How to create UTM links for Google Ads

YYou spend $500 on Google Ads, $300 on Meta, $200 on LinkedIn. End of the month, you open Analytics and see 1,500 visitors — but you have no idea how many came from each channel. That's what happens when campaign links don't carry UTMs, or carry sloppy ones that Analytics groups incorrectly.

UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) is the standard every analytics platform uses to identify traffic source. Done right, you get full attribution. Done wrong, it's noise. This guide walks through the right way, with templates and an embedded tool to build them in seconds.

It's a URL with 3 to 5 extra parameters (always after a "?") that identify where the visit came from. Example:

blipfiles.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=black-friday-2026

Google Analytics, GA4, Mixpanel, Posthog and any other analytics tool reads these parameters automatically and categorizes the visit. Zero configuration needed on their side.

• —utm_source — the platform name. Examples: google, facebook, instagram, linkedin, newsletter, twitter, email.
• —utm_medium — the media type. Examples: cpc (cost-per-click), cpm (cost-per-thousand-impressions), social (organic), email, banner, affiliate.
• —utm_campaign — the internal campaign name. Standardize: black-friday-2026, product-launch-x, retargeting-q4.
• —utm_term — keyword (Google Ads/Bing only). Usually populated automatically with {keyword}.
• —utm_content — differentiator between creatives in the same campaign. Examples: blue-banner, video-30s, headline-a.

Google Ads (Search)

utm_source=google · utm_medium=cpc · utm_campaign=CAMPAIGN-NAME · utm_term={keyword} · utm_content=AD-NAME

Meta Ads (Facebook + Instagram)

utm_source=facebook · utm_medium=cpc · utm_campaign={{campaign.name}} · utm_content={{ad.name}}

Meta replaces {{campaign.name}} and {{ad.name}} automatically — you don't have to fill each campaign manually.

LinkedIn Ads

utm_source=linkedin · utm_medium=cpc · utm_campaign=NAME · utm_content=creative

Email Marketing

utm_source=newsletter · utm_medium=email · utm_campaign=blast-2026-04 · utm_content=cta-top

Mixed casing

Analytics treats "Google" and "google" as different sources. If you tag one campaign with "Google" and another with "google", they show up as 2 separate rows. Always lowercase, always.

Spaces and special characters

utm_campaign="Black Friday 2026" becomes "Black%20Friday%202026" in the URL — ugly and error-prone. Always use hyphens or underscores: black-friday-2026. No accents, no special chars.

Swapping source and medium

Most common error: utm_source=cpc&utm_medium=google. The CORRECT pairing is the opposite — source is WHERE it came from (google), medium is HOW it came (cpc). Swapping them breaks default Analytics categorization.

No documented standard

If every team member invents their own naming (campaign-bf26, BlackFriday2026, bf-2026), the report becomes uncomparable. Document the standards in a Notion page or shared doc, and force everyone to use the same builder — that way no typos.

After building the link, open it in an incognito tab and head to Google Analytics realtime (Realtime > Traffic). Within a minute the visit shows up with the source/medium/campaign you set. If you see "(direct) / (none)", you have a typo somewhere.