How to configure URL parameters and the difference with UTM

This feature is only available with paid plans.
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This article will teach you how to configure  Rebrandly URL query parameters. This feature is usually offered only with paid plans. Look at our pricing page to compare different plans.

 What is the difference between URL and UTM parameters?

UTM and URL parameters are both types of query string parameters that can be appended to a URL to provide additional information. However, there are some key differences between the two.

UTM parameters (Urchin Tracking Module) are specifically designed for tracking the performance of online marketing campaigns. They are a set of five predefined parameters:

• Source: The website or app that referred a visitor to your site.
• Medium: The marketing channel that brings a visitor to your site, such as email, social media, or paid advertising.
• Campaign: The specific campaign that sent a visitor to your site.
• Term: The specific search term that a visitor used to find your site.
• Content: The specific piece of content that a visitor clicked on to reach your site.

Examples:
- URL: https://rebrandly.com/price

- URL with UTM: https://rebrandly.com/price/?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=banner1&utm_campaign=blog

- URL with URL parameters: https://rebrandly.com/price/?productid=1234&cc=134 

URL parameters are more general-purpose and can be used to track a variety of data, such as customer IDs, product codes, or even the location of a visitor. They are not as specific as UTM parameters, but they can be more flexible.

In Rebrandly, you can use either UTM parameters or URL parameters to track your branded links. However, UTM parameters are generally recommended for tracking online marketing campaigns, while URL parameters are more appropriate for other tracking needs.

Here is a summary of when to use each type of parameter:

• Use UTM parameters for tracking marketing campaigns.
• Use URL parameters for adding any other additional information to your URLs, such as tracking custom variables, setting cookies, or redirecting users to different pages.

Parameters are usually attached to the destination URL. The most known query parameters in the digital marketing world are the UTMs. Rebrandly lets you also configure additional parameters for each workspace. For example, you may want to attach the affiliate ID to the destination URL or specific data from your marketing campaign to collect data in your business intelligence system. You can also use dynamic variables based on the click data and presets. Let's see how. 

 A query parameter is a <key, value> pair, URL-encoded as key=value. A query string is a set of query parameters added to the end of a URL, beginning with a “?” symbol, with each parameter separated by “&” symbols.

https://www.website.com?parameter1=valueA&parameter2=value2

The benefit of adding query parameters to your links is that they can help you define specific content or actions, or trace traffic information based on the values passed to the parameters. Rebrandly provides a tool to easily manage query parameters, to quickly build any query string you want.

By default, there are five prefilled parameters you will find when you open the built-in URL parameter manager - the UTM parameters: Source, Medium, Campaign, Term and Content.

In each workspace, you can also create customized parameters. The customization will be visible to all teammates of that specific workspace.

Procedure for setting up dynamic UTM parameter

1. Log in to your Rebrandly Account: To start, log in to your Rebrandly account.

2. Access the Workspace: Go to the workspace in which you want to set up your dynamic UTM parameters.

3. Open URL Parameter Manager: By default, Rebrandly has five prefilled UTM parameters - Source, Medium, Campaign, Term, and Content. You can use these, or configure additional ones to suit your needs.

4. Add a New Parameter: If you want to add a new parameter, you will need to provide a label, which is a human-friendly name used to easily identify the parameter. The key is the actual name of the parameter pair. It will determine how the parameter is displayed in the destination URL.

NOTE: The type determines how the parameter input appears to you. Here you can choose between plain text or a dropdown with predefined options.

5. Use Presets: Presets can help you create URL parameters faster. Once a set of parameters has been created, presets can be added, edited, or deleted. They can be created either from the workspace setting modal or when adding new parameters to a link.

6. Enable Variables: If this feature is enabled, a set of predefined variables will be shown when choosing a parameter value. If you place a variable as a parameter value, this will be replaced with a specific value from the click value when the link is navigated to. Rebrandly automatically changes the variable with the actual value taken from the click after the branded link is clicked. For example, if the variable is {Country} and someone clicks on the branded link from the UK, the destination URL could look like: https://www.website.com?cc=UK.

The Configuring Presets and Variables

Add/edit a new parameter:

• The label is a  human-friendly name used by the teammate to easily identify the parameter.
• The key is the actual key name of the parameter pair. Not visible to the teammate. It will determine how the parameter is displayed in the destination URL.
• The type determines how the parameter input appears to the teammate. It has two main options you can choose to specify if the pair value will be plain text (or numbers) or a set of predefined options from which a user can select a value (dropdown). Each option must have a human-friendly label and the actual value that will be used to compose the URL query string. A third option, URL structure is available only to custom enterprise plans and needs to be configured by our engineers. This option lets you create concrete and advanced parameter structures. 
• The placeholder provides additional information for the teammate
  
  As a use case example, we will define the following parameter to specify a country code:
  
  

Presets:

Presets lets teammates create the URL parameters even faster.  Once a set of parameters has been created (or just using the five default parameters), presets can be added, edited, or deleted. Presets can be created from the workspace setting modal as well as from the teammate when he/she adds new parameters to a URL. Presets are at the workspace level and visible to all teammates.

Variables:

If this is enabled, a selector showing a predefined choice of variables will be shown when choosing a parameter value. If you place a variable as a parameter value this will be replaced with a specific value from the click value when the link is navigated to.

After the branded link is clicked, Rebrandly automatically changes the variable with the value taken from the click. For example, if the variable is {Country} and someone clicks on the branded link from the United Kingdoms the destination URL will look like that:

https://www.website.com?cc=UK

List of available variables:

• Browser: The browser type used to visit the link
• Country: The country where the visit has been detected (IP-based)
• Device:  Either smartphones, desktops or tablets
• Language: The language of the browser where the click comes from
• Platform: The Operating System used to visit the link
• Referral: The hostname of the referral page
• Source: If a referral is a social or a search engine then is the name of the platform (e.g.: www.facebook.com hence Facebook) otherwise is empty
• Timestamp: The time when the click happened. For each click, you will get this timestamp format attached to the destination URL: "2020-05-04T15:53:00Z"

For our use case, we can cover both preset and variables, creating a preset where we’re going to place in a country code parameter, a variable that will detect the country from which the link is clicked:

The picture below is an example of URL query string composition for the use case: 

Forbidden characters
Certain characters are not allowed in the URL parameter. Letters and numbers are always okay, but if you want to use special characters (like spaces, ;, /, ?, :, @, &, =, +, $, or ,) you cannot use the URL parameter feature.

This article is About:

• What is a URL Parameter?
• Short URLs with parameters
• Customizable URL parameters builder
• Dynamic variables in URL parameters

See Also:

• What is the URL parameter
• How To Use Rebrandly UTM Builder
• How To Store and Use UTM Presets
• 2 Reasons Not to Use Google's New Campaign URL Builder
• How To Add UTM Parameters to Links and Short URLs