Documentation And Examples Library

Why this matters

A clear Documentation & Examples Library turns UTM chaos into reliable reporting. As a Marketing Analyst, you’ll use it to ensure every team builds trackable, comparable links—so your dashboards reflect reality instead of guesswork.

• Onboard teammates fast with examples they can copy safely.
• Reduce tagging errors before they hit analytics tools.
• Standardize naming to enable channel and campaign rollups.
• Speed up QA with checklists and known-good patterns.

Who this is for

• Marketing Analysts and Growth Marketers who maintain tracking standards.
• Campaign managers who generate UTMs.
• Data/Analytics leads responsible for data quality and governance.

Prerequisites

• Basic understanding of UTM parameters (source, medium, campaign, content, term).
• Familiarity with your analytics platform’s case sensitivity and channel mapping rules.
• A decision on naming style (e.g., lowercase, hyphen-separated).

Concept explained simply

A Documentation & Examples Library is a single source of truth that shows how to name and build UTM parameters—with specific, copyable examples for each channel. It includes rules, dictionaries, templates, and a change log so people always know the latest guidance.

The core structure of a UTM Documentation & Examples Library

1. Purpose & Scope — What the library covers and who owns it.
2. Global Rules — Case, separators, encoding, allowed characters.
3. Parameter Dictionaries — Approved values for utm_source, utm_medium, optional fields per channel.
4. Templates — Copyable link skeletons and naming patterns.
5. Channel-Specific Examples — Known-good, end-to-end examples for Paid Search, Social, Email, etc.
6. QA Checklist — A quick test before links go live.
7. Change Log — What changed, when, and why.
8. Ownership & Request Path — Who to contact for new values or exceptions.

Worked examples

Copy these and adapt to your brand. Replace domain and IDs as needed.

https://example.com/pricing?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid-search&utm_campaign=productlaunch-2025q1-global&utm_term={keyword}&utm_content=rsas-1

https://example.com/offer?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid-social&utm_campaign=offer-q2-retargeting&utm_content=video-15s

https://example.com/blog?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl-2025-04&utm_content=cta-top

https://example.com/product?utm_source=aff-shoeco&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=spring-collection-2025&utm_content=story-swipeup

Build it step-by-step (60-minute sprint)

1. Decide global rules (10 min)
   • Case: lowercase only
   • Separator: hyphens
   • Encoding: no spaces
   • Dates: yyyy-mm or yyyyqN
2. Create parameter dictionaries (15 min)

   utm_source: google, bing, facebook, instagram, newsletter, qr, aff-{partner}
   utm_medium: paid-search, paid-social, email, organic-social, affiliate, offline
   utm_campaign: {initiative}-{yyyyqN}-{geo}
   utm_content: {format|placement|variant}
   utm_term: {keyword|audience|empty}

3. Add templates (10 min)

   Base: https://yourdomain.com/{path}?utm_source={source}&utm_medium={medium}&utm_campaign={campaign}&utm_content={content}&utm_term={term}

4. Write channel examples (15 min)

   Start with Paid Search, Paid Social, Email, Affiliate.

5. Publish QA checklist + change log (10 min)

   QA: values lowercase? hyphens only? source/medium valid? campaign unique? works after click? no PII?

   Change log row: 2025-04-10 | Added medium=offline | Owner: Analytics | Reason: QR rollout

Exercises

These exercises mirror the tasks below. Your results won't be auto-saved unless you log in. The quick test is available to everyone; log in to save your progress.

1. Exercise ex1: Create two fully formed URLs (Email and Paid Social) using the rules above. Ensure lowercase, hyphens, and unique campaign names. Include utm_content that distinguishes placement or creative.

Common mistakes & self-checks

• Mixing cases (Email vs email). Self-check: scan for uppercase letters.
• Spaces or underscores in values. Self-check: confirm only hyphens in values.
• Inconsistent mediums (social vs paid-social). Self-check: compare with dictionary.
• Reusing campaign names. Self-check: include date/phase identifier.
• Missing content leading to uncomparable variants. Self-check: does content describe placement/creative?
• Using PII in UTMs. Self-check: remove names, emails, phone numbers.

Practical projects

• Build a 1-page UTM handbook: include rules, dictionaries, 4 channel examples, and the QA checklist.
• Audit last 30 days of links: list violations, propose fixes, and update the library.
• Create a reusable campaign-naming generator (even a simple spreadsheet) that outputs allowed values.

Learning path

• After documentation: implement link builders (forms or spreadsheets).
• Then: set up QA and automated checks (regex validations in forms).
• Then: map UTMs to channels in your analytics tool for consistent reporting.
• Finally: govern changes with a lightweight approval process.

Next steps

• Adopt the global rules and dictionaries in your team immediately.
• Add at least 4 worked examples that match your top channels.
• Schedule a monthly 15-minute review of the change log and open requests.

Mini challenge

Write two utm_campaign values for the same initiative that are unique and sortable by time and geo. Example pattern: launch-2025q2-us and launch-2025q2-eu. Then draft a matching example URL for each channel.