UTM Tracking for Omnisend: How to Build and Validate Email, SMS, and Push Campaign Links

The correct utm_source and utm_medium for Omnisend

Use utm_source=omnisend — all lowercase — for all sends from Omnisend regardless of channel. The utm_medium value changes based on the send channel. Omnisend is a multi-channel platform, and using a distinct utm_medium per channel is the only way to differentiate email, SMS, and push traffic in GA4 reports without splitting your attribution across multiple source values.

GA4 maps utm_medium=email to the Email default channel group automatically. utm_medium=sms maps to SMS if your GA4 channel groupings include an SMS rule, otherwise it falls into the Other bucket — you can create a custom channel group rule in GA4 to reclassify it. utm_medium=push is not a GA4 default channel and will appear under Other unless you define a custom channel rule. Using these three distinct medium values lets you compare Omnisend email, SMS, and push traffic side-by-side in GA4 without blending them into a single undifferentiated "omnisend" row.

utm_campaign naming for Omnisend campaigns and automations

Omnisend distinguishes between one-time Campaigns (manual sends to a segment or full list) and Automations (event-triggered sequences like welcome series, cart abandonment, and post-purchase flows). These two send types need different utm_campaign naming strategies.

# Email Campaign (one-time send) — date-stamped slug
$ mlz build --url "https://store.example.com/sale" \
  --source "omnisend" --medium "email" \
  --campaign "spring-sale-may-2026" --content "main-cta"

# Cart abandonment Automation — stable evergreen slug
$ mlz build --url "https://store.example.com/cart" \
  --source "omnisend" --medium "email" \
  --campaign "cart-abandonment" --content "hour-1-cta"

# Welcome series Automation — stable evergreen slug
$ mlz build --url "https://store.example.com/new-arrivals" \
  --source "omnisend" --medium "email" \
  --campaign "welcome-series" --content "day-1-cta"

# SMS Campaign — separate utm_medium, date-stamped slug
$ mlz build --url "https://store.example.com/flash" \
  --source "omnisend" --medium "sms" \
  --campaign "flash-sale-may-2026"

One-time Campaign slugs should encode when the send happened: spring-sale-may-2026, mothers-day-promo-2026. Automation slugs should describe the automation's purpose without encoding a date: cart-abandonment, welcome-series, post-purchase-followup. Automation slugs are evergreen — the same automation runs for months or years, accumulating attribution data under a single stable slug in GA4. Date-stamping an automation slug would fragment that attribution over time.

Use utm_content to distinguish individual messages within a multi-step Automation. For a 3-email cart abandonment sequence: use utm_campaign=cart-abandonment for all three emails, with utm_content=hour-1-cta, utm_content=hour-24-cta, and utm_content=day-3-final-cta per message. In GA4's Explore report, utm_content as a secondary dimension on the cart abandonment campaign row shows which message in the sequence drove the most conversions.

Building Omnisend links with mlz build

mlz build generates a normalised tracked URL with lowercase hyphen-separated values. For an Omnisend email Campaign:

$ mlz build \
  --url "https://store.example.com/sale" \
  --source "omnisend" \
  --medium "email" \
  --campaign "spring-sale-may-2026" \
  --content "main-cta"

{
  "tracked_url": "https://store.example.com/sale?utm_source=omnisend&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-sale-may-2026&utm_content=main-cta",
  "params": {
    "utm_source": "omnisend",
    "utm_medium": "email",
    "utm_campaign": "spring-sale-may-2026",
    "utm_content": "main-cta"
  },
  "link_id": "lnk_om4e7v2p",
  "stored": true
}

Copy the tracked_url and paste it into Omnisend's email editor as your button or link destination. Omnisend's click-tracking wraps all links in a redirect to record click counts — this redirect preserves your full destination URL including the UTM query string when forwarding subscribers to the destination.

For SMS messages, build links with --medium "sms". SMS messages are character-constrained, so shorten the tracked URL with a link shortener after building if character count is a concern — but validate the shortened URL resolves to your destination with UTM parameters intact before sending. For web push notifications, use --medium "push":

# SMS Campaign link
$ mlz build \
  --url "https://store.example.com/flash" \
  --source "omnisend" \
  --medium "sms" \
  --campaign "flash-sale-may-2026"

{
  "tracked_url": "https://store.example.com/flash?utm_source=omnisend&utm_medium=sms&utm_campaign=flash-sale-may-2026",
  "params": {
    "utm_source": "omnisend",
    "utm_medium": "sms",
    "utm_campaign": "flash-sale-may-2026"
  },
  "link_id": "lnk_om9k3c1r",
  "stored": true
}

# Web push notification link
$ mlz build \
  --url "https://store.example.com/new-arrivals" \
  --source "omnisend" \
  --medium "push" \
  --campaign "new-arrivals-may-2026"

{
  "tracked_url": "https://store.example.com/new-arrivals?utm_source=omnisend&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=new-arrivals-may-2026",
  "params": {
    "utm_source": "omnisend",
    "utm_medium": "push",
    "utm_campaign": "new-arrivals-may-2026"
  },
  "link_id": "lnk_om2n5d8q",
  "stored": true
}

How to disable Omnisend's built-in UTM tracking

Omnisend includes a UTM tracking setting that, when enabled, automatically appends UTM parameters to all links in your campaigns and automations. Omnisend derives utm_campaign from your campaign name — whatever text you entered in Omnisend's campaign name field. If the campaign is named "Spring Sale 2026," Omnisend generates utm_campaign=Spring%20Sale%202026 (URL-encoded spaces, mixed case). In GA4, this creates a separate row from a manually built utm_campaign=spring-sale-2026, splitting data that belongs together.

