Using UTM Parameters: Track Campaigns Cleanly in GA4

You post a link on LinkedIn, send out a newsletter and maybe run a small ad, and then you look at your statistics and see: lots of visitors. Nice. But which of those activities did they actually come from? This is exactly where UTM parameters come in. They are the small, often overlooked tool that finally lets you see clearly in GA4 which campaign really brings visitors, and which was just effort.

What UTM parameters actually are

A UTM parameter is nothing more than a small addition you attach to the end of a link. For example, your-company.ch becomes your-company.ch/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-promo. It looks technical, but it's harmless: the link works completely normally, it just additionally tells Google Analytics where the click came from.

These additions are, in a sense, the labels on your visitors. Without them, a lot ends up in GA4 under a meaningless "direct" or "(not set)", and you're left in the dark.

The five building blocks, and which ones you really need

There are five UTM parameters, but for everyday use the first three matter most:

• utm_source (source): Where does the visitor come from? So something like newsletter, linkedin, google or instagram.
• utm_medium (channel): What kind of channel? For example email, social, cpc (for paid ads) or referral.
• utm_campaign (campaign): Which specific activity? Such as spring-promo, open-day or june-discount.
• utm_term and utm_content: Optional, for finer details, for instance to distinguish two variants of the same post. At the start you can safely leave these out.

If you consistently fill in source, channel and campaign, you already have the most important part in hand.

How to build a UTM link in two minutes

You don't have to type the parameters by hand. Google offers the free Campaign URL Builder for this: you enter your website address, fill in source, channel and campaign, and at the end you get a finished link that you just copy.

A few rules that save a lot of trouble:

• Stay lowercase and consistent: Newsletter and newsletter are two different sources to GA4. Decide on one spelling and stick with it.
• No spaces: use hyphens instead of spaces, so open-day instead of "open day".
• Only for external links: never put UTM on links within your own website, that distorts your analysis.

Where to find all this in GA4

Once your links are out there, GA4 collects the data automatically. You'll find the overview under Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition. There you see your visitors neatly broken down by source, channel and campaign.

Suddenly questions answer themselves that used to be pure guesswork: Does the newsletter bring more enquiries than LinkedIn? Was the paid ad worth it? Which subject line really got people onto the site? That is the real value of UTM, not pretty numbers, but better decisions about where you invest your time.

Common pitfalls

In my experience, a few things tend to go wrong:

• Inconsistent names: if every campaign is named differently, your analysis frays. Keep a small list with your standard terms.
• Sharing UTM in the address bar: if someone forwards your long link, the parameters travel with it. For clean tracking that's usually tolerable, but it isn't perfect.
• Wanting to track everything: start with your three or four most important channels. Better a few links done cleanly than a hundred done chaotically.

Starting small pays off

You don't have to be an analytics pro to benefit from UTM parameters. Even a single cleanly tagged newsletter link shows you more than you ever saw before. My advice: from today, tag every link you actively place somewhere with source, channel and campaign. After a few weeks you'll have a surprisingly clear picture of what resonates with your customers.

If you'd like to set up GA4 cleanly, or you're unsure whether your tracking is even measuring correctly, I'm happy to take a look with you, just get in touch via the contact form. And if you'd like to dive deeper into websites and visibility, you'll find plenty of practical tips for SMEs in my further posts.