tl;dr
The Channel Builder is where you define which costs and revenues belong to which marketing channel.
Channels are matched using UTM rules and cost datasource connections - priority runs top to bottom through your channel list
If you follow the Klar UTM Setup for all your channels, the default channel rules will already match your data correctly
Every channel has three dimensions: a Channel Name (free text), a Channel Category (14 options e