Your newsletter links to the right page, but the campaign report has several names for what your team considers one promotion. Someone used capitals. Someone shortened the name. A partner copied a link from an older email.
For your Scottsdale business website, agree on the link labels before anyone starts distributing links. Give the team one place to copy the approved address and one person to check it.
This is a small publishing habit with a concrete benefit: the next person reviewing the campaign has less naming history to untangle. It does not prove that every visit is measured or that a promotion produced a sale.
Choose the page before naming the campaign
Start with the destination. Open the page as a customer would and read the offer, dates and next action. A well-labelled link to the wrong page is still the wrong link.
Imagine a Scottsdale art studio promoting winter painting workshops through its own newsletter. The link should open the workshop information, not leave readers searching the homepage. Confirm that the page explains the session, availability and how to reserve a place before preparing the email.
Use a public address that your business controls. Keep the ordinary page address beside the campaign version in your working record so someone can check either without reconstructing it from a sent email.
If the destination still needs work, our service-page guide can help with the underlying explanation. For a paid launch, use the broader website-before-ads checklist as well.
Give each label one clear job
UTM parameters are labels added to a link for campaign measurement. Google describes utm_source as the referrer, utm_medium as the marketing medium and utm_campaign as the campaign name. Its guidance recommends using all three together. Read Google’s campaign URL guidance.
For the imagined studio, agree on the following values before building the newsletter link. These are example naming choices, not a required vocabulary for every business.
- Source
studio_newsletterWhich publisher sent the visitor?- Medium
emailWhat kind of channel is it?- Campaign
winter_workshopsWhich promotion does it belong to?
Keep spelling and capitalization consistent. Google treats differently capitalized values as different values. Lowercase names make a practical shared convention, but the important task is agreeing on the actual strings your team will reuse.
Write down what each value means. “Newsletter” might mean your own email list to one person and a partner publication to another. Give different publishers distinguishable source names while keeping one campaign name for the same promotion.
Avoid changing the convention halfway through a launch. If a correction is necessary, record when the new link replaced the old one so a later reviewer understands the difference.
Build a link the next person can reuse
Use the Campaign URL Builder linked from Google’s documentation, or have your website maintainer build the link from the approved values. Google allows manual construction too, but a shared saved result avoids repeated typing.
For the studio example, the finished address would combine the workshop destination with those three labels:
https://example.com/workshops?utm_source=studio_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=winter_workshopsSave this complete version beside the ordinary page address. Use your actual destination when preparing a campaign.
The example uses a reserved example domain. In your working record, substitute your real public page and agreed values. Copy the complete address into the newsletter’s link field, then keep the customer-facing link text short and useful, such as “See winter workshops.”
If your email platform adds its own campaign information, check the final result with the person who manages that integration. Do not assume the address you typed is the only setting involved.
Keep customer names, email addresses and phone numbers out of campaign labels. Google’s guidance specifically excludes personally identifiable information from URL and campaign parameters. Read its guidance on avoiding personal information.
Test the link from the finished message
Send a test message through the same publishing tool you plan to use. Open its link on a phone and a desktop browser. Check the destination, the offer and the next action again.
Ask your maintainer to verify that campaign information reaches the measurement setup, including any redirects along the way. Seeing the page load does not establish that the intended values were collected.
Record the exact link tested, the date and who checked it. If the email editor or a redirect changes after that test, repeat the relevant check before sending the campaign.
For links placed in print, our printed QR guide covers physical proofs and destination ownership. Keep that publishing check separate from whether Analytics received the campaign information.
Read the matching report with care
Have the person responsible for Analytics confirm the website’s measurement setup before relying on the labels. They should also explain how the site’s consent settings and test conditions affect what you can verify.
Google’s Traffic acquisition report includes Session source / medium and Session campaign. It covers new and returning users, while User acquisition focuses on new users. Ask your reviewer to use the report and dimensions that match the question you are trying to answer. Read the Traffic acquisition documentation.
For the studio example, start with a narrow question: can the reviewer find the agreed campaign name and newsletter source in the relevant reporting period? Save the date range and the dimensions used, not just a cropped number without context.
If the expected row is missing, investigate the setup and test conditions before renaming the campaign. If several spellings appear, compare them with the actual distributed links and your change record.
A recorded visit is not a confirmed workshop reservation. Review the real enquiry or booking process separately. Our website inquiry review helps keep the customer action and the measurement question connected without treating them as interchangeable.
Leave a useful record for the next campaign
Keep one shared record containing the ordinary destination, finished campaign link, agreed labels, placement, owner and test date. Add the send date after publication so the reporting period has a clear starting point.
For a repeat promotion, copy the record first and review every field. Keep values that still mean the same thing; deliberately change those that identify a new promotion. Do not let a previous campaign name survive simply because someone duplicated an email.
Agree on who can issue a replacement link. When a partner needs the address, send the saved version with its intended placement instead of asking them to invent labels themselves.
Start with one newsletter and one important destination on your Scottsdale business website. Our SEO services can help review the website and its measurement handoff. Talk to Brandon about making campaign links easier to maintain.
