How does Fasterize manage tracking parameters to speed up your marketing campaign pages?

Modified on Thu, 6 Nov at 11:30 AM

Introduction

When a visitor clicks on an ad, a newsletter link, or any sponsored content, the URL usually includes tracking parameters like utm_source, gclid, or mc_cid. These help you identify the source of traffic in your analytics tools.

However, from a performance standpoint, these parameters can slow down page loading. Why? Because each unique URL can lead to a different version of the page being generated in the HTML cache.

To address this, Fasterize now automatically excludes many tracking parameters from the cache key. This means faster page loads for your visitors — with no impact on your analytics.

Why exclude tracking parameters from the cache key?

Each time a parameter changes in the URL, it may generate a new HTML version of the page from the server’s perspective. This behavior is only useful when the content truly varies, which is rarely the case for marketing campaigns.

Example:


https://www.mysite.com/landing?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email

By default, this might generate a different cache entry than:


https://www.mysite.com/landing?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc

Even though the content is identical.

? By ignoring tracking parameters in the cache key, Fasterize can re-use the same HTML response, significantly improving page load speed for campaign traffic.

Which tracking parameters are excluded?

Fasterize has expanded the list of parameters that are automatically excluded from the cache key. Here are some of the most common:

AT Internet / Piano Analytics:
at_format, at_identifier, at_platform, at_source, at_type, at_variant, xtor
Matomo (Piwik):
mtm_source, mtm_medium, mtm_campaign, mtm_adgroup, mtm_content, mtm_kwd, mtm_group, mtm_matchtype
Wizaly:
wiz_campaign, wiz_content, wiz_medium, wiz_source, wiz_term
Unidentified analytics platforms:
et_campaign, et_device, et_keyword, et_matchtype, et_mt, et_content
Mailchimp:
mc_cid, mc_eid
Google Ads / Microsoft Ads / TikTok:
gclid, dclid, msclkid, wbraid, gbraid, gad_campaignid, ttclid
Affiliate and other trackers:
cjevent, cjdata, aw_affid, awc, cmpid, epik, armclid, iata, idprob

? These parameters are still passed to your analytics tools via the URL, so reporting is not affected in any way.

A full list — including previously excluded parameters — is available below.
Complete list of excluded tracking parameters

at_format, at_identifier, at_platform, at_source, at_type, at_variant, xtor,
mtm_source, mtm_medium, mtm_campaign, mtm_adgroup, mtm_content, mtm_kwd, mtm_group, mtm_matchtype,
wiz_campaign, wiz_content, wiz_medium, wiz_source, wiz_term,
et_campaign, et_device, et_keyword, et_matchtype, et_mt, et_content,
mc_cid, mc_eid,
gclid, dclid, msclkid, wbraid, gbraid, gad_campaignid, ttclid,
cjevent, cjdata, aw_affid, awc, cmpid, epik, armclid, iata, idprob,
_gl, actCampaignType, actId, actSource,
at_campaign, at_channel, at_creation, at_medium,
cm_mmc, cyemail, ef_id, fbclid, gad_source, gclsrc,
srsltid, utm_bingadgroup, utm_campaign, utm_id, utm_medium, utm_source, utm_term

Do I need to do anything?

In most cases: no action is required.

This update is already live and fully transparent — your users won’t notice any change, and your analytics remain accurate.

Exception: if your server logic uses tracking parameters (e.g. showing specific content based on utm_source), you may need a custom configuration to preserve them in the cache key.

Conclusion

Thanks to this update, Fasterize enables:

Faster loading times for users coming from marketing campaigns
More efficient cache reuse, reducing server load
No loss of analytics data

And it’s fully automated — you get the benefit without needing to configure anything.