What are UTM parameters?
UTM parameters are tags added to the end of a URL to tell your analytics tool where a visitor came from. When someone clicks a link ending in ?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-sale, Google Analytics 4 records a visit from your newsletter, by email, for the "spring-sale" campaign. Without UTMs, part of that traffic ends up as direct, and you can't tell which effort actually paid off.
According to the official Google Analytics Help, GA4 supports these parameters:
- utm_source: the referrer (google, newsletter, facebook).
- utm_medium: the marketing medium (cpc, email, social).
- utm_campaign: the campaign, product or promo code name.
- utm_id: the campaign ID, the same one you use when importing cost data.
- utm_term: the paid keyword.
- utm_content: the ad or link variant, for example two buttons in the same email.
- utm_source_platform: the buying platform that manages the traffic (Search Ads 360, Display & Video 360).
Two more parameters exist, utm_creative_format and utm_marketing_tactic, but Google notes they aren't reported in GA4 yet. The key rule from Google's own documentation: always set utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign.
How to use the UTM builder
- Paste your landing page URL. Existing parameters and #fragments are kept, existing UTMs are replaced and click IDs (gclid, fbclid) are removed.
- Pick a preset (Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, newsletter, organic social, QR code) to fill in source and medium.
- Name the campaign, the only required field besides the URL, then add term, content and ID if needed.
- Keep the cleanup on: lowercase values and hyphens instead of spaces.
- Copy and test: open the link, then check that the visit shows up in the GA4 Realtime report.
Where your UTMs show up in GA4
Your UTMs feed the Traffic acquisition report (session source, medium and campaign) and, in detail, GA4's "manual" dimensions:
| Parameter | GA4 dimension (session scope) |
|---|---|
| utm_source | Session manual source |
| utm_medium | Session manual medium |
| utm_campaign | Session manual campaign name |
| utm_id | Session manual campaign ID |
| utm_term | Session manual term |
| utm_content | Session manual ad content |
| utm_source_platform | Session manual source platform |
Each dimension also exists at the user level (First user manual source, for example), so you can see which channel brought a customer in the very first time.
UTM naming conventions: ready-to-use examples
| Channel | utm_source | utm_medium | Resulting GA4 channel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads (as an auto-tagging fallback) | cpc | Paid Search | |
| Meta Ads | facebook or instagram | paid_social | Paid Social |
| LinkedIn Ads | paid_social | Paid Social | |
| Email newsletter | newsletter | ||
| Organic post | instagram, linkedin | social | Organic Social |
| QR code on a flyer | flyer | qr | Unassigned (custom group advised) |
These results follow GA4's default channel group rules. Paid Social requires a source recognized as a social site and a medium such as cpc, ppc, retargeting or anything starting with "paid". Email accepts "email" as source or medium, and Organic Social accepts the "social" medium. Google's published source list includes facebook, instagram, linkedin and twitter, but neither "meta" nor "x".
Google Ads: keep auto-tagging, add a final URL suffix
On Google Ads, auto-tagging adds a click identifier (gclid) to every visit, and GA4 uses it first for source, medium and campaign. Don't turn it off: Google requires it to track offline conversions, among other things. Instead, the builder gives you a final URL suffix to paste at the campaign level, which adds dynamic UTMs with ValueTrack parameters: {campaignid} for the campaign ID, {adgroupid} for the ad group and {keyword} for the keyword.
These UTMs act as a fallback when the gclid can't be used, and feed your other tools, such as a CRM that reads UTMs from your forms. Google Ads has no ValueTrack parameter for the campaign name, so type it in the Campaign field and paste the suffix campaign by campaign. For hands-on campaign management, see our Google Ads services.
UTM best practices
- Lowercase everything: GA4 is case sensitive, so "Facebook" and "facebook" become two rows.
- Keep a shared dictionary: one spelling per source and medium, written down in a spreadsheet your team and vendors share.
- Readable, dated campaign names: spring-sale-2026 rather than camp1.
- No spaces or special characters: hyphens and plain words that stay readable once encoded.
- Test before every send: a broken link in a newsletter can't be fixed after it goes out.
Common UTM mistakes
- UTMs on internal links (your own menu or banners): conversions may get credited to your own site instead of the channel that actually brought the visitor.
- "meta" or "x" as the source of a paid campaign: GA4 doesn't recognize them as social sites and files the traffic under Paid Other instead of Paid Social.
- A missing medium: it shows up as (not set) and the channel becomes impossible to find.
- Spelling that changes mid-campaign: numbers split across several rows and stop being comparable.
- Turning off auto-tagging to replace it with UTMs: you lose the gclid and everything it enables for conversion tracking.
