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Use Mailchimp’s Google Analytics link tracking or your own UTMs — not both. Covers campaigns, Customer Journeys, A/B tests, and the checks that catch broken attribution before send.
Mailchimp will tag every link for you. It will also let you paste your own UTMs. Doing both at once is how email attribution quietly doubles or skews — Mailchimp says so in their own docs. Pick a path and stick to it.
Channel rules still apply: utm_medium=email (lowercase), one stable source, campaigns you can audit.
Cross-channel habits live in
how to optimize UTM tags.
If the click later hits Google Ads landing pages, keep measurement in Final URL suffix —
Ideal tracking template setup.
Automatic (Mailchimp → Google Analytics link tracking) wins for standard newsletters when you’re fine with Mailchimp’s campaign naming (title + send date) or you’ll tweak it per email.
Manual wins when you already have a cross-channel convention, need per-CTA
utm_content, or rely on IDs Mailchimp won’t invent for you.
Cross-channel reporting teams usually go manual. Monthly newsletter teams are often happier on automatic.
Admin (or higher) in Mailchimp, plus a GA4 property.
Mailchimp shows the campaign title GA will see (email title + send date). Edit if you want — but no special characters in that title; they break the generated URLs.
Don’t leave a field blank — empty values show up as garbage in GA4. Reset Defaults restores Mailchimp’s originals. This per-email override is the main reason to stay on the automatic path while still matching a naming convention.
Classic automations support GA tracking except the single welcome email — use manual tags there.
Setup step → Tracking → enable Google Analytics link tracking.
For content tests, each combination gets a different web ID. Capture it before send:
c= — that’s the combination ID. Note it next to the variant.Audience → More options → Audience settings → Google Analytics on archive pages — paste your GA measurement ID and save if you care about archive traffic.
Turn Mailchimp’s GA link tracking off, then tag links yourself. Baseline:
?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2026-08_product-update&utm_content=hero-cta&utm_id=nl-2026-08utm_source — mailchimp names the tool; newsletter (or your brand ESP name)
survives a platform migration. Pick one and never flip-flop.
utm_medium=email — required for GA4’s Email channel. Not newsletter / mail.utm_campaign — same value on every link in that send. Date-prefixed names sort cleanly: 2026-08_product-launch.utm_content — why manual exists: hero-cta, product-1, footer.
Auto tagging won’t tell you which button paid for the click.
utm_term — optional; useful for audience segments (segment-lapsed-90d), otherwise omit.Build URLs in the Campaign URL builder or a sheet with dropdowns — paste finished links into Mailchimp. Don’t type query strings in the designer.
Merge tags inside URLs must be URL-safe. Don’t put recipient PII in query strings; it lands in GA reports, logs and referrers.
email.Don’t. Mailchimp warns it skews reports. One method per account.
utm_source should I use?mailchimp for the tool, or a stable brand source like newsletter if you might change ESP. The second ages better.
Stripped query strings, file links, a trailing space in the href, or a client that drops parameters.
Yes — ⋮ → Modify UTM Parameters. Fill every field.
No. Tag those links manually.
In GA4, not as a full replacement inside Mailchimp’s older reporting UI.
Source: Integrate Google Analytics with Mailchimp (Mailchimp Help).