all, we need to create 3 URL variables which parse the value of 3 UTM parameters, utm_medium, utm_source, utm_campaign. They are important because we’ll use them in the custom script.
Important: In Google Tag Manager, you should name variables exactly the same as they are named in the script (case sensitive!), URL – utm_medium, URL – utm_source, URL – utm_campaign.
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utms = [ "utm_medium={{URL - utm_medium}}", // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_medium "utm_source={{URL - utm_source}}", // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_source "utm_campaign={{URL - utm_campaign}}", // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_campaign ]; |
Next step, the trigger. We need to fire that custom script only when all 3 UTM variables contain something rather than undefined. In addition to that, we’ll need the DOM to be loaded in order to do some manipulations.
That’s why we’re creating a Pageview-type trigger with the following settings:
Finally, let’s create a Custom HTML tag with the script I’ve posted above.
Let’s Test
Save all changes, enable Preview and Debug mode. Now head over to the page you’re working on. There are two situations we need to test:
- Make sure that there are all 3 UTM parameters in the Page URL. In my case, the page URL is www.loremappsum.com?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=promo&utm_campaign=blackfriday2017
- Click the link which contains the domain name you have defined in that custom script I’ve shared in this blog post. In my case, it’s www.appstore.com/loremappsum
- After I’m redirected, the Page URL (appstore.com/loremappsum) should also contain those 3 UTM parameters. The final result in browser’s address bar should be www.appstore.com/loremappsum?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=promo&utm_campaign=blackfriday2017
Also, do not forget to test the opposite situation when there are not UTMs in the address bar. In that case, no UTMs should be appended to appstore.com links.
Oh, there’s also a third case to test, check at least a couple of other external links (unrelated to appstore.com), they should never contain UTM parameters.
What if you want to affect several domains at the same time?
The solution (explained above) works only if you want to decorate all links of a single domain. But what should you do if there are more than one? For example, externaldomain1.com and externaldomain2.com.
In this case, you should use a bit modified version of the code which checks against an array of domains.
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<script type="text/javascript"> (function() { var utmInheritingDomains = [ "externaldomain1.com", // Replace this domain "externaldomain2.com" // Replace this domain ], utmRegExp = /(\&|\?)utm_[A-Za-z]+=[A-Za-z0-9]+/gi, links = document.getElementsByTagName("a"), utms = [ "utm_medium={{URL - utm_medium}}", // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_medium "utm_source={{URL - utm_source}}", // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_source "utm_campaign={{URL - utm_campaign}}", // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_campaign ]; for (var index2 = 0; index2 < links.length; index2 += 1) { for (var index = 0; index < links.length; index += 1) { var tempLink = links[index].href, tempParts; if (tempLink.indexOf(utmInheritingDomains[index2]) > 0) { // The script is looking for all links with the utmInheritingDomain tempLink = tempLink.replace(utmRegExp, ""); tempParts = tempLink.split("#"); if (tempParts[0].indexOf("?") < 0 ) { tempParts[0] += "?" + utms.join("&"); // The script adds UTM parameters to all links with the domain you've defined } else { tempParts[0] += "&" + utms.join("&"); } tempLink = tempParts.join("#"); } links[index].href = tempLink; } } }()); </script> |
Replace two fake domains in the 4th and 5th lines of the script. In fact, if you want, you can add even more of them. Just make sure, that the last item in the array does not end with a comma.
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var utmInheritingDomains = [ "externaldomain1.com", "externaldomain2.com", "externaldomain3.com" // The last item must not end with a comma ], |
If you want to target only a specific set of subdomains of external domains, enter just those specific subdomains. Otherwise, if you enter just externaldomain1.com, this script will affect links which belong to all subdomains of externaldomain1.com, e.g. www.externaldomain1.com, app.externaldomain1.com, etc.
Transfer UTM Parameters: Final words
In this quick blog post, I’ve explained how to transfer UTM parameters from one page to another. This is really useful when you have an intermediate landing page that you’re attracting visitors to, and then they have to proceed to the final page which is stored in another domain.
By default, you’ll lose all attribution data and Google Analytics will display your intermediate landing page as the main referral.
With the script I’ve shared, you’ll be able to reuse UTM parameters of the initial landing page and decorate certain links with them.
The situation I’ve described is not a very common issue, but it occurs from time to time. Actually, one of my readers has recently asked a question related to this very same topic.
133 COMMENTS
Another approach is to parse the values in the document.referrer and set the campaign parameters directly in your GA pageview tag without needing to manipulate the URL in the browser.
Good point. Haven't thought of that. Thanks!
Hello Julius!
Thanks for sharing this info! Have been reading lot of articles about this issue. All of them where able to explain only about setting a exclusion in GA and GTM Field settings to avoid session getting broken. And allowing the session to be the same.
and another solution was putting the same property ID but it solves only the problem of GA (successfully) BUT the other tracking tools which cannot finds UTM as the final destination URL has https://www.example.com/#_ga=2.178803618.789677629.1510803332-1645692824.1501584828
UTM is missing here.
Your article was a great help mate! I have setup according how you asked to do
1. Variables in GTM ( done)
2. Creating a trigger with DOM ready and source, medium and campaign =undefined.
3. Creating a custom HTML (modify the elements that need to be changed)
but still its not working. When user clicks any button, the destination URL becomes only like this https://www.example.com/#_ga=2.178803618.789677629.1510803332-1645692824.1501584828
do you know why?
