Using UTM parameters for internal links on your own site

[Ari_Echt1]

I've read in various places that it's a no-no to put utm tracking parameters on your own site because it could distort the original source. For example, let's say you share a link on twitter that drives to your blog post at blog.yourcompany.com/article-a

And then you have a banner in the side bar of that post that promotes an ebook that's hosted on LP pages.your company.com/ebook. 

And you want track when people download the book that were referred from the blog, so you append the url to: 

pages.your company.com/ebook?utm_source=yourcompany&medium=blog&campaign=x&content=banner

So if person went from twitter, to blog post, to LP and downloaded, that you'd lose the twitter piece in your tracking. 

But Marketo gives you original referrer, which would contain twitter. 

I guess you could also look at referrer URL to see last page that drove them to the download, but UTM parameters just seem better.

So I'm wondering if anyone has opinions either way on whether you should/shouldn't use utm parameters on your own website. 

Thanks. 

[Anonymous]

Hi Ari, 

We use similar parameters to track "first touch" attribution, which for us is the program or activity that brought the person to the site in the first place. We capture that in a cookie and then map it to a field when the lead becomes known. 

We do have other tracking in place for looking at site navigation (we use KissMetrics for this). 

If I was to track this in Marketo I would probably use a different parameter mapped to a different Marketo field. Example, "SiteCTA" or something like that. 

This way you can track what CTAs on your site people are responding to without losing the original source.