utm_creative_format and utm_marketing_tactic in GA4 and how to use them
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) has introduced two new utms to track your traffic sources that you can use to get more in-depth with your attribution analysis. These are utm_creative_format and utm_marketing_tactic. Before these, you would have e to squeeze the details into your utm_campaign or use utm_content or utm_term, which wasn’t applicable.
What is UTM Creative Format?
Utilizing UTM parameters in your URLs can be an invaluable tool for tracking the performance of your marketing campaigns. By assigning each URL with a unique combination of UTM parameters, you can track where traffic is coming from, what content is performing best, and how to optimize future campaigns.
Utm_id is a parameter used to identify a specific campaign or promotion. This is an important key when uploading cost data into GA4, as it allows you to accurately measure the performance and success of campaigns. Utm_source refers to the original source of where the traffic is flowing from and will usually be something like Google, newsletter4 or billboard. Having this information available helps marketers gain insights into which channels produce the most conversions and ROI so that efforts can be focused on optimizing those channels for maximum return.
Did you ever wonder if using a single tree or an entire forest in your ads could make a difference? Well, with UTM creative format, you can explore all your creative choices and see which one brings your campaign to life!
Now, What is UTM Marketing Tactic?
The UTM Marketing Tactic is an incredibly useful tool for marketers. It enables them to track and measure the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. With this tactic, marketers can easily identify the specific strategies and tactics used in their campaigns, such as remarketing, prospecting, email marketing, or social media advertising. Adding the UTM marketing tactic parameter to URLs allows them to accurately assess which tactics generate the most traffic, engagement, and conversions on their website. This data is invaluable in helping shape effective marketing strategies and make more informed decisions about budget allocation.
For example, you might be running multiple ad campaigns on Facebook. By utilizing UTM marketing tactics, you can differentiate each campaign according to its respective strategy or tactic, for instance, “remarketing” versus “prospecting.” Knowing which of these returns the best results will enable you to optimize your campaign going forward and maximize return on investment with minimal effort. Ultimately, UTM Marketing Tactics is an excellent way for marketers to stay organized while measuring marketing success in great detail along the way!
Where can I find utm_creative_format or utm_marketing_tactic in GA4?
Now, Google has said you can start using them but haven’t put them as dimensions in GA4 yet. If you want to start using these while we wait for GA4 to catch up, you need to do some manual handling in Google Tag Manager (GTM) and GA4.
Send utm_creative_format and utm_marketing_tactic as parameters in GTM
Store the query parameters as a variable.
Create a new variable.
Call it URL - Query - utm_creative_format
Select URL
Select query
Enter utm_creative_format in Query Key
Repeat the same process for utm_marketing_tactic, and call the tag URL - Query - utm_marketing_tactic.
Store variables in a cookie so it can be sent throughout the session.
Unfortunately, GA4 doesn’t have session-based events yet, so we have to do another workaround to send these dimensions with every hit.
Create a new variable called CJS - get utm_creative_format and add the following code:
function(){
function getCookie(cname) {
var name = cname + "=";
var decodedCookie = decodeURIComponent(document.cookie);
var ca = decodedCookie.split(';');
for(var i = 0; i <ca.length; i++) {
var c = ca[i];
while (c.charAt(0) == ' ') {
c = c.substring(1);
}
if (c.indexOf(name) == 0) {
return c.substring(name.length, c.length);
}
}
return "";
}
var val = {{URL - Query - utm_creative_format}}||""
//if there was a value save it as cookie
var now = new Date();
var minutes = 30;
now.setTime(now.getTime() + (minutes * 60 * 1000));
if (val == ""){
//check if you have a value stored in a cookie
val = getCookie("utm_creative_format")
}
//write cookie again and restart timer
cookievalue = escape(val) + ";"
document.cookie="utm_creative_format=" + cookievalue;
document.cookie = "expires=" + now.toUTCString() + ";"
return val;
}Then do the same for CJS - utm_marketing_tactic:
function(){
function getCookie(cname) {
var name = cname + "=";
var decodedCookie = decodeURIComponent(document.cookie);
var ca = decodedCookie.split(';');
for(var i = 0; i <ca.length; i++) {
var c = ca[i];
while (c.charAt(0) == ' ') {
c = c.substring(1);
}
if (c.indexOf(name) == 0) {
return c.substring(name.length, c.length);
}
}
return "";
}
var val = {{URL - Query - utm_marketing_tactic}}||""
//if there was a value save it as cookie
var now = new Date();
var minutes = 30;
now.setTime(now.getTime() + (minutes * 60 * 1000));
if (val == ""){
//check if you have a value stored in a cookie
val = getCookie("utm_marketing_tactic")
}
//write cookie again and restart timer
cookievalue = escape(val) + ";"
document.cookie="utm_marketing_tactic=" + cookievalue;
document.cookie = "expires=" + now.toUTCString() + ";"
return val;
}Send new variables with your GA4 Configuration tag
With your GA4 configuration tag, add these variables to your parameters to send. Give the parameters the same names as the query, i.e. utm_creative_format, utm_marketing_tactic.
Register parameters as session-based custom dimensions
Now, don't forget to register the custom dimension in GA4. Under Admin > Custom Definitions > Custom Dimensions, you can add in your shiny new attribution metrics.
Create a new custom dimension
Give it a name such as Creative Format
Set it as event scoped
Set the value as utm_creative_format
Repeat with utm_marketing_tactic, calling it Marketing Tactic.
Voila, you have your new UTMs available in GA4.
Some limitations
Just note that these won’t be available in your standard attribution reports. You may need to add these in or create your reports in Explorer.
These also won’t be available in your data-driven or User-based attribution, only for session-based attribution.
Hopefully, Google will add these dimensions to the interface soon, but in the meantime, this can work for your reporting needs.
