UTM Standards

UTM parameters are used to tag your inbound links so you can have better attribution reports. Following standard conventions is very important to make sure the reports will categorize data correctly.

This guide contains the recommended UTM standards for link shortener tools (or spreadsheets), this will help you to improve your online attribution reports 🚀

UTM parameters

The parameters below can be added to your URL as queries and used to attribute the traffic to specific channels, platforms and content. Take a look at the most common UTMs:

Parameter	Purpose	Dimension in GA4
utm_source	identify the source of your traffic ("where the link lives")	Source First user source Session source
utm_medium	identify the type or format of the marketing medium	Medium First user medium Session medium
utm_campaign	attribute the traffic to one your own campaign projects	Campaign First user campaign Session campaign
utm_content	describe the content version/type where the link is being placed.	Manual ad content Session manual ad content First user manual ad content
utm_term	identify the segment or paid keyword.	Manual term Session manual term First user manual term
global_project	attribute the traffic to one of the Global Campaign Projects	Global Project (custom dimension)

You can also find more information about additional parameters in Google Analytics 4 documentation.

Channel Standards

The UTM standard below are used in our internal link attribution tool - Burlo - and recommended as best-practices for all NROs.

Navigate to each of the channel groupings below to see examples from the specific standards:

Channel Group	utm_source	utm_medium
Email	hs_email en	email
Mobile	whatsapp telegram messenger sms	mobile notification sms
Offline	offline	flyer print radio tv billboard
Referral	[domain.com]	referral
Search Engines	google yahoo	organic paid ppc retargeting display banner expandable interstitial cpm
Social Media	facebook instagram twitter linkedin youtube tiktok twitch emplifi linktree	affiliate social paid retargeting share

Observations:

• Use utm_medium is one of the most important parameters in order to attribute your session traffic to the right channel in Google Analytics. If you use standards different from the ones defined by the GA4 Default Channel Group definitions, your traffic will appear as unassigned. For example:

✅ If you use utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=paid your traffic will correctly be placed in the "Paid Social" channel.

⛔ If you use utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=newsletter your traffic won't be correctly placed at the "Email" channel

• There are no standard values for utm_content , but we recommend using it to identify different content types on social media, so you can compare them in your reports. Also can be used to for message testing, to describe the different content versions that are pointing to the same landing page.

• There are no standard values for the use of utm_term for social media, you can customise it for your local needs.

Campaign standards

Tracking local campaigns

• Use utm_campaign to track campaign projects across different channels. The list of campaign projects should be determined by the NRO, in a way that is aligned with their internal structure. The idea is that a project is something that will be evaluated as a unit. It is ideally cross-channel, has a start and end date, with a person or team responsible.

Example of utm_campaign: car-free-day, north-sea-ship-tour, food-waste, forest-fires

How to define your own utm_campaign standard values?

One important aspect of a campaign project is that they should group outputs across all the channels involved. So if your campaign project posts or advertises on social media, has a petition and sends out an email, then they should be tagged with the same project identifier (using the "utm_campaign" parameter in links or the "Local Project" custom dimension in the dataLayer) so they can be easily grouped and evaluated together.

• Project identifiers should not contain references to platforms, dates or call to actions. They should be used to group things, not to separate them. We can use utm_source, utm_medium, utm_content, etc to segment a campaign project.

• We don't recommend using too broad terms (like baskets or strategic focus), or too little, channel-specific values either. Don't use unique values for utm_campaign either, the idea here is to use a value to group different outputs across different channels that will be evaluated together. Best is to use values that can be linked to a single strategic focus, so you can group campaign projects at the reporting level.

• It is also recommended to introduce a set of values for evergreen social media content ("food-waste" or "forest-fires" in the above example) that can be compared against each other or grouped at the report level under "evergreen" and then compared against the strategic focuses.

Why do we recommend specific campaign projects as utm_campaign?

1. the campaign basket structure at GPI doesn't exist anymore

2. more integration across our platforms give us new opportunities to focus on cross-channel projects

3. we want to promote a more agile approach to iterations, testing and evaluation

4. better alignment between industry best practices (Google Analytics, Hubspot, etc) and our work

Tracking global campaign projects

• Use the custom query parameter global_project for tracking Global Campaign Projects. We have implemented this custom query in Burlo since most NROs are using utm_campaign for their local tracking needs.

Example:

www.greenpeace.org/NRO/?utm_campaign=local-campaign-name&global_project=global-campaign-name

You can find the latest Global Project Standards here in Gitbook or you can also use Burlo (our URL link builder) to create your links.

Best practices

Here are some key recommendationsg for better attribution reporting:

1. Follow the rules: be consistent. Even if you are not ready yet to start following the above conventions, make sure you follow Google's own Default channel definition standards (or the updated definitions for GA4). But in any case, follow your own conventions. Tag all your inbound links, if you only tag half of your owned traffic then your reports won't be useful.

2. Keep it simple: don't paste together values (like: "fbook-ads-leadgen-forests-0119"). The idea behind UTM tags is to be able to report on different aspects of your work. You can always use filters and conditions at the reporting level to group things together. Don't use unique values for utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign parameters. They are intended to group things, so they can be evaluated together, not to separate them. Use utm_term and utm_content to be able to identify differences.

3. Keep it clean: make sure you are using filters at the reporting level to group referrals like m.facebook.com, lm.facebook.com, etc together. Make sure your channel groupings are in line with the utm parameters you are using. If you see more than 1-2% of your traffic in the "Other" channel, you have to make adjustments.

4. Time comparisons, segments, benchmarks will help you evaluate your metrics: your report in itself will not help you get to actionable insights. You need to evaluate your metrics to be able to answer questions about what to focus on more, what to focus on less. The easiest way to evaluate your metrics is to compare them to something else: to a previous period, to a different segment, to a different channel, to a different NRO or an industry benchmark.

5. Use Custom channel groupings for more insights: the Default channel grouping in Google Analytics 3 is grouping all Social traffic in one channel. Use Custom channel groupings to have different perspectives: it's recommended to have a custom channel grouping where you split Social traffic into Organic social and Paid social, and potentially a second one to group all your organic and all your paid traffic in only two buckets.

6. Focus on attribution: make sure you have reports on your different UTM tags: one on Source, one on Medium, one on Campaign but also one on your Default and custom channel groupings (custom groupings will need to be (re)created in Data Studio). Group your campaigns to have a report by Strategic Focus. It is important to have a detailed report for daily work listing the performance of each post and email but it's equally important to have a strategic report focusing on channel attribution and campaign project performance.

7. Use multiple KPIs in your attribution reports: using a pie chart to compare sources or campaigns allows you to compare along one metric only - sessions or signups, etc. It's better to create a pivot table that allows you to compare multiple metrics, for example new users, sessions, signups, conversion rates for different goals, total donations. This will give you a deeper understanding on what different channels or campaigns can contribute to your overall strategic goals.