Remember in Universal Analytics we had the ability to customise our default channel groupings to better match whatever random utm taxonomy we’d concocted (and to fill a few glaringly obvious holes in Google’s out of the box default channel grouping. Hello ig/fb)?
Well in GA4 guess what you can’t do? Yeah. That.
So how do we ensure our traffic ends up in the right channel now then?
Well you need to look at this. GA4 Default Channel Grouping reference and make sure when you are adding your utm_* parameters to your links they follow the lore as defined by the big G. The bit you need is the “Channels for Manual Traffic” which I’ve handily pasted below for you.
If, like most businesses, your utm taxonomy is a bit random now is definitely the time to get it under control!
| Channel | Definition |
| Channels for manual traffic | |
| Direct | Source exactly matches direct AND Medium is one of (“(not set)”, “(none)”) |
| Cross-network | Campaign Name contains “cross-network” |
| Paid Shopping | (Source matches a list of shopping sites OR Campaign Name matches regex ^(.*(([^a-df-z]|^)shop|shopping).*)$) AND Medium matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|paid.*)$ |
| Paid Search | Source matches a list of search sites AND Medium matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|paid.*)$ |
| Paid Social | Source matches a list of social sites AND Medium matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|paid.*)$ |
| Paid Video | Source matches a list of video sites AND Medium matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|paid.*)$ |
| Display | Medium is one of (“display”, “banner”, “expandable”, “interstitial”, “cpm”) |
| Organic Shopping | Source matches a list of shopping sites OR Campaign name matches regex ^(.*(([^a-df-z]|^)shop|shopping).*)$ |
| Organic Social | Source matches a regex list of social sites OR Medium is one of (“social”, “social-network”, “social-media”, “sm”, “social network”, “social media”) |
| Organic Video | Source matches a list of video sites OR Medium matches regex ^(.*video.*)$ |
| Organic Search | Source matches a list of search sites OR Medium exactly matches organic |
| Source = email|e-mail|e_mail|e mail OR Medium = email|e-mail|e_mail|e mail | |
| Affiliates | Medium = affiliate |
| Referral | Medium = referral |
| Audio | Medium exactly matches audio |
| SMS | Medium exactly matches sms |
| Mobile Push Notifications | Medium ends with “push” OR Medium contains “mobile” or “notification” |
For more tips on GA4, including a full implementation guide check out the Google Analytics section of my blog