A UTM naming convention you can copy.
Consistent values are what make UTM reports useful. Here are recommended values per channel, the rules behind them and a sheet to download.
Reports are only as clean as the values.
Analytics treats Email, email and e-mail as three different mediums, and newsletter and Newsletter as two sources. Without agreed values a campaign report fills up with near-duplicates that nobody can sum.
A convention is a short sheet that lists the allowed source and medium for each channel, and a pattern for campaign names. Everyone who builds a link copies from it.
Source and medium by channel.
| Channel | utm_source | utm_medium |
|---|---|---|
| Newsletter | newsletter | |
| Product update email | product_update | |
| Paid search | cpc | |
| Paid social | paid_social | |
| Organic social | social | |
| Display ads | display_network | display |
| Affiliate or partner | partner_name | affiliate |
| Referral from another site | site_name | referral |
| SMS | sms | sms |
| QR code on print | flyer_or_poster_name | qr |
The rules that matter.
Lowercase only
Values are case-sensitive in reports.
One separator
Pick underscores or hyphens and use it everywhere. No spaces.
Campaign pattern
Use something sortable, such as year-quarter_theme: 2026-q4_black-friday.
Source is the where
The specific place: google, newsletter, linkedin.
Medium is the how
The type of channel: cpc, email, social. Keep this list short.
Never tag internal links
It starts a new session and overwrites the real source.
Mediums and Google Analytics channels.
Google Analytics sorts visits into default channel groups mostly by the medium, which is why values such as email, cpc, social, display, affiliate and referral are used above. A medium it doesn't recognise, such as qr, lands in the unassigned group until you define a custom channel for it. Check Google's current channel definitions before you finalise your list.
Tag links the same way, every time.
Build UTM links with the values above, then shorten and track them.
Common questions
Should I use hyphens or underscores? +
Either, as long as everyone uses the same. Underscores are common for values and hyphens for words inside a campaign name.
Which parameters are required? +
Source, medium and campaign. Term and content are optional.
Can I change the convention later? +
You can, but reports then split at the change. Add new values rather than renaming old ones, and note the date.
How do I apply it to many links? +
Use the bulk UTM builder to apply the values to a list of URLs.