The fastest way to ruin a month of campaign data isn't a tracking bug — it's inconsistent naming. Analytics tools treat UTM values as exact, case-sensitive text. Get sloppy and one campaign scatters across half a dozen rows that should have been one.
Pick a casing and never break it
Lowercase everything. It's the simplest rule to remember and it sidesteps the "Email vs email" problem forever. Whatever you choose, the important part is that everyone on the team chooses the same thing.
Kill the spaces
Spaces get encoded as %20 in a URL, which is ugly and error-prone. Use underscores or hyphens instead — spring_launch, not "spring launch." Stay consistent with which separator you use, too.
Keep a short, shared vocabulary
- Sources: newsletter, linkedin, x, partner — a fixed list, not freeform.
- Mediums: email, social, cpc, referral — stick to the standard set.
- Campaigns: a clear, dated name like 2026_spring_launch.
Let a tool enforce it
Human discipline fades on a busy day. A UTM builder that lowercases input, strips spaces and warns you about inconsistencies turns a fragile convention into something automatic — so the report stays clean even when you're moving fast.