Just for your info: This is the code i have used.
(And yes i did make sure the variables has the same name as utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign)
and i tested this on a another blog which has the same use case as you.
1. User come to the website with this URL : http://tradly.co/?utm_source=jk_test_nov17_11am&utm_medium=jk_test_nov17_11am
2. HE clicks the button called : Download now (URL = https://bnc.lt/tradly-is-fun) (This destination URL has been updated in the Custom HTML as well)
(function() {
var utmInheritingDomain = "https://bnc.lt/tradly-is-fun", // REPLACE THIS DOMAIN
utmRegExp = /(\&|\?)utm_[A-Za-z]+=[A-Za-z0-9]+/gi,
links = document.getElementsByTagName("a"),
utms = [
"utm_medium={{utm_medium}}", // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_medium
"utm_source={{utm_source}}", // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_source
"utm_campaign={{utm_campaign}}", // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_campaign
];
for (var index = 0; index 0) { // The script is looking for all links with the utmInheritingDomain
tempLink = tempLink.replace(utmRegExp, "");
tempParts = tempLink.split("#");
if (tempParts[0].indexOf("?") < 0 ) {
tempParts[0] += "?" + utms.join("&"); // The script adds UTM parameters to all links with the domain you've defined
} else {
tempParts[0] += "&" + utms.join("&");
}
tempLink = tempParts.join("#");
}
links[index].href = tempLink;
}
}());
Hey, I see that your link (http://tradly.co/?utm_source=jk_test_nov17_11am&utm_medium=jk_test_nov17_11am) contains only utm_medium and utm_source. But the DOM trigger you've set is checking 3 utm parameters, medium, source, and campaign. If at least one of them is missing, UTM inheriting script will not fire.
You have two options here:
- Either start using utm_campaign in your links
- Or remove utm_campaign rule from DOM trigger (where "utm_campaign does not equal to undefined") + remove utm_campaign from the script, otherwise, it will create unwanted "undefined" values in your reports. "utms" array should look like this then:
utms = [
“utm_medium={{utm_medium}}”, // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_medium
“utm_source={{utm_source}}” // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_source
];
I hope this helps
Hi Julius,
Thanks for taking time to share that. After few discussion with my team, we came up with the below cHTML code.
About the Um_campaign. I have totally removed the GTM firing rule of specific DOM events as we can't control as different publisher tend to miss any one of UTM.
The Current problem we are facing now is hubspot button. Because our cHTML code works only for external links but what we have is hubspot SUBMIT button which doesn't have HREF.
HTML code of Hubspot button:
Thanks for sharing the code. Since I haven't worked with Hubspot before, I cannot check whether your script is good. Anyway, maybe someone else among my readers will find the code helpful.
Cheers
this is the cHTML.
function updateQueryString(uri, key, value) {
var re = new RegExp("([?&])" + key + "=.*?(&|$)", "i");
var separator = uri.indexOf('?') !== -1 ? "&" : "?";
if (uri.match(re)) {return uri.replace(re, '$1' + key + "=" + value + '$2');}
else {return uri + separator + key + "=" + value;}
}
var links = $("a.external-link");
for(var i = 0; i < links.length; i++) {
links[i].href = updateQueryString(links[i].href, "utm_source", "{{utm_source}}");
links[i].href = updateQueryString(links[i].href, "utm_campaign", "{{utm_campaign}}");
links[i].href = updateQueryString(links[i].href, "utm_medium", "{{utm_medium}}");
links[i].href = updateQueryString(links[i].href, "utm_term", "{{utm_term}}");
links[i].href = updateQueryString(links[i].href, "utm_content", "{{utm_content}}");
}
What a great find!! I've spent the last few days trying to figure out how to track UTM conversions from facebook to a landing page that has links to another landing page that have links to a subscription page that is on a different URL. I know, that's a lot of pages.
I tried setting up cross domain tracking in GTM but that simply didn't work as intended since the UTM codes would drop off once they hit the final subscription page.
I implemented your solution and at first it didn't work with the my cross-domain tracking on. The UTM was getting added after the ga=######## and was creating a 404 error.
I turned off cross-domain tracking and it worked flawlessly. Thank you so much!!
Is there a way I can have cross-domain tracking on or do I not need it now?
Thanks again,
John
Hey John,
If ?ga=#### and additional UTM parameters are not working together, the problem lies within your landing pages. Ask a developer to fix the issue from the backend.
Normally, websites should work flawlessly with both ga ID and UTM parameters in the URL.
I'm glad this script helped you.
Cheers
I adjusted this slightly to fetch other codes instead of a UTM and have it working to start, however am running into the issue that I believe could still be occurring for both. If a user visits multiple pages before landing on the page with the link, the code is being removed currently and I'm trying to find a solution to maintain the codes throughout the session.
Scenario 1 - Currently Works:
User lands on site > User visits linking page > User clicks link
Scenario 2 - Not Working:
User lands on site > User visits another page on the site > User visits linking page > User clicks link
Hey,
Yes, the 2nd scenario is not supported by the solution described in this blog post because when the user visits another page, all parameters in the URL are gone. In this case you could try taking advantage of cookies:
- When the user lands on a page (and url contains certain UTM parameters), you read those 3 parameters and set them in 3 separate cookies (here's a tutorial how to set a cookie with GTM)
- Then you need to modify the main script which rewrites links and adds additional UTMs (it's mentioned in this blog post). Instead of {{URL - utm_medium}} (and other 2 variables) you should use three 1st party cookie variables from GTM.
