Campaign links

How WebmasterID handles UTM parameters, how the /links builder generates campaign URLs, and what to put (and never put) in utm_source / utm_medium / utm_campaign.

Last updated: v1.5.2 · 2026-05-10

WebmasterID is strict about campaign attribution: only the five canonical UTM parameters are recognised, only asutm_* in the URL query string. We don't capture gclid, fbclid, or any other ad-network tracking parameter. Direct traffic stays direct.

The five UTM parameters

utm_source — where the visit came from. newsletter, x, reddit, youtube, partner.
utm_medium — channel category. email, social, referral, paid.
utm_campaign — the named campaign. spring_launch, weekly_digest, v1_5_announce.
utm_content — optional. Distinguishes which version of a link inside the same campaign got clicked.hero, footer, image.
utm_term — optional. Free-form, often the keyword or content slug.

Use /links to mint URLs

The dashboard's /links page is a stateless URL builder — pick the destination, source, medium, and campaign; copy the result. Behind the scenes the builder rejectsjavascript:, data:, and other unsafe schemes, preserves any pre-existing query parameters on the destination, and overwrites only the UTM keys.

Concrete examples

https://acme.example.com/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_digest

https://acme.example.com/launch?utm_source=x&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=v1_5_launch

Reddit AMA announcement

https://acme.example.com/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ama&utm_content=ama_post

YouTube product demo

https://acme.example.com/demo?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=product_demo&utm_content=description_link

Why this discipline matters

Untagged outbound links arrive as direct traffic (no referrer is sent for many cross-origin clicks). That makes attribution impossible after the fact.
The high "direct" share you sometimes see in analytics is largely "dark social" — links shared in chat apps, email, and push notifications without a referrer. Tagging the link before you share it is the only reliable attribution path.
Consistent utm_campaign values across channels let you total a campaign across newsletter + social + paid in one query.

Never put in a UTM parameter

No PII. No email addresses, no names, no phone numbers, no order IDs, no user IDs.
No session tokens / consent state / auth tokens. Anything secret-shaped doesn't belong in a URL parameter.
No keyword stuffing. A descriptiveutm_campaign beats a paragraph of SEO copy.

/docs/events — UTM parameters are captured on every page_view.
/docs/cta-tracking — pair tagged links with CTA ids to correlate which link copy drove the click.