HandL UTM Grabber: Capture UTMs on your forms

Haktan Suren, PhD

8 years ago

This page is dedicated to HandL UTM Grabber and its documentation. Please comment down below if you have any question or future requests about the plugin.

Major features in HandL UTM Grabber include:

Add hidden fields in your forms (incl. Contact Form 7, Gravity Form)
Pass UTM variables to major marketing tools such as ActiveCampaign, Vero, Aweber, Interspire and many more…
Hassle free implementation (no shortcodes). See below…

I – Installation of HandL UTM Grabber

It installs like every other simple plugins out there. So, no specific information needed in this section.

II – What can you do?

Capture all the UTM variables as soon as user hits your website (ANY page of your WP installation): One great feature of the plugin is the UTM variables are saved in client’s browser and even though there is no UTM variables in URL, the variables can still be accessible via shortcode across any page/widget of your website.

III – How to use?

1. WP’s native shortcodes

[utm_campaign] – Prints out utm_campaign variable.
[utm_source] – Prints out utm_source variable.
[utm_term] – Prints out utm_term variable.
[utm_medium] – Prints out utm_medium variable.
[utm_content] – Prints out utm_content variable.
[gclid] – Prints out gclid variable.
[handl_original_ref] – The URL from which the user came to your site
[handl_landing_page] – The very first page the user visited on your site.
[handl_ip] – The IP address of the user.
[handl_ref] – The URL which the user came from to the page you have the shortcode.
[handl_url] – The URL on which you placed the shortcode.

2. Input Field Wrapper

There are some places you are not able to use WP’s native shortcodes. One example is when you use HTML in WYSWYG editor. If you directly copy paste the HTML below in your WP editor, you will see that the shortcode breaks.

&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;utm_campaign&quot; id=&quot;utm_campaign&quot; value=&quot;[utm_campaign]&quot; /&gt;

In order to prevent this, we recommend using the following shortcode wrappers.

[[utm_campaign_i]&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;utm_campaign&quot; value=&quot;%s&quot; /&gt;[/utm_campaign_i]]
[[utm_source_i]&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;utm_source&quot; value=&quot;%s&quot; /&gt;[/utm_source_i]]
[[utm_term_i]&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;utm_term&quot; value=&quot;%s&quot; /&gt;[/utm_term_i]]
[[utm_medium_i]&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;utm_medium&quot; value=&quot;%s&quot; /&gt;[/utm_medium_i]]
[[utm_content_i]&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;utm_content&quot; value=&quot;%s&quot; /&gt;[/utm_content_i]]
[[gclid_i]&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;gclid&quot; value=&quot;%s&quot; /&gt;[/gclid_i]]

[[handl_original_ref_i]&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;handl_original_ref&quot; value=&quot;%s&quot; /&gt;[/handl_original_ref_i]]
[[handl_landing_page_i]&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;handl_landing_page&quot; value=&quot;%s&quot; /&gt;[/handl_landing_page_i]]
[[handl_ip_i]&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;handl_ip&quot; value=&quot;%s&quot; /&gt;[/handl_ip_i]]
[[handl_ref_i]&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;handl_ref&quot; value=&quot;%s&quot; /&gt;[/handl_ref_i]]
[[handl_url_i]&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;handl_url&quot; value=&quot;%s&quot; /&gt;[/handl_url_i]]

You can safely use the shortcode wrappers in your HTML content without worrying about breaking the code.

3. Hassle Free Implementation (No Shortcode)

Upon ativation of this plugin, it will fill the elements named “utm_source, utm_medium, utm_term, utm_content, utm_campaign, gclid” AUTOMAGICALLY! (by element name, id and class)

Simple Examples:

&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;utm_campaign&quot; /&gt;
&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;foo&quot; id=&quot;utm_campaign&quot; /&gt;
&lt;input type=&quot;hidden&quot; name=&quot;foo&quot; class=&quot;utm_campaign&quot; /&gt;

If you are already using one of those names either in your form element name, id, or class. You do not have to use the shortcode or shortcode weappers. HandL UTM Grabber will automatically fill the corresponding fields. Easy peasy eh?

When to use?

1. if you would like to pass UTM variables to another domain. You can simply append UTM variables into your destination URL like this

&lt;a href=&quot;www.destinationURL.com?utm_campaign=[[utm_campaign]]&amp;amp;utm_source=[[utm_source]]&amp;amp;utm_term=[[utm_term]]&amp;amp;utm_content=[[utm_content]]&amp;amp;gclid=[[gclid]]&quot;&gt;Click Here To Go &gt;&gt;&gt; &lt;/a&gt;

2. Submit UTM variables into your favorite email marketing tools (Lead Tracking)
Very detailed information and integration tutorials with major marketing tools (ActiveCampaign, Vero, Aweber) and other WP plugins (Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, WordPress-to-lead for Salesforce CRM, Ninja Forms) can be found here