What is UTM tracking and is it worth setting up?

What a UTM parameter is

systeme.io's definition: short codes added to a URL to track which traffic sources lead to your pages. They have to be added by hand, one link at a time.

The help centre points at Google's Campaign URL Builder for making them. It asks for the page address, a Campaign Source such as Facebook, a Campaign Medium such as email or paid ads, and a Campaign Name, with Campaign Term and Campaign Content as optional extras.

The setting that makes systeme.io keep them

Tick Store UTM parameters on the Sales funnel settings page.

From then on, when somebody clicks a tagged link and opts in to one of your forms, the parameters are captured against that contact.

Getting the data back out

Open the contacts dashboard, select the contacts you want, click More actions at the bottom right, then Export. The export window lets you choose which UTM parameters to include, and they arrive as columns in the CSV.

The limit worth knowing before you start

systeme.io states that it is currently not possible to track purchases with UTM parameters.

So the question this answers is which link produced a contact. It does not answer which link produced a sale.

Is it worth setting up?

The cost is one checkbox and the discipline of building tagged links every time, which is the part that slips. A link posted without its tags arrives carrying nothing.

The return is telling two sources apart. With one place sending you traffic there is nothing to distinguish, and the box does nothing useful. With five, it is what tells them apart.