Hey everyone! 👋As more of you start using the Email Digest to highlight top content for your members, a common question keeps popping up:
“When someone clicks from the Digest into the community… how can I track it?”
Great news — Vanilla automatically adds tracking for all Digest-generated links. No setup, no configuration, just automatic insights in Analytics. 🙌Let’s walk through what that looks like (and one important exception you should know about!).
🔍 How Automatic UTMs Work in the Email Digest
Every link inside an Email Digest — whether it's a discussion, comment, category, or “view more” CTA — gets three UTMs added to it:
UTM Parameter | Purpose | Example |
|---|
UTM_medium | Traffic type | email |
UTM_source | Identifies the Digest | emaildigest |
UTM_content | Identifies the specific Digest issue | weeklydigest2025-11-28 |
All links in the same Digest share the same UTM set. This is intentional so you can clearly identify traffic coming from that specific Digest send.
🔗 Real Examples from the Digest
Here’s how different types of Digest links appear — note that the UTMs are identical across all three:
📝 Discussion link
http://success.vanillaforums.com/discussion/3997/fall-2025-roadmap-update-what-s-new-what-s-next-and-our-vision-for-2026?UTM_medium=email&UTM_source=emaildigest&UTM_content=weeklydigest2025-11-28
📁 Category link
http://success.vanillaforums.com/categories/community-announcements-news?UTM_medium=email&UTM_source=emaildigest&UTM_content=weeklydigest2025-11-28
🔍 “View more posts” link
http://success.vanillaforums.com/discussions?followed=true&sort=-hot&UTM_medium=email&UTM_source=emaildigest&UTM_content=weeklydigest2025-11-28
✋ A Quick Note About UGC Links (User-Generated Content)Sometimes admins include UGC links in the Digest — meaning links typed directly into the introduction or footer by a community manager, such as:
- “Check out our onboarding guide → (your link here)”
- “Register for our event”
- “Here’s a helpful resource”
These links are not auto-generated by Vanilla, so they do NOT automatically receive Digest UTMs.
👉 If you add your own URLs into the Digest intro or footer, you must add your own UTMs manually if you want those clicks to appear in Analytics.
You can follow this guide for examples and recommended formatting:🔗 Want to Track Your Email Templates? Use UTMs
This ensures all your Digest traffic — both system-generated and admin-added — is properly tracked.
📊 Where You’ll See Digest Traffic in AnalyticsIn the Page Views data source, look for:
- UTM_source = emaildigest
- UTM_content = weeklydigestYYYY-MM-DD
From there, you can analyze:
- Which Digest issues performed best
- What types of content drive the most interest
- How Digest engagement contributes to monthly active usage
- Whether changing your Digest format improves clicks
💡 Why This Matters
UTM tracking gives you real insight into:
⭐ What your community cares about
You’ll see which links pull people back into the community.
⭐ Digest performance over time
Perfect for reporting and proving the value of consistent communication.
⭐ Opportunities to improve
Your intro text, category selections, or number of posts may influence click-through — and now you can measure that.
⭐ Attribution clarity
Everything is cleanly separated from other email notifications or campaigns.
💬 Let’s Keep the Conversation Going!
Have you been tracking your Digest clicks yet?Have you tried adding your own UTM-tagged links to highlight important resources?Any interesting trends or patterns emerging?
Share your thoughts, questions, or examples below — we’d love to compare notes and help each other get the most out of Email Digest analytics! 💛👇
