Free UTM link builder with QR code

How to use it

1. Paste the page you want people to land on.
2. Pick a source (where the link goes, such as facebook) and a medium (the type of placement, such as paid_social).
3. Name the campaign, for example cny-sale-2027. Term and content are optional.
4. Check the GA4 channel shown beside the link, then copy it or download the QR code for print.

What are UTM parameters?

UTM parameters are short tags added to the end of a link, such as ?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=cny-sale-2027. When someone clicks it, Google Analytics 4 reads the tags and files the visit under that source, medium and campaign.

Without tags, many visits arrive with no clue where they came from. Links in WhatsApp chats, email newsletters, PDFs, SMS and most apps send no referrer, so GA4 counts them as Direct, mixed in with people who typed your address.

Which UTM tags should you use?

Three tags do most of the work, and this builder asks for all three:

• utm_source: where the link is placed, such as facebook, newsletter or a partner's name.
• utm_medium: the type of placement, such as paid_social, social, email, referral or cpc.
• utm_campaign: the promotion, kept identical on every channel it runs on.

Two more are optional: utm_term for a paid keyword or audience, and utm_content to tell apart two ads, buttons or placements in the same campaign. GA4 also reads utm_id (a campaign ID, used when you import cost data) and a few newer tags, which most small businesses can skip.

How should a Singapore campaign be tagged across channels?

Here is one Chinese New Year promotion tagged for the channels a Singapore business typically uses. The campaign name stays the same everywhere, so GA4 can add up every channel in one row.

All six use utm_campaign=cny-sale-2027. In GA4, open Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition and change the first column to Session campaign or Session source / medium to compare them.

How do you name UTM tags so GA4 reports stay clean?

GA4 reports are case sensitive, so Facebook, facebook and FB show as three sources, and CNY Sale and cny-sale as two campaigns. (GA4's channel rules ignore case, which is why the channel still comes out right while the report rows split.) This builder writes every tag in lower case, turns spaces into hyphens and drops stray characters.

Agree a short list of sources and mediums with your team and stick to it. A few traps catch people out, because GA4 uses Google's own list of social, video, search and shopping sites:

• youtube counts as a video site, so YouTube ads tagged youtube / cpc land in Paid Video, not Paid Social.
• Not every network is on Google's social list. x, threads and xiaohongshu are not, so tag them with medium social (Organic Social) or paid_social (Paid Other).
• A campaign name such as shop-launch, e-shop or coffeeshop, or any name containing "shopping", sends paid visits to Paid Shopping and every other visit to Organic Shopping, even from an email. Names where "shop" follows another letter, such as pottery-workshop, are not affected.
• A medium GA4 has no rule for, such as qr or print, ends up Unassigned unless the source is a known site. Use referral for print and put qr in utm_content.

Include the year in campaigns that repeat, such as cny-sale-2027, so this year's results never merge with last year's.

Do Google Ads and Facebook ads need UTM tags?

Google Ads: keep auto-tagging switched on and link Google Ads to your GA4 property. Auto-tagging adds a gclid to each click, and once the accounts are linked GA4 shows the campaign, ad group and keyword for you. Add UTM tags as well only if another tool, such as your CRM, needs them.

Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads: add tags in Ads Manager under URL parameters. Meta fills in names for you with dynamic values. This string works for most accounts:

utm_source={{site_source_name}}&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{ad.name}}

{{site_source_name}} becomes fb or ig for most clicks, both on Google's social list, so they land in Paid Social. Clicks from Messenger (msg) and Audience Network (an) are not on that list and show as Paid Other. {{campaign.name}} copies your Ads Manager campaign name exactly as written, so name campaigns in lower case with hyphens there too.

WhatsApp, email, SMS and QR codes: always tag these. They send no referrer, so without tags the visits look like Direct.

Which GA4 channel will my UTM link show under?

GA4 sorts every visit into a default channel, such as Paid Social, Email or Referral, using the source, medium and campaign name. The builder applies Google's published channel rules in Google's order, with Google's list of social, video, search and shopping sites, and shows the result next to your link. Google can change these rules, so the help page above is the final word.

GA4 shows visits and conversions by channel. To see each enquiry with the campaign that first brought that person to your site, see Pulse, the analytics dashboard we built for our clients.