UTM tracking in Heap
Heap is an autocapture product-analytics tool. It automatically records UTM parameters from the landing URL as marketing/acquisition properties on the session and user, so you can segment retroactively by source, medium, and campaign without instrumenting events by hand.
Autocaptured marketing properties
Heap captures UTM parameters from the URL automatically and stores them as session-scoped acquisition properties (source, medium, campaign, term, content). Because Heap autocaptures broadly, these properties are available for retroactive segmentation across events you never explicitly instrumented.
The values come from the landing URL, so they are only as good as your tags — clean UTM in means clean segmentation out.
- UTM stored as session/user acquisition properties
- Available for retroactive segmentation
- Derived from the landing URL, not a manual event
Session vs user attribution
Heap can expose both the first-touch campaign on the user and the current session's campaign, letting you separate acquisition from re-engagement. Decide which scope your reports use so first-touch and latest-touch are not conflated.
Keep UTM lowercase and stable so the same campaign does not appear as several property values.
How it appears in analytics and logs
UTM-based acquisition properties on a Heap session confirm the landing URL carried campaign tags; Heap derives them from the URL at session start, so a missing source usually means an untagged landing.
Diagnostic use case
Segment Heap behavioral data by acquisition source using the UTM-derived marketing properties Heap captures automatically on the first session pageview.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID complements Heap by recording the same UTM-tagged landing hit server-side as a campaign touch, providing a source signal independent of client-side autocapture.
Common mistakes
- Mixing first-touch user and current-session campaign properties in one report.
- Assuming autocapture fixes inconsistent or missing UTM tags.
- Inconsistent casing splitting one campaign across property values.
Privacy and accuracy notes
Heap's UTM properties describe the acquisition campaign, not the person. As always, region stays a coarse edge estimate; WebmasterID records the campaign touch without raw IP or exact location.
Related pages
- UTM tracking in Mixpanel
Mixpanel's JavaScript SDK automatically captures the five standard UTM parameters from the page URL and stores them as properties on tracked events, and can persist the first values as user profile properties. This makes UTM the basis for acquisition-channel breakdowns in Mixpanel without extra instrumentation, provided you understand when the values are read and how they persist.
- UTM tracking in Amplitude
Amplitude's browser SDK can automatically capture the five standard UTM parameters and store them as event properties and as initial and latest user properties. This supports acquisition-channel breakdowns and first-touch attribution in Amplitude charts without custom tagging beyond the link itself.
- UTM limits for multi-touch attribution
UTM tags are excellent at labelling a click, but a customer journey has many touches and UTM only stamps the ones that pass through tagged links. This page is an honest account of the last-non-direct caveat and the limits of building multi-touch attribution on UTM alone.
- Attribution analytics
Reconcile session and user-level campaign attribution.
Sources and verification notes
- Heap Docs — Marketing attribution / UTMHeap autocaptures UTM parameters as acquisition properties for segmentation.
Last reviewed 2026-06-24. Facts are checked against primary/official sources where available; uncertain specifics are marked “Data not yet verified” rather than guessed.