UTM parameters with short links

What UTM parameters do, which ones to fill in, and how they work alongside a short link so your shortener and your analytics agree.

A short link tells you how many people clicked. UTM parameters tell your website's analytics where those people came from. They answer different questions, and campaigns usually want both.

The five parameters

Parameter	Answers	Example
`utm_source`	Which site or platform	`newsletter`, `instagram`
`utm_medium`	Which kind of channel	`email`, `social`, `qr`, `cpc`
`utm_campaign`	Which campaign	`spring-sale`
`utm_content`	Which variation	`header-button`, `footer-link`
`utm_term`	Paid keyword	`running-shoes`

The first three are the ones that matter. utm_content earns its place when you have two links in the same message and want to know which one people used.

Putting them on

Append them to the destination URL:

https://example.com/spring?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-sale

Then shorten that. The short link carries the parameters through to the destination, so your site analytics see them, while the person clicking sees a tidy link.

This is the important ordering: tag the destination, then shorten it. Shortening first and adding parameters to the short link does not achieve the same thing.

Keep the values consistent

The most common way UTM data becomes useless is inconsistency. Email, email and e-mail are three sources in most tools, which splits one campaign across three rows in your report.

Agree a convention and stick to it:

Lowercase everything.
Hyphens, not spaces or underscores.
A fixed vocabulary for medium — email, social, qr, print, cpc and little else.
Campaign names that sort well — 2026-spring-sale groups better than spring sale!.

Reading both sets of numbers

Expect them to disagree slightly, and do not spend a day on it:

The short link counts clicks, including ones where the person left before the page loaded.
Your site analytics count sessions, and miss anyone blocking their script.

Clicks will normally be the higher number. Treat the shortener as the truth about the link and your site analytics as the truth about what happened next.

For QR codes

Use utm_medium=qr, and distinguish placements with utm_content — table-tent, window, receipt. That is how you find out which physical location is actually earning its space.

Because the QR code encodes a short link rather than the long tagged URL, all of that tracking adds nothing to the density of the pattern. See Dynamic vs static QR codes.

Frequently asked questions

Do I still need UTM parameters if the short link counts clicks?

Yes, if you care what happens after the click. The short link counts arrivals; UTM parameters tell your site analytics where a visitor came from.

Do UTM parameters make the QR code bigger?

Only if you encode the long URL directly. Encoding a short link keeps the pattern small no matter how long the destination is.

Should UTM values be lowercase?

Yes. Most analytics tools treat Email and email as two different sources, which quietly splits your reporting.

Last updated 2026-08-24