I haven't tried that in practice, but I believe it should work.
In this case, could the custom html be modified, so it adds the utm codes to any link, internal or external? Not sure if other query strings would cause problems, but if the site doesn't use anything else, this might work?
Great stuff! Needed this solution for inheriting customer ID from marketing automation software to make this tool recognize user as the same person and not two. For this purpose, code needs a bit of adjusting, however works well.
1. When user lands on website I grab cookie value with customer ID
2. Then I decorate all links going to other domain with this cookie value [with your adjusted script]
3. When user goes to my different domain then I create marketing automation software cookie with inherited ID.
Dunno if it's the best approach, however I couldn't find any more friendly and easy to understand.
Hi
I want to transfer such utm parameters when user is going from main domain to sub domain. This script is not working in this case. Can you suggest something.
Thanks
Hey, You do not need this script to transfer UTM parameters to the subdomain, just set the "Cookie domain to "auto"" in your Google Analytics tag/settings variable. Read the "Before you get started" section of Lunametrics blog post to learn more
Hi Julius,
Can this script work in this scenario.
User lands on website from Facebook- Then lands on Sub Domain- Then lands on third party payment gateways to make payment- then go backs to primary domain.
We've discussed this issue on our GTM community on Facebook, but maybe some other readers will find it useful, so I'm posting here too:
You'll lose the UTM data when a visitor comes back from a third party payment gateway to your website. Instead of using this script do the following:
- When a visitor lands on your website, read the UTM parameters from the link (with URL variables)
- For each UTM parameter, create a separate cookie. Set cookie duration for not too long, e.g. 3 hours.
- When a visitor lands from the payment gateway to your Thank you page, read those 3 cookies (you've created) with help of "1st party cookie" variables and insert them in the Google Analytics Event Tag (that way you'll see where your conversions are coming from).
Not the ideal solution but better than nothing.
Is there a way to add an additional UTM parameter to the new URL? E.g. we pass through utm_medium=testmedium&utm_source=testsource&utm_campaign=testcampaign just fine, but I also want to add another parameter on the end for cf_5 that populates the value from utm_source. Is that a possibility?
Sorry, I did not understand the question. Could you ask it in some different way?
Hi Julius
I'm trying to set my GTM up the same way you listed above, but also do it for s1= and s2= utm tracking variables.
Having trouble setting it up- GTM keeps telling me there's some parsing error with the parenthesis and characters even though I copied your code directly.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
-Steven
Hey,
In lines 6-10, replace this:
utms = [
"utm_medium={{URL - utm_medium}}",
"utm_source={{URL - utm_source}}",
"utm_campaign={{URL - utm_campaign}}"
];
With this:
utms = [
"utm_medium={{URL - utm_medium}}",
"utm_source={{URL - utm_source}}",
"utm_campaign={{URL - utm_campaign}}",
"s1=something", // REPLACE THIS WITH SOME ACTUAL DATA
"s2=something2" // REPLACE THIS WITH SOME ACTUAL DATA
];
I added to more variables to the "utms" array. The last item in the array must not end with a comma. Instead of "something" and "something2" place some actual data or {{variables}}
Hi Julius: Nice post. Thank you. Just wondering how to deal with the possibility of appending the UTM parameters to multiple domains:
e.g. www.conversionwebsite1.com - www.conversionwebsite2.com - www.conversionwebsite3.com
Reference line 3: "var utmInheritingDomain = "appstore.com", // REPLACE THIS DOMAIN"
Hey Les,
Sorry for a late response. In theory, you could place 3 different scripts with each domain (where you change var = utmInheritingDomain). So if you need a really quick solution, that could be it.
In the meantime, I will get back to you with a more elegant script (where you just can add an array of domains) in next 1-2 days. The current work schedule is a bit busy :)
Cheers
Hey Les,
I have just updated this guide and added an additional script which supports multiple domains. It's right before the summary of this post.
Let me know if it helped.
Hey Julius: Thank you for this. Apologies for the tardy reply. Was away on vacation.
This is great stuff. We will try it out and comment accordingly.
Hi Julius,
Thanks for the great guide.
I have a question though. Is it possible to implement this on a page with affiliate links? Meaning that I would like to send my users to an external affiliate link, and insert the utm tags in the affiliate tracking link properties. For example if an affiliate link is something like this: http://demo.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=1&aff_id=1&aff_sub=AFFSUB&aff_sub2=AFFSUB2&source=SOURCE
Can I replace the AFFSUB with my utm_term, source with my utm_source, etc.. in order to see that info in my affiliate dashboard?
Sorry for the bad English, hope you understand what I mean.
Cheers,
Stephen
Yeah, I guess. If you have the access to that page's GTM container, then you could track. But you would need to modify the script to add more query parameters (remove UTMs and replace them with offer_id, aff_id, etc.).
Hmm, won't be possible to get access to the GTM container though. At best a postback pixel.
Anyway thanks for the article and for the reply.
Cheers
hey julius, thanks for this guide. quick question, do I have to change the regex if I want to add parameters other than utms? Like for example gclid. I basically want to do it in the same domain but I have a multi page form and 1st party cookie won't work because of cache issues.
