YouTube
YouTube UTM Builder: See Which Videos Bring You Leads
YouTube Studio will tell you how many people watched your video. It won’t tell you whether any of them became a client. So most businesses on YouTube are guessing: the channel feels like it’s working, a few enquiries mention it, but nobody can say which videos are pulling their weight.
The fix takes ten seconds per video. Put a tracked link in the description, and Google Analytics will show you which video sent each visitor to your website, and what they did when they got there. We put one on every video we publish, for our own channel and for every client.
The builder below makes the link for you. It’s free, it runs in your browser, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Free YouTube UTM link builder
- Paste the page you want viewers to land on. Your homepage works, but a specific page (a free guide, a booking page) works better.
- Paste the video’s title. The builder turns it into a short, lowercase name for the link.
- Copy the link and put it in the first two lines of your video description.
Why these three values
The builder always uses youtube as the source,
video as the medium, and the video’s title as the campaign.
That combination puts every visit in the right place in Google Analytics
and gives you one row per video.
| Tag | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
utm_source | youtube | Where the visit came from |
utm_medium | video | Puts the visit in GA4’s “Organic Video” channel |
utm_campaign | your video title | One row per video in your reports |
video is the important one. Google Analytics
sorts visits into channels using fixed rules, and its Organic Video channel
catches any visit whose medium contains the word “video”
(Google’s channel rules).
A lot of guides suggest utm_medium=description instead, which
doesn’t match that rule. Stick with video.
Always lowercase. Google Analytics treats
YouTube and youtube as two different sources
(Google),
so one capital letter splits your numbers across two rows. The builder
lowercases everything for you.
One campaign per video. If every video carries the same link, you’ll learn that YouTube works, but not which video is doing the work. Giving each video its own campaign name is what lets you see that one video brought in three enquiries and another brought in none.
And never put anything personal in a link: no names, no email addresses. Anyone can see the link, and it ends up in your analytics.
Where to put the link, and where it won’t work
Put the link in the first two lines of the description, before the “...more” cut, and pin a comment with the same link. Shorts can’t carry a clickable link at all.
| Where | Clickable? | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Video description | Yes | First two lines, so it shows without anyone expanding the description |
| Pinned comment | Yes | Same link again, for people who scroll straight to the comments |
| Channel profile links | Yes | Up to 14 links; the first shows next to your Subscribe button. Choose “Channel profile link” in the builder |
| Shorts description or comments | No | Use the Shorts “related video” link to send viewers to a long video that has your link |
| End screens | Only in the YouTube Partner Program | Most business channels aren’t, so point the end screen at your next video instead |
Two catches trip up new channels. First, clickable links in descriptions need your channel’s “advanced features” switched on, which happens either automatically once the channel has some history or straight away if you verify your ID (YouTube). If your links show as plain text, that’s why. Second, YouTube stopped making links in Shorts clickable at the end of August 2023, to cut down on spam (YouTube; 9to5Google), so a link in a Short’s description does nothing.
Where to see the results in Google Analytics
Open Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition,
filter the source to youtube, and add
Session campaign as a second column. Each row is now one
video.
- Go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.
- Add a filter: Session source exactly matches
youtube. - Click the + next to the first column and choose Session campaign.
- Look at the key events column, not sessions. Visits are nice. Enquiries are the point.
After you publish a video, click your own link once and check the Realtime
report. If the visit shows up with youtube as the source, the
link works.
Without tags, Google Analytics will still notice that some visitors came from YouTube, but it lumps them all together. You’ll see “youtube.com” and nothing about which video sent them. And any visit that arrives with no source information at all gets counted as direct traffic, so YouTube gets no credit for it. Tagging every link is how you get past both problems.
Turning visits into leads
A visit isn’t a client. To see which videos actually bring in business, tell Google Analytics what counts as a lead, then read leads per video.
Mark your enquiries as key events. A key event is any action you care about: an enquiry form sent, a call booked, a free guide downloaded, an order placed. On our own site, every booked call lands on a thank-you page that Google Analytics counts as a key event. Once those are set up, the Traffic acquisition report above shows how many of each came from every video.
This is how we report on every channel we run. For Jack’s channel and our clients’ channels, we can see which video got the most guide downloads and which booked the most calls. For Still Spirit, a whisky shop, we can see what people bought and which video sent them to the shop. That changes what you make next: you stop guessing and make more of what’s working.
Keep the source with the lead. If you use a CRM, save the tags with each new enquiry (most form tools can capture them in hidden fields). Then the source is still there weeks later, when the enquiry turns into a client.
Ask how they found you. Put “How did you hear about us?” on every enquiry form, as a free-text box rather than a dropdown, and ask it again on the first call. It catches the people your links miss, which brings us to the catch.
What the numbers won’t show you
Tracked links undercount YouTube. Plenty of people watch a video, don’t click anything, and come back weeks later by typing your name into Google.
Jack’s own channel is a good example. One of his videos got 400 views, which by YouTube standards is nothing. Those 400 views booked five sales calls, and two of them became clients. A video like that barely registers in a views report, and link clicks only tell part of the story, because people who watch often get in touch another way: by searching for you, or by emailing directly.
So read your tracked links as the floor, not the full picture. Two other signs that YouTube is working:
- More people searching for your name. In Google Search Console, watch searches for your business or your own name. If they climb as the channel grows, that’s YouTube.
- “I’ve seen your videos” on sales calls. When prospects arrive already knowing how you work, write it down. It’s the clearest sign there is.
If you’re still deciding whether a channel is worth the effort, we’ve written an honest answer on whether YouTube is worth it for a B2B firm.
A ten-minute monthly check
Once a month, run through this:
- Every new video has its own tracked link, in the description and the pinned comment.
- In Traffic acquisition, which videos sent the most visitors?
- Which videos brought in enquiries, downloads, calls or sales?
- Are searches for your name going up in Search Console?
- What did new enquiries say when you asked how they found you?
Then make more of whatever is bringing in business. Ten minutes a month tells you more than any view count.
Want this done for you?
Every video we publish for a client carries its own tracked link, and we report on what each video brought in: enquiries, downloads, calls, sales. We also plan, film, edit and publish the videos. If you’d like a channel run that way, see how our YouTube marketing agency works, or our Pro Video Plan, from £1,200 + VAT a month.
Frequently asked questions
Do UTM links hurt my YouTube or Google rankings?
No. The tag is on the link out of YouTube, not on the video. On your website, Google treats a tagged address as a copy of the main page and passes the credit to the main page (Google).
Can I put links in YouTube Shorts?
Not clickable ones. YouTube stopped links in Shorts descriptions and comments working in August 2023. Use the related video link to send Shorts viewers to a long video that has your link.
Should every video have a different link?
Yes. One campaign name per video is what lets you see which video brought in each enquiry.
Can I use a link shortener?
You can, but some redirects drop the tags on the way through. Link straight to your page, then check it in the Realtime report.
Does YouTube remove UTM tags from links?
No. YouTube sends clicks through its own redirect, and the tags survive it. We tested it in October 2026. Still, click your own link once after publishing and check it arrives in Google Analytics.
