Question 1

What's the difference between utm_source and utm_medium?

Accepted Answer

Source is where the traffic came from — the specific platform or publication, like facebook, mailchimp, or morning-brew. Medium is how it got to you — the type of channel, like cpc, email, or social. Source answers "who sent it," medium answers "what kind of channel was it."

Question 2

How should I name a UTM campaign?

Accepted Answer

Use lowercase, hyphens between words, descriptive but not overly specific. Add a date or quarter to avoid collisions year over year — spring-launch-2026 is better than spring-launch. Use the same utm_campaign value across every channel in the same campaign so you can roll up performance.

Question 3

Should I use UTMs on internal links?

Accepted Answer

Never. Adding UTMs to links between pages on your own site overwrites the original traffic source — a visitor who came from Google suddenly looks like internal traffic in your reports. UTMs belong only on inbound links: emails, ads, social posts, partner content.

Question 4

Do UTM parameters affect SEO?

Accepted Answer

No. Search engines recognize UTMs as tracking parameters and ignore them when indexing. Your rankings are unaffected by adding UTMs to URLs you share externally.

Question 5

Should I tag Google Ads URLs manually?

Accepted Answer

No. Google Ads uses auto-tagging (the gclid parameter) which captures cost, keyword, and ad data automatically. Manual UTMs override this and break cost-per-click attribution in GA4. Leave Google Ads URLs untagged and let auto-tagging do its job.

Question 6

Why do my UTMs show up as "Unassigned" or "Other" in GA4?

Accepted Answer

GA4 has a recognized vocabulary for utm_medium values — using non-standard ones like facebook_paid or email_promo lands traffic in "Unassigned" instead of the right channel grouping. Stick to standard mediums: cpc, email, social, referral, display, affiliate, organic. The Planner uses these by default.

UTM Planner

What kind of campaign are you running?