How to Do Link Tagging in Google Analytics & Best Practices for Campaign, Source, and Medium Naming
Just as important as SEO, Tracking marketing efforts accurately is crucial for understanding performance and optimizing strategies. Google Analytics (GA) provides a simple yet powerful way to track links through UTM (Urchin Tracking Module1) parameters. By using link tagging in Google Analytics 4 properly, you can gain detailed insights into where your traffic is coming from and which campaigns are driving results.
How to do link tagging in Google Analytics
Google Analytics uses five UTM parameters to track links:
- utm_source – Identifies where the traffic is coming from (e.g., Facebook, Google, Newsletter).
- utm_medium – Specifies the type of marketing medium (e.g., email, CPC, social, referral).
- utm_campaign – Names the specific campaign (e.g., summer_sale, product_launch, webinar_signup).
- utm_term (optional) – Tracks keywords for paid search campaigns.
- utm_content (optional) – Differentiates between multiple links in the same ad or email.
To generate tagged URLs easily, use Google’s Campaign URL Builder.
Best Practices for Campaign, Source, and Medium Naming
To maintain consistency and accuracy in reporting, follow these best practices:
- Be consistent – Use standardized naming conventions to ensure clean and comparable data.
- Use lowercase letters – GA is case-sensitive, so ‘Facebook’ and ‘facebook’ would be tracked separately.
- Avoid spaces and special characters – Use underscores (_) or dashes (-) instead.
- Be descriptive – Clearly define sources and campaigns to make reporting easier (e.g., ‘black_friday_sale’ instead of ‘BFSale’).
- Separate paid and organic sources – Label paid sources explicitly (e.g., utm_medium=CPC vs. utm_medium=organic_social).
By implementing structured UTM parameters, you can accurately track your marketing performance and make data-driven decisions to optimize future campaigns.
In general, I recommend the following naming conventions:
Campaigns
| Campaign | Tag | Example |
| Open Houses | open-houses | utm_campaign=open-house |
| AI Webinar | ai-webinar | utm_campaign=ai-webinar |
Source
| Source | Tag | Example |
|---|---|---|
| utm_source=google | ||
| Oktopost | oktopost | utm_source=oktopost |
| Pardot | pardot | utm_source=pardot |
| Youtube | youtube | utm_source=youtube |
| EventBrite | eventbrite | utm_source=eventbrite |
| facebook.com | utm_source=facebook.com | |
| utm_source=instagram | ||
| utm_source=wechat |
Medium
| Medium | Tag | Example |
| Ads paid by Click (Google) | cpc (Cost per click) | utm_medium=cpc |
| Ads paid by CPM | cpm | utm_medium=cpm |
| utm_medium=email | ||
| Organic Social | organic-social | utm_medium=organic-social |
| Paid Social | paid-social | utm_medium=paid-social |
Conclusion
Using standardized UTM parameters ensures accurate tracking and reporting of marketing performance. Follow these guidelines to maintain clean and actionable analytics data.
- Old, old name from an acquisition years ago ↩︎
