GA4 UTM Parameters: Where to Find Them & How to Analyze Campaign Data

Alright, let's dive deep into Google Analytics 4. If you're serious about understanding your marketing efforts, you know that simply driving traffic isn't enough. You need to know what works, where users are coming from, and which campaigns are actually delivering results – whether that's leads, sales, or other key conversions. For years, UTM parameters have been the unsung heroes doing this heavy lifting.

While the interface and data model of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) might feel like a different world compared to Universal Analytics (UA), the fundamental need for campaign tracking hasn't changed. In fact, understanding how to leverage UTM parameters in Google Analytics is more critical than ever. This post is your comprehensive, no-fluff guide to finding, analyzing, and correctly using GA4 UTM parameters. We'll cover everything from the standard reports to custom explorations, and crucially, highlight pitfalls to avoid.

UTM Parameters

Before we jump into GA4 specifics, let's ensure we're on the same page. UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module – a relic name from the company Google acquired to build Google Analytics. These are simple tags, or parameters, that you add to the end of a URL. When someone clicks that tagged URL, GA4 reads these parameters and uses them to classify the incoming traffic.

There are five standard UTM parameters you can use:

1. utm_source: Identifies where the traffic originated. Think of the specific website, platform, or source.

   • Examples: google, facebook, linkedin, newsletter_may, partner_blog

2. utm_medium: Identifies the type of traffic or marketing channel.

   • Examples: cpc, organic, social, email, affiliate, display

3. utm_campaign: Identifies the specific marketing campaign name.

   • Examples: summer_sale_2025, q3_webinar_promo, brand_awareness_uk

4. utm_term: (Optional but Recommended for Paid Search) Used to identify paid search keywords. Google Ads auto-tagging handles this automatically if enabled, but it's useful for other paid search platforms.

   • Examples: ga4_consulting, web_analytics_tools

5. utm_content: (Optional but Recommended for A/B Testing Ads/Links) Used to differentiate between links or ads pointing to the same URL within the same campaign. Useful for A/B testing ad creatives or button placements.

   • Examples: blue_button, sidebar_link, image_ad_v1

In essence, these parameters paint a detailed picture for GA4, answering the crucial question: How did this user find their way to my website? Google Analytics tracking UTM links is fundamental for attributing success back to the right initiatives.

Consistent UTM Links: The Foundation of Accurate Data

Garbage in, garbage out. This principle applies perfectly to UTM tracking. If your tagging is messy and inconsistent, your GA4 reports will be equally chaotic and difficult to interpret. The most critical best practice is consistency.

Decide on a clear, documented naming convention for your sources, mediums, and campaigns, and stick to it. For instance, always use linkedin instead of sometimes using LinkedIn or linkedin.com. Why? Because GA4 treats linkedin, LinkedIn, and Linkedin.com as three separate sources. Use lowercase consistently to avoid this common pitfall. Tools like Google's Campaign URL Builder can help create tagged links, but they don't enforce consistency – that's up to you and your team. Establishing shared documentation or a spreadsheet for generating and tracking UTMs is highly recommended. Remember: GA4 dimensions populated by UTMs are case-sensitive!

If you're wondering what happens when UTMs are missing or misused, it often leads to misattributed sessions—check out what direct traffic means in GA4 to understand why that matters.

Finding UTM Data in GA4

Okay, you've tagged your URLs correctly. Now, where does this data live in the GA4 interface? The primary location is within the standard Acquisition reports.

1. The Primary Hub: The Traffic Acquisition Report

This is your go-to report for understanding session-based traffic sources.

1. Navigate to Reports in the left-hand navigation.

2. Under the Life cycle collection, click on Acquisition, then select Traffic acquisition.

By default, this report usually shows data grouped by the Session default channel group. This is GA4's attempt to automatically categorize traffic (e.g., Organic Search, Paid Search, Direct). To see your UTM data, you need to change the primary dimension:

• Click the dropdown arrow next to the current primary dimension (e.g., Session default channel group).

• Search for or select dimensions populated by your UTM tags:

  • Session source / medium: Shows the combined source and medium (e.g., google / cpc, newsletter_may / email). This is often the most useful starting point.

  • Session medium: Groups traffic by medium (cpc, email, social, etc.).

  • Session source: Groups traffic by source (google, facebook, linkedin, etc.).

  • Session campaign: Groups traffic by your utm_campaign values.

You can further refine your analysis by adding a secondary dimension. Click the blue '+' icon next to the primary dimension dropdown. For example, if your primary dimension is Session campaign, you could add Session source / medium as a secondary dimension to see the performance of each campaign broken down by its specific sources and mediums. Don't forget to use the filter bar at the top of the report (click "Add filter") to isolate data for specific campaigns, sources, or date ranges. This is essential for focused analysis in the standard google analytics utm report view.

