A UTM convention should make the same campaign recognizable across links and reports. If every teammate invents labels independently, the reporting problem grows with every launch.
Keep the convention small, document it, and make the approved values easy to reuse.
Define the core fields
Google’s campaign URL guidance explains UTM parameters used in Analytics. Decide how your team will populate source, medium, campaign, and any additional fields needed for a real comparison.
| Field | Team convention to define |
|---|---|
| Source | The sending platform, partner, or publication |
| Medium | The consistent channel classification |
| Campaign | The initiative or campaign being evaluated |
| Content | A meaningful creative or placement distinction |
| Term | A relevant targeting distinction where appropriate |
Avoid using a field for several incompatible meanings without documentation.
Choose a readable style
Use consistent capitalization, separators, and abbreviations. Include a date only when it distinguishes a meaningful campaign period. Do not encode every operational detail into an unreadable string.
For a fictional webinar campaign, a name such as founder-measurement-webinar-2026-09 may be sufficient. The exact spelling matters less than consistent reuse and a record of what it means.
Keep a link registry
Record the destination, parameter values, owner, purpose, and creation date. Generate links from approved entries where possible. Check that the final URL loads correctly and preserves the intended parameters through redirects.
Do not put names, emails, or other personal information in campaign parameters. URLs can travel through logs and other systems.
Separate external acquisition from internal navigation
Think carefully before adding campaign parameters to links inside your own site. Internal promotion tracking has a different purpose from identifying how a visitor arrived. Use a method appropriate to that question rather than reusing acquisition labels casually.
Review the report after launch
Look for unexpected spellings, blank values, and duplicate campaign names. Repair the convention and the link-creation process when a pattern appears. Keep a mapping for historical labels instead of silently pretending they were always consistent.
The CRM outcome map explains how source context continues beyond the visit. A good naming convention should reduce interpretation work every time someone opens a report.
Co-founder and CEO of Stackmatix, startup advisor, and former Head of Sales at MightyHive. Connect with Matt on LinkedIn ↗ · More about Matt →