How to Track UTM in Google Analytics 4

Tired of wondering which of your marketing efforts are actually bringing in traffic and sales? UTM parameters are the straightforward solution for tracking your campaign performance, and this guide will show you exactly how to build them and find the results in Google Analytics 4.

What Exactly Are UTM Parameters?

UTM stands for "Urchin Tracking Module," which is a fancy way of saying they are simple tags you add to the end of your URLs. These tags don't change the destination page, but they act like digital breadcrumbs, telling Google Analytics specific details about where your visitors came from.

For example, instead of just seeing that a visitor came from Facebook, a UTM-tagged URL can tell you they came from a specific Facebook ad in your "Summer Sale" campaign that was targeting users in California. This level of detail is a game-changer for understanding your marketing ROI.

Why You Need to Be Tracking UTMs

If you're spending time or money on marketing, you need to know what's working. Without UTMs, much of your traffic gets lumped into vague categories like "Direct" or "Referring," leaving you to guess your way through your marketing budget.

Here’s what precise UTM tracking empowers you to do:

• Attribute conversions with confidence: Know exactly which email newsletter, social media post, or specific paid ad led to a sale or lead.
• Calculate your true ROI: Easily compare how much you spent on a Facebook campaign versus the revenue it generated.
• A/B test effectively: Discover whether a photo versus a video, or an email subject line A vs. subject line B drove more clicks and conversions to your site.
• Optimize your marketing mix: Identify your most profitable channels so you can double down on what works and cut what doesn't.

The 5 Core UTM Parameters Explained

Your UTM-powered URL is built from up to five standard parameters. The first three (Source, Medium, and Campaign) are the most critical and almost always used together.

1. Campaign Source (utm_source)

This answers the question: "Which specific platform or website sent the traffic?" It’s the specific source of the visitor clicking the link.

• Examples: google, facebook, klaviyo-newsletter, influencer-name, linkedin.

Example URL part: &utm_source=facebook

2. Campaign Medium (utm_medium)

This answers the question: "What is the general marketing channel?" Think of it as the category of the source.

• Examples: cpc (for cost-per-click ads), social, display, email, affiliate.

Example URL part: &utm_medium=social

3. Campaign Name (utm_campaign)

This one is completely up to you. It describes your specific promotion, sale, or strategic push. A clear, understandable naming convention here is your best friend.

• Examples: summer_sale_2024, q4_promo, new_product_launch_june.

Example URL part: &utm_campaign=summer_sale_2024

4. Campaign Term (utm_term)

This is primarily used for paid search ads to identify the specific keywords you're bidding on. While auto-tagging in Google Ads often handles this automatically, it can be useful for tracking paid keyword efforts on other platforms like Bing.

• Examples: running_shoes, marketing_automation_software.

5. Campaign Content (utm_content)

This is used to differentiate between links or ads that point to the same URL within the same campaign. It’s perfect for A/B testing a call-to-action or creative style in your marketing programs.

• Example: In a single email campaign, you might have one link in the header and another as a button in the body. You could tag them differently to see which one gets more clicks, like header_link and main_cta_button.

How to Create UTM-Tagged URLs

While you could technically piece together these URLs by hand, it’s a process ripe for typos and mistakes. A tiny error - like typing facebook one time and Facebook the next - can split your data into different rows in your reports, making analysis messy.

The easiest way to get started is with Google's free Campaign URL Builder. No login is needed, just plug in your information to the required UTM fields.

Here’s how it works:

1. Enter your website URL (e.g., https://www.yourstore.com/special-offer).
2. Fill in the fields for campaign_source, campaign_medium, and campaign_name.
3. Fill in campaign_term and campaign_content if you need them.
4. The tool will automatically generate your final, shareable URL.

Let's say we are running a Facebook ad for our big summer sale. Here's what we might enter:

• website URL: https://www.yourstore.com
• campaign_source: facebook
• campaign_medium: cpc
• campaign_name: summer-sale-24-apparel

The Campaign URL Builder will then give us a URL that looks like this: https://www.yourstore.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=summer-sale-24-apparel This is the link you'd use in your Facebook Ad Manager. Your link shortener, such as bit.ly, will also be able to shorten your new tracking UTM correctly.

