Fireshift / Free tools / UTM builder with naming checks
UTM builder that checks your naming
Build tagged URLs one at a time or a whole sheet at once. Every value is checked for capitals, spaces and spellings that split your GA4 reports, and you see which GA4 channel each link lands in.
GA4 channel (default channel group):
Why lint UTMs
GA4 stores UTM values as typed. LinkedIn, linkedin and linkedin.com become three sources in
your reports, and Paid Social with a space turns into Paid%20Social in the URL. GA4's default channel group is
not case sensitive, but your source/medium reports, explorations and BigQuery export are. A medium GA4 doesn't recognise sends the
traffic to Unassigned.
What it checks
- Capitals, spaces, leading or trailing spaces, and characters other than letters, digits,
-,_and.. - Mixed separators, and values that break the separator you picked.
- Sources written as URLs or short forms (
fb,www.facebook.com) and the same platform spelled several ways in a batch. - Source/medium pairs GA4 puts in Unassigned, and paid social traffic tagged so that it lands in Organic Social.
- Click IDs (gclid, fbclid, msclkid) pasted into a landing page URL, and old utm_ parameters (we replace them).
The channel shown is our reading of Google's default channel group rules (checked 5 Nov 2026) for manually tagged traffic. Google matches sources against longer lists of search, social, video and shopping sites than we include, so a rare source may land in a different channel than shown here.
A convention that holds up
- Everything lowercase, one separator (we default to
_). utm_source= platform or list:google,linkedin,facebook,newsletter.utm_medium= a short fixed list:cpc,paid_social,display,email,social,referral,affiliate.utm_campaign= the campaign name in the ad platform, so cost and sessions line up.- Leave Google Ads to auto-tagging. Its gclid already carries source, medium and campaign into GA4.
FAQ
Does GA4 treat utm_source=Facebook and utm_source=facebook as the same?
No. They show as two sources in reports and explorations. The default channel group rules are not case sensitive, so both may still land in the same channel, but anything you filter or group by source will split.
Which mediums does GA4 recognise?
From Google's default channel group: anything matching cp, ppc, retargeting or paid at the start (cpc, paid_social) counts as paid; display, banner, cpm go to Display; email, social, referral, affiliate, organic, audio and sms have their own channels. Others usually end up in Unassigned.
Should I add UTMs to Google Ads links?
Usually not. With auto-tagging on, the gclid tells GA4 the source, medium and campaign. Manual UTMs on top can split or override that data depending on your settings. Tag Meta, LinkedIn, email and partner links instead.
Is anything I paste sent to a server?
No. Links are built and checked in this tab. The page makes no requests with your data.
What is utm_id for?
It carries a campaign ID. GA4 uses it to join cost data you import for non-Google campaigns to the sessions those campaigns bring.
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