UTM Parameters in AcelleMail — Tracking Clicks to Your Analytics Tool

Why UTMs and where they go#

UTM parameters are query-string tags appended to your campaign's outbound links — ?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring_launch — that your analytics tool (Google Analytics, Plausible, Fathom, Matomo) reads to attribute traffic + conversions back to the email that drove them.

Without UTMs, every click from your email shows up as (direct) / (none) in analytics. With UTMs, you see "spring_launch newsletter drove 1,847 sessions and 312 conversions" — the kind of report you can defend in a quarterly review.

The good news: AcelleMail handles this for you at the campaign level. Set it once, every link gets tagged.

Set UTMs in the campaign builder#

1. Open campaign settings → URL parameters#

When you create or edit a campaign, the Tracking (or URL parameters) section in campaign settings has fields for the standard UTM keys:

• utm_source — where the click came from. For email: usually newsletter or your brand name like acellemail.
• utm_medium — the channel. Almost always email for AcelleMail-driven sends.
• utm_campaign — the specific campaign identifier — spring_launch_2026, weekly_digest_w17, cart_abandonment_v3.
• utm_term (optional) — usually paid-search specific, sometimes used for segment-of-list identification.
• utm_content (optional) — variant identifier — header_cta vs footer_cta to A/B test which link position pulls more.

A standard configuration:

utm_source:   newsletter
utm_medium:   email
utm_campaign: spring_launch_2026

Click Save. AcelleMail will append these to every link in the email automatically — you don't need to add ?utm_source=... to each individual <a href> in the body.

2. Verify in Preview#

Open the email Preview, hover over any link — the URL shown at the bottom of the screen will include the UTM query string. If you don't see it:

• Check that Tracking is enabled in the campaign settings (some installs default it off)
• The link is to your own domain (some setups skip UTM-tagging on external partner links)
• The URL doesn't already have query parameters that conflict (AcelleMail will append &utm_source=... rather than overwrite)

Read the click report after sending#

Tracking log — per-click audit#

Campaign → Tracking log tab shows every action (open, click, bounce) with timestamp + subscriber:

For UTM verification, find a Click row → the destination URL stored is the original link (without UTMs) — AcelleMail tracks the click event server-side via the redirect, then forwards the user to the URL with UTMs appended.

Click log — link-level click breakdown#

The Click log tab focuses on click events specifically:

Links report — aggregated per-link totals#

The Links report rolls everything up — per-link click count + unique clickers:

This is the most useful view for content optimization: "Did our footer CTA outperform the header CTA?" → look at the per-link click count.

Click map — visualisation of where clicks went#

The Click map overlays click counts on the rendered email:

The heatmap tells you the same thing as the Links report, but visually — useful for layout decisions ("our main button is below the fold; almost all clicks come from the inline text link above").

Campaign overview — top-line metrics#

The campaign Overview tab shows the summary:

This is what you screenshot for stakeholder reports — open rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate, all aggregated.

How the UTMs show up in Google Analytics#

After the campaign sends and recipients click, your analytics tool (GA4 / Plausible / etc.) starts recording sessions with the source = newsletter / medium = email / campaign = spring_launch_2026.

In Google Analytics 4: Reports → Acquisition → Traffic Acquisition → filter by Session source / medium = newsletter / email.

In Plausible: filter by Source = newsletter directly on the dashboard.

The UTMs persist across page navigations within the session, so even if the recipient clicks your email → lands on /pricing → navigates to /signup → converts, the conversion is attributed back to the email.

Common UI signals + fixes#

Common UTM conventions worth adopting#

header CTA:
  utm_source:   newsletter
  utm_medium:   email
  utm_campaign: spring_launch_2026
  utm_content:  header_cta

footer CTA:
  utm_source:   newsletter
  utm_medium:   email
  utm_campaign: spring_launch_2026
  utm_content:  footer_cta

<a href="https://example.com/upgrade?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring_launch&utm_term={{ subscriber.signup_plan }}">
  Upgrade your plan
</a>

// Laravel middleware example
if ($request->has('utm_source')) {
    session([
        'first_touch' => [
            'source' => $request->get('utm_source'),
            'medium' => $request->get('utm_medium'),
            'campaign' => $request->get('utm_campaign'),
            'landed_at' => now(),
        ],
    ]);
}

curl -X PATCH "https://acellemail.com/api/v1/campaigns/{campaign_uid}" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACELLE_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "track_open": true,
    "track_click": true,
    "url_tags": {
      "utm_source": "newsletter",
      "utm_medium": "email",
      "utm_campaign": "weekly_digest_w17",
      "utm_content": "auto_generated"
    }
  }'

Related articles#

• Email analytics — beyond open and click rates
• Email template design — best practices
• A/B testing email campaigns — best practices
• Personalization beyond first name — advanced merge tags