Where to Find Your UTM Data in GA4

Once you’ve started using your new UTM links, Google Analytics 4 automatically collects the data. Here’s how you can find what is being captured and the reports it flows through:

1. The Traffic Acquisition Report

This report gives you a session-based overview of your campaign performance. It shows you the sources that are driving traffic in new sessions and is the ideal report in GA4 to understand recent campaign performance.

• In GA4, go to the left navigation menu and click Reports.
• Under the Acquisition section, click on Traffic acquisition.

By default, this report is grouped by the Default Channel Grouping. To see your specific campaign tags from your querystring URLs, simply click the dropdown arrow next to "Session default channel group" and change the primary dimension to one of the following:

• Session source / medium: Shows data for utm_source and utm_medium combined (e.g., 'facebook / cpc').
• Session medium: Shows all traffic driven by utm_medium (e.g., all cpc sessions).
• Session source: Shows all traffic driven from a single utm_source (e.g., all of the facebook traffic grouped together).
• Session campaign: This is a powerful report that will show every session associated with a specific utm_campaign. Here is where you can see the top-performing advertising and marketing events. Be mindful to pair this with sales-related conversions instead of vanity metrics to make it a more valuable exercise.

2. The User Acquisition Report

Just one tab above Traffic acquisition is User acquisition. This report looks similar but answers a very different question as it ties engagement and conversion metrics to these attributes for new users only. It's focused on the first time a user interacted with your site, not their most recent campaign interactions.

This report is perfect for understanding which channels are best at acquiring new customers, whereas the Traffic Acquisition report is better for seeing which campaigns are engaging both new and returning users.

You can change the primary dimensions in this report as well, but they are prefaced with "First user" (e.g., First user campaign, First user source / medium).

Common UTM Mistakes to Avoid

UTMs are a powerful tool, but they can create messy, un-reportable data if you don't do it the right way. Keep these common missteps in mind when you're setting up campaigns:

Mistake 1: Inconsistent Naming

GA4 is case-sensitive, meaning tagging links with facebook, Facebook, and facebook.com will result in three separate lines in your reports - and is something our Analytics Services has had to unwind with multiple clients. Pick one format (lowercase is standard and works the best) and stick with it.

Mistake 2: Using UTMs for Internal Links

Never, ever do this. You shouldn’t UTM tag banner ads on your home page that link to another section of your website when users click on them. If a visitor arrives from an email you sent and then clicks an internally tagged link on your homepage, it will overwrite the original source data and incorrectly attribute the session to an internal campaign instead of the email that started it. This will give you very bad data every single time.

Mistake 3: Vague or Meaningless Campaign Names

Naming a campaign promo1 or campaign_1234 is not good practice, assuming it’s memorable months later, which it might not be. The purpose of this is to clearly and quickly report your key metrics. Make your names descriptive, like q4_black_friday_email, so you'll immediately know what you're looking at months from now. Your future self will be thanking you.

Final Thoughts

Using these short bits of text for your URLs gives you incredible clarity into your marketing performance and is no longer optional as GA4 reports have gotten far less readable and are harder to use without them. Knowing how to build UTM links, track data, and stay consistent opens up a new level of data-driven decision-making for your business. Start by building GA4 UTM parameter links in your most important advertising channel.

As you scale and analyze performance across multiple marketing tools on a weekly and daily basis — like your campaigns in Facebook Ads, leads in HubSpot, and sales in your Shopify store — remembering where each dataset connects into GA4 isn't something an entrepreneur should have to concern themselves with. Manually piecing together different reports to understand what a new session turns into becomes extremely tedious. At Graphed, we remove this friction by connecting GA4 to your other sales and marketing data sources in seconds, giving you one centralized experience for understanding marketing campaign performance into revenue. All you'll need to do is ask a quick question like, "Which UTM campaign drove the most Shopify revenue last month?" and we will build the report with our agent instantly, making data accessible to everyone with an internet connection on your team.