UTM Campaigns
Track marketing campaigns in Pulse using UTM parameters and source fallbacks.
Pulse reads UTM parameters from the landing page URL and attributes each session to a campaign automatically. No extra configuration is needed — just tag your links.
Parameters Pulse captures
| Parameter | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
utm_source | Where the traffic originates | google, newsletter, twitter |
utm_medium | The marketing channel | cpc, email, social |
utm_campaign | The specific campaign name | spring-sale, product-launch |
utm_term | Paid-search keyword | running-shoes |
utm_content | Tells apart similar links or ad variants | header-link, footer-link |
Pulse also recognises source and ref as fallback source parameters for shorter links where full UTM tagging isn't practical.
Note
UTM values are captured on the first page of the session. If a visitor lands on a tagged URL and then navigates to other pages, all pageviews in that session are attributed to the original UTM values.
Tagging your links
Append parameters to any destination URL:
https://yoursite.com/landing?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=april-digestUse a consistent naming convention. Pulse is case-sensitive — Email and email will appear as separate sources.
Warning
Avoid using UTM parameters on internal links. Tagging links between your own pages will overwrite the original attribution for that session.
Campaigns panel
The Campaigns panel on the dashboard shows visitor counts broken down by UTM source, medium, campaign, term, and content. Switch between the five tabs to explore each dimension.
Click any row to filter the entire dashboard by that value. Combine filters — for example, filter by utm_source = google and utm_medium = cpc simultaneously — to isolate a specific ad campaign's performance.
Channels tab in Referrers
The Traffic channels tab in the Referrers panel aggregates sessions into broader buckets (Organic Search, Paid Search, Direct, Social, Email, etc.) based on UTM medium values and known referrer domains. This gives a quick high-level view without needing to inspect individual campaigns.
What each tab means
Underneath the tabs, every row in the Campaigns panel is one full (source, medium, campaign, term, content) combination, ranked by distinct visitors. Switching tabs doesn't re-fetch anything — it re-groups those same combinations by a single field, summing visitors and pageviews and taking a visitors-weighted mean of bounce rate and duration for each group.
Warning
The Campaigns panel only ever shows tagged traffic. A pageview appears here — on any tab — only if it carried a utm_source; sessions with no UTM parameters at all never show up. For a breakdown that includes untagged traffic, use Referrers or the Channels tab above instead.
Source
Grouped by the utm_source value that tagged the link a visitor clicked — newsletter, twitter.
Medium
Grouped by the utm_medium value — cpc, email, social. This is the same field the Channels classifier reads first when it sorts traffic into Paid Search, Paid Social, Display, Affiliate, Email, or SMS.
Campaign
Grouped by the utm_campaign value — spring-sale. Separates traffic by which campaign a link belonged to rather than which channel carried it.
Term
Grouped by the utm_term value, conventionally a paid-search keyword.
Content
Grouped by the utm_content value, conventionally used to tell apart two links or ad variants that share the same source, medium, and campaign — a header link versus a footer link pointing at the same page, for example.