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UTM Tracking & Campaigns

UTM parameters let you tag your URLs so Clickport can identify exactly which campaigns, sources, and mediums drive traffic to your site. When a visitor clicks a tagged link, the parameters are captured automatically and appear in your Campaigns panel.

Need to build a tagged URL? Try the free UTM Builder. Shows you the hygiene grade, the channel it will be classified as, and parses existing tagged URLs back into plain English. No signup required.
No setup required. The Clickport tracker automatically reads UTM parameters from the URL. Just add the parameters to your links and the data shows up in your dashboard.

Supported parameters

Clickport supports all five standard UTM parameters. Append them as query parameters to any URL pointing to your site.

Parameter
Purpose
utm_source
Identifies the traffic source. Examples: google, facebook, newsletter
utm_medium
Identifies the marketing medium. Examples: cpc, email, social
utm_campaign
Identifies the campaign name. Examples: spring_sale, product_launch
utm_content
Differentiates ad creatives or link placements. Examples: header_banner, sidebar_cta
utm_term
Identifies paid search keywords. Examples: analytics+tool, privacy+friendly

All parameters are optional. You can use any combination. At minimum, use utm_source and utm_medium to properly classify your traffic.

How to tag your links

Append UTM parameters to the URL as query string parameters. The order does not matter.

Example: Email newsletter link
https://yoursite.com/pricing?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=march_update
Example: Paid Google Ads link
https://yoursite.com/landing?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=spring_sale&utm_content=hero_banner&utm_term=analytics+tool
Example: Social media post
https://yoursite.com/blog/new-feature?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=feature_launch

Naming conventions

Use consistent, lowercase names across all your campaigns. UTM values are case-sensitive, so Newsletter and newsletter will appear as separate entries. A few tips:

  • Use lowercase for everything: google not Google
  • Use underscores or hyphens instead of spaces: spring_sale not spring sale
  • Be consistent with medium values: pick email and stick with it, don't alternate between email, e-mail, and newsletter
  • Keep campaign names short and descriptive: march_update not march_2026_monthly_newsletter_campaign_v2

Where campaigns appear in the dashboard

UTM data shows up in the Campaigns tab of the Sources panel. It has five sub-tabs, one for each UTM parameter:

Sources Channels Referrers Campaigns
Mediums Sources Campaigns Content Terms
Campaign VisitorsEng
spring_sale 1,247 62%
product_launch 893 54%
march_newsletter 412 38%
retargeting_q1 186 29%

Each row shows the UTM value, visitor count, and an engagement score. The engagement score combines scroll depth and time on page into a single percentage, color-coded green (50%+), amber (25-49%), or red (below 25%).

Filtering by UTM values

Click any row in the Campaigns panel to filter your entire dashboard by that value. For example, clicking "spring_sale" filters all panels (pages, sources, locations, technology) to show only visitors who arrived through that campaign.

You can also add UTM filters manually through the filter bar. All five UTM dimensions are available as filter options with operators: is, is not, contains, and does not contain.

Channel classification

Clickport automatically classifies every visit into one of 16 channels based on the referrer, UTM parameters, and click IDs. This classification happens server-side when the session is created. You can see the assigned channel in the Channels sub-tab of the Sources panel.

1. Direct
2. Display
3. Paid Search
4. Paid Social
5. Paid Video
6. Paid Shopping
7. Affiliates
8. Email
9. SMS
10. Audio
11. Organic Shopping
12. AI Search
13. Organic Search
14. Organic Video
15. Organic Social
16. Referral

How utm_medium affects channels

The utm_medium value is the primary signal for distinguishing paid from organic traffic. These medium values trigger paid channel classification:

  • Paid Search: cpc, ppc, paid, paidsearch, paid_search
  • Paid Social: paidsocial, paid_social (when source is a social network)
  • Display: display, banner, cpm
  • Email: email, newsletter
  • Affiliates: affiliate
  • SMS: sms
  • Audio: audio, podcast
  • Paid Shopping: shopping, pla
  • Paid Video: video, preroll (when source is a video platform)
  • Organic Search: organic
  • Organic Social: social, social-media, sm

Other paid medium values like retargeting, remarketing, cpv, and cpa also trigger paid classification for the matching source type.

