UTM Naming Convention: 5 Simple Rules

Why it matters

Your reports group clicks by the exact words in your links. If one person writes Facebook and another writes facebook or fb, your analytics shows three different sources, and the clicks for one channel are split into three small rows. Nobody can tell which channel really worked.

A naming convention is one agreed way to write the names, so every link says the same thing the same way. It takes ten minutes to agree and saves hours of cleaning up reports later.

Messy and consistent, side by side

Five simple rules

1. Use lowercase only

   Most analytics tools treat Email and email as two different values. Write everything in lowercase and the split never happens. Write newsletter, not Newsletter.

2. Use hyphens, never spaces

   Write spring-sale, not Spring Sale. A space is changed into extra characters such as %20 inside a link, which makes reports hard to read. Pick hyphens or underscores and keep to the same one. This guide uses hyphens.

3. Pick one name for each thing

   Decide once whether it is facebook or fb, and use it every time. The same goes for mediums: choose paid-social or social-paid and stay with it.

4. Keep campaign names readable

   A name such as spring-sale-2026 tells anyone what the link was for, a year from now. Avoid names such as campaign1 or test, which mean nothing later. Adding the year or month helps you compare one season with the next.

5. Write the list down

   Keep a short list of approved sources, mediums and campaigns where everyone can see it. New spellings creep in when people have to guess.

Names to start with

These are one common way to name things, not a standard. Change them to suit your team, then keep them.

Some analytics tools sort visits into channels by looking at the medium, so a medium they do not recognise can end up in a catch-all group. Stick to a small set of mediums and reuse it.

Common mistakes

• Capital letters

  Not thisutm_source=Facebook

  Write thisutm_source=facebook

  Capitals create a second row in your report.

• Spaces in names

  Not thisutm_campaign=Spring Sale

  Write thisutm_campaign=spring-sale

  Spaces are changed into odd characters inside the link.

• Two names for one thing

  Not thisutm_source=fb and utm_source=facebook

  Write thisutm_source=facebook both times

  Two names mean two rows.

• Vague campaign names

  Not thisutm_campaign=test1

  Write thisutm_campaign=spring-sale-2026

  A year later nobody remembers what test1 was.

• Personal details in a tag

  Not thisutm_content=jane@example.com

  Write thisutm_content=header-button

  Anyone who clicks can read the whole link, so keep names and email addresses out of it.

• Changing a name halfway through

  Not thisspring-sale, then springsale

  Write thisspring-sale all the way through

  Half the results end up under a different name.

A messy set and a consistent set

Let the tool keep everyone honest

In Team mode you set the approved names once: the sources, mediums and campaigns your team may use. In Strict mode utmSnap stops any link that uses a name outside the list. In Warn mode it flags the link and lets you decide. Nobody has to remember the rules. You can see how the modes work on the How it works page.

When you are ready to share, one invite link carries your sources, mediums, campaigns, presets and the mode. Your team opens it and starts with the same list. In Solo, your presets do the same job for you alone: set a name once and reuse it. Solo and Team keep separate saved work in your browser, so trying one never changes the other.

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Questions people ask