A UTM parameter is the text included in the URL to understand where the traffic is coming from and, therefore, which content you’re sharing is the most relevant or best at converting to sales or leads. You can create UTMs via our UTM builder. To view UTMs, scroll down on your dashboard; it’s the bottom box. Note: the UTM box will show any UTM used to drive traffic to your website. Someone else has used a UTM to send you traffic if you don’t recognize it. To ensure no personal data is sent to Fathom, we will strip out any of the following data that is sent to us via UTM or URL parameters:
  • Full names, partial names or usernames
  • Email addresses
  • Phone numbers
  • Mailing addresses
  • IP addresses
  • Credit card information
  • Cookie IDs or advertising IDs
  • Anything that can be used to identify end-users or visitors in any way
By including any of the above data, you violate our terms of service (and in violation of privacy laws if you do not expressly ask for consent to collect it) and can risk having your account deleted.

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How UTM attribution works with Events

If you’re using UTMs to track marketing campaigns, Fathom Analytics allows you to measure how your inbound links contribute to conversions through Events. Here’s how attribution works when tracking conversions with Events:
  • When a visitor lands on your site via a UTM-tagged link (from a paid ad, social post, email campaign, etc.), their session is associated with that UTM.
  • If they trigger an event at any point during their session (even on a different page than their entry page), that event completion will be attributed to the UTM that brought them to your site.
  • To analyse attribution, you can filter your dashboard by clicking on a specific UTM parameter (e.g., utm_campaign=spring_sale). Doing so will show:
    • The entry page of visitors who arrived via that UTM in the Pages box.
    • The number of event completions/conversions from that UTM-driven traffic in the Events box.
Example of UTM attribution

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Best practices for tracking UTM attribution with Events

  1. Use UTMs in all inbound links – Ensure your paid ads, social posts, and email links include UTM parameters so you can track performance effectively.
  2. Filter your dashboard by UTMs – This allows you to measure how well each campaign, source, medium, etc. is driving conversions via event tracking.
  3. Monitor different event types – Whether it’s a form submission, button click, or purchase, you can attribute these events back to their originating UTM source.
  4. Customise event conversion calculations – You can adjust how conversions are calculated in your site settings. By default, the conversion rate is calculated using Page views, but you can change the calculation to use People instead. Learn more about this setting here.