Why Your Paid Ad Traffic Shows as Referral in Google Analytics (And How to Fix It)
· 6 min read
You're running paid ads on Facebook, TikTok, or LinkedIn. You check Google Analytics expecting to see your campaigns driving traffic. Instead, you find m.facebook.com / referral or l.instagram.com / referral cluttering your reports.
Sound familiar? You're not alone — and the fix is simpler than you might think.
✅ TL;DR
- Google Ads auto-tags for GA4. Most other platforms (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest) do not.
- Without UTM parameters, GA4 sees your paid traffic as generic referral traffic.
- Add UTM parameters to every ad — copy-paste templates below.
- Each platform uses different macro syntax — don't mix them up.