Hey, there's no need to edit regex in the code. You can actually insert any value in those scripts. Even if the variable's name is "utm_medium", you can basically insert anything there, like gclid, etc.
thank you for your immediate reply. I've tried using gclid instead of utms. Perhaps it has something to do with fancybox. Fancybox box is not firing if the query parameters are set.
hey juliuz, one last question, will I be able to save these utm parameters within the same domain and just allow cross-domain or so? As I mentioned, my concern is one domain but it has multi page form. Will cross-domain tracking suffice to save utm parameters throughout the same domain?
Since you plan to work on the same domain and if you plan to store UTMs in cookies, you'll be fine. Cross-domain tracking should not be important for you.
Unfortunately, cookie is not an option because it won't work if cache is enabled in the server (we're using gravity forms).
Then I'm not sure what Cross-domain tracking has to do with it (referring back to your previous comment). The solution described in this blog post should work on any domain that is set in the script, whether it's external one, or the same as your current page.
Now, whether it will work with multi-page form - maybe :) It's hard to tell. The best way to find out is to try, so go ahead and let me know how it worked out.
On the other hand, if all steps of the form are on the same domain (if I understood it correctly), why do you need the UTM data to persist? It should be enough to have UTM set only once per session.
There are two things here:
1. Yes, it will work even if the domain is the same with my current page but it will append the query parameter repeatedly. Say for example, I click on one of the pages, assuming the parameter is already set, the parameter will be appended again like so: ?utm_source=data&utm_source=data and so on..
Perhaps I just have to add a logic checking if the parameter is present then don't append.
2. I'm making it persist so that at the end of the form, I'll get the parameter and assigned it to a field. I'm not sure if I can just do that with the 'session' you mentioned.
Anyways, thank you for your help :)
This was great information to have for a pizza website I'm working with. Thank you!
Hey Julius,
Thanks for the article! I am trying to use this to track the UTMs across different pages of the same site. I followed the instructions and it works perfect in preview mode in GTM, but once published, it doesn't work. Anything I could have missed?
example.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc *clicks link*
example.com/contactus/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc
Here is the script I am using (example domain and only using source to test):
(function() {
var utmInheritingDomain = "example.com", // REPLACE THIS DOMAIN
utmRegExp = /(\&|\?)utm_[A-Za-z]+=[A-Za-z0-9]+/gi,
links = document.getElementsByTagName("a"),
utms = [
"utm_source={{URL - utm_source}}" // IN GTM, CREATE A URL VARIABLE utm_source
];
for (var index = 0; index 0) { // The script is looking for all links with the utmInheritingDomain
tempLink = tempLink.replace(utmRegExp, "");
tempParts = tempLink.split("#");
if (tempParts[0].indexOf("?") < 0 ) {
tempParts[0] += "?" + utms.join("&"); // The script adds UTM parameters to all links with the domain you've defined
} else {
tempParts[0] += "&" + utms.join("&");
}
tempLink = tempParts.join("#");
}
links[index].href = tempLink;
}
}());
Hey, after you publish the container, are you sure that the UTM-rewriting tags has successfully fired? How do you check that?
P.S. your pasted script only contains UTM source. That's not the main problem, but just wanted to point it out.
Also, you do not want to use UTM for internal campaign tracking. It will kill the current session and start a new one. Your session metrics will be destroyed and way too large.
Hey Julius,
I am not sure what you mean by UTM-rewriting tags successfully fired. Can you explain that?
Basically, in preview mode when I land on example.com/?utm_source=source and click to the next it goes to example.com/contact/?utm_source=source but once published, it falls off after the first page.
That makes sense regarding using UTMs and making session metrics too large. That's only if I make it utm_source, but if I make it utm_source__c - that shouldn't impact session metrics in GA, correct?
Also, I am aware that I have only utm_source, I was just using one to test the concept.
Hi Julius,
This is an awesome article that (almost) solved the problem I had been looking for a solution to. The reason I say almost is because I am running into a situation where any link clicked on subsequent pages retain the same UTMs.
I was looking for something like this because we decided to use a landing page (page1) without form for a paid campaign. And the form (page2) would be linked to from page1. I was able to implement your code in GTM and it worked successfully. However, then I saw that the UTMs are getting passed on to every successful page in that session - page3 linked to from page2, page4 linked to from page3 and so on.
Am I doing anything wrong here?
Are you tagging internal links with UTMs?
So here's what we are doing - we're running a LinkedIn Sponsored Content campaign which links to a landing page on our website, jitterbit.com. That landing page does not have an embedded form for lead gen but links out to another page (also on jitterbit.com) that has the form. We want the page with the form to inherit UTMs from the landing page so that we can capture the lead source etc associated with those leads.
Hi Julius, will appreciate any thoughts you might have here.
I'd guess that you fire UTM rewriting script too often. It should fire only on the page 1 (because that page contains the link to the page 2). Now, on other pages that script should not be fired because once again the script rewrites all the links and assigns UTMs once again.
Won't the script fire always because the trigger is "page contains UTMs". If page 2 inherits UTMs from page 1, then page 2 meets the trigger requirement and so page 3 will inherit UTMs from page 2 and so on?
In that case you need to update your triggers to be more specific and fire just on certain pages.
