The other week I was talking to a new e-commerce client. He was telling me, “The campaigns are doing pretty well, but we don’t know exactly what’s working.” I go into Google Analytics and the first thing I notice is that almost all the traffic is coming in as “direct” or generically “paid social.” It wasn’t a low ROAS problem but a technical error: no UTM, no parameters to tell me which campaign or ad was bringing concrete results. And this is not an isolated case: it happens much more often than you imagine.
UTMs are not a technical detail or an advanced option. They are the basis for understanding whether your Ads are really generating value. Without them, an ecommerce business can continue to invest thousands a month without knowing which channel or creative is really working. With UTMs, on the other hand, you can stop optimizing by feel and make decisions based on real data, without wasting budget.
Technically, UTMs are parameters that are added to URLs and allow you to track where traffic is coming from. But the point is not to know how to build a perfect URL-the point is to use them consistently and strategically. We don’t just want to know that the user is coming from Facebook, we want to know from what campaign, from what ad, and with what goal. Basically, they turn traffic into actionable information that can be used to make real decisions
This is where field experience comes in. I remember a clothing e-commerce client: they had invested in Google Ads for months, but conversions were not tracking properly. UTMs were absent or inconsistent. Google was optimizing on the wrong users, Analytics was showing partial numbers, and the client didn’t understand where to allocate the budget. After fixing UTM structure, conversion events, and consistency between Ads and Analytics, we found that some “secondary” campaigns were actually the most profitable. Within a few weeks, ROI increased without spending more.
Another classic example involves clients who invest in multiple platforms. An ecommerce company for beauty products was convinced that Instagram was the main channel for sales. By analyzing UTMs, we found that Instagram was generating a lot of interactions and clicks, but most of the final sales were coming from Google Search and from users who had been “fed” initially by Instagram. Without UTMs, they would have turned off the wrong channel and lost part of the funnel.
Often when I start an audit for an e-commerce I find URLs without any tracking parameters. They are perfectly valid for navigation, but for performance analysis they leave a huge gap.
Imagine you have a product page for a running shoe promotion. If you post an ad on Meta or Google without UTM, the link might be:
URL without UTM (cannot be tracked properly):https://www.mioshop.it/
If a user clicks on this link from your Facebook ads, Analytics will only receive generic paid social traffic information, with no way to distinguish which campaign, which ad, or which tactic worked best.
Now consider the same URL with utm parameters:
URL with UTM (full tracking):https://www.mioshop.it/
In this URL:
utm_source=facebook identifies where the traffic is coming from (Facebook).
utm_medium=paid_social distinguishes the medium (paid social).
utm_campaign=spring_sale says which campaign the user is bringing in.
utm_content=video_ad1 allows you to figure out which creative or variant is performing best.
With this simple change, you can analyze in Analytics reports how many visits, sessions, and conversions that specific link generated, compare it to others, and figure out exactly where to spend more and where to cut back. For more, Google has a detailed official guide on how to create URLs with UTM parameters.
When I work with a client, UTMs are created following a precise logic: every campaign, every ad, every platform must be easily readable in reports. This allows you to compare performance without confusion and understand where it makes sense to increase the budget. Without this, even the best Ads manager can make bad decisions because the data are biased or misleading.
utm_source → platform or source (google, facebook, newsletter)
utm_medium → medium (paid_search, paid_social, email)
utm_campaign → specific campaign (spring_sale, black_friday, lancio_nuovo_prodotto)
Minimal example:
https://www.mioshop.it/utm_content → distinguishes creative or variants (video_ad1, carousel_2)
utm_term → useful for keyword or specific targeting (scarpe_running_donne)
Full example:
https://www.mioshop.it/Standardize names (facebook and not Facebook).
Use hyphens or underscores; never spaces or special characters.
Keep logic clear: utm_source → platform, utm_medium → traffic type, utm_campaign → campaign.
Document everything in an Excel or Google Sheet.
Google Ads – search: utm_source=google&utm_medium=
Meta Ads – social paid: utm_source=facebook&utm_
TikTok Ads – awareness: utm_source=tiktok&utm_medium=
Newsletter: utm_source=newsletter&utm_
Doing Ads without UTM is like driving without a dashboard. You can keep going, but you’ll never know where you’re going, what works, and where it pays to invest. UTMs don’t make sales on their own, but they allow you to understand what really works. This is the first step in building scalable, reliable, data-driven campaigns.
If you want to understand whether your tracking is reliable or you are reading partial numbers, the first step is always a serious audit on UTMs. Without clean data, even the best Ads strategy remains a guess.
If your ads campaigns are no longer performing, you can contact me via the form or write to me directly via email: I will be happy to understand what is not working and guide you to the most effective solution.
