In a marketing world obsessed with AI-driven insights and omnichannel experiences, it's easy to overlook one of the most powerful tools at a brand’s disposal: the humble UTM code.

UTM codes – short for Urchin Tracking Modules – are snippets of text added to URLs that help marketers identify where traffic is coming from and how it performs.

For CPG brands navigating fragmented retail ecosystems and rising media costs, UTMs aren’t just a tracking mechanism. They're a strategic unlock.

When done right, they help marketers connect the dots between investment and outcome, and power data-driven decision making. When ignored, they create blind spots that no dashboard, no matter how sophisticated, can truly resolve.

Visibility is the missing link

According to IAB, overall U.S. ad spend is projected to grow by 7.3% in 2025, with digital channels such as CTV, social media, and retail media expected to post double-digit growth. This follows a major surge in 2024, when U.S. CPG digital ad spending alone jumped 16.6% to $49.95 billion. 

It’s no secret that CPG brands are still leaning heavily on digital media to win, especially at retail. But ask most marketers where their results are actually coming from, and the answers get fuzzy fast.

Was it the TikTok video or the Meta ad? How many retailer visits did that email campaign drive (and where)? Which creative actually convinced shoppers to purchase?

Without intentional campaign tracking and labeling, data turns to noise, blurring what could otherwise be a clear picture of performance. UTM codes give that noise structure. When paired with a platform like Pear Vision, they transform fragmented traffic into a cohesive story, revealing shopper behavior, product performance, and the insights brands need to scale their digital marketing efforts with confidence.

If you're not tagging, you're not learning

There’s no shortage of CPG marketers optimizing for impressions and CTRs. But when you start optimizing for insight, everything changes. UTM codes allow you to do just that – not just to track performance, but to diagnose it.

They tell you which channels actually deliver, not just in clicks, but in retailer visits, add-to-carts, and purchases. They reveal how different audiences behave, and which campaigns quietly outperform. They surface geo and platform-specific trends you’d never see from aggregated analytics alone.

This isn’t about incremental improvement. This is about building marketing intelligence that compounds over time.

Pear Vision’s dashboard, for example, can show you how each UTM-tagged campaign performs across retailers like Target, Walmart, or Whole Foods – connecting media spend to real retail outcomes.

The brands that win will be obsessively precise

In a market where budgets are under pressure and attribution is under scrutiny, guesswork isn’t good enough. The brands that outperform will be the ones that treat campaign precision as a competitive advantage.

That means every campaign – no matter how small – should be planned with the same rigor as a product launch. Every click, a data point. Every link, a source of insight. UTMs are the language that makes this level of discipline (and actionable insight) possible. Without that shared language across teams and tools, even the most promising strategies can fall apart in execution.

Fortunately, Pear makes UTM management incredibly easy for marketers. 

With our UTM Builder, you can create clean, consistent tracking links that bring structure to your campaigns in less than 60 seconds. 

The bottom line

Let’s be clear: UTMs aren’t the future of marketing – they’re the foundation of it. If your brand is investing in shoppable media or onsite experiences like Store Locators or Shoppable PDPs, then campaign URL labeling should not be a nice-to-have. It’s a non-negotiable.

In a world where retail data is siloed, shopper journeys are nonlinear, and outcomes are under the microscope, clarity is everything.

Pear clients use UTMs to uncover insights like which creatives drive retailer-specific conversions, what CTAs work best across store banners, and how traffic sources compare in add-to-cart rates. See how one brand built out their UTM structure to capture insights on product, retailer, geo, campaign, platform, copy, creative, CTA, and audiences >>

If you want to out-learn, out-optimize, and outmaneuver your competitors, you have to start where the data begins – at the very first click. 

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