UTM Campaign Builder

What UTM Campaign Builder helps you do

Campaign URLs fail quietly. One team types Facebook and another facebook, one adds spaces, and the same promotion appears as three rows in analytics. This builder composes a consistent URL from a fixed set of fields, normalizes the values, and hands the result to the link checker when you are ready to test it. It is a naming convention with a form attached.

The URL is assembled in your browser from the values you type. Nothing is sent to Haivix unless you choose to run the Campaign Link Checker, which fetches the destination to inspect redirects.

How it works

The destination is parsed as a URL, and each non-empty field is written into its UTM key. Values are trimmed; with normalization enabled, whitespace is replaced with underscores and the value is lowercased. Empty fields remove that key, so a previously pasted UTM does not linger. The URL is assembled in the page and never sent anywhere unless you open the checker.

How to use UTM Campaign Builder

1. Paste the destination URL, then fill in source, medium, and campaign.
2. Add term, content, or a campaign ID only when you need to distinguish variants.
3. Copy the composed URL, or select Check with Campaign Link Checker to follow its redirects.
4. Keep the convention in a team note so the next campaign uses the same spelling.

When to use it

• Building links for a paid campaign, newsletter, or partner placement.
• Standardizing campaign naming across a team before launch.
• Tracing why two reports show the same campaign under different names.
• Preparing a batch of links for different channels.
• Adding a campaign ID for an internal reporting join.
• Checking a link before it goes into a print piece or a bio.

When not to use it

• Do not use it to shorten a link; run the result through the shortener afterward.
• Do not expect it to fix attribution after a site strips query parameters on redirect.
• Do not add UTM parameters to internal links, where they can overwrite the original source.

Example

A spring launch uses source=newsletter, medium=email, campaign=spring-launch and content=hero-cta. Two sends use the same URL except for the content value, so analytics can compare the hero and text-link variants without splitting the campaign itself.

What you can do with UTM Campaign Builder

• Compose utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign.
• Add optional utm_term, utm_content and utm_id.
• Lowercase values and replace spaces with underscores.
• Preserve the destination's existing query parameters.
• Overwrite UTM keys that are already present.
• Copy the URL or send it to the Campaign Link Checker.

Example: standardize a newsletter link

Paste the landing page and fill in source, medium and campaign. A newsletter link might use source=newsletter, medium=email and campaign=spring-launch.

Leave the normalization option on so the same campaign does not split into Newsletter and newsletter. Add content only when two creative variants need to be told apart.

Copy the URL and use it in the send, then run the link checker to confirm the parameters survive any redirect on the way to the landing page.

What to know before you start

• The builder only adds parameters; it does not shorten the link or create a QR code.
• Consistency is only as good as the convention you follow across future campaigns.
• Some sites strip unknown parameters on redirect, which the checker will reveal.
• Destination URLs that already contain UTM parameters are overwritten with the values entered here.
• It does not validate that the values match a specific analytics platform's rules.

Common mistakes

• Mixing Facebook and facebook across two links.
• Putting a space in a campaign name and getting a value that is hard to read.
• Adding UTMs to internal navigation and losing the original acquisition source.
• Using content when the difference is really the channel; use medium for that.
• Shortening the URL before checking that the parameters survive the redirect.

Troubleshooting

If the campaign appears twice in analytics, compare the exact values; case and spacing are the usual differences.

If a parameter disappears, the destination may strip it on redirect. Run the link checker to see each hop.

If an old UTM value remains, clear the field rather than typing a new value and expecting the old one to be replaced.

If the copied URL looks wrong, check for an existing query string on the destination; the builder preserves those keys.

If a platform truncates the link, shorten it after the UTM values are final.

Related standards and documentation

• UTM parameters are a Google Analytics convention, not an internet standard.
• RFC 3986 defines URI query syntax and percent-encoding.