Hey Deepshikha,
Did you get this to work? I am trying to do the same thing and have the same questions. I have not been able to get it to work outside of preview mode.
Could you post a link to the page where you try to implement this solution? Because this sounds like you're working on a single page application which actually does not refresh the page (say, it was developed with AngularJS or React). And since such pages/web applications do not refresh the page, the UTMs persist throughout the entire journey (unless the page fully refreshes and some script does not remove the UTMs from the URL).
Hi Julius,
Thanks for the great article.
I'm using UTM parameters to analyze FB ads.
The problem I have is that my client's website works with subdirectory for mobile: site.com and site.com/mobile/
When someone clicks ads that contain desktop link + UTM from mobile, he will redirect to site.com/mobile/ without UTM and vice versa.
How can I solve it through GTM?
if I'll change something on this script it will work?
Thanks
A script won't help here. You need to contact person/company who developed a website and tell them to keep UTMs when they do a redirect.
Thanks!
I'll check with them.
Hi Julius,
I tried to add utm_content to the code but for some reason im getting a pharse error when im trying to publish it on GTM. When i removed the utm campaign i did work so it seems there is a limit of 3 utms that you can add. Is that correct?
Thanks for the help
No, the script is not limited to just 3 UTMs, in fact, you can enter any number of any parameters. Here's a screenshot of how I updated the script (and just tested on a website). Make sure there is no comma after the last item in the "utms" array.
That comma did the trick, thanks! Works perfectly now with 4 utms.
Great post, so many thanks for posting this! Worked amazing except I had an issue with utm values that contained underscores, for example "utm_source=google_search". I simply changed the regexp bit to "/(\&|\?)utm_[A-Za-z]+=[A-Za-z0-9-_]+/gi" (added an underscore and hyphen. Just sharing this in case anyone else has the same issue. Great work Julius!
Thanks!
Hi
From inside the email , i am hardcoding utm parameters. However, i don't see them in ga reports. Can i know what can be the reason ?
Thanks
Where do you expect to see them? Are you checking Acquisition's Source/Medium reports?
Yes. in the source / medium reports, and in the transactions reports as well.
Hey,
We do use GA for digital tracking, however, we use different tool called Bizible to combine online and offline tracking efforts. Therefore, we require more from out UTMs...
What code do we need to use if we want to add a rule to our CTAs to not only pass UTM parameter values, but also to add a piece of UTM code at the end of the new UTM based on the CTA someone clicked on?
Scenario:
People are landing on the page:
www.theLP.com
with UTM values:
Medium=referral
Source=promo
Campaign=campaign-driving-traffic
www.theLP.com/?utm_source=promo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=campaign-driving-traffic
on the page they click on the CTA: www.mypromocta1.com
we want to turn the URL into:
www.mypromocta1.com/&utm_source=promo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=campaign-driving-traffic&utm_content=my-promo-cta-1
we already have a rule to pass UTM parameters. Can you please advise what would be the easiest way to add utm_content=cta to the new UTM value based on the clicked CTA?
Hi:
Thanks for publishing a wonderful article on UTM passing across URLs. I have been looking for a solution for the problem defined below:
- I provide a link with UTM parameters in emails we send. Whenever a user clicks, he lands on the landing page along with UTM parameters
- From here on, when the user clicks on any of the links within the landing page, he goes to the main website. We want the UTM parameters to be passed on to the main website URLs and from there on, to all the URLs within the website visited by the visitor, ultimately leading to acquiring the UTM values when a form is submitted. This will give us an accurate attribution.
I thought the solution you provided here will work for me. The UTM parameters are not being passed on to the links clicked. Can you please advise how to fix this?
Thanks
RK
Hey, what you need is cookies.
1. Set cookies that contain UTM parameters https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/cookies-with-google-tag-manager/
2. Insert values of those cookies with some simple JavaScript https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/enrich-form-submission-data-with-google-tag-manager/
Hi Julius:
Thanks for your quick response. Do you have Google Analytics Course too? What is the fees for GTM course?
Thanks
Hey, I don't have Google Analytics course. The price for the GTM course will be revealed this Monday (when the sale opens). Join the waiting list to get updates.
Cheers!
Assuming that I have an HTML page, And I want that for every user that enter my page, I want to send his first UTM SOURCE,Using a custom dimension, to the GOOGLE ANALYTICS.
explanation:
On the HTML page i need to use a code that enables me to capture incoming traffic's first visit UTM_SOURCE, and send it to GA via custom dimension. than, i need to use a cookie to store the first occurrence of "utm_source" from the URL.
How can this be done?
important notice: i need to use a custom dimension in my html code at my solution ,
and as i said, i need to store it in a cookie.
i understand that i should use the gtag.js
Thank you very much for the help
1. You don't need gtag.js if you use GTM. Ever.
2. When a visitor lands on a page, create a URL parameter that reads utm_source. Here's the guide where you can learn it
3. Store the value of that urm_source in a cookie. Here's a guide how to create and read cookies with GTM
4. Send the value of the cookie as a custom dimension with GTM. Here's an example how it can be done.
hi julius, thank you very much for your quick and detailed answer!
i wanted to know, in which of the steps (1 to 4) should i take care of the
"capture incoming traffic’s first visit UTM_SOURCE"?
thanks again!
