UTM parameters: a small set of rules that keeps your reports clean
How to use UTM parameters without ending up with fifteen spellings of 'twitter'. Which tags to use, a naming scheme for small teams, and the mistakes that send campaigns to Direct.
· 6 min read
UTM parameters are the tags you add to a link so analytics knows where a visit came from. They are the cheapest attribution you will ever get, and the easiest to make a mess of. A few rules decided up front keep them useful.
The five parameters
| Parameter | Answers | Example |
|---|---|---|
utm_source | Who sent the visit? | newsletter, reddit, x, podcast-name |
utm_medium | What kind of channel? | email, social, cpc, referral |
utm_campaign | Which push? | launch-oct-2026, black-friday |
utm_content | Which link or creative? | header-button, footer-link |
utm_term | Which keyword (paid search)? | web-analytics |
Source and medium are the two that matter. Campaign is worth adding for anything time-bound. Content and term are optional.
https://example.com/pricing?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=launch-oct-2026Rules that keep reports clean
- Lowercase everything. Most tools treat
Twitter,twitterandTWITTERas three sources. - Use hyphens, not spaces. Spaces become
%20or+and split the same campaign into different rows. - Pick one name per source and write it down.
xortwitter, not both. A shared note listing the allowed values is enough for a small team. - Use standard mediums. Analytics tools assign channels from the medium:
emailbecomes Email,cpcbecomes Paid,socialbecomes Social. A made-up medium likeblastmay end up uncategorised. - Never tag internal links. A UTM on a link from your own homepage to your pricing page starts a new session and replaces the visitor's real source with your own campaign.
- Keep tags out of anything you want to rank. Put UTMs on links you share, not on links in your sitemap or canonical URLs.
What to tag (most founders miss these)
- Every newsletter and onboarding email, because mail apps don't send a referrer
- Links in your social bios and pinned posts
- Your email signature
- Links you give podcast hosts, partners and affiliates
- Slide decks, PDFs and docs you share
- QR codes
Each of these would otherwise arrive as direct traffic, and most of it is the dark social you can't see any other way.
The short version: ?ref=
For links where five parameters are overkill, many tools accept ?ref= as a short source tag: example.com?ref=producthunt. It is easy to type in a bio or a comment and still keeps the source.
Mistakes that send campaigns to Direct
- Redirects that drop the query string, for example from a short link or a
wwwredirect - Pages where the tracking script loads after a client-side redirect has already removed the tags
- Link shorteners that are set up to strip parameters
- Ad platforms with auto-tagging turned off and no manual tags
Test every new campaign link once: open it in a private window and check that the visit shows the right source in your live view.