MBA2164 How to Use UTM Links to Know Which Marketing Efforts Are Working

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I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014. And in today's lesson you will learn how to use UTM links to know which marketing efforts are working as you do on the show. We like to quote Peter Drucker a lot where he says whatever gets measured gets managed. We need to know what works and what doesn't when it comes to our marketing efforts so that we can continue to do what works and stop doing the things that don't. And one of the critical tools in doing this is using UTM links. These are links that have a little piece of code that allow you to identify this specific link for a specific purpose so that you can see if it's working. For example, you might have a link to your website like 100- MBA-NET but when it comes to marketing, I don't want to just use the same link with all my efforts then I won't know which medium, which audience, which place is actually converting for me. So I'll create a UTM link for a specific channel like YouTube or Twitter, it goes to the same place. But it lets me know that when I use this link or this campaign, this is the result. Instead of all of my efforts being kind of in murky water, I don't know what's working and what's not. I'm going to show you why UTM links are important, how to use them on a day to day basis, and how you can create your own UTM links using my UTM creator that I'm gifting to you that you can use on, on your own. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business, okay?

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Like I mentioned at the top of the episode, UTM links are really powerful when it comes to marketing. And I'll explain why. First of all, you might be wondering, what's UTM stand for? Well, it actually stands for Urchin tracking module. That's an earthdoc to say a little piece of code that's added to a URL, to a link, to a website, to a web page. And it usually starts with a question mark. You might see a link in your browser and there's a question mark in that link and it's followed by some word or some code and you might realize, oh, what's that? Well, that's a UTM link. Now a reason why a company would use a UTM link is because they want to create unique links that go to the same place. So I use the example of the homepage. But a more common example is a piece of content like a blog post or even so an opt in, like a lead magnet where you're trying to grow your email list. Most of us have a lead magnet that we give out everywhere, like on social media, like in our email newsletters, like in ads. It's the same page, it's the same content that you give out. But how do you know where you share it is most effective? This is where UTM links come in handy. If you go to your analytics tool at Google Analytics and you track like how many Visitors did I get to this page that allows people to opt into my newsletter? You're going to see a number like 100 people this month. But how do you know from those hundred people how many of them came from an email marketing campaign or from Facebook or maybe from a partnership email that you did with a partner? This is what UTM links do. They allow you to identify where you shared this link because you might find that, oh, from the hundred people that visited this page, 72 of them shared came from my YouTube channel. That means that I need to double down my efforts on YouTube because people convert there. Maybe I could take a look at the creative of where I shared that link and do more of that kind of style and use it in other places in my marketing efforts. This allows us to really know what's working. Now you might be saying, well, in Google Analytics, can I just find out where that person came from, like the source of that traffic? It's not always accurate. Some people have blockers, some people have VPNs, some people are not coming in a direct way. So you can't really rely on the source of the data coming from Google Analytics. You actually need a unique link that identifies where they came from using UTMs. This is the most reliable way to do it. Now, even though if you look at the actual URL, it's going to look different, it doesn't mean they're going to go somewhere different. They're going to go to the same page. I know, it's pretty cool. It's like magic. So, practically, let's talk about when you would use UTM links. Well, honestly, we use UTM links every time we share a link. Anytime we share a link externally to.

The public, to the world, whether it's.

An email campaign or a webinar or a social media campaign, or on YouTube or whatever, we always use UTM link because it allows us to know where our efforts are paying off. So on a practical level, every time you share a link with anybody in the world, right, whether it's on your email list or otherwise, you're going to create a UTM link for the link you want to share. So the way it works is basically you're going to use a tool that we've created, basically using Google Sheets, and you're going to be able to use the same tool. You can make a copy of the sheet and create your own UTM links for free. Use our template. Just go to100mba.net templates and you'll see it there. You're going to pop in the link. So say for example, I have this link like templates, right? And I'm sharing it on a blog post or I'm sharing it on social media. I'm going to pop in 100- MBA NET templates into the UTM creator and then you're going to use the dropdowns or put in your own choice of words in three categories and those are source, medium and content. Source is basically where it's going to be. Where is it going to go? Is it Facebook Medium is what kind of campaign is this? Is this a sales campaign, marketing campaign? Social? In this case it would be social. And lastly is content, what kind of content are you sharing? Is it a blog post, is it an opt in, is it a video? And then the generator will just create the UTM link for you with all the variables and that unique link that you can share with where you are posting. It's pretty simple. And now every time you go to Google Analytics, you will see all your UTM links as links people are going to and you're going to easily be able to identify how well those campaigns are going. So let's break down those categories again. So what's really cool about this is that you can just look very quickly with your Google Analytics or your analytics tool and see, okay, when it comes to source, a lot of people are clicking from this channel, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, other websites, whatever it might be. The medium gives you an understanding of generally how well you're doing in a generic category like sales or marketing or opt ins or leads or whatever it may be. And then content tells you which content is actually resonating with people. Is it your email scripts? Is it your blog posts? Is it your videos? Now we're getting sophisticated. Now we know exactly what's resonating. And from this point on you tell yourself and everybody on your team, we don't share links without putting it through the UTM generator. And what's great is that the generator just gives you an easy place to pop in the link, choose your content, choose your source and your medium and it just generates the link for them. They copy that link and they use it wherever they're sharing the link. Now before I used UTM links, this is like maybe five years ago. I had no idea what content and what channels were working for us. So we were just like throwing things against the wall hoping they stick, hoping it will just generate traffic and just kind of saying, hey, if it brings in sales and it's working, let's just continue to do that. No, that's not good enough. We need to know what's working so we can use all our effort on the things that are working and stop doing the things that don't work. And UTM links allow you to do that.

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To wrap up today's lesson, don't forget to download our template so you can create your own UTM links with our UTM generator using Google Sheets. It's absolutely free. Just go to 100mba.net templates now. The biggest challenge now that you have a template it's super simple is just having the discipline to remind yourself and everybody to use UTM links. Don't just share links without using UTM links. If you're doing this right, you are going to have a long list of UTM links on that sheet within your first month. And then at the end of your first month you can go into your Google Analytics or wherever you're using to track your traffic on your website and say, okay, let's take a look at all the UTM links I shared. Which ones worked, which one didn't, which one gave us a ton of traffic? Which one got clicks? You're going to know and it's going to empower you to keep on using UTM links. Thanks so much for listening. I know we geeked out on today's episode, but sometimes we got to do that nitty gritty stuff to get things done and to optimize our efforts. Listen, we have a limited amount of time and a limited amount of energy. We might as well use it, right? And that way we get a bigger payoff on our efforts. Thanks so much for listening to the hundred dollar NBA show. If you love what you hear, hit, subscribe or follow on whatever you use to listen to podcasts. If you want to really show us some love, share the show with your friends on social media. Just tell them to go to100mba.net and so they could subscribe to the podcast. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. This UTM link generator is something that we created in our company and we thought, hey, let's share it with other people. This is a really useful tool. Why do they have to reinvent the wheel or have to buy it from somewhere? Let's just share it with other people. This is great value. I'm sure there's things in your business that you've created systems templates that you can share to your audience as well. It makes a great lead magnet and it's actually something useful that people are going to use and think of you every time they use it. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

Dear McDonald's, your breakfast menu Fire tens across the board. I could be happy with anything even though I ordered the same thing every time. Thanks for not judging me. I'll try something new next time.

Maybe score a two for five dollar deal on a sausage McMuffin with egg and more. Limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer single item at regular price.