How utm_source affects channels

The utm_source value is matched against known platforms to determine the source type. For example:

  • utm_source=google with utm_medium=cpc classifies as Paid Search
  • utm_source=facebook with utm_medium=paidsocial classifies as Paid Social
  • utm_source=youtube with utm_medium=video classifies as Paid Video
  • utm_source=newsletter with utm_medium=email classifies as Email
  • utm_source=spotify classifies as Audio

When no UTM parameters are present, Clickport falls back to the HTTP referrer to classify the visit. Known search engines map to Organic Search, social networks to Organic Social, and so on.

Click ID detection

Ad platforms append click IDs to URLs when visitors click ads. Clickport detects these automatically and uses them for channel classification. No UTM tags are needed when click IDs are present.

Click ID
Platform / Channel
gclid
Google Ads → Paid Search
msclkid
Microsoft Ads → Paid Search
dclid
Google Display & Video 360 → Display
fbclid
Facebook/Meta Ads → Paid Social (with paid medium)
ttclid
TikTok Ads → Paid Social
li_fat_id
LinkedIn Ads → Paid Social
twclid
Twitter/X Ads → Paid Social
rdt_cid
Reddit Ads → Paid Social
pnclid
Pinterest Ads → Paid Social
irclickid
Impact Radius → Affiliates
Privacy note. Click IDs are used only for channel classification. They are stripped from the stored URL and are never saved in your analytics data. Clickport does not use click IDs to track individual users across sites.

Reducing "Direct / None" traffic

Traffic shows as "Direct" when Clickport cannot determine a source. This happens when there is no referrer header and no UTM parameters. Common causes:

  • Email links without UTM tags. Most email clients strip the referrer header. Always tag links in newsletters and transactional emails with utm_source and utm_medium=email.
  • Messaging apps. Links shared in WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, and similar apps often lose the referrer. Tag links you share in these channels.
  • Bookmarks and direct URL entry. Visitors who type your URL or use a bookmark have no referrer. This is genuinely direct traffic.
  • HTTPS to HTTP. Browsers do not send a referrer when navigating from HTTPS to HTTP. This is rare if your site uses HTTPS (which it should).
  • Mobile app links. Links opened from native mobile apps often lack referrers. Tag links in your own app and in app store listings.
  • QR codes and offline materials. Use UTM-tagged URLs for QR codes on print materials, business cards, and signage.

The more consistently you tag your links, the less traffic lands in the "Direct" bucket. Focus on email and messaging first, as those are the most common sources of unattributed traffic.

Attribution model

Clickport uses first-touch attribution per session. When a new session starts, the UTM parameters from that first pageview are captured and stored for the entire session. If a visitor navigates to a page with different UTM parameters during the same session, the original values are kept.

Each individual event also records its own UTM parameters, so you can analyze per-event attribution through the Custom Events panel and session drilldowns.

Common campaign setups

Email newsletters

?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_digest

Google Ads

Google Ads auto-tags clicks with gclid, so Clickport classifies them as Paid Search automatically. If you prefer explicit UTM tags (or use manual tagging in Google Ads):

?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign={campaignid}&utm_content={adgroupid}&utm_term={keyword}
Google Ads ValueTrack parameters (curly braces) are replaced automatically by Google.

Facebook/Meta Ads

?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{ad.name}}
Meta dynamic parameters (double curly braces) are replaced by the ad platform.

LinkedIn Ads

?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_campaign=b2b_launch

Social media posts (organic)

?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=feature_announcement

QR codes / offline

?utm_source=flyer&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=store_opening

Podcast sponsorship

?utm_source=techpodcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=march_sponsorship

URL cleanup

After reading UTM parameters, Clickport stores the clean page path without the query parameters. This means /pricing?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc is stored simply as /pricing in your Pages panel. UTM data is stored separately in dedicated fields, keeping your page URLs clean and aggregated correctly.

Click IDs (gclid, fbclid, msclkid, etc.) and other tracking parameters are also stripped from stored URLs for privacy.

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