Direct-mail glossary

UTM parameters

Also known as: UTM tags, campaign tracking parameters, Urchin Tracking Module

UTM parameters are short text strings appended to a URL — such as ?utm_source=postcard&utm_medium=directmail&utm_campaign=spring-recall — that tell your web analytics platform exactly which marketing activity drove a visit.

Why it matters

The five standard UTM parameters are: utm_source (where the traffic came from, e.g. "postcard"), utm_medium (the channel, e.g. "directmail"), utm_campaign (the specific campaign name), utm_content (optional — distinguish between creative variations), and utm_term (optional — keyword or audience sub-segment). When a recipient scans a QR code or types a personal URL from your postcard, the UTM parameters in that link fire in your analytics tool and credit the session to the correct campaign. Without UTMs, a visit from a direct-mail scan looks identical to a direct visit in most analytics tools — so the attribution is lost. With UTMs, you can see exactly how many sessions, conversions, and revenue your postcard campaign drove.

CardCadence

How CardCadence handles it

CardCadence supports UTM parameters on the destination URLs your QR codes point at. When setting up a campaign, you can configure UTM values that are appended to every card's tracking link, so your Google Analytics or equivalent tool properly attributes the traffic. This bridges the physical-digital gap — you get both the QR scan data in your CardCadence dashboard and the downstream behavior in your web analytics.

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