Using UTM parameters for Google Analytics 4 is more important than ever. There is still no filter functionality in GA4, so the data you get into GA4 has to be clean. You can’t edit it later. This short guide will help you to set up correct UTM parameters for all your marketing channels.
UTM parameters, also known as Urchin Tracking Module parameters (Urchin is the predecessor of Google Analytics), are tags added to the end of a URL to help digital marketers track and measure the performance of their online marketing campaigns. By appending these parameters to a URL, marketers can gain insights into the sources, mediums, and campaigns driving traffic to their websites or specific landing pages.
By using UTM parameters, marketers can collect detailed data on the effectiveness of their campaigns and make informed decisions on how to allocate resources and optimize their marketing strategies. This data can be easily analyzed in web analytics tools like Google Analytics.
Adding a UTM parameter to any URL does not affect the functionality of that URL. You have to use the question mark after the standard URL.
While you can build your own UTM parameters manually, the most common method is Google’s Campaign URL Builder in their developer tools. You can switch from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 and vice versa. Also, most marketing platforms (e.g. Meta Ads Manager) offer their own UTM builder. In some platforms, you don’t have to tag your campaigns because auto-tagging works (e.g. Google ads).
From the perspective of GA4, the mandatory UTM parameters are utm_source and utm_medium, but we strongly recommend using utm_id and utm_campaign.
Let’s take a look at all of them:
- utm_source – is for identifying the source of the traffic (e.g. Google, Facebook, etc.)
- utm_medium – stands for the marketing medium that was used by the source (e.g. organic, cpc, etc.)
- utm_campaign – is the name of the campaign
- utm_id – is the unique ID of the campaign
The more UTMs you have, the more accurate your data will be in Google Analytics. At 6clickz we use UTM parameters in this format.
UTM parameters for Facebook
For Facebook, we set up UTM parameters directly in Ads Manager at the ad level. In the ad settings, we find the “Build URL parameter” at the very bottom and fill it in. We use these UTM parameters:
Campaign source = facebook
Campaign medium = cpc
Campaign name = {{campaign.name}}
Campaign content = {{ad.id}}
Custom parameters:
utm_id = {{{campaign.id}}
utm_term = {{adset.name}}
At the end of day the URL looks like this:
utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_id={{campaign.id}}&utm_term={{adset.name}}&utm_content={{ad.id}}&utm_source_platform={{site_source_name}}
UTM parameters for TikTok
For TikTok, we fill out the UTM parameters in Ads Manager at the ad level. In the “3rd party tracking settings” section, we can’t fill in the UTM parameters manually, so we put them directly in the “Destination page” URL. Instead of manually filling it in, we use the custom UTM builder in the Google Sheet.
We use the following parameters to have quality UTMs in our campaigns:
utm_source = tiktok
utm_medium = cpc
utm_campaign = campaign name
utm_id = campaign id
utm_term = ad group id
utm_content = creative name
In the end, the URL looks like this:
utm_source=tiktok&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=__CAMPAIGN_NAME__&utm_id=__CAMPAIGN_ID__&utm_term=__AID__&utm_content=__CID_NAME__
UTM parameters for other platforms
For some platforms that use your feed only for advertising (for example product comparison sites) the only way to use UTM parameters is to “hardcode” them in your URLs. One way to do it is to append UTMs automatically to every product in your feed by feed editing tools like Mergado.