2. Understanding GA4's UTM-Related Dimensions

GA4 automatically captures your UTM parameters and populates specific dimensions. It's vital to know their names, especially when building custom reports (Explorations):

• Session-Scoped Dimensions (Reflect the session where the user arrived via UTM):

  • Session source: Populated by utm_source.

  • Session medium: Populated by utm_medium.

  • Session campaign: Populated by utm_campaign.

  • Session manual term: Populated by utm_term. (Note the "manual" prefix).

  • Session manual ad content: Populated by utm_content. (Note the "manual" prefix).

  • Session source / medium: A convenient combination populated by utm_source and utm_medium.

  • Session Google Ads...: Dimensions automatically populated if you link Google Ads and use auto-tagging (these often work alongside manual UTMs).

• First User-Scoped Dimensions (Reflect the first time a user was acquired):

  • First user source, First user medium, First user campaign, etc. These dimensions look at the UTM parameters associated with the user's very first visit. Useful for understanding which initial touchpoints acquire new users, even if they convert in later sessions attributed to different sources.

Knowing these specific dimension names is key for unlocking deeper insights, especially when you move beyond the standard reports.

Analyzing UTM Data with GA4 Explorations

While the Traffic Acquisition report is great for quick overviews, Explorations are where you gain true analytical power and flexibility in GA4.

1. Why Use Explorations for UTM Analysis?

Standard reports are pre-defined. Explorations let you build custom reports from scratch. This means you can:

• Combine UTM dimensions (Session campaign, Session source / medium, Session manual term, etc.) with any available metrics (e.g., Purchase revenue, specific Conversion events, Engagement rate, User stickiness).

• Apply custom Segments (e.g., analyze campaign performance only for users from a specific country or who interacted with certain site features).

• Visualize data in various formats (tables, donuts, lines, scatter plots) tailored to your analysis needs.

• Create persistent, shareable reports for ongoing campaign monitoring.

2. Building a Basic UTM Performance Exploration

Let's build a simple but powerful campaign performance table:

1. Navigate to Explore in the left-hand navigation.

2. Start a new Blank exploration or choose the Free form template.

3. Import Dimensions: In the Variables column, click the '+' next to Dimensions. Search for and import:

   • Session campaign

   • Session source / medium

   • (Optional: Session manual term, Session manual ad content, Device category)

4. Import Metrics: Click the '+' next to Metrics. Search for and import relevant metrics like:

   • Sessions

   • Engaged sessions

   • Conversions (You might need to select specific conversion events like purchase or generate_lead)

   • Total users

   • Event count (if tracking specific mid-funnel actions)

   • Purchase revenue (if applicable)

5. Build the Report: Drag dimensions from Variables to the Rows section in the Tab Settings column (e.g., drag Session campaign first, then Session source / medium below it). Drag metrics from Variables to the Values section.

6. Refine: Use the Filters section in Tab Settings to narrow down by date range, specific campaigns, or other criteria. You can also change the visualization type.

This custom table gives you a much more granular view of how each utm campaign ga4 is performing across different sources and mediums, tied directly to the outcomes you care about.

3. Visualizing Campaign Flow

While direct filtering by UTM in GA4's Path Exploration can be limited, you can use Segments based on UTM dimensions (e.g., create a segment for users whose Session campaign was 'summer_sale_2025'). Applying this segment to a Path Exploration can help visualize the subsequent pages users visited after arriving from that specific campaign, offering insights into post-click behavior.

The Cardinal Sin: Why Internal UTM Tagging Corrupts Your GA4 Data

This is a critical point often misunderstood, especially by those new to campaign tracking. Never, ever use UTM parameters on links that point from one page of your website to another page of your same website.

1. What is Internal UTM Tagging?

It's when you add campaign tracking tags to internal links. For example, clicking a promotional banner on your homepage that links to yourwebsite.com/product-page?utm_source=homepage_banner&utm_medium=internal&utm_campaign=promo. This seems logical to track internal banner clicks, but it has disastrous consequences for your analytics.

2. The Damaging Impact:

1. It Destroys Original Source Attribution: Imagine a user arrives on your site via a paid Google ad (google / cpc). They browse a bit and then click that internal banner tagged with homepage_banner / internal. GA4 will overwrite the original google / cpc source/medium for that session and start attributing subsequent actions (like a purchase) to homepage_banner / internal. You've just lost the ability to credit Google Ads for that conversion!

