Why it matters
Untagged links all melt into "direct traffic", the analytics junk drawer where attribution goes to die. Consistent tagging is the difference between "the newsletter drove 40 enquiries" and "traffic went up, we think?", and it costs nothing but discipline.
How it works
Five standard tags (source, medium, campaign, plus optional content and term) ride along on the URL and are read by analytics on arrival. The failure mode is inconsistency ("Email", "email" and "newsletter" become three channels) so a shared naming sheet does most of the work.
What to do about it
Create a one-page naming convention and a link-builder spreadsheet the whole team uses. Tag everything you distribute: emails, socials, ads, partner links, the QR code on the conference banner.
