2025 UTM Naming Convention for Social Ads — Clean Attribution in GA4

TL;DR
Google Analytics is case sensitive (so utm_source=google ≠ utm_source=Google). Always include utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign, then standardise naming so reporting stays clean.

1 The only three UTMs you must always ship

Per Google Analytics Help:

• utm_source identifies who is sending traffic (advertiser/site/publication).
• utm_medium identifies the marketing medium (e.g. cpc, email).
• utm_campaign identifies the campaign name (name/slogan/promo code).

Google also explicitly notes you should always use utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign when you add parameters.

2 A convention that won’t break your reporting

Use a simple schema you can scale:

utm_source=<platform>
utm_medium=<channel>
utm_campaign=<offer_or_launch>
utm_content=<creative_variant>    (optional)
utm_term=<keyword_or_audience>    (optional)

Instavar defaults (recommended)

• Lowercase everything (case sensitivity is a real footgun).
• Hyphenate, don’t space: black-friday not Black Friday.
• Keep utm_medium stable and consistent across channels.
• Put the “why” in utm_campaign, not in utm_source.

2.1 Suggested values (copy/paste)

utm_source

• instagram, tiktok, youtube, linkedin, facebook, newsletter

utm_medium

• paid-social, organic-social, email, creator

utm_campaign

• lead-magnet, book-call, launch-2025q4, bfcm-2025

utm_content (optional)

• hook-01, ugc-creator-a, thumbnail-b

3 Examples you can ship today

Paid Instagram

https://instavar.com/?
utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=paid-social&utm_campaign=book-call&utm_content=hook-01

Organic YouTube (profile link)

https://instavar.com/?
utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_campaign=lead-magnet&utm_content=shorts-profile

4 QA checklist (prevents “GA4 soup”)

• All links include: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign.
• All values are lowercase (no accidental duplicates).
• One campaign name per launch (don’t fork bfcm-2025 vs bfcm2025).
• Creative variants go in utm_content, not in utm_campaign.
• Landing page is canonical (avoid multiple URLs for the same offer).

5 Official references

• Google Analytics Help — campaign parameters and case sensitivity: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033863?hl=en
• GA4 Campaign URL Builder (Google dev tools): https://ga-dev-tools.google/ga4/campaign-url-builder/