2. It Inflates Session Counts: Depending on GA4's session timeout settings and how sessions are processed, clicking an internal UTM link can sometimes trigger the start of a new session, artificially inflating your session metrics.

3. It Makes Accurate Attribution Impossible: Your acquisition reports become meaningless mixtures of external sources and internal navigation elements, preventing you from understanding the true drivers of traffic and conversions.

3. The Correct Approach for Internal Promotions:

If you want to track clicks on internal banners, featured content, or calls-to-action, use GA4 Events. This is precisely what they are designed for.

• Configure an event (e.g., internal_promotion_click or use a recommended event like select_promotion).

• Pass relevant information as event parameters, such as:

  • promotion_id: e.g., 'homepage_banner_summersale'

  • creative_name: e.g., 'blue_button_v1'

  • location_id: e.g., 'homepage_hero_section'

• You can then analyze these events and parameters in GA4 (e.g., in Explorations or by registering parameters as custom dimensions) without corrupting your traffic source data.

Troubleshooting Common UTM Issues in GA4

Even with careful planning, you might encounter issues. Here are a few common ones:

• (not set) values: This often appears in your reports for source, medium, or campaign. Potential causes include:

  • URLs missing required UTM parameters (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign).

  • Redirects (especially server-side) stripping parameters before the user lands on the final page.

  • Conflicts between manual tagging and auto-tagging (e.g., Google Ads auto-tagging might override manual UTMs if not configured correctly).

  • GA4 data processing latency or data thresholding being applied, which can hide rows with low user counts.

• Inconsistent Data: Usually stems from inconsistent naming conventions or case sensitivity issues. Double-check your tagging implementation against your established rules. Use lowercase consistently!

• UTMs Not Showing Up Immediately: GA4 data isn't always real-time, especially standard reports. Allow some time (up to 24-48 hours in some cases) for data to be fully processed and reflected. Realtime reports might show hits, but attribution processing takes longer.

Still troubleshooting your GA4 implementation? Check out our guide on how to check if Google Analytics is working to ensure your tracking is properly configured, or dive into our analysis of what does direct traffic mean in Google Analytics if you're seeing unexpected traffic sources in your reports.

Validate Your UTM Implementation with Watson GA4 Audit Dashboard

After mastering UTM parameters in GA4, how confident are you that your implementation is working correctly? Many marketers spend hours setting up UTM tracking only to discover missing data, inconsistent naming conventions, or attribution issues months later. Watson GA4 Audit Dashboard offers a comprehensive solution with 58+ automated checks specifically designed to validate your campaign tracking setup – including dedicated UTM parameter validation. This free tool scans your GA4 property to identify common UTM-related issues like inconsistent tagging patterns, parameter case sensitivity problems, and potentially corrupted attribution from internal UTM usage (the "cardinal sin" we discussed earlier). Try the Watson GA4 Audit Dashboard today to ensure your campaign data flows accurately into GA4, giving you the confidence that your marketing performance metrics reflect reality, not tracking errors.

Conclusion

Tracking campaign performance effectively is non-negotiable for data-driven marketing. While GA4 presents a new interface and data model, UTM parameters remain the cornerstone of reliable campaign attribution.

Mastering where to find this data – primarily within the Traffic Acquisition standard report and the hyper-flexible Explorations – is key. Remember to leverage dimensions like Session campaign, Session source / medium, Session manual term, and Session manual ad content.

Above all, prioritize consistent tagging methodology across all your marketing channels and strictly avoid using UTM parameters for internal links. Get these fundamentals right, and you'll unlock accurate, actionable insights into your marketing performance within Google Analytics 4. Now go forth and analyze!

FAQs

• How do I see utm_term in GA4?

  Use the dimension Session manual term in the Traffic Acquisition report (as primary or secondary dimension) or in Explorations.

• How do I see utm_content in GA4?

  Use the dimension Session manual ad content in the Traffic Acquisition report or in Explorations.

• Where is the equivalent of UA's "Campaigns" report in GA4?

  The primary place is the Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition report. Change the primary dimension to Session campaign. For more detailed analysis matching UA's flexibility, build a custom Exploration.

• Why are my UTM parameters showing as (not set)?

  Check for missing parameters in your URLs, URL redirects that might remove tags, auto-tagging conflicts (like from Google Ads), or potential data thresholding applied by GA4.

• Can I import cost data for my UTM campaigns?

  Yes. If you aren't using Google Ads (which can automatically import cost data), you can use GA4's Data Import feature (Admin > Data settings > Data import) to upload cost data associated with specific utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign combinations from other ad platforms.