Referral tracking is the foundational element behind first touch, last touch and multi-touch attribution.
Referral tracking can be powered by URL parameters. You can also explicitly define referral attributes for specific landing pages and redirects.
When setting referral attributes via URL query parameters, you can either use the traditional utm_* prefix, or you can omit utm and just prefix with _*. These can mix and match, such that the following URLs are functionally equivalent:
example.com/?utm_campaign=my-campaign&_term=my-termexample.com/?_campaign=my-campaign&utm_term=my-term
In a scenario where you set both utm_* and _* for the same element, the utm_* prefix will take precedence and the _* element will be ignored.
E.g., example.com/?utm_campaign=c1&_campaign=c2 will have a referral campaign value of c1.
Attributes:
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| adgroup | string | The ad group. Passed via the URL by either utm_adgroup or _adgroup. |
| source | string | The source of the referral. Passed via the URL by either utm_source or _source. |
| medium | string | The medium of the referral. Passed via the URL by either utm_medium or _medium. |
| campaign | string | The campaign identifier of the referral. Passed via the URL by either utm_campaign or _campaign. |
| content | string | The content identifier of the referral. Passed via the URL by either utm_content or _content. |
| term | string | The term identifier of the referral. Passed via the URL by either utm_term or _term. |