Top UTM Builders for marketers of 2019 announced

DURHAM, N.C. - July 11, 2019 - PRLog -- Campaign URL builders (or UTM Builders) have been around for some time and there are lots of options to choose from. Some will shorten your URLs, others will help you enforce naming conventions, and others (like Google's URL builder or Facebook's URL builder) simply combine the variables you manually type in.

We've spent more than 200 hours researching and reviewing some of the most popular UTM builder and manager tools of 2019. Of those, we selected 5 that met our stringent requirements of focusing on data analytics to help marketers. Each of these best UTM Builders and Managers come with their own strengths and weaknesses (as well as pricing). We'll highlight these so you can compare and make the right choice for your marketing needs easily.

We evaluated these UTM Builders and Managers by examining pricing, features, and utility for marketing teams.

Here's a list of the most popular UTM Builders and Managers that we tested in the first half of 2019:

• Branded UTM Builder, Storer, and Manager by Smart UTM Manager
• UTM Builder by TerminusApp
• UTM Builder, Storer by CampaignTrackly
• UTM Builder by CampaignTracker
• Branded UTM Builder by Rebrandly


UTM Smart Manager – ★★★★★ (http://www.utmsmartmanager.com)

A no brainer for any serious digital marketer. The Smart UTM Manager (https://utmsmartmanager.com/) provided everything we needed in one place (a UTM form with naming conventions, which automatically stored UTM links into a Library, and then Analyzed their performance). The platform is a versatile and well-rounded UTM management platform with just the right features to make your marketing life a lot better.

REASONS TO BUY
● Custom-built UTM forms (with your domain and brand) with enforced naming conventions.
● UTMs created are automatically stored in your library for historical record-keeping.
● Great Analytics / Insights Dashboard with auto-imported data from various channels.
● Ability to integrate analytics with own benchmark alerts is a game changer.

REASONS NOT TO BUY
● If you only use Google marketing channels, UTM results appear in GA so no need for UTM Manager views.
● (insert sarcastic tone) You prefer manually importing/exporting data into a spreadsheet every week to determine your campaign effectiveness

The custom-branded UTM builder, UTM Library, and UTM Manager platform will transform your marketing team into an analytics 3.0 marketing team. Out of the box, you get up to 20 users and access to your own advanced analytics dashboards/reports with custom alerts. Set up is a breeze – It can take about 5 minutes to connect all of your outside data sources (Facebook, Instagram, Adwords, Analytics) and their customer service representatives worked with us to configure our own UTM specific needs with conventions, parameters, info fields, etc… Once we were set up, we had automated our marketing reports, got a great UTM KPI Executive Dashboard, and even set up custom alerts based on our own benchmarks to ensure we stayed on top of any KPIs.

Why we love this Google Analytics UTM Builder & Manager
Most UTM builders stay away from providing analytics beyond "clicks" so determining a link's success (on ROI) still requires a lot of work. This Smart UTM Manager (pun intended) does it all for you automatically. Contextual insights will compare your user's click-stream and will even provide you some segmentation insights to help you.

How much does it cost?
The only plan offered costs $49/month (includes 20 users). At $2.50 per user, it's hard to argue against using this comprehensive platform.

Additional features we'd like to see?
The UTM form doesn't currently report who builds the links in their reporting view. I thought seeing performance reports per account manager (in real time) would be valuable for us. We asked that this feature be added and the company responded that it will be released soon.


TerminusApp – ★★ (www.terminusapp.com)

Terminus (http://terminusapp.com/) provides another UTM builder and was built to help companies enforce their own naming conventions on UTMs.

REASONS TO BUY
● UTM forms with enforced naming conventions.
● Team collaboration features include which people can build links based on the campaign.
● Easy to use

REASONS NOT TO BUY
● Analytics focus on clicks only = bad.
● Their reporting could use re-work as it can get a little complex.
● Pricing on a per-user basis (expensive plan gives up to 5 users) is a deal breaker.

How much does it cost?
Pricing starts at $24 for 1 user and quickly goes up to $158 for up to 5 users.

Additional features we'd like to see?
As a UTM form, this tool is great. However, it leaves a lot to be desired in the analytics section. If they're just focused on the ad link side, we'd love to have the ability to launch our facebook ads from this platform to make things easier for us.

CampaignTrackly – ★★★ (www.campaigntrackly.com)

CampaignTrackly (http://campaigntrackly.com/) is another UTM builder that focuses on appropriately building and storing your UTM tags. They take it a step beyond Terminus because they actually bring in some Google Analytics to help you understand your UTM's performance beyond clicks.

REASONS TO BUY
● UTM forms with enforced naming conventions.
● Stores your UTM links and you can tag a wide number of links very quickly.

REASONS NOT TO BUY
● While they bring in your Google Analytics, it's no different (perhaps even more limited) than going into Google Analytics. Their analytics do not provide channel-specific KPIs in addition to this.
● I'd like the ability to edit my reports to my own KPIs.
● There's a limit on users for their $45 plan of 3. This is a deal breaker for larger teams.

How much does it cost?
They have a freemium tiered plan (from $0 to $45/month). Any organization that faces the UTM problem, however, will need more than 1 user so we quickly were in the $45 plan.

Additional features we'd like to see?
We'd like to see bulk user pricing and not be limited to 3 users for $45. We'd wish their analytics actually provided insights beyond just clicks and GA. Campaign URL alerts based on my benchmarks would be a needed addition for us to recommend this tool.

CampaignTracker – ★★★ (campaigntracker.io)

CampaignTracker (https://campaigntracker.io/) is yet another UTM builder that focuses on appropriately building and storing your UTM tags. They provide a wizard in creating your tags to help you automatically fill in the information for source and medium.

REASONS TO BUY
● UTM forms with enforced naming conventions and nice wizard.
● Stores your UTM links and you can tag a wide number of links very quickly (depending on the plan)
● Unlimited team members

REASONS NOT TO BUY
● Their analytics reporting leaves a lot to be desired. They claim to have attribution reporting but it's no different than what I dig up using google analytics. Furthermore, they're not integrated with any other analytics platform (ie Facebook)
● I'd like the ability to edit my reports to my own KPIs.
● There's a limit on users for their $45 plan of 3. This is a deal breaker for larger teams.

How much does it cost?
They offer a freemium plan that starts at $0 and tops out at $29. Each tier monitors how many unique visitors go to your site and how long they store your data (ie 90 days). If you want historical storage of your UTM links, be prepared to pay a pretty penny.

Additional features we'd like to see?
As with many of the UTM builders we've seen, they leave you wanting more when it comes to data insights for marketers. We'd like to see them make the UTM data history plans unlimited as opposed to tying it to a pricing plan. We also don't like how they charge based on monthly unique visitors.

Rebrandly – ★★★ (rebrandly.com)

Rebrandly (http://rebrandly.com/) is not necessarily a smart UTM builder. Instead, it helps companies brand their short links (as opposed to seeing some random words on your short link). It also provides some UTM presets which help control for naming variability. This is why we included them in this list.

REASONS TO BUY
● You want a branded short link.
● Provides a UTM builder with naming conventions.
● They provide activity audit logs.

REASONS NOT TO BUY
● Analytics leaves a lot to be desired. Reporting is limited to clicks from the links alone. They try to add some level of segmentation to the "clicks" but it's nothing you couldn't get from Google Analytics.
● I'd like the ability to edit my reports to my own KPIs.

How much does it cost?
Per-user pricing starts at $0 and quickly increases to $69. Know that in this case, you're really paying for the "Branded" short links. If you're looking for reporting you're looking to pay $499/month.