Use UTM tags in Privy Emails

UTM tags, also known as Urchin Tracking Module parameters, are snippets of text added to the end of a URL for tracking purposes. Privy adds UTM tags to the links in your email to help answer questions about your traffic, including:

Why is the traffic coming to your site?
Where is the traffic coming from?
How is the traffic getting to you?

Tags can also be referenced in display targeting rules to improve visitor conversion rates.

Note: Looking to learn more about how Privy tracks your email engagement, including how click and open tracking works? Check out this guide.

What can UTM tags track?

UTM tags tell the story of how your traffic is getting to you. There are five tag types available; however, Privy's default functionality leverages the three primary tags outlined below:

Display - This tag groups all traffic from a specific effort, such as a seasonal promotion, in your analytics tool and answers the "Why is the traffic coming to me?" question.
Source - This tag tells you which website/referrer is sending you traffic, such as a search engine or partner like Privy, and answers the "Where is the traffic coming from?" question.
Medium - This tag tells you the type of marketing medium that is included the tracked link, such as a social post or email, and answers the "How is the traffic getting to me?" question.

Each of these tags is added to your original link, which is known as the Destination URL. When combined, the destination URL and tags reveal a particular journey. For example:

How do Privy emails use tags?

Privy automatically adds the Display, Source, and Medium UTM tags to the links in your email, including links assigned to buttons, images, and text.

What will the tags look like?

When an email is tested or sent to contacts, the tags are added to the end of your links. The easiest way to see the tags is to click a link and review the URL in the browser bar. For example:

Your link in the email editor may have been https://www.example.com/
Meanwhile, the clicked link would look like https://www.example.com/?utm_campaign=privy_1703874&utm_medium=email&utm_source=privy

As you can see in the example, the default tags use the following format:

utm_campaign=privy_###
utm_source=privy
utm_medium=email

The "###" portion of the utm_campaign tag will populate with the ID of the email (e.g., Newsletter) or Privy Convert display after signup email that included the UTM tags. These IDs appear in your browser bar when creating, editing, or viewing the content in Privy.

Copying an ID from a tracked link and incorporating it into one of the links below will bring you directly to the content in Privy as long as the content hasn't been deleted.

Email Links - https://dashboard.privy.com/emails/insert_id_here


Display After Signup Links - https://dashboard.privy.com/displays/insert_id_here

Can I override or disable tags?

You can override but cannot disable Privy's default UTM tags.

Override the default tags

To override the default tags, update your email with links that already include UTM tags. When the links in your email already contain UTM tags, Privy will not overwrite them. Google offers a UTM builder that makes it super easy to build your own UTM links.

Note: UTM parameters are case-sensitive. Consider tracking your manually created UTM links in a spreadsheet to maintain the same formatting and taxonomy.

Disable the default tags

The default Privy UTM tags cannot be disabled at this time.

How do I report on tags?

Once you've been tagging and tracking your links with UTMs for a while, you will be able to better understand and report on how visitors get to your site via most analytics tools - the most popular of which is Google Analytics. To review UTM data in Google Analytics:

Log into your Google Analytics account.
From the dashboard, select Acquisitions > All Traffic > Source/Medium.
Locate Privy / Email in the Source / Medium column.

Additionally, each email's click count is available via their respective dashboard (e.g., Newsletters) and by reviewing their individual performance reports.

How do I target tags?

You cn use Website Behavior audience targeting rules to include or exclude traffic matching the UTM tags from your Privy Convert Displays. For example, if you wanted to show a unique display to contacts arriving from an email sent from Privy:

Navigate to Convert > All Displays.
Select the desired display and switch to the Target step.
Select the Who To Show It To setting and click Add targeting condition.
Click the dropdown menu listed under the Property header and select the Current URL option from the Website Behavior section.
Add Contains rules that reference utm_medium=email AND utm_source=privy.

Save the new rules and, if needed, publish the display. The display will only appear to contacts that have these UTMs in the URL.