UTM tags

The screen

UTM tags is the third entry of the rail's Sources group, right after Campaigns: a campaign's network is this reading, so a tag read wrong is a campaign filed under the wrong network, or under none. The header carries the period control (see Time periods) and a button to read again. The page is open on every plan; the plan's window bounds what the period can reach, and on Free the month's event allowance can stop the read early. There is no comparison with a previous period here.

Top to bottom: four figures, then the Tagged pairs table with the Built-in lists panel under it, beside a Setup column holding Your rules and, for owners and admins, a Next steps line.

The figures

A landing with neither a utm_source nor a utm_medium never counts here. The list stops at the 500 pairs with the most sessions; past that, the three session labels add "over the N pairs listed" and a line under the table says how many pairs the period held and that the rest carried fewer.

Tagged pairs

One row per pair, grouped by what the tag reads as. A find-in-list above the table matches the source and the medium only, ignoring case and accents, and narrows the rows on screen. At rest it states the list's size ("9 pairs"); while narrowing, "3 of 9 pairs shown". A query that matches nothing leaves one line saying so.

The blocks. Each block has a header with the network's mark (Not paid draws an empty dashed tile), its name, its pairs and its sessions in the period. The order is fixed:

1. Other Paid first: a paid medium whose source names no network Intelligence/Ads knows.
2. Then each named network, most sessions first.
3. Not paid last: pairs whose medium is not a paid one, or that carry no medium.

A pair is filed by its tag, not by its click ids.

A zero prints faint: an observation that did not happen, not a grade. On a phone each row becomes a card.

The Why sentence takes one of these forms, with the values in monospace:

• "No utm_medium — a tag without one is never paid".
• "social is not a paid medium".
• "cpc is a paid medium · google is Google Ads".
• "cpc is a paid medium", then a clause saying lnkd names no network Intelligence/Ads knows: the pair is Other Paid.
• "cpc is a paid medium · no utm_source to name a network".

When every landing of the pair carried a click id, the sentence ends with "every landing carried a click id, which outranks it": the tag still reads as stated, it simply decided none of these sessions.

The footnote reads: "Values exactly as received; a rule matches any case. Sessions are landings in this window."

A period with no tagged landing says "No tagged landing in this period." and that a pair appears as soon as a landing arrives carrying a utm_source or a utm_medium. A read that failed says "The tags could not be read just now" and that nothing has changed.

The reading

Why a pair reads the way it does follows one fixed order, the same on every screen that files traffic by network. The Why column names the step that decided.

1. A click id. If the landing carried one, its network is the reading, whatever the tag says. No rule changes this step.
2. The medium. A site rule on the utm_medium value decides paid or not paid; without one, the built-in list of paid mediums does. A medium that is not paid ends the reading: the pair is Not paid and the source is not read.
3. The source. A site rule on the utm_source value names the network; without one, the built-in source lists do; when no list names it, the pair is Other Paid.

Both rules compare the value lowercased, which is why one rule covers Google and google. A source rule only acts under a paid medium, and no rule can make a pair with no medium paid. A rule saved now applies to every period, past ones included.

Changing a reading

Owners and admins see a pencil at the end of each row that carries a medium; members see no pencil. A pair with no medium gets no pencil. See Members and roles.

The pencil opens one small form with the rules the pair can meet — the medium, and the source when the pair carries one:

• Medium. A three-way choice: Built-in, Paid, Not paid. A hint says what the built-in list reads this medium as, and how far the rule reaches in the period on screen: "The built-in list reads social as not paid. Every pair tagged social follows — 2 pairs, 9 sessions in this window".
• Source. A list: "Built-in · " followed by the network the lists give this source (Other Paid when none does), then the networks a rule may name: Google Ads, Meta, TikTok, Microsoft Ads, LinkedIn, X and Other Paid. The hint says the source is read only while the medium is paid, and how many pairs and sessions from this source follow.

A rule is on a value, not on a row: the rule lands on every pair carrying that value. The footer says so: "Shared with the workspace · re-reads past windows too." Save stays disabled until something changed. A save the page refuses prints its reason in the footer:

• "This site already holds 100 rules — remove one first."
• "Rules take plain ASCII values, and this one isn't."
• "Only owners and admins change a reading."
• "That didn't save. Try again."

Values are lowercased and not trimmed: " cpc" and "cpc" are two values.

Your rules

The Setup column holds a panel titled "Your rules", with "N of 100". The footer reads: read before the built-in lists, on this site only; owners and admins set them. One row per value a rule sits on, sorted by what it applies to, then by value.

Owners and admins see a remove control at the end of each row. Removing puts the value back on the built-in lists, with no confirmation; the table re-reads at once. If it did not go through: "That rule wasn’t removed. Try again."

With no rule, the panel says "No rules yet." and that every pair above is read with the built-in lists; an owner or admin also reads that a pair's pencil adds one, for every window, past ones included; a member reads that owners and admins can change a pair's reading. If the rules could not be read, the panel says "The rules could not be read just now" and that nothing has changed; the Built-in lists panel and the pencils are then absent, and the pairs still list.

When a pair reads as Other Paid, owners and admins get a Next steps line: "Name the network of N pairs", which jumps to the Other Paid block.

Built-in lists

The "Built-in lists" panel, "read after your rules", prints the lists the reading falls back to when no rule applies.

The lists as they stand:

Tag your ad links covers what to put in the link.

A rule and the Campaigns screen

A campaign's row on Campaigns is a network and a utm_campaign. A source rule that moves a source to another network therefore files that source's campaigns under new rows; the old rows stop receiving clicks and read as dormant, and their name and star stay on them.

What this screen does not do

• It is not a UTM builder. This page shows what was observed and how it was read, and lets the workspace correct the reading.
• It never shows a session, a path or a visitor. A pair carries counts only. Every tagged pair shows, paid or not; untagged landings never appear.
• It passes no verdict. chatgpt.com / — reads as Not paid and the row says so. Whether that is right is your call, and the pencil is how you make it.
• No rule outranks a click id, and no rule makes a pair with no medium paid.
• It does not sort on demand. The filter narrows the rows; the order is stated in each block.
• It does not compare periods. Nothing here is gated by plan beyond the window: the pairs, the rules and the editor are open on every plan.