When Omnisend's auto-UTM is active and you've also embedded manually built parameters in your links, Omnisend may append its own parameters during the send. If the same UTM key appears twice in a URL, GA4 processes only one value. The safest approach is to disable Omnisend's auto-UTM entirely and manage all UTM parameters manually using mlz build.

To disable Omnisend's UTM tracking:

• Campaign-level: When creating or editing a campaign in Omnisend, look for a "Tracking" or "UTM parameters" section in the campaign setup flow. Omnisend typically presents this as a step before scheduling the send. Disable automatic UTM tracking for the campaign where you are applying custom parameters. This setting applies only to the current campaign.
• Account-level: In your Omnisend account settings, navigate to the Tracking or Integrations section. If Omnisend provides a global toggle for automatic UTM appending, disabling it prevents auto-UTM from being applied to all future campaigns and automations by default. This is the preferred approach for teams that manage all tracked links through mlz build.
• Automations: For Omnisend Automations (welcome series, cart abandonment, post-purchase), review the UTM tracking setting when building or editing the automation workflow. Disable auto-UTM for each automation where you are applying custom parameters to individual message links.

Once Omnisend's auto-UTM is disabled, all links send with your manually built UTM parameters intact — exactly as generated by mlz build.

Validating Omnisend destination URLs for e-commerce

Omnisend is primarily used by Shopify and WooCommerce merchants whose destination URLs are often product pages, collection pages, or checkout flows. E-commerce URLs are more likely to change than static landing pages — products go out of stock and URLs redirect to new SKUs, seasonal landing pages get archived after a campaign ends, and checkout flows sometimes break after platform updates. Use mlz build --validate to confirm every destination resolves cleanly before sending a Campaign or activating an Automation:

$ mlz build \
  --url "https://store.example.com/sale" \
  --source "omnisend" \
  --medium "email" \
  --campaign "spring-sale-may-2026" \
  --content "main-cta" \
  --validate

{
  "tracked_url": "https://store.example.com/sale?utm_source=omnisend&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-sale-may-2026&utm_content=main-cta",
  "validation": {
    "valid": true,
    "checks": [
      { "check": "url_format", "status": "pass", "message": "URL format is valid." },
      { "check": "ssl", "status": "pass", "message": "URL uses HTTPS." },
      { "check": "resolution", "status": "pass", "message": "Destination responded with 200.", "details": { "response_time_ms": 198 } },
      { "check": "redirects", "status": "pass", "message": "No redirects detected." }
    ]
  },
  "link_id": "lnk_om4e7v2p",
  "stored": true
}

For Omnisend Automations, validate all destination URLs when building the automation, and periodically re-validate while the automation is active. Automations run continuously — a product page that goes out of stock or a checkout URL that changes after a Shopify theme update will silently break every future conversion in that automation. Use mlz links list to retrieve all stored tracked URLs for your account and run spot-checks on automation destinations after major platform updates.

Omnisend UTM tracking gotchas

Omnisend's auto-UTM uses your campaign name — not a slug you control

When Omnisend's built-in UTM tracking is enabled, it derives utm_campaign from your Omnisend campaign name. If that name contains spaces or mixed case (e.g., "Spring Sale 2026"), Omnisend URL-encodes it as utm_campaign=Spring%20Sale%202026. GA4 treats Spring%20Sale%202026 and spring-sale-2026 as separate values — creating two rows for what should be a single campaign. Disable Omnisend's auto-UTM and use mlz build to control utm_campaign formatting exactly.

Multi-channel sends need different utm_medium per channel

Omnisend lets you create a Campaign that sends across email, SMS, and push in a coordinated sequence. Each channel must use a distinct utm_medium — email sends get utm_medium=email, SMS gets utm_medium=sms, push gets utm_medium=push. Using the same utm_medium across all channels (e.g., utm_medium=omnisend) makes it impossible to compare channel performance in GA4 because all three channels appear as a single source/medium combination. Build separate tracked URLs per channel with mlz build, one for each channel in the multi-channel send.

Cart abandonment automation links point to dynamic cart URLs

Omnisend's cart abandonment automation typically links to a customer-specific cart recovery URL rather than a static product or collection page. These cart recovery URLs are usually short-lived and dynamically generated — they are not static destinations you validate once and reuse. For the UTM portion of cart abandonment automation emails, focus on building consistent tracked URLs for the secondary CTAs in the email (e.g., "Browse our store" links, featured product links) rather than the primary cart recovery link. Apply utm_campaign=cart-abandonment and utm_content=browse-cta to those static secondary links and validate them with mlz build --validate.

