How to Create UTM Links for Google Analytics 4, Step by Step

Open the free UTM builderDownload the UTM link planner (PDF)

What a UTM link is

A UTM link is an ordinary web address with tags added after a question mark. Each tag is a name and a value, joined with an equals sign, and the tags are separated with an ampersand. Here is one for a spring offer shared in a newsletter:

https://yourbusiness.com/offer?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring_sale

The page is the same page. Nothing about it changes for the visitor. What changes is that Google Analytics reads the tags when the visit starts and files it under that source, medium and campaign instead of guessing. Without tags, a click from an email app often arrives with no referrer at all and lands in Direct, which tells you nothing.

Google's own help page on campaign URLs lists the tags and says that when you add parameters you should always use three of them:

• utm_source: who sent the visit, such as google, newsletter or facebook.
• utm_medium: the kind of link, such as email, social or cpc.
• utm_campaign: the offer or push it belongs to, such as spring_sale.

Two more are optional. utm_content tells apart two links in the same place, such as the button and the text link in one email. utm_term is for a paid search keyword, and most small businesses can leave it empty. There is also utm_id, which only matters if you upload campaign cost data into GA4.

Three decisions to make before you build the link

The builder takes a minute. The thinking before it is what makes the report readable three months later.

What do you want to compare? Write it as a sentence. "Did the Instagram post or the newsletter bring more bookings for the spring offer?" means you need the same campaign name on both links and a different source on each. "Which of the two buttons in the newsletter gets clicked?" means the same source, medium and campaign on both, with a different utm_content.

Which spelling will you reuse? GA4 treats values as case-sensitive. Google's help page gives the example that utm_source=google and utm_source=Google are different values, and Facebook and facebook become two rows in your report. Pick lowercase, use underscores instead of spaces, and keep a list. Our UTM naming convention guide has a ready-made one.

Which channel should it land in? GA4 groups visits into channels such as Organic Social, Paid Social and Email by reading the source and medium. The rules are published on Google's default channel group page: a medium of social, sm or social-media counts as Organic Social, a medium of email counts as Email, and a medium that starts with paid or contains cp (such as cpc) counts as paid when the source is a known search or social site. If you invent a medium GA4 does not know, the visit still shows in the source and medium report but sits in Unassigned in the channel report. The difference between the two tags is covered in UTM source vs medium.

Step by step: build the link in the free builder

The free UTM builder runs in your browser. There is no sign-up and no limit.

1. Paste the page address

Paste the page people should land on. You can leave off https; the builder adds it. If the address already has a question mark or a # part, keep it: the builder keeps your existing parameters and the # part, and replaces any old utm tags it finds (it tells you when it does).

2. Pick a preset

The presets fill in source and medium with values GA4 recognises: Google Ads (google / cpc), Google Business Profile (google / organic), Facebook post (facebook / social), Facebook ad (facebook / paid_social), Instagram, Instagram ad, LinkedIn, Email newsletter (newsletter / email) and QR code (flyer / qr). You can overwrite any of them.

3. Name the campaign

Type the campaign name. With "Tidy values" on, which is the default, the builder turns it to lowercase and replaces spaces with underscores, so "Spring Sale" becomes spring_sale.

4. Add content only if you need it

Leave content empty unless the same place holds two links you want to tell apart. Two buttons in one email become utm_content=top_button and utm_content=footer_link.

5. Copy the link

Press Copy link. The link is saved in "Your saved links" in this browser, so you can copy it again, reuse its values or download the whole history as a CSV for your records. Symbols are encoded properly: a value like "50% off & free/ship?" becomes 50%25%20off%20%26%20free%2Fship%3F, so it cannot break the address.

6. If the link is going on paper, make a QR code

Press Make a QR code to open the free QR code generator with your tagged link already filled in. Set the source to where the code is printed (flyer, menu, van) so each placement gets its own row.

Test the link before you share it

A tagged link can look perfect and still lose its tags. The usual cause is a redirect: some website builders, link shorteners and "www to non-www" rules send the visitor on to a different address and drop everything after the question mark. Open the link yourself on your phone, let the page finish loading and look at the address bar. If the utm tags are still there, the tags reached the page.

Do not expect to see your own test click straight away in every report. Google's Realtime report help explains that the "first user source" card only shows users who have already been through normal processing, so a brand-new visitor can be missing from it. The dependable check is the next day: Google's data freshness page says processing can take 24 to 48 hours. Then open Reports, Acquisition, Traffic acquisition and change the first column to Session campaign. Our guide to UTM tags that do not show in GA4 covers what to check if it is missing.

Where tagged links belong, and where they don't

Tag links you place somewhere else: posts, ads, emails, your Google Business Profile, QR codes on printed material, a partner's website. Those are the visits GA4 cannot identify on its own.

Do not tag links between pages of your own website. A tag starts a new campaign in the visitor's session, so a tagged menu link would credit your own site instead of the post or ad that brought the person in. And if you run Google Ads with auto-tagging on, which Google says is the default for new accounts on its auto-tagging page, leave ad links untagged; Google adds its own click ID and GA4 prefers it.

GA4 counts visits, not people. When the visitor fills in a form, the tags are usually gone from the picture. On paid plans, Fynl keeps the first and latest source, medium and campaign on the contact when someone fills in a Fynl form, website page or chat after clicking a tagged link, and Reports shows how many leads each source brought and how many were won. The free builder needs none of that; the link works with any site that runs Google Analytics.

The UTM builder sits with the QR code generator, the calculators and the other no-cost tools on our free tools page.

Questions people also ask

Sources

• Google Analytics Help — URL builders: Collect campaign data with custom URLs
• Google Analytics Help — Default channel group
• Google Analytics Help — Realtime report
• Google Analytics Help — Data freshness
• Google Ads Help — About auto-tagging