Free UTM Naming Convention Template (with Examples)

What Should a UTM Naming Convention Template Include?

A usable naming convention document covers five things at minimum: an approved list of utm_source values, an approved list of utm_medium values, a template for structuring utm_campaign names, a chosen casing rule, and a chosen separator character. Building this from a blank page is one of the most common reasons teams delay adopting a convention at all, starting from a ready-made template removes that barrier.

What utm_source Values Should You Approve?

List every platform or specific sender your business regularly uses, written exactly as it should appear: instagram, facebook, linkedin, tiktok, twitter, google, newsletter, youtube, plus any partner or affiliate names relevant to your business. Add to this list deliberately over time as new channels are adopted, rather than letting team members invent new source names on the fly.

What utm_medium Values Should You Approve?

A focused starting list covers most scenarios: email for email campaigns, cpc for any paid cost-per-click advertising regardless of platform, social for organic social posts, paid_social as an alternative for teams distinguishing paid social from generic cpc, referral for partner or affiliate links, sms for text message campaigns, qr_code for QR code destinations, and print for offline materials, often paired with qr_code.

How Should You Structure Campaign Names?

A recommended structure is [purpose]_[timeframe], written in lowercase with underscore separators, for example summer_sale_2026, product_launch_july2026, or webinar_series_q3. This keeps every campaign name descriptive and unique enough to avoid colliding with similarly themed campaigns in future periods.

What Casing and Separator Rules Should You Use?

All lowercase, applied without exception, including proper nouns and platform names, removes any judgment call about when capitalization might be appropriate. Underscores are the safest default separator since they stay visually distinct in a raw URL; hyphens are an acceptable alternative some teams prefer for readability, either works, so long as it's applied consistently and never mixed within the same value.

What Do Worked UTM Examples Look Like?

Email campaign: https://example.com/sale?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=summer_sale_2026&utm_content=hero_banner. Paid social ad: https://example.com/sale?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=summer_sale_2026&utm_content=carousel_ad_v1. Organic social post: https://example.com/sale?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=summer_sale_2026&utm_content=feed_post.

QR code on print material: https://example.com/sale?utm_source=flyer&utm_medium=qr_code&utm_campaign=summer_sale_2026. Influencer partnership: https://example.com/sale?utm_source=janedoe_lifestyle&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=summer_sale_2026&utm_content=story_link.

How Do You Adapt This Template to Your Business?

Treat this as a starting point rather than a rigid, one-size-fits-all standard. Add source and medium values specific to channels your business actually uses, and adjust the campaign naming structure if your team organizes campaigns by product line, region, or team owner instead of purpose and timeframe.

How Should You Roll This Template Out to Your Team?

Save the adapted template as a single, easily accessible shared document, and consider building a companion spreadsheet with dropdown-menu columns pre-populated with your approved source and medium lists, letting anyone build a compliant tracking URL by selecting from existing options rather than typing values from memory. This significantly reduces typos and casing inconsistencies.

How Often Should You Update the Template?

Treat the template as a living document, not a permanent standard. Revisit it every few months, or whenever your business adopts a genuinely new channel type, updating it deliberately rather than letting individual team members improvise inconsistent solutions in the gap before an official update happens.