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UTM Cleaner

A UTM cleaner lowercases values, turns spaces into hyphens, and strips junk. Facebook, facebook and FB become one source. Your export becomes one row.

The tool

Try it here

Use this when last month’s sheet has five spellings of the same source, or before you paste a hand-typed UTM into ads.

Lowercase, hyphens, no spaces

Cleaned

Why it helps

Why you need an UTM Cleaner

GA4 treats Google and google as different sources. Mixed case is extra rows.

Spaces and punctuation become ugly encoding in URLs. Hyphens match the campaign name generator.

Cleaning after the click does not rewrite last week. Clean the next batch. Rebuild links in the UTM builder.

ONE SPELLING, EVERY WEEKONE SPELLING, EVERY WEEKGoogle Adsthree rowsCleanerlowercase + hyphengoogleone rowfacebook, Facebook and FB are three sources. Pick one before spend.Do not put PII in a UTM. Ever.
Clean the next batch. You cannot rewrite last month’s clicks.

When

When to use it

  • Before you ship a new set of links.
  • When the export shows Brand Exact, brand_exact, and brand-exact.
  • When a partner sent a URL with utm_source=Our Newsletter.

How

How to use it

  1. 1Paste the messy source, medium, campaign, term, or content values.
  2. 2Read the cleaned strings: lowercase, hyphens, no extra spaces.
  3. 3Replace the live URLs. Do not leave the old ones in emails still going out.
  4. 4Lock the same campaign string as the ads UI: google-in-demo-exact-2026q3.

Example

Example: messy Meta tags

Someone typed UTMs by hand for a retarget ad. The Google campaign is already google-in-demo-exact-2026q3. Meta should share the offer name, not invent Brand_Q3.

You put in

utm_source
Facebook
utm_medium
CPC
utm_campaign
Demo Exact 2026 Q3

You get

utm_source=meta (or facebook - pick one team-wide; GrowingAlgo prefers meta)
utm_medium=cpc
utm_campaign=demo-exact-2026-q3
Better campaign if you already locked it: google-in-demo-exact-2026q3 is a Google name - Meta should be meta-in-demo-retarget-2026q3, still lowercase hyphens.

Lowercase and hyphens are the minimum. Source should be the platform, not “Facebook Ads IN.” If the team standard is meta, do not ship facebook next week. Rebuild the full URL in the UTM builder.

Result

What this changes for you

GA4 (Google Analytics 4) rolls up. You stop adding Facebook + facebook every Monday.

Common mistakes

  • Cleaning in a sheet and never updating the live ad URL.
  • Putting the brand in utm_source.
  • Personal data in a UTM.
  • A new spelling of facebook every intern.

FAQ

UTM Cleaner FAQ

What does a UTM cleaner do?

It normalises UTM values: lowercase, hyphens, no extra spaces. You paste the messy tags and get strings that will roll up in GA4.

Will a UTM cleaner fix last week’s traffic?

No. Tags are read at the click. Clean the next links. Historical rows stay unless you map them by hand in a sheet.

Should a UTM cleaner change Facebook to meta?

Pick one source name team-wide. This site uses meta in the builder chips. Do not mix facebook, fb, and meta in one quarter.

Does a UTM cleaner replace the UTM builder?

No. The cleaner fixes values. The builder builds the full URL. Parse a messy link in the URL parameter parser first if you need to see what is already there.

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