1st guide - Read the value of utm_source that is currently in the URL
2nd guide - how to save it in the cookie
Thanks again for your quick response,
I wanted to make sure :
if the user entered my page for the first time through a certain link (for example via a link that been sent on an e-mail),
and the second time he entered my page via a link from another source (eg link in Facebook)
Will the dimension be overwritten? That is, will the value in my dimension still be "Source = Mail"? Or now the value will be "Source = Facebook"?
Thank you!
Those guides that I shared you only show the direction that you should take. They do not explicitly solve your issue in particular. After reading those guides you'll need to "connect the dots" by yourself.
All in all, you can do that as you say. Oh, you should also use Regex table here. I could write a guide about this solution after 2-3 weeks.
i understand, thank you very much!
Hello Julius, how are you doing? Your code helped me a lot. However, We have one problem here...
We have this blog - blog.townsq.com.br - and inside the posts we have inside linking and outside linking to landing pages. Those links in the landing pages have their own parameters (usually utm_source=blog/medium=blog and campaing = name of the post).
Using your code, the urls of those landing pages are changed, returning a 404 error. Usually, an example would look like this:
https://condominio.townsq.com.br/deveres-do-sindico-ebook?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=processos-contra-sindico
With your code, they get rewritten to look like this:
https://condominio.townsq.com.br/deveres-do-sindico-ebook-contra-sindico?utm_medium=test&utm_source=test&utm_campaign=test
That piece of info "-contra-sindico" shouldnt be there, therefore the error. Maybe you know whats going on?
Thanks!
Hey, no idea. The script definitely does not anything except UTMs. I'd say that there's something wrong with your URL variables (that you use in the script). They are the ones that parse the current URL and read UTMs. So I'd look there.
Hi There Julius,
This worked great, I have a quick question -
We have campaigns tagged with UTM parameters that are transferring with your script successfully, I also managed to amend the script to transfer GLID instead which has helped us to track our Google Ads campaigns cross domain.
My question is whether or not it's possible to set an IF statement (or equivalent?) within your script so that it will look for either UTM or GCLID parameters and append accordingly depending on which is present rather than having two separate tags?
My knowledge of Java Script falls short on this i'm afraid, any help would be greatly appreciated.
The issue here is that my JavaScript knowledge isn't very solid too (it's my top TO LEARN thing in 2019). The script that I've shared in this blog post was written by my colleague developer.
As a workaround, you could create two Custom HTML tags and two pageview trigger.
One tag and trigger is for the gclid-related tracking
The second tag and trigger is for the UTM related tracking.
If URL contains gclid = you fire gclid tag, if URL contains utms, then fire the script that sets the UTMs
Thanks for the prompt reply Julius, as you rightly say we could do it with two tags I was just curious if there might be a more elegant solution to avoid injecting essentially the same script twice, I think I'll need to brush up on it too, it feels like it should be possible...
Is there anyway to pass UTM tags to a button, but append another tag to it? so i pass Campaign/Medium/Source, and then add Content depending on the CTA that was clicked?
Hello,
Thank you for this great article! Do you know if this works for AMP containers as well?
Unfortunately, no. AMP GTM containers do not allow to add custom JavaScript (including this script).
This article has been a lifesaver. I can;t understand why I found it so difficult to find help on how to ensure my URLs retained a custom parameter. This article helped me retain what I needed on my landing page and across on the domain where conversion are made.
I do have one issue though...I need to be able to stop the passing of the parameter at a particular point otherwise the URL begins to loop the user back to the same page over and over. An issue of the site I'm working with. I've been able to NOT tigger the tag when the reffering URL is X but this means the page does reload a second time....but at least I've stopped the continuous loop. Hoping you could shed some light on how to stop the trigger where I need it to stop.
Hello, i have few ppl who promote for me and I have in my website PayPal button so I have created UTM Campaign for each person who will promote but as usual as soon as client click on PayPal button all tracking ends so I have created redirection to thankyou page to track when successful payment but for now I'm still in the same issue that I lost UTM parameters so if a client makes a payment and then redirect to my thank you page I don't know the source of the client, any suggestions or help?. by the way, I'm using Godaddy Central so it's a page builder
Hi Julius,
Very useful. We've been testing this for quite a while and passing the UTM through works fine. However when I started analyzing the data in Google Analytics we found out that there was a massive increase of bouncerates.
We use this for marketing automation purposes. So when someone visits our website via for example a LinkedIn ad, we can exactly track what this visitor does on our website from the ad with UTM.
Somehow this solution affects bouncerates badly. And the main reason I can think of is that every time a page is loaded with UTM parameters, Google Analytics is starting a new session. So even when a visitors visits a second page, it automatically counted as a bounce. Do you agree? And do you think there is a way to fix that?
Hope you can help me out!
Michiel
Yes, your observations are correct. If a visitor lands on your 1st website, does nothing (no events) and then clicks the link with UTM parameters that lead to the website #2, then a new session will start. This means that your previous session will be counted as a bounce.
An idea for you: track links clicks. So if a visitor on a website #1 clicks a link to the website #2, track it as an event and this will keep your bounce rate lower.
Should this decorating tag work in GTM preview mode.
Thanks for outlining this solution.
You most likely already addressed this question in a comment above, but I'm curious if this solution would work if you only have access to the final domain in the process?
For example, I'm working on a project where we will most likely have 10 digital media campaigns for 10 different products. Those campaigns will drive to a Product Page (productdomain1.com, productdomain2.com, etc.)
