Question from Reddit user:
Hi all
I would really appreciate your help on this. I’ve tried reading the Google Ads documentation but it’s terrible.
I’d like to use utm_source, utm_term, and utm_campaign in all my Google Ads campaigns, including new ones I create in the future.
I know I can add UTMs to individual campaigns, including creating a custom parameter which will contain the campaign name, but is there a way I can make Google Ads automatically add utm_source, utm_term, and utm_campaign (the campaign name) to every campaign?
Thanks for your help.
Answer from Nabil:
The short answer is:
Yes, there is a way to automatically apply those specific UTM parameters across all current and future Google Ads campaigns without manual tagging, and the solution involves using a Tracking Template at the account level.
For your specific request, you should enable auto-tagging in your Google Ads account, and then apply a final URL suffix or a top-level tracking template to append your desired UTMs using ValueTrack parameters.
An optimal template to meet your needs would be utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign={campaignid}&utm_term={keyword}.
This method is the standard, scalable way to ensure consistent, automatic tagging.
The long answer is:
I can certainly understand your frustration with the documentation; it can be overwhelming.
The native, scalable solution to automatically apply consistent tracking to all your campaigns is to set up a Tracking Template at the Account Level.
This template will be automatically inherited by all campaigns, ad groups, and ads, including any new ones you create in the future, unless you override it at a lower level.
First, you must ensure auto-tagging is enabled in your Google Ads account settings.
Auto-tagging is Google’s default and highly recommended method for passing unique click identifiers (the Google Click ID, or gclid) to your website.
The gclid is what allows Google Analytics to automatically decode the source, medium, campaign, ad group, and keyword with maximum fidelity, which is superior to what you can manually achieve with just UTMs.
However, since you specifically want to see your custom UTMs (utm_source, utm_term, utm_campaign) in your reports or back-end systems, you can append them to the auto-tagged URL using ValueTrack parameters.
ValueTrack parameters are dynamic tags that Google Ads replaces with the actual value of that element when the ad is clicked.
You should set your Account-level Tracking Template (or Final URL Suffix) to something like: utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign={campaignname}&utm_term={keyword}.
utm_source=googlewill hardcode the source.utm_medium=cpcwill hardcode the medium as Cost Per Click.utm_campaign={campaignname}uses the {campaignname} ValueTrack parameter to dynamically insert the exact name of the campaign.
Alternatively, using {campaignid} is safer as campaign IDs are unique and immutable.
utm_term={keyword}uses the {keyword} ValueTrack parameter to dynamically insert the keyword that triggered the ad, which addresses your requirement for theutm_termfield.
This method achieves your goal of automatically applying UTMs across all campaigns.
For a more sophisticated and resilient data strategy, the ultimate solution involves using the Google Ads API, the Google Analytics Data API, Google Tag Manager, and a server-side tagging environment like Stape or Google Cloud Platform.
This allows you to collect the initial gclid upon the click, pass it to your server container via GTM, and then use the Google Ads API to join that gclid with all the rich campaign data (Ad Group ID, Campaign Name, Ad ID, etc.) directly from Google’s servers.
You can then use the Google Analytics Data API to push a complete, highly enriched event to GA4’s Measurement Protocol.
This approach is superior because it ensures that attribution data is collected using first-party methods, making it resilient to browser limitations and ad-blockers, and it gives you access to the most granular details without relying on fragile URL parameters.
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