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How to add UTM codes to Pinterest Organic & Ad Campaigns

by Tamer
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A UTM code, or Urchin Tracking Module, is a snippet of text that can be added to the end of a URL to track the performance of marketing campaigns. UTM codes are a valuable tool for marketers as they allow them to track the performance of the campaigns and see which tactics are driving the most traffic and conversions. This information can then be used to improve the performance of future campaigns. You can read my blog post What are UTMs? Tips to use them efficiently

UTMs are mainly use to analyze the traffic sources in Google Analytics. UTM codes are a valuable tool for any marketer who wants to improve the performance of their marketing campaigns. By using UTM codes, you can track the performance of your campaigns, measure the ROI of your campaigns, identify your best performing content, and improve your website’s SEO.

If you question how to build Pinterest UTM codes, you can use any online tools such as Campaign URL Builder or create your own template following my references here. But I recommend NOT to copy&paste my examples as you may encounter issues.

After you created the URL with UTM codes, you can simply paste it to the Destination URL field at Pin creation process. And, links with UTMs codes can be added at ad-level same to the Destination URL field for the ad campaigns. Therefore, Shopping campaigns have exception as UTM codes can be added at Targeting section to “URL parameters” field at the “Ad details”.

You can use UTM codes both for any pins you are sharing on your Pinterest profile and also Pinterest ad campaigns. The UTM creation process is the same but you need to select a specific naming convention for both traffic sources to differentiate them in reports. UTM parameters also track the repins of your original Pinterest pins. The parameters connected with a pin are kept when it is repinned.

 

UTM Code Benefits

Do you have to use UTM codes? Absolutely not, but you should! These parameters are added to URLs, helping you to analyze the effectiveness, gain actionable insights and reduce guesswork of social media activities and marketing campaigns with proper tracking. Here are the key benefits of using UTM codes:

  • Analyze the performance of your organic pins and/or ads by using external analytics software, i.e. GA4
  • Identify best-performing traffic and measure the results & ROI by campaign/ad group/pin ad level
  • More accurate attribution
  • Compare or make A/B test of your pins

Pinterest Hard-coded UTM Codes Parameters

Which static parameters are available for Pinterest URM tagging? Simply, there are 6 parameters to use, but source/medium and campaigns are a must to have a basic differentiation for your traffic sources. Therefore, it’s possible to add custom ones if you require to track more data with your URLs.

  • utm_source: The source of the traffic; simply use pinterest
  • utm_medium: The medium of the traffic; better to use “organic, social, social-organic etc.” for organic pins and “paid, social-paid, cpc, clickthrough etc.” for ads in order to separate it from organic/referral Pinterest traffic
  • utm_campaign: The name of the marketing campaign; it should be name of that specific Pinterest campaign name
  • utm_id: you can additionally to use this parameter to identify Campaign IDs if you make regular changes with the name of campaigns.
  • utm_content: The specific piece of content that drove the traffic; it can be the name of your Pin content title or the name or ID of that AdGroup name under the specific Pinterest campaign.
  • utm_term: You can use it to analyze your Pins in detail like date or any keywords or update it with Ads’ name or ID to use this parameter to track Ads performance

My recommended URL structure to use for your Pinterest Ads campaigns is like this;

https://tamerduymaz.com?utm_source=pinterest&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=retargeting&utm_id=123456789&utm_term=seopost&utm_content=visitors

And for any organic pin destination URL might be like this;

https://tamerduymaz.com?utm_source=pinterest&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=seo_article&utm_term=31112023&utm_content=blogpost

Pinterest pin UTM code example

Pinterest Dynamic Tracking UTM Codes Parameters

Similar to Google Ads ValueTrack or Facebook Ads parameters, it’s also possible to use dynamic tracking parameters for Pinterest Ad Campaigns, as well. These placeholder automatically grab the data related to its field and display it on your Analytics reports. It’s actually the most efficient way to set up your ad campaigns as using dynamic parameters helps you to track and analyze the results in detail.

The Pinterest Shopping / Catalog Sales campaigns allow us to use more parameters than standard campaigns. Here is the list of allowed dynamic parameters for Pinterest Ads;

Standard ad destination URLs

  • {campaignid}
  • {campaign_name}, {campaignname}
  • {adgroupid}
  • {ad_group_name}, {adgroupname}
  • {creative_id} – the Pin promotion id
  • {adid} – the Pin promotion id
  • {device}

Here is an example for standart ads like build awareness, conversion or consideration type of campaigns;

https://tamerduymaz.com?utm_source=pinterest&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign={campaign_name}_{ad_group_name}&utm_id={campaignid}&utm_term={device}&utm_content={adid}

pinterest standard campaign url UTM tag example

Catalog Sales / Shopping Campaigns

  • {product_name} – product name
  • {product_id} – product ID
  • {product_partition_id} – product group ID
  • {promoted_product_group_id}: product group ID within Ads Manager
  • {campaignid} – Pinterest campaign ID
  • {adgroupid} – Pinterest ad group ID
  • {product_partition_id} – Pinterest promoted product group ID
  • {device} – “m” for mobile, “t” for tablet, “c” for computer
  • {unescapedlpurl} – Does not encode the link URL or any additional characters after the URL regardless of placement
  • {lpurl} – Used only in the campaign structure it will be replaced by the URL from either “ad_link” or “link” field in the feed.

Here is the example for shopping campaigns;

{lpurl}?utm_source=pinterest&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign={campaign_name}_{ad_group_name}&utm_id={campaignid}&utm_term={product_id}&utm_content={device}

If you have any questions or need support, feel free to reach me out 🙂

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