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UTM Medium

For UTM medium, the inflow method (cpc, organic, email, etc.) is recorded in GA4 with the utm_medium parameter of the URL. This is a core criterion for GA4 channel group classification, so if values ​​are not unified within the team, channel data will be scattered.

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utm_medium is one of the key criteria for GA4 channel group classification. 'organic' refers to natural search/social, 'cpc' refers to pay-per-click advertising, 'email' refers to email campaigns, and 'referral' refers to external link influx. GA4 automatically assigns a channel group (default channel group) based on the source and medium combination, so if the utm_medium value is incorrect, the entire channel classification will be incorrect.

In particular, if similar expressions such as 'cpc' and 'ppc', 'social' and 'social-media' are used differently by each team, the same channel is distributed and counted in GA4. When setting UTM tagging rules, agreeing on the list of medium values first and using it equally across the entire team is the basis for data consistency.

GA4 screen path: In the Traffic Acquisition report, change the default dimension to 'Session medium' to check the performance of each acquisition method. In the source/medium dimension, the medium is indicated by the value after the slash.

Key takeaways

  • The inflow method (organic, cpc, email, social, etc.) is recorded in GA4 with the utm_medium parameter.
  • Since it is a core standard for automatic classification of GA4 channel groups, consistent values is important.
  • An incorrect utm_medium value can make the entire channel Unassigned.
  • In GA4, query by ‘Session medium’ or ‘First user medium’ dimension.

References

Frequently asked questions

What should I use as the utm_medium value for Naver Power Link (search advertisement)?

To be classified as 'Paid Search' in a GA4 channel group, use utm_medium=cpc or utm_medium=ppc and also specify utm_source=naver. However, since the GA4 default channel group rules do not automatically classify Naver as paid search, it is safer to create a custom channel group and specify it explicitly.

How do I organize the already collected utm_medium values when they are mixed in various ways?

After extracting the list of medium values as event_params from BigQuery GA4 Export and checking the status, you can organize them in the report by integrating similar values with the CASE WHEN statement in Looker Studio calculated fields. The fundamental solution is documenting UTM tagging rules and training your team.

Related terms