A newsletter link without UTMs usually shows up as direct traffic or a generic referral in GA4. An influencer campaign without UTMs disappears inside “social”. UTM parameters fix this: they’re tags added to the end of the link that say exactly where the visit came from.

What each parameter means

Standardization rules

1. All lowercase

   GA4 is case-sensitive. “Email” and “email” become two different rows in the report.

2. No accents and no spaces

   Use hyphens instead of spaces and avoid special characters. The builder above already does this cleanup.

3. Medium follows GA4’s list

   Values like cpc, email, social and referral help GA4 classify traffic in the default channel group. Inventing “paid-instagram” as a medium usually drops the visit into “Unassigned”.

4. Never use UTMs on internal links

   A UTM link inside your own site starts a new attribution and wipes out the visit’s real source.

5. Document it in a spreadsheet

   A tab with the allowed values for each parameter stops everyone on the team inventing their own standard.

UTM examples by campaign type

What matters isn’t following these exact values, but choosing a standard and always using it. The same channel written three different ways becomes three rows in the reports.

How to see UTM results in GA4

1. Open Traffic acquisition

   Under Reports › Acquisition › Traffic acquisition.

2. Change the primary dimension

   Select “Session source/medium” or “Session campaign”.

3. Add the key events

   Filter the key events column to see which campaigns generated leads or sales.

4. Cross-check with the CRM

   Store the UTMs in hidden form fields so the source follows the lead all the way to the sale.

The mistakes that clutter reports the most

• Mixed capital letters, which GA4 treats as different values;
• UTMs on internal links, which overwrite the visit’s real source;
• Non-standard utm_medium, which drops traffic into the channel group’s “Unassigned” bucket;
• Untested shortened links, which sometimes lose the parameters in the redirect;
• UTMs only on the campaign, with no hidden form fields, so the source gets lost in the CRM.

Every form on Manáry’s site stores the source page and UTMs in hidden fields, and the UTM standard is documented in each client’s measurement plan .

Frequently asked questions