It’s surprising to see the number of Shopify merchants using UTM parameters wrongly – or not even using them.
Unfortunately, that’s the case even with Facebook Ads or marketing professionals.
We prepared a practical tutorial on ideal UTM setup on Facebook Ads, covering:
and more to help you set everything up correctly.
Follow along and make sure to apply it to every Ads campaign.
Important: you should have proper UTM settings even if you use Facebook Conversion API on Shopify.
Facebook Conversion API will only get the data into your Facebook Pixel, but you still want to use your marketing campaigns’ performance on Google Analytics.
Let’s start with common mistakes:
You don’t need to worry about Facebook Ads.
However, if you want to create UTM parameters for other placements, you can always use Google’s UTM Builder.
You will type your landing page URL and the UTM details, and the new URL with the UTM parameters will be automatically generated.
Important: UTM parameters are automatically sent to GA4. But if you want to populate dimensions like Utm Manual Content or Utm Manual Term, and to ensure Shopify accurately attributes conversion data—such as displaying paid ad campaign names in the “Sales Attributed to Marketing” report— You may want to manually add UTM parameters to all Google Ads campaigns and other paid channels.
There are five UTM parameters, and three of them are required.
Most Shopify stores rely on Facebook and Instagram as marketing channels.
More often than not, we see the wrong use of UTM parameters. Make sure to follow the steps below for each Facebook Ad Campaign/Ad you are running.
Before you move on, here is a Complete Guide to Shopify- Facebook Pixel Integration:
In that guide you can find all about Shopify & Facebook Pixel Integrations, setup methods, trips & tricks, Facebook Conversion API, product feed and more.
The most common mistake is that advertisers tend to place the UTM parameters in the Website URL section.
DO NOT use UTM parameters in the URL field:
The URL field should only include the landing page URL.
The parameters should be excluded from here.
If it’s a shopping ad, you don’t have to do anything here as the URL will be retrieved from the catalog.
Scroll down to the “Tracking” section and there is a specific section for UTM parameters called: URL Parameters.
Facebook allows you to add dynamic fields to the UTMs.
That means you don’t have to type the campaign and/or ad set names for each. So the ideal format we propose includes the dynamic parameters.
Here you go:
Ideal UTM Structure for Facebook Ads
utm_source={{placement}}&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_id={{campaign.id}}&utm_term={{ad.id}}&utm_content={{adset.name}}
Make sure that you have copied it correctly.So when you paste this code into your Ads, the values will be dynamically changed for each ad set and campaign so you do not need to worry about creating different UTMs for each ad set.
Let’s break it down:
Please make sure to include this in ALL OF YOUR ADS. You should expect your Google Analytics > Campaigns report to look like this:
UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) codes are added at the end of the URL to define where this specific traffic comes from.
For example, we would like users to visit our homepage (or any other landing page) when running ads for our store. And most probably we are running more than one ad. This is where the UTM parameters come into play.
If I use the same URL for both campaigns, I will not be able to differentiate the performance of these 2 campaigns on Google Analytics.
URL Without UTM:
Campaign 1: https://analyzify.com/
Campaign 2: https://analyzify.com/
URL With UTM:
Campaign 1: https://analyzify.com?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=AdName1&utm_campaign=Campaign1
Campaign 2: https://analyzify.com?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=AdName1&utm_campaign=Campaign2
This way, Google Analytics will be able to recognize the campaign name, the traffic source, ad name, and even more parameters if we provide.
We know you love Pinterest Ads as well! Facebook and Pinterest use different dynamic parameters. We have also prepared a UTM code block that will work on Pinterest Ads.
Here you go: Ideal UTM Structure for Pinterest Ads
utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign={campaign_name}&utm_id={adid}&utm_term={keyword}&utm_content={adgroup_name}
Make sure that you have copied it correctly.Here are the most common questions about UTM setup for Facebook ads:
UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters are tracking codes added to URLs to help you identify where your traffic comes from.
For Shopify stores running multiple Facebook ad campaigns, UTMs are essential because they allow you to:
There are three required UTM parameters:
Two optional parameters are:
Your UTM structure should include:
UTM parameters should be added in the “URL Parameters” section under “Tracking” – NOT in the Website URL field. The Website URL field should only contain your landing page URL without any parameters.
Facebook provides campaign & ad level conversion reports and results.
However, it is always great to keep an eye on Google Analytics reports as well.
You will see different results as they use different attribution models. It can be quite insightful.
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