Then in order to purchase Product1 --> productdomain1-10.com will drive to -- > ecommercedomain.com where you can purchase any number of products 1-10.
If I only manage Google Tag Manager for ecommercedomain.com will I be able to apply this solution to determine the UTMs that began the campaign journey?
Thanks!
Rob
Hey, Robert. The answer is no. You won't be able to apply this method.
Thanks Julius, do you have any links to explanations on how to solve for this? If I manage the end Ecommerce experience, but there are 10 unique product domains that link to the Ecommerce, what would I need to place on those sites to solve for this? Are we talking a straight forward cross-domain setup at this point?
Yes, we're talking here about the cross-domain tracking here. Ideally, you'd need to have your GTM container placed on all those domains (or maybe create a separate container for each website. It depends on the structure of those websites)
Thanks for this, I'm currently using, the issue is that when I use special characters or underscore in the UTM values, the script will not work anymore and adds the incorrect parameters in the URL thus breaks the URL links and directs to page not found, what do you suggest as a solution
Seems to work except it's breaking any #anchor tagged urls.
To be fair, they do seem to form correctly with the domain/path?query=x#anchor formatting.
Having trouble figuring out why the anchor tag links 404 when using your above script.
Any ideas?
Hey, Hashmarks (#) in the URL always behave like that. They go after the query parameters (?). So if your website returns a 404 after the UTMs are added to the URL and the # goes to the end of the URL, that's the issue of the website, not this script.
A website should properly support a standard behavios of hashmarks (a.k.a. URL Fragments).
Hello Julius,
This is almost working for me. In both Preview Mode and when published, I can see the UTM parameters being appended to the URL of a button when I hover over the button. If I copy the link address, it copies everything as you would expect.
But when I click on the button, the new page on my site opens and the UTM parameters are not in the address bar.
Any suggestions? I've pasted the URL with the UTM parameters below.
Best,
Mike
ps - I purchased your beginner GTM class, but haven't gotten very far in it yet. Maybe I should do that first! :-)
Hey Mike,
This topic is not covered in my Beginner course.
From your link I see that you are probably working with the AMP website, right? This solution is not tested and probably will not work with AMP.
Hi Julius,
The page/site isn't AMP, but is it because our URLs all end with a trailing / that it wouldn't work?
Best,
Mike
Hello again Julius,
Just wanted to circle back and let you know that we resolved the problem and wanted to share with others just in case.
The reason we didn't see the URL parameters pass through on the click is because we had accidentally included our full domain when we added the link to the button. By removing https://www.ourdomain.com, the script and your instructions worked perfectly.
Thank you for being a resource here.
Best,
Mike
Hi Julius
Thanks, this article is helpful.
I just wanted to ask, this definitely works if all my tracking links have all the UTMs identified e.g. medium, source, campaign. However, some of my tracking links have content and term and even gclid. Is there a way where it just picks up whatever is available?
For e.g. if i have utm_medium=xx&utm_source=xxx&utm_campaign=xxx,gclid=xxx
it will pick up that.
but at the same time if my next tracking link comes in as utm_medium=xx&utm_source=xxx&utm_campaign=xxx,utm_term=xxx
It will still pick it up
Since at the moment, the instructions is all the parameters need to be "does not equal" to "undefined"
I want it so, it picks up any parameters when available, not when all parameters are available.
Hope it makes sense.
Cheers
Steph
Yes, you just need to update the "utms" JS variable in the script. Currently, there are 3 utms in that array, but you can add more. This script currently only fetches those query parameters that are in the "urm" array.
this is the only one post I found all over the internet to append UTM code on the next page.
The very first thing I would like to ask is "How to create that variable". If you share steps that would be appreciated.
What variable?
I created first,
URL variable then DOM then paste a script in cHTML
after all that in preview i am getting an error:
Type
Variable circular dependency
Location
utm_source utm_source
Description
There is a circular dependency involving variables. Please inspect the variables in the list to the left and remove the circular dependency.
Type
Variable circular dependency
Location
utm_medium utm_medium
Description
There is a circular dependency involving variables. Please inspect the variables in the list to the left and remove the circular dependency.
Can you explain your goal here? what do you want to achieve?
THANKS IN TONS!!!
after spending a couple of hours, your code works great!!
Hello Julius. Thank you so much for this post as we are now implementing it across the majority of our domains.
I have two quick questions and would really appreciate it if you could help me with them.
1) We are having an Issue where the UTM parameter are getting passed correctly to all links except for the view cart button where it adds extra text at the beginning of the link and breaks it. Is there any way to exclude certain links in the code?
2) We have a button with an href that links to checkout but the parameters dont ever get passed to that button (Only button on the entire site to not get the UTM parameters). Is there any way to pass the UTM parameters to that button or on click add them to the new checkout/ URL?
Thank you :)
How do you stop duplicate conversions being tracked in Google Analytics when someone revisits?
Hi, You can implement something similar to this solution https://www.simoahava.com/gtm-tips/prevent-repeat-transactions/
Hi Julius,
Thanks so much for this guide, it's really straightforward and helpful.
I'm having an issue with GTM when I try to publish. I get and error message that reads, "Unknown variable 'URL - utm_medium' found in a tag. Edit the tag and remove the reference to the unknown variable." I get the same for utm_source and utm_campaign.
