Tracking Emails in GA4

December 20, 2025
  • First Published: December 20, 2025
  • Last Modified: December 20, 2025

You’ve just sent out a brilliant email campaign. The open rates look solid in your email platform, and you’re ready to see how that traffic behaved on your site.

But when you open Google Analytics 4 (GA4), the data isn’t there. Or rather, it is there, but it’s hiding.

Instead of seeing “Email” as a clear traffic source, you’re likely seeing a spike in “Direct” traffic or, even more frustratingly, a large bucket of “Unassigned” users.

Sound familiar?

This is a common headache for digital marketers. The issue isn’t usually with the traffic itself, but with how that traffic is “introduced” to GA4. Without the right signals, Google Analytics simply doesn’t know the user came from your newsletter.

Here is how to fix your email tracking and ensure your attribution is spot on.

Table of Contents

Can Google Analytics track emails?

Yes – in fact there’s a defaul channel group called Email to allow traffic from emails to be properly attributed.

But you might have to give GA4 a helping hand. Far too often, I see emails going into the black hole that is the Direct channel.

The Specific Rules for GA4 Email Tracking

GA4 has strict rules when it comes to understanding what ‘pot’ traffic it goes into.

Thankfully there’s documentation from Google to help us.

For a session to be correctly categorised as “Email” in your reports, your link tags must follow a specific logic.

The Golden Rule: To trigger the “Email” channel grouping, it’s important to use UTMs. And your link must contain either:

utm_source = email|e-mail|e_mail|e mail

OR

utm_medium = email|e-mail|e_mail|e mail

If you use utm_medium=newsletter or utm_medium=weekly-blast without the word “email” appearing in the source or medium, GA4 might not recognise it as the Email channel.

A Practical Example

Let’s say you are sending a monthly newsletter.

Your link structure should look something like this:

https://yourwebsite.com/blog-post?utm_source=email&utm_medium=monthly-newsletter&utm_campaign=december-update

In this example:

Source (email): Tells GA4 “This is from an email.”

Medium (monthly-newsletter): Tells you which type of email it was.

Campaign (december-update): Tells you exactly which blast drove the traffic.

Note: You can swap these around (e.g., source=newsletter, medium=email), as long as one of them explicitly says “email”.

Did I mention source or medium must contain email?

Automating the UTM Process

You typically have two options for applying these tags.

1. The Manual Method (For One-Offs)

If you are sending a personal email or a one-off link from a system that doesn’t support auto-tagging, use Google’s Campaign URL Builder.

It’s a free tool where you simply paste your website URL and define your Source, Medium, and Campaign. It generates the long link for you to copy and paste.

 

UTM builder from Google

2. The Automated Method (ESP Settings)

Most major Email Service Providers (ESPs) like Mailchimp, MailerLite, or ActiveCampaign have a setting—usually tucked away in the ‘Tracking’ or ‘Analytics’ tab—called “Google Analytics Link Tracking” or similar.

When you tick this box, the tool automatically appends UTM parameters to every link in your email. This acts as a brilliant safety net, saving you time and ensuring you never send an untracked link.

How to View Your Email Data in GA4

Once you have tagged your links correctly, here is how to find the data:

  1. Go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition.
  2. Look at the Session Default Channel Group column. You should now see a row for Email.
  3. To see more detail, click the blue + icon next to the column header.
  4. Search for and select Session source / medium.

Now, you can see exactly which email campaigns (e.g., “email / newsletter” vs. “email / promo”) are driving traffic, engagement, and conversions.

There are a few ways to make more of this – you could change the first dimension to session source medium, and add a secondary dimension of campaign to get more granular.

Filter

If you are aiming to purely see email traffic, you can use the filter option within the report section to filter purely to Email traffic.

A filter might look like:

Session Default Channel Group

exactly matches

Email

Drop down and + button

Building an exploration

Sometimes the standard reports feel a bit cluttered.

If you want a clean view of your campaign performance, the “Explore” section is your best friend.

  1. Navigate to Explore and select a Blank report.
  2. Add Dimensions: Search for “Session campaign” and “Session source / medium.”
  3. Add Metrics: Choose “Sessions” and “Session key event rate” (this is what GA4 now calls conversion rate).
  4. Drag and drop these into your rows and values.

I would then use the Session Default Channel Group as the filter to show purely email traffic only.

Email Traffic

Conclusion

Correct attribution is the difference between thinking your emails work and knowing they work.

By adhering to GA4’s specific tagging rules, you move your traffic out of the “Unassigned” black hole and into clear, actionable reports.

Here is your next step: Open your email marketing platform today and check your link tracking settings. Ensure that the utm_source or utm_medium is hard-coded to include the word “email”. It’s a five-minute check that will clean up your data forever.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I use “e-mail” with a hyphen in my UTMs?

A: Yes. GA4’s rules list email, e-mail, e_mail, and e mail as acceptable values for the Source or Medium to trigger the Email channel group.

Q: What happens if I forget to use UTMs?

A: If a user clicks a link with no UTMs from a desktop email client (like Outlook), they will likely appear as “Direct” traffic. If they click from a webmail provider (like Gmail), they might appear as “Referral”.

Q: Why is my email traffic still showing as “Unassigned”?

A: This usually happens if your Source or Medium parameters don’t match GA4’s default rules. For example, using utm_medium=k-flow (a custom term) without email in the source will result in Unassigned traffic unless you create a Custom Channel Group.

Kyle

Author

Hello, I'm Kyle Rushton McGregor!

I’m an experienced GA4 Specialist with a demonstrated history of working with Google Tag Manager and Looker Studio. I’m an international speaker who has trained 1000s of people on all things analytics.

Find out more About me
Scroll to Top