utm_medium
utm_medium is a UTM parameter that identifies the marketing channel type used to deliver traffic, such as cpc (paid search), email, social, or organic.
What Is utm_medium?
The utm_medium parameter describes the type of marketing channel that sent a visitor to your store. While utm_source tells you which platform the click came from, utm_medium tells you what kind of marketing it was.
It answers the question: “What type of marketing brought this visitor?”
Standard utm_medium Values
Use these standardized values to keep your reporting consistent and compatible with analytics tools:
| utm_medium | Channel Type | Example |
|---|---|---|
cpc | Paid search / cost-per-click ads | Google Search Ads, Bing Ads |
paid-social | Paid social media advertising | Facebook Ads, TikTok Ads |
social | Organic social media posts | Instagram posts, TikTok organic |
email | Email marketing | Newsletter, abandoned cart emails |
sms | SMS marketing | Promotional text messages |
display | Display / banner advertising | Google Display Network |
affiliate | Affiliate marketing | Partner referral links |
referral | Referral from another website | Blog mentions, press articles |
video | Video advertising | YouTube pre-roll ads |
organic | Organic search | (Usually auto-tagged by analytics) |
Why utm_medium Matters
The medium level is where you make your most important budget allocation decisions. At the source level, you know you get traffic from Facebook. But the medium tells you whether it is coming from paid ads (paid-social) or free organic posts (social). This distinction is critical for calculating ROAS and CPA.
Common Mistakes with utm_medium
Mixing paid and organic
If you use social for both organic Instagram posts and paid Instagram ads, you cannot separate paid performance from organic. Use paid-social for ads and social for organic content.
Inventing non-standard values
Values like facebook-ad or paid_facebook make it hard to aggregate channels in reports. Stick to the standard values above so you can group all paid social together regardless of platform.
Using the medium for campaign details
The medium should describe the channel category, not the specific campaign. Do not use utm_medium=retargeting or utm_medium=prospecting. Those distinctions belong in utm_campaign.
utm_medium Examples
Google Shopping ad:
https://yourstore.com?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping-springOrganic Instagram post:
https://yourstore.com?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=new-arrivalsKlaviyo email campaign:
https://yourstore.com?utm_source=klaviyo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=flash-saleAffiliate partner:
https://yourstore.com?utm_source=partner-name&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=review-postutm_medium in Detectly
Detectly uses the utm_medium value to group your marketing channels in the dashboard. You can see revenue, orders, and ROAS broken down by medium, making it easy to compare how much revenue comes from paid search vs email vs social. Use our UTM Builder to ensure your medium values are always consistent.
Related terms
utm_campaign
utm_campaign is a UTM parameter that identifies the specific marketing campaign, promotion, or initiative that a link belongs to, such as spring-sale-2026 or bfcm-retargeting.
UTM Parameters
UTM parameters are tags added to the end of a URL that tell analytics tools exactly where traffic came from, which campaign sent it, and what type of marketing drove the click.
utm_source
utm_source is a UTM parameter that identifies which platform, website, or publisher sent traffic to your store, such as facebook, google, or newsletter.
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