Standard utm_medium values, and why inventing one costs you
Of the five parameters, utm_medium is the one with actual rules. Analytics
platforms use it to sort traffic into channel groups, and they do that by matching against a
list of expected values. Anything unrecognised falls into Other or
Unassigned.
That is why utm_medium=paid-fb is a worse choice than it looks. It
reads fine to a human and disappears from your channel report.
The values that are recognised
| Value | Use it for | Groups as |
|---|---|---|
cpc | Paid search, paid ads generally | Paid Search |
ppc | Same as cpc, older convention | Paid Search |
organic | Unpaid search | Organic Search |
email | Newsletters, transactional, drip | |
social | Unpaid posts on social platforms | Organic Social |
referral | Links from other sites | Referral |
affiliate | Affiliate and partner links | Affiliates |
display | Display and banner buys | Display |
banner | Same as display | Display |
video | Video placements | Video |
sms | Text message campaigns | SMS |
push | Push notifications | Push |
Common mistakes and what to use instead
| What people write | What to write | Why |
|---|---|---|
facebook | social or
cpc | Facebook is the source, not the medium |
paid-social | cpc |
Not in the recognised list; lands in Other |
newsletter | email |
Newsletter is the source; email is the medium |
ads | cpc |
Too vague to group |
Email | email |
Case-sensitive — creates a second row |
Source and medium, side by side
The distinction that fixes most of this: source is the name of the place, medium is the kind of traffic.
| Channel | utm_source | utm_medium |
|---|---|---|
| Facebook ad | cpc | |
| Facebook organic post | social | |
| Google Ads | cpc | |
| Weekly newsletter | newsletter | |
| Abandoned-cart email | cart-recovery | |
| Guest post on a blog | blog-name | referral |
| QR code on a flyer | flyer-march | offline |
The last row breaks the rule on purpose. offline is not a standard value, but
offline traffic has nowhere sensible to go, and having it isolated in Other is more useful than
having it mixed into Referral. Break the rule deliberately, never by accident.
Last reviewed 2026-08-13