Frequently asked questions
Short answers on utm_medium values, conventions and the generator.
What does utm_medium track? +
utm_medium tracks the type of marketing channel a click arrived through — paid search (cpc), email, organic social, display, referral, and similar. It answers 'how did the click arrive?' while utm_source answers 'who sent it?'
What is the difference between utm_source and utm_medium? +
utm_source names the specific referrer (google, newsletter, partner-blog); utm_medium names the channel category (cpc, email, referral). A Facebook ad is utm_source=facebook with utm_medium=paid-social, for example.
Which utm_medium values does GA4 recognize? +
GA4's default channel grouping recognizes values including organic, cpc, email, social, display, referral, affiliate, sms and video, plus common variants like paid-social. Unrecognized mediums land in the Unassigned channel.
Should utm_medium be lowercase? +
Yes — always. Analytics platforms treat Email and email as different values, splitting one channel into two rows across all history. Lowercase everything, with no exceptions.
Hyphens or underscores in utm_medium? +
Either works as long as the whole team uses one. Kebab-case (paid-social) reads well in URLs; snake_case (paid_social) matches many databases. Mixing them creates duplicate channel rows.
Can I use utm_medium=facebook? +
You can, but you should not — facebook is a source, not a channel type. Use utm_source=facebook with utm_medium=paid-social (ads) or utm_medium=social (organic posts).
Should I add UTM parameters to internal links? +
No. UTMs on links within your own site overwrite the session source and start a new session in GA4. Keep navigation and internal links clean; UTMs are for inbound traffic only.
Is the MediumMap generator free? +
Yes. It runs entirely in your browser using crypto.getRandomValues(). No signup, no server, no tracking — see the privacy page.
How many utm_medium values should my team use? +
Most teams need eight to twelve. A short controlled list that everyone enforces beats a long improvised one. New mediums should require written justification.
Do UTM parameters affect SEO? +
No. Search engines ignore UTM values when evaluating pages. The only SEO-adjacent rule is to keep UTMs off internal links, which can otherwise create duplicate-content-style session issues in analytics.
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