Fixing (organic) and (not set) Google Ads Campaign Names in GA4

Are you facing issues with inaccurate campaign names in your GA4 reports for Google Ads traffic? You are not the only one. Since August of 2024 Google has an issue with the GCLID parameter which might cause your campaign attribution to come up as (not set) or (organic) in GA4. This guide will help you solve the problem and ensure accurate Google Ads campaign attribution in GA4.

Understanding the Issue

Since August 2024, many users have reported that Google Analytics 4 is incorrectly displaying campaign names as “(organic)” or “(not set)” for Google Ads traffic. This obviously not helpful and it can hinder your ability to effectively analyze and optimize your campaigns. How do you know if you are affected?

Verifying the Problem

1. Navigate to the “Traffic acquisition” report.
2. Change the dimension from “Default Channel Group” to “Session Source/Medium”
3. Filter for visitors from “Google / CPC”
4. Add “Session campaign” as a secondary dimension.
5. If you see “(organic)” or “(not set)” values, you’re affected by this issue.

The solution

Luckily there are 2 different ways to solve this issue. Let’s have a look at them.

Using manual UTM parameters

Using UTM parameters in your Google Ads campaigns is crucial for accurate tracking. I always recommend to add these in case your auto tagging does not work properly (especially for socials).

However, for visitors who reject “ad_user_data” or have disabled personalized ads, standard UTM parameters may not be sufficient. So this method does not work 100% of the time.

Automatically with Jan Zdarsa’s Script

To automate the process of adding UTM parameters to your Google Ads destination URLs, leverage Jan Zdarsa’s script. This script is designed to:

• Automatically update destination URLs with the correct UTM parameters.
• Ensure accuracy even when campaign names change.
• Run hourly to keep your data up-to-date.

Be mindfull that this script doesn’t support Demand Gen and Video campaigns.

How do you implement the script?

1. Obtain the script from Jan Zdarsa’s GitHub repository.
2. Implement it in your Google Ads account under the Bulk actions menu.
3. Enable auto-tagging in your Google Ads settings.

Great, now you have set up the script and are well on your way to mitigating this issue. Be sure to keep an eye on updates of the script and let’s hope Google will find a solution for this soon.