Glossary · Analytics & web
UTM parameters
UTM parameters are standardized query-string tags (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, and related fields) appended to a URL so analytics tools can attribute traffic to a specific campaign, channel, or link.
Where the Referer header only tells you the referring domain, UTM parameters let the linking party label the click explicitly — "this came from the July newsletter" or "this came from the LinkedIn paid campaign" — by embedding that label directly in the URL. The analytics tool on the receiving end reads the query string and buckets the visit accordingly, independent of what the browser’s referrer policy allows through.
Because UTM tags are just visible query-string text, they work identically whether the analytics tool uses cookies or not, and they carry no personal data by design — a well-formed UTM link identifies a campaign, not a person. They are also easy to misuse: over-tagging internal links or sharing UTM-tagged URLs publicly can pollute attribution data with noise.
Ciphera Pulse parses standard UTM parameters to attribute traffic to campaigns and sources, the same as any analytics tool — no cookie is needed to read a query string.