Omnisend shortens URLs in SMS — validate after shortening

SMS messages are character-constrained. If your mlz build-generated tracked URL is too long for your SMS message, you may need to shorten it before inserting it into Omnisend's SMS editor. Always validate the shortened URL resolves to your destination with UTM parameters intact before sending. Use mlz check <shortened-url> to confirm the redirect chain preserves your UTM query string. A link shortener that strips query parameters will silently drop all your UTM attribution data without a validation step.

Omnisend Automation names become auto-UTM utm_campaign values

When Omnisend's auto-UTM is active for Automations, it uses the Automation name as the source of the auto-generated utm_campaign value. All emails in a multi-step Automation receive the same auto-generated utm_campaign, making it impossible to distinguish which step drove a conversion. Disable auto-UTM for Automations and apply a stable evergreen utm_campaign slug plus a step-specific utm_content value per message: utm_campaign=welcome-series with utm_content=day-1-cta, utm_content=day-3-discount, etc.

Omnisend UTM naming conventions

Recommended UTM parameter values for Omnisend across all channels and send types, aligned with GA4 channel groupings:

• utm_source: omnisend — all lowercase, no hyphens or underscores, for all sends from Omnisend (email, SMS, push).
• utm_medium: email for email campaigns and automations; sms for SMS campaigns and automations; push for web push notification campaigns and automations.
• utm_campaign: lowercase hyphen-separated slug — for Campaigns (one-time sends): spring-sale-may-2026, mothers-day-promo-2026, flash-sale-june-2026; for Automations: welcome-series, cart-abandonment, post-purchase-followup, browse-abandonment, win-back.
• utm_content: CTA or step identifier — for email Campaigns: main-cta, secondary-cta, hero-image-link; for Automation steps: day-1-cta, hour-1-cta, day-3-discount, final-offer-cta. For SMS where character count permits, use brief identifiers: main, final.
• utm_term: Use sparingly for segment-targeted sends where audience segment is meaningful for attribution: vip-customers, first-time-buyers, 30d-inactive.

For multi-channel Omnisend Campaigns that send across email, SMS, and push simultaneously, build three separate tracked URLs — one per channel — with the same utm_campaign slug but different utm_medium values. In GA4, filter by utm_source=omnisend and use utm_medium as a secondary dimension to compare channel performance within a single campaign.

See the UTM naming conventions guide for the full cross-channel reference and the UTM tracking for developers guide for programmatic generation at scale.

FAQ

Should I use omnisend or omni-send as utm_source?

Use utm_source=omnisend — all lowercase, no hyphen, no underscore. "Omnisend" is written as a single word (it's the brand name), so the UTM source value matches: one word, all lowercase. Avoid omni-send, omni_send, or Omnisend (capitalised) — each of these creates a separate attribution row in GA4 from correctly-cased values, fragmenting your email attribution data over time.

How do I track email, SMS, and push separately in GA4?

Use a distinct utm_medium per channel: utm_medium=email for email sends, utm_medium=sms for SMS sends, and utm_medium=push for web push sends. Keep utm_source=omnisend the same across all three. In GA4's Traffic Acquisition or Explore reports, filter by utm_source=omnisend and break down by utm_medium to compare email vs. SMS vs. push performance for the same campaign. If you use utm_medium=omnisend for all channels, you lose the ability to differentiate channel performance in GA4 without cross-referencing Omnisend's own analytics.

How do I name utm_campaign for Omnisend cart abandonment automations?

Use a stable evergreen slug: utm_campaign=cart-abandonment. Do not date-stamp automation slugs — automations run continuously and accumulate attribution data under a single slug over months or years. Use utm_content to distinguish individual emails within the cart abandonment sequence: utm_content=hour-1-cta, utm_content=hour-24-cta, utm_content=day-3-final-cta. This lets GA4 show cart abandonment attribution as a unified campaign row while still allowing per-step performance analysis via the utm_content dimension.

Does Omnisend's click tracking strip UTM parameters?

Omnisend wraps all email links with a click-tracking redirect to record click events. This redirect preserves your full destination URL, including the UTM query string built with mlz build, when forwarding subscribers to your site. The click-tracking redirect and Omnisend's built-in UTM tracking are independent features — disabling auto-UTM does not disable click tracking. Once auto-UTM is disabled, your manually built UTM parameters are forwarded intact through the click-tracking redirect.

How do I validate Omnisend destination URLs for Shopify stores?

Use mlz build --validate when building any link destined for an Omnisend send. For Shopify stores, pay particular attention to product page URLs (they change when products are archived or reorganised) and collection page URLs (they redirect when collection handles change). If a product goes out of stock after an Automation is activated, the destination URL may redirect to a sold-out page or a 404 — breaking every future send in that automation. Use mlz check <url> to periodically spot-check automation destination URLs after Shopify theme updates or inventory changes.

Related reading