Six Best Practices for Getting Started With UTM Parameters in Google Analytics 4

At its core, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a suite of reports filled with data-driven marketing insights that help paint a picture of your website’s traffic. Have you ever wondered which products were purchased by users who clicked a certain social media post? What about pages viewed by users who clicked a link in your email newsletter? With proper UTM parameters, all of this data and more becomes available to GA4 users.

UTM parameters are essential for accurately measuring the performance of your marketing campaigns. Unfortunately, far too often we meet businesses that have unclear reports because they are not using them correctly. Here at BFO, we often train our clients on how to optimize their use of UTM Parameters. This has been especially important amidst all the changes during the transition to GA4.

In this beginner’s guide to UTM parameters in GA4, I’ll cover the basics in six easy best practices. Once applied, these can be used to improve marketing analytics, make better decisions, and grow your business or brand.  By paying attention to these best practices, you establish a foundation of dependable data, empowering strategic decision-making and enhancing marketing strategies.

1. Use Lowercase Letters

UTM parameters are case sensitive, in order to stay consistent, use lowercase letters in order to avoid any traffic from being mis-grouped. For example, Google defines twitter and Twitter as two different sources.

2. Dashes Over Underscores – And No Spaces!

In this article, expert Matt Cutts recommends using dashes rather than underscores as URL separators. For example, use facebook-ad rather than facebook_ad. You could also use the plus symbol, facebook+ad, but never leave spaces.

3. Set Up utm_id and utm_campaign Parameters

Google Analytics 4 supports importing cost, click, and impression data from non-Google advertising networks to drive data-driven insights and attribution. Adding utm_id and utm_campaign is the first step to getting the data you need into GA4 to begin this process.

4. Short & Simple

When setting up your campaigns on non-Google platforms, it is important to use simple campaign names that can be easily integrated into your URLs with the utm_campaign parameter. In addition, long tags can be difficult to read and digest. Keeping things simple will help keep your reports organized and user-friendly.

For example utm_campaign=summer-sale is better than utm_campaign=summer-twenty-percent-off-shirts-and-shoes-sale

5. Manage Parameters With Documentation

Track all of your UTM parameters for your campaigns using a spreadsheet as a guide for your team. This allows you to have a reference for running campaign data in Google Analytics, and also can be used as examples for team members constructing UTM terms for a campaign.

6. Test URLs Before & After Deployment

Test your URLs and verify that your UTM-tagged URLs direct traffic to your site correctly and are tracking correctly in Google Analytics 4. Once your campaigns go live, continue to monitor traffic to confirm data is being recorded accurately.

All This & More!

Once you have these basics covered, you will be able to segment your traffic reports by source with high granularity and be well on your way to being a power user of Google Analytics 4. Be sure to check out resources such as the Google Analytics Campaign URL Builder to help you along the way. 

This is just the beginning of your journey into fully optimizing your GA4 property for your business’s needs. For more information about UTM Parameters and setting up channel groupings in GA4, check out this downloadable guide to keep your tracking... tracking!

Questions? Contact our Analytics department at analytics@befoundonline.com.

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