LinkCleanhttps://example.com/article?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=spring-launch
After LinkCleanhttps://example.com/article
utm_medium
UTM campaign tags · Google Analytics (originally Urchin) · introduced ~1996
Pairing utm_medium with utm_source
utm_source names *where* the click came from (the specific publisher, list, or vendor); utm_medium names *how* — the channel class. Together they answer the analyst's first question: “did this campaign land via email, via social, via paid search, or via something else?”.
Standard utm_medium values are conventional but not enforced: email, social, cpc (cost-per-click paid search), display, affiliate, organic, referral. The values are whatever the publisher decides; Google Analytics treats them as opaque strings.
Channel-level attribution, and what forwarding leaks
Same blast radius as utm_source. Forwarding a link with utm_medium=email attached tells every analytics tool downstream that the click came in via email — even if your friend clicked it from a chat app. The publisher's report counts your forward as another email-channel click.
Not personally identifying on its own. Like utm_source, utm_medium describes the *channel*, not the person. Still, the privacy-safe default is to forward the destination, not the marketing metadata.
How LinkClean removes it
utm_medium ships default-on in LinkClean alongside the rest of the utm_* family. Stripped on every host; no toggle, no per-site exception. Like the other utm_* tags, it's vendor-specific enough that a legitimate URL never uses it for anything but Google Analytics attribution.
Frequently asked
What's the difference between utm_source and utm_medium?
utm_source is the specific origin (“newsletter”, “acme-blog”, “twitter”); utm_medium is the channel class (“email”, “social”, “referral”). One says “who”, the other says “how”.
Does removing utm_medium break the link?
No. Like the rest of the utm_* family, the destination page never reads it — only analytics scripts running on the page after it loads.
Are there standard values for utm_medium?
By convention: email, social, cpc, display, affiliate, organic, referral. Google Analytics treats them as opaque strings, so publishers can use anything they like — which is also why the values you see in the wild are a mess.
Why strip utm_medium if it doesn't identify me?
Because it broadcasts marketing metadata your sender embedded for their own analytics — it shouldn't ride along when you share the link onward. Same reasoning as stripping utm_source.
Clean tracking on iPhone, in one tap.
LinkClean strips ~80 vendor-specific tracking parameters from any link, from any app's share sheet — and preserves functional ones like hl, t (YouTube timestamp), and q (search). No account, on-device.
