Every new Taboola Realize campaign starts with utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral in its Tracking Code. GA4 reads a medium of referral as the Referral channel, so paid native clicks sit beside unpaid links from other sites. Change the medium to cpc and they move to Paid Other, GA4's channel for ads from networks it doesn't categorise.
The interactive UTM builder loads with this page, pre-filled for Taboola, and runs entirely in your browser.
cpc fits GA4's paid-medium regex, and taboola appears on none of Google's source lists: that combination is the Paid Other rule. The lowercase source follows Taboola's own advice for Google Analytics.
Where to put it
Campaign level: at the bottom of the New Campaign or Edit Campaign page, replace the default in the Tracking Code section with your string.
Leave off the leading question mark or ampersand. Taboola adds it for you.
Tag at one level only. Taboola says parameters at both campaign and ad level will make your analytics data incorrect.
Prefer campaign level: you can edit it without sending items back to policy review, which editing an approved item's URL does.
Ad level instead: add a question mark and your parameters to the Landing Page URL, and delete the campaign default.
Macros filled in at click time
Macro
Resolves to
{campaign_name}
Campaign name, as on the Campaign Management page
{campaign_id}
Campaign ID
{campaign_group_id}
Campaign group ID
{campaign_item_id}
Item ID, as in the Top Campaign Content report
{title}
The item's headline
{creative_name}
Your creative name, if you set one
{custom_id}
Your creative ID, if you set one
{site}
Publisher site or app name
{site_id}
Publisher site or app ID
{site_domain}
Publisher website name or URL
{platform}
Desktop, Mobile or Tablet
{thumbnail}
The item's image or video URL
{timestamp}
When the item was served
{cachebuster}
Random number per impression
{cpc}
Real-time CPC bid, encrypted
Open a new campaign in Taboola Realize, scroll to the Tracking Code section at the bottom, and utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral is already there. Taboola set that default, and GA4 has a rule that fires on a medium of referral by itself. Leave it and every paid click from the campaign reports as Referral, so your native ad spend looks like free links from other websites. Change the medium before launch.
cpc or display? GA4 has no native-ads channel. A medium of cpc matches its paid pattern, and since taboola isn't on Google's search, social, video or shopping lists, the click goes to Paid Other. A medium of display puts it in GA4's Display channel, which accepts display, banner, expandable, interstitial and cpm. Both are defensible. Use the same one on every Taboola campaign.
Split by publisher. Taboola places your items across many publisher sites and apps. {site} returns the site or app name, {site_domain} the website and {site_id} an ID. Put one in utm_content, for example utm_content={site}, and GA4 can compare publishers by what visitors do after the click. {campaign_item_id} matches the item ID in Taboola's Top Campaign Content report, which ties a GA4 row back to one ad.
tblci is added for you. Taboola appends tblci={click_id} to all ad URLs by default. The value is a case-sensitive string of about 70 characters, and Taboola says a truncated or corrupted one is ignored, so nothing between the ad and your page should shorten or re-encode it. If your system expects another name, add your own, such as tbl_click_id={click_id}, in the Tracking Code. Posting conversions back to Taboola uses click-id, with a hyphen, a different name again. The tblci decoder reads one from a live URL, and the redirect checker shows whether it survives your redirects.
Skip {cpc}. The bid macro returns an encrypted value, and decrypting it takes a script from your Taboola account manager. Standard analytics can't read it.
Questions
What UTM parameters does Taboola add by default?
New Realize campaigns start with utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral in the Tracking Code, which you can edit. Separately, Taboola appends tblci={click_id} to all ad URLs by default.
What is the Taboola click ID?
The value Taboola appends to ad URLs as tblci, a case-sensitive string of about 70 characters. People often search for it as tbclid, but the parameter Taboola documents is tblci. Server-to-server conversions send it back as click-id.
Which macros can I use in Taboola UTM parameters?
Taboola's common macros include {campaign_name}, {campaign_id}, {campaign_item_id}, {title}, {site}, {site_domain}, {platform}, {timestamp} and {cachebuster}, and they work under any URL parameter you like, at campaign or item level.