For artists selling their own prints. About a three-minute read.
The short version
A UTM link is your normal link with a few extra words on the end. The page it opens is exactly the same. The extra words tell your analytics where each visitor came from: which platform, and which post, story or email. Use them and you find out which of your posts actually sell prints. Skip them and every sale looks the same.
What it looks like
Here is a plain link to a drop page:
https://yourstore.com/drops/autumn-light
And here is the same link as a UTM link:
https://yourstore.com/drops/autumn-light?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_content=launch-post
Everything after the question mark is the tag. It says: this visitor came from Instagram, from social media, from the launch post. Your visitor never notices it. Your analytics do.
UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module, after the company that invented it twenty years ago. Nobody says the long name. Every analytics tool understands the tags: Google Analytics, Shopify, Matomo, and the reports inside creativehub.
Why it matters when you sell art
Most artists post about a drop in five or six places: a launch post, a couple of stories, a link in bio, an email to their list, maybe a reel. Then the orders come in and there is no way to know which of those did the work.
With UTM links there is. You can see that the email brought forty visits and six sales, the stories brought a hundred visits and one sale, and the launch post did most of the rest. Next time you put your effort where the sales are.
That is the difference between guessing and knowing. Artists who follow a tracked plan are about three times more likely to sell during a drop, and the biggest reason is simply that they can see what is working while it is still running.
How creativehub uses them
When you schedule a drop in creativehub, your marketing plan gives you a separate UTM link for each step: the link-in-bio link, the story link, the launch post link, the early access email link, the last-chance link and so on. The tag is the only thing that differs between them.
Use each link in the place it is meant for (here is where to find them), and your drop's analytics fill in by themselves: visits, sign-ups and sales for every post and email. The morning after the drop closes you get a report that shows it all, step by step.
How to use them well
- Paste the link exactly as it is. Do not retype it, and do not put it through a link shortener that strips the tag.
- One link per place. Bio link in your bio, story link in stories, post link in captions and comments, email links in your emails. Mixing them up muddles the report.
- Keep them after the drop. A UTM link works for as long as the page exists, so an old post that keeps sending people your way keeps getting counted.
- Do not worry about the length. Instagram, TikTok and email tools all handle long links. Your bio has room for one.
Questions people ask
Does the tag change what the visitor sees? No. The page is identical. The tag is only read by analytics.
Can I make my own?
Yes. Keep utm_source (where: instagram, tiktok, email), utm_medium (how: social, email) and utm_content (which post) and you can tag anything. Free tools like Google's Campaign URL Builder do it for you. If you use creativehub's marketing plan you do not need to; the links are made for you.
What if I forget and post a plain link? The visits still count. You just cannot see which post they came from. Swap in the tracked link when you notice and the rest of the drop is covered.
Is this the same as an affiliate link? No. A UTM link only tells you where a visitor came from. It does not pay anyone or track the person across other sites.
Want ideas for the posts themselves?
See our library of content inspiration for artists: real posts from artists selling their work brilliantly, sorted by the moments of a drop, from the first tease to the last chance.