How to create a hidden UTM field

To add a hidden field to your form:

1. Click "Website" on the left menu to navigate to the Forms overview page.

2. Locate the form you wish to work with, then click the "Edit" button.
3. The form builder will load. All editing and style options will appear in the right pane. Click the "Fields" option on the right pane then click "My Fields."

4. Click the "Add a custom field" button.

5. An "Add Field" modal window will open:

• Type the name of the field into the "Field name" field
• Click the "Group" dropdown then click the group that this field should belong to
• Click the "Field Type" dropdown and click the hidden field option
• Click the "Add" button

6. The field will be added to the Fields > My Fields section of the right pane. You may need to scroll down through the list of fields to see it. Once you locate the hidden field you just created, drag it to your form in the form builder.

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Use hidden fields in Dewy forms to automatically collect UTM data

Now that you have added a hidden field to your form, you may be wondering how exactly that field will collect information about your contacts. There are a few different ways to go about this:

1. Add a query string to your form's URL

Adding a query string to your form's URL will add a fixed value to your hidden field.

For example, let's say I have a hidden field called “Hidden Field” in my form and the personalization tag for that field is %HIDDEN_FIELD%.

When a contact submits my form, I want that hidden field to display the value of “Test” on that contact's profile page.

To do that, I would need to fetch the personalization tag for that field (go to Contacts > Fields) and remove the percent (%) signs.

Then I would grab my form's URL: https://atestaccount.dewy.io/f/15 and append it with this: ?hidden_field=Test so that the form URL now looks like this: https://atestaccount.dewy.io/f/15?hidden_field=Test.

This is how the form looks in an account. Note the hidden field:

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To make this process easier, we recommend using this UTM builder: https://ga-dev-tools.google/campaign-url-builder/.

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2. Add a fixed value to your full embed code

After adding your hidden field to your form, copy and paste the full embed code for the form to your site. Then, insert your fixed value for that hidden field into your form's HTML code.

Here is an example showing you where to add that fixed value:

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3. Add a dynamic value to your full embed code

You can add custom code to your site to dynamically “post” information to your hidden field when a form is submitted. This option will require custom coding on your end.

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Overview of the hidden UTM fields in Dewy

• Campaign Source: The lead’s original location before clicking on your link and visiting your site. You’ll usually put in the website or platform the visitor comes from. You can also get advanced and put in the newsletter name or a similar more detailed piece of information.
• Campaign Medium: Think of it as short for marketing medium. It's the outreach method used—for instance, email, social, or ppc.
• Campaign Name: The name of the marketing campaign connected to the link. For instance, an advertisement for a summer fashion sale might be entered into UTMs as winter-botox-sale-2023. A good campaign parameter is made in a way that allows it to be used across mediums, meaning this UTM should also be used in the newsletter issue devoted to that promotion.
• Campaign Term: Typically used with search advertising, UTM Term indicates the keyword the ad is triggered for. It could also be used for ad headlines on social, subject lines in newsletters, or to delineate different versions of A/B tests.

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The critical importance of consistency with UTMs

While UTMs are extremely capable of measuring your channel and overall performance, UTMs are easy to get wrong and far less accurate when done incorrectly and inconsistently.

In the case of UTMs, even just using parameters that are different can cause a mess. Both “paid-social” and “social-cpc” could be correct, but if a part of your team uses the former and the rest of your team the latter, your data will be splintered.

Thankfully, improper UTM code usage won’t affect your site or customer experience, but the consequences can be significant to your analytics and optimization. Moreover, UTM mistakes are permanent. You can’t alter Google Analytics parameters after the fact, nor can you do so on other analytics tools.

The three best ways to prevent this common mistake are:

• Create a taxonomy of UTM parameter naming conventions
• Create a UTM "Calculator" in Google Sheets with preset values
• Use automated UTM tools that support UTM conventions (e.g. Google’s UTM builder)