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I keep getting this notice in Google Analytics:

Duplicate Campaign Parameters
Property [site name] is receiving hits with utm_term parameters of the same text but different letter cases.

I don't understand what this means. I am not doing any "campaigns" and nowhere am I using a utm_term parameter.

About a month ago after seeing this notice I made sure to upgrade my GA snippet just in case there was some issue there. So I am using just the standard code provided by Google with no modification.

However, the notice still keeps coming back. Where is this issue coming from?

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    Maybe you want to read this and also this and perhaps even this to find out where it comes from to solve your problem?
    – Charles
    Feb 10, 2016 at 6:12
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    @Charles Thanks. I looked at #5 on the first link (Keyword dimension) but the utm_term that GA is warning me about is not there. All I have is "(not set)" or a couple of instances of "0_3f62f5dc72-e1d1f8589e-144323885".
    – DisgruntledGoat
    Feb 10, 2016 at 12:32

2 Answers 2

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Pixl's answer explains why you are getting the "Duplicate Campaign Parameters" message from Google Analytics. However, your question also appears to be looking for where these campaign parameters are coming from. In the comments Pixl also pointed out that anybody could link to you with those parameters.

Another possibility is that someone (accidentally or otherwise) is using your Google Analytics number on their webpages. Best practices recommends maintaining an unfiltered property to keep all raw data, but I would also recommend having one where you filter out traffic that isn't from your domain. It will provide a clearer view without any "junk" data from other domains. I would also recommend that you add the lowercase filter that Pixl referred to unless you plan to track campaign parameters separately based on if they have uppercase or lowercase letters.

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+50

This error can be caused by different teams of people using the campaign tagging system internally and not keeping a consistent naming convention.

If that isn't the problem it can also be caused by third parties add UTM campaign parameters to links pointing to your site with common words with different casing.

The best way to resolve this error would to bring everyone together and establish a rule of practice and stick to it. Although if that doesn't solve your issue..

Google has these handy lowercase filters you can add to your view which works great for fields such as source and medium but I would advise against the other fields normally used for google adwords or other case-sensitive things if you have them integrated.

To create it, navigate to your current filters admin panel and click add a New Filter, select Advanced, then Lowercase, and then the field you wish to lowercase, like Campaign Source.

You can find more info on campaign tagging on LunaMetrics, a great analytics blog

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  • Also, not sure if you already checked but I would look under Acquisition>Referrals in GA and it will show you any third party referring users to your site.
    – Avail
    Feb 8, 2016 at 16:59
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    As I said I don't have any campaigns. However, when I look in Aquisition>Campaigns there are a couple of hits on the graph. The table lists: "zalo", "e1d1f8589e-Gratitude_2015", "wnc_594600", "promo" (total of 13 views). Clicking through shows things like "Miss Babs Hand-Dyed Yarns & Fibers / email". I have no idea what these things are. Referral spam?
    – DisgruntledGoat
    Feb 10, 2016 at 11:19
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    I've also searched All Pages for utm_term and there is nothing.
    – DisgruntledGoat
    Feb 10, 2016 at 11:23
  • The fact you didn't create any doesn't mean they will never show up, anyone can create UTM campaigns for any URL. All UTM campaigns are, URL parameters for example www.example.com?utm_source=utmsource?utm_campaign=campaignName?utm_medium=Magazine so if you don't use them, the ones showing are probably referral spam
    – Avail
    Feb 10, 2016 at 15:13

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