I thought I configured the variables as you directed above, and I've triple-checked them, so I figure I must just be missing something. Do you have any advice?
Thanks so much for any help you can provide, and thanks again for the article. :)
Triple check whether your variable name is exactly "Unknown variable 'URL - utm_medium", otherwise, it won't work.
The problem might be in the "-" character. Your keyboard settings might be using different settings and the dash in the variable name might not be the same as in the script.
Thank you so much, this did the trick! I had misnamed the variables, not registering that the name component was important as well. :)
Hello Julius, thanks for sharing these information!
This is almost working for me. When both domains ending with .com .co the UTM parameters works, but, when one of them ending only with .co and the other one with .com .co doesn´t work.
Dou you have any suggestions?
Best,
Jennifer
I'm totally new to Google Tag Manager
Can I ask, what kind of tag types are these for the UTM parameters?
page: https://www.screencast.com/t/oaI4ThJdNf
Hey, I'm not sure I understand the question. UTM tags are not the same as GTM tags. "UTM tag" is just a name and it is a part of the page link. In GTM, tag is a tracking script that does something.
All in all, they are two different things. Very different.
Thanks for the great article. What do you think of using the below as another solution -
document.querySelectorAll('a')
.forEach((el) => el.href += window.location.search);
My use case is actually with another analytics platform that requires the UTM's to be in the page URL for attribution. We want to be able to track campaign source across the site, not just on the initial landing page.
My concern is with how it will impact GA data. Will the session break for each new pageview?
Thanks!
Sean
Thank you so much for sharing this unique code. It worked great, however, what if in addition I want the UTM parameters in the URL to stick across pages on the same domain as well (like a multi-page quote system)?
Why would you possibly need that? It's fully enough for UTMs to appear on the page just once per domain per session. GA takes care of the traffic source attribution.
Hey Julius, thanks for sharing your knowledge with us and taking time to respond. What if I wanted to pass a "gclid" parameter to a different domain? How should the script be tweaked?
Hey,
You should change this
utms = [
"utm_medium={{URL - utm_medium}}",
"utm_source={{URL - utm_source}}",
"utm_campaign={{URL - utm_campaign}}"
];
To this:
utms = [
"utm_medium={{URL - utm_medium}}",
"utm_source={{URL - utm_source}}",
"utm_campaign={{URL - utm_campaign}}",
"gclid={{URL - gclid}}"
];
{{URL - gclid}} is the URL variable that you should create (it should parse the gclid query parameter). If you don't want to transfer UTMs, just gclid, then change to this:
utms = [
"gclid={{URL - gclid}}"
];
Great! Will give it a try. Many thanks!
Hi Julius. Just to let you know that it worked like a charm. Thank you! :)
And now, if I want to push the gclid (or any other parameter) to any other page within the SAME domain, do you recommend using the same script (and replace the domain name in the script)?
Actually, I just want the gclid to be stored during the whole session and to call it when a form is submitted (it populates a hidden field). Maybe there's a cleaner way to do it besides this script?
Store the gclid in the cookie instead https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/cookies-with-google-tag-manager/
Or localStorage
Julius,
I followed your instructions on https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/cookies-with-google-tag-manager/ I managed to create a cookie called "visitorFromAdwords" and that is set to "true" when a visitor comes from AdWords (I see this in EditThisCookie). However, I don't know how to call the "true" value in the hidden field of the form. Is naming the field "visitorFromAdwords" is enough to populate the field?
Also, what if I wanted to store the gclid value in a cookie? I mean, not only true/false but the actual ID?
Thanks for your help!
Read this guide to learn how to insert dynamic variables in custom javascript codes https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/insert-variables-in-google-tag-manager/
Read this guide on how to insert the variable into the hidden form field https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/enrich-form-submission-data-with-google-tag-manager/
Followed the guide and it worked! Thanks for taking the time to write up the tutorial.
btw, In the phrase where you mention it's case sensitive, the examples use a longer hyphen than when copied directly from the code. That triggers an error in GTM.
It should be URL - utm_campaign instead of URL – utm_medium . :)
Hey,
Great blog!
I had a different use case where I wanted to use this for Google Ads gclid parameters what works if you just change the variable in the code and make a different URL query variable.
I did run into the same problem as Les. I can't make it work for multiple domein within one and the same custom HTML-tag. Do you have a solution for this other than making multiple custom HTML-tag?
Hey, have you read the last chapter right before the "Final words"?
Hi Dear,
Great article 10/10
But I have question, if visits come to my website without utm parameter, can i add default query to that url?
and if it's google organic, i want to add source=google and campaign=organic
is this possible?
this is not for analytics, this is for my website admin panel tracking
i hope you help me in this
This should not be done with GTM because your visitors might see the sight reloading twice. This should be done from the code of your website. A developer should check the document.referrer
For example, if it contains google and there is no gclid= in the URL, then this is medium=organic, etc.
Ok great!
I added traffic source and campaign name as a query parameter in URL and implemented on gtm, and i used the code you mentioned, but when i tried to visit the URL includes only traffic source without campaign name, it doesn't copy query parameter from that url to the next one, but it's work if I includes both of them in url, how could I make it working for one traffic source if the visits come including only one of them
i think there should be like or not and between both query parameter, but i'm not friendly with java so i don't know how this code should be