Working with Marketing Campaigns and UTM Source Attribution
how to work with marketing campaings and sources attribution with UTMs,
how to work with marketing campaings and sources attribution with UTMs,
Working with Marketing Campaigns and UTM Attribution in Mixpanel
Mixpanel provides robust capabilities for tracking marketing campaigns and attributing user actions to specific sources using UTM parameters. Here's how to work with them:
Tracking UTM Parameters
Mixpanel's JavaScript SDK automatically tracks UTM parameters present on the page:
```
// Create an instance with recommended UTM tracking settings mixpanel.init('YOUR_PROJECT_TOKEN', { stop_utm_persistence: true // disable UTM persistence for better attribution models });
LBKSThe SDK captures these UTM parameters by default:
- utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign
- utm_term, utm_content, utm_id
- utm_source_platform, utm_campaign_id
- utm_creative_format, utm_marketing_tactic
Plus advertising click IDs like gclid, fbclid, etc. [Track UTM Tags](https://docs.mixpanel.com/docs/tracking-methods/sdks/javascript#track-utm-tags)
Server-Side UTM Tracking
If you're implementing server-side tracking, you'll need to manually extract and send UTM parameters:
```
from urllib.parse import urlparse from mixpanel import Mixpanel
mp = mixpanel.init("YOUR_TOKEN")
def track_to_mp(request, event_name, properties): if "Referer" in request.headers: properties.update({ "$referrer": request.headers["Referer"], "$referring_domain": urlparse(request.headers["Referer"]).hostname })
Extract UTM parameters from request
utm_keys = ["utm_source", "utm_medium", "utm_campaign", "utm_content", "utm_term"] utm_values = {key: request.args[key] for key in utm_keys if request.args.get(key)} properties.update(utm_values)
properties["ip"] = request.remote_addr mp.track(request.user_id, event_name, properties)
[Server-Side Attribution](https://docs.mixpanel.com/docs/tracking-best-practices/traffic-attribution#server-side-attribution)
Using Attribution Models
Mixpanel's Attribution feature (available on Enterprise or Growth plans) helps attribute conversion credit to touchpoints in a user journey:
1. Add your conversion metric 2. Go to the breakdown section and choose "Attributed by..." 3. Select the property to break down by (e.g., UTM medium) 4. By default, Mixpanel uses the Last Touch model with a 30-day lookback window 5. You can filter specific channels or touchpoints from the breakdown menu
Attribution Models Available
Mixpanel supports various attribution models: - First Touch: Credits the first touchpoint - Last Touch: Credits the final touchpoint - Linear: Distributes credit equally across all touchpoints - U-shape: Weights first and last touchpoints more heavily
For example, if a user first discovers your product via Facebook and later converts after seeing an Instagram ad, different models would attribute the conversion differently. Learn to Use Mixpanel: Multi-Touch Attribution
Building Marketing Analytics Dashboards
Create dashboards to visualize your marketing data: 1. Set up analytics funnels to track user conversion paths 2. Build marketing dashboards showing KPIs like CAC, ROAS, and attribution 3. Share these dashboards with your team
For the best results with attribution analysis, ensure you're tracking UTM parameters as event properties on every user touchpoint, and consider using the recommended stop_utm_persistence: true setting for more accurate multi-touch attribution models.
kapa.ai is still learning and improving, please let me know how I did by reacting below.
ℹ️ Tip: Mention @kapa.ai in the thread for follow-ups or DM the app for 1-to-1 help.