How to Set Up UTM Links in Sprout Social | Sprout Bites
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In this Sprout Bites video, you will learn pro tips for UTM tracking in Sprout Social to ensure you're getting proper attribution for traffic driven by organic social. You will see how to set up automated link tracking rules that dynamically append UTM parameters based on the network you're posting to, and how to use presets to efficiently manage campaign tagging across multiple posts without building URLs from scratch.
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Hi, this is Stean from the Professional Services team at Sprout, here to share some of my favorite pro tips for UTM tracking. These are important for making sure you're getting the attribution and credit for all the traffic you're sending to your web properties on organic social. I'm in the Settings page under Link Tracking in the Publishing section, where I have options to create automated rules for link tracking as well as presets. Let me quickly show you the automated rules. This lets me designate static or dynamic UTM parameters for any time I paste a web page into the Compose window from a particular property. Whenever the link I paste matches one of those rules, it will automatically append these parameters. As you can see, we have a link from my blog that automatically pulls in the campaign, the medium, and then a dynamic variable for the social network. So when I take the same link and post it to X, Facebook, or LinkedIn, the parameters will automatically adjust — making my analytics dynamic across networks. My favorite feature, though, is presets. These aren't full automation, but they're a great way to replicate what you might otherwise be managing in a spreadsheet with hundreds of URLs and combinations. What I love about presets is that you don't need the URL — you just set up everything else. In this case, I have a dynamic campaign tag in the Compose window, a static medium, and I'll save this. When I come into a landing page and open the Compose window, it won't append anything automatically, but it lets me edit and select a campaign like "Breaking Ground." When I do that, it creates the dynamic placeholders, and all I have to do is go to the campaign section and tag it with our Breaking Ground campaign. The UTM campaign parameter will then say "breaking ground" on the link shared to social, and that passes through to my analytics. It's one of my favorite workflows because it's so efficient. One more thing worth calling out: dynamic variables don't have to exist only in the dropdown. You can use the custom value field and write a dynamic variable in curly braces, then add anything else you need. This is useful if you're posting from a global profile and want to designate that a link is coming from a specific audience. I hope these tips are helpful — spend 10 to 15 minutes creating at least one automated rule and some presets to make your life a lot easier.
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