Guide

UTM parameters and short links

· Keep public links tidy, analytics complete

Team collaborating on a marketing campaign at a whiteboard
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UTM parameters label traffic in analytics—they are useful in dashboards and noisy in bios. Short links let you keep both.

Typical fields include utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, and sometimes utm_content or utm_term. They are powerful—and painful to paste raw into a tweet.

The pattern that works

Create a short link whose destination is your landing page including UTMs. Publicly you share npl.ac/launch; internally the redirect appends the structured query string analysts expect. Everyone sees a neat link; your dashboards still segment channels.

Preserving query strings on click

Some workflows append extra parameters when the short URL is clicked—for example A/B tags or affiliate IDs. A well-behaved shortener merges those carefully so nothing collides with your UTMs. When testing, click your link from different placements (email client, mobile browser) and confirm the final URL in the address bar.

Hygiene matters

  • Use lowercase, hyphenated campaign names for consistency.
  • Document your naming convention in a one-page spec for the team.
  • Pair UTMs with the branded slugs in our branding guide.

Need channel-by-channel examples (Google, Bing, Stripe, Nimble, ChatGPT)? See the full UTM guide for every major platform.