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UTM Tracking in Goldcast 

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What is a UTM Parameter?

A UTM parameter is a short piece of code that is added to the end of a URL. UTM parameters include information about the placement and purpose of the URL in different campaigns and are used to measure the success of different campaigns in driving visitors from external sources to one of your webpages.

There are 5 standard UTM parameters:

utm_source

utm_medium

utm_campaign

utm_term

utm_content

You can learn more about the function of each UTM parameter here.

How can UTM Parameters be used?

Let's walk through an example UTM parameter use case. Say we're holding an event and want to market the event on Twitter and LinkedIn to drive registrations. Our Twitter campaign will be made up of organic posts from the organizer's of our event. The LinkedIn campaign will use paid ads to market our event. In order to tell which campaign resulted in more registrants we will generate two different registration URLs by adding UTM values

The URL we include in our Twitter post may look something like this:

https://goldcasttest.registration.goldcast.io/events/737e1e22-372b-4921-9ccd-d5252811e1bd?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=organic_post&utm_campaign=UTM_Introduction_Webinar 

And the URL we include in our LinkedIn post may look something like this:

https://goldcasttest.registration.goldcast.io/events/737e1e22-372b-4921-9ccd-d5252811e1bd?utm_source=linkedIn&utm_medium=paid_post&utm_campaign=UTM_Introduction_Webinar 

Notice that the only differences in the two links above is the values assigned to the utm_source and utm_medium parameters.

Generating Registration Links with UTMs

The ? in the URLs above mark the end of the generic event registration url and the start of the UTM parameter code snippet.

In the UTM code snippet we have UTM parameters on the left hand side of each =, and values assigned to each UTM parameter on the right hand side of each =. In the examples above, UTM_source is a parameter, and LinkedIn and Twitter are values assigned to it.

Each UTM parameter and value pair is separated by an &. You can add as many unique UTM Parameters and values to the end of your URL as long as they are separated by &s.

The parameters should stay consistent across all the different registration urls you are going to generate. What varies will be the value assigned to each parameter. In the example above you can see that the LinkedIn URL has a utm_source value of LinkedIn, but the twitter has a utm_source value of Twitter. When we track the UTM values during registration, the values are what will be collected on each registration, and they will categorized together for comparison based on the parameter they are assigned to.

Enable UTM Parameters in Goldcast 

Generate unique registration links with UTM parameters

The first step is to identify all the campaigns where you will link your event's registration page. For each of these campaigns you should generate a unique registration page url by taking the generic registration page URL and adding on a unique UTM snippet which has values that will help you distinguish registrations coming from this particular URL.

Set up your registration form to track UTM parameters

To set up your form to collect UTM parameters, you can simply drag and drop the parameters you want to track from the form field library on the left side of the Goldcast Form Builder into your event's form: 

  • Log in to Goldcast Studio with your credentials
  • Click the hamburger icon hamburger-menu-line-icon-free-vector.jpgon the top left, and select the Events tab to get a list of all your events                             
  • Click on the event you want to update from your events list
  • Click Registration on the menu on the left side of your event
  • Scroll to the Registration Form section and click Edit on the right side
  • This will open the Goldcast Form Builder - from here you can select the UTM fields you need and drag and drop them onto your form 

If you are using the 5 standard UTM fields then your form will look something like this:

The UTM Fields are hidden fields and will not be seen by registrants. They will automatically grab the values assigned to each of the UTM parameters from the URL and submit them with the rest of the user's registration data.

Each UTM parameter you are trying to track needs to have a hidden field in your form.

Once your registration form is setup properly you can go ahead and start your registration campaigns. 

Tracking UTM Data 

UTM data collected during registration can be found in your event on the admin panel.

In the Registrants Tab

Navigate into the event you want to see UTM data for and click on the Registration section and then click the Registrants tab. Here you will be able to see all your event's registrants and the data collected from them during registration, including UTM data.

In the Pre Event Dashboard

To view UTM data in the Pre-Event Dashboard: 

  • Log in to Goldcast Studio with your credentials.
  • Click the hamburger icon hamburger-menu-line-icon-free-vector.jpgon the top left, and select the Events tab to get a list of all your events.                             
  • From the Events list, click the event you want to edit.
  • Navigate to the Analytics section from the menu on the left
  • Select the Pre-Event Dashboard, and scroll to the Event Registrant Details table. You may have to scroll to the right in the table to see the UTM columns like in the example below.
  • You can also download the registrant data from this table as a CSV using the download button in the bottom right of the table.

Exporting UTM data to Downstream Integrations

You can also send collected UTM data to your integrations using our field mapping feature. 

For more information, see our help docs on Marketo and Hubspot field mappings.  

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