UTM Parameters for Your Link in Bio: Track What Social Traffic Really Does

Your link-in-bio page can tell you which buttons get tapped. It can't tell you what happens next: whether that visitor bought something, signed up or left after five seconds. Your website's analytics can, but only if it knows the visitor came from your bio page. UTM parameters are how you tell it.

What UTM parameters are

UTM parameters are tags added to the end of a link. They don't change where the link goes. They tell analytics tools such as Google Analytics where the visit came from.

A tagged link looks like this:

https://yourshop.com/hoodies?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=bio&utm_campaign=winter-drop

Everything after the ? is the tag. When someone opens that link, your analytics records the visit as coming from Instagram, via your bio, for the winter drop.

The five tags

• utm_source: where the visitor came from, such as instagram, tiktok or youtube.
• utm_medium: the type of placement, such as bio, social or email.
• utm_campaign: what you're promoting, such as winter-drop or album-launch.
• utm_content (optional): which link or button, useful when two buttons go to the same site.
• utm_term (optional): mostly used for paid search keywords; you can skip it.

The first three are the ones that matter. Most analytics tools group visits by source, medium and campaign.

Which links to tag

Only tag links that go to sites you can see analytics for: your shop, your website, your booking page. Don't bother tagging links to Spotify, YouTube or someone else's site. You can't see their analytics, and some platforms strip the tags anyway.

A simple naming system

UTM tags are only useful if they're consistent. Decide your names once and stick to them:

• Always lowercase: instagram, not Instagram or IG. Most analytics tools treat different spellings as different sources.
• Use hyphens, not spaces: spring-sale, not spring sale.
• Keep a short list somewhere: which source names you use, which medium (bio), and the campaign name for each promotion.

One page, many platforms

If the same bio page sits on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, the tags on its buttons can't know which app the visitor opened it from. You have two options:

1. Use a broad source. Tag the links utm_source=linkinbio&utm_medium=social. Your analytics then shows how much traffic and how many sales your bio page drives overall. Your link-in-bio analytics shows which platform sent people to the page.
2. Use separate pages. If you need per-platform numbers all the way to the sale, keep a separate page for each platform with its own tags. LiteLinks Lite allows 3 pages and Pro allows 10.

For most people, option one is enough.

Tag different buttons separately

If two buttons go to the same site, say "New hoodies" and "All products", add utm_content so you can tell them apart:

• ...&utm_content=hoodies-button
• ...&utm_content=all-products-button

Now you can see not just which button gets tapped, but which one leads to more sales.

Building tagged links

You don't need a tool. Take your link, add ? (or & if it already has a ?), then the tags joined with &. Paste the full link into the button's URL field.

Before you save, open the tagged link once yourself to check the page still loads normally.

Reading the results

In your analytics, look for traffic grouped by source, medium and campaign. Compare campaigns against each other: which promotion sent the most visitors, and which one turned the most visitors into customers. Then use what you learn to decide what goes in the top spot next time.

For the other half of the picture, see how to get more clicks, or read about smart links, which can send each visitor to a different destination.