Overview

Ministries today increasingly rely on digital platforms to engage with their members and reach out to the world. Often leaders see the need to 'go digital' but struggle to find a comprehensive approach to measuring success. Digital spending can feel reckless or wasted, when it's not possible to understand how successful initiatives have been.

A Proven Technology

Launched in 2002 by Urchin Software, UTM codes were a revolutionary change in understanding website traffic. Instead of only having website access logs, the use of specially formatted text in URLs allows for a much deeper and detailed understanding of where traffic is coming from. UTM codes follow a basic pattern and use up to five different codes.  

1. Source identifies where the person using the URL came from.
2. Medium identifies the type of link, such as email or search.
3. Campaign is used to identify a specific promotion or strategy.
4. Term identifies any specific search terms that were used.
5. Content is used to identify specifically what a person clicked on to get to your ministry site.

Creating UTM Codes

Let’s look at an example of what using UTM codes might look like.

We start with our URL highlighted in green:

Each code is appended as a parameter. The first part of the UTM will begin after the question mark. Our example starts with the Source, highlighted in orange. It shows this person is coming from Instagram:

Next, we have the Medium highlighted in blue. In this case, it’s social:

Finally, our example shows the Campaign name that groups these activities with other links that are part of the same overall effort:

Most analytics platforms require source, medium and campaign, leaving term and content as optional fields.  

Using UTM Codes with Rock

Rock will natively collect any UTM code present in your URL and store them in your Rock database as a part of your interactions. Rock is currently fully UTM capable, there is no need to purchase or install additional software to start leveraging this tool today.

A recent update in v16.6 ensures that UTM codes from any URL are captured and all interactions during the individual's session are stored with the original codes. This allows you to attribute all activity in the session to the source accurately. Earlier versions will only store them for the initial page load.

UTM codes are a powerful tool when combined with Rock’s Short Links. When defining your short links, you can add UTM codes to the redirects you configure. In version 17, a purpose-built user interface makes assigning UTM codes much easier. This version also adds analytics capabilities to short links, allowing you to view reports on your generated traffic and partition data by the defined UTM codes. 

Rock version 17 also provides Defined Types to help you configure UTM campaigns, mediums and sources. By defining a set list of values for these codes you can ensure your marketing campaigns will launch without a hitch.

Dataviews and SQL both have access to reporting on Interactions and the UTM code values that they store. This can be connected back to known members and the other personalization data present in Rock. This means that not only can an organization know how many people responded to a campaign, they can also know who responded and all the demographic information that comes with that knowledge.

Rock’s personalization segment filters include access to UTM code data, allowing personalization on your Rock website to leverage your campaigns UTM data when presenting content to the people you serve. 

Applying UTM Code Tracking to Ministry

Leveraging UTM codes in ministry tools isn't jumping on a bandwagon, it is getting in line with industry standards that have stood the test of time. If you aren't using UTM codes, you should be. If you are but don't see the value, it is past time to be sure your strategy in deploying UTM codes is well thought out and effective. 

UTMs take your interactions and add a crucial element, information about what brought about the click that put the person on your site. Digital outreach efforts, other online ministry tools, grassroots campaigns and any other channels or platforms become directly trackable. When you use UTMs you not only see a visit but understand that the visit came from a member sharing on social media, an email campaign or ad spend. Rather than guessing or inferring if traffic volume coincides with those behaviors, using UTMs allows for hard data showing what is effective and what isn't. In Rock’s fully integrated environment, it’s possible to put an ROI on digital initiatives tied directly to attendance, next steps or any other activity recorded in Rock.

Measuring Outreach and Engagement

Because the church determines the parameter values, they can be as granular as you like and it's that granularity that can make measurement as precise as you would like. UTMs are infinitely flexible, which means they need careful planning and management to be useful. 

UTM codes are a critical piece of good leadership and good stewardship. Finding and maintaining your strongest channels is important. And this data is important not just to church leadership, it can be a critical tool of keeping givers informed about the ministry impact that their investment is making possible.

Optimizing Investment and Galvanizing Community

UTM codes will let you evaluate and optimize your digital spending. 

When the people of your church are a part of your digital presence, using UTM codes as a part of the strategy allows you to report to them on the effectiveness of their work. There is no greater motivator than a sense of ownership and participation. 

Rock churches can start using UTM codes right now. Even more tools and functionality are coming to Rock.

Thoughtful Planning

The sheer amount of flexibility and power available make a measured, thoughtful approach worth the time and effort.

Setting standards, thinking through a wholistic approach, and bringing in all stakeholders is critical. It can make the difference between UTM codes being transformative and UTM codes being a bunch of text snippets spread all over, adding to confusion rather than bringing clarity.

Henry Blackaby said, “Watch to see where God is working and join Him in His work.” UTM codes are a window to see where God is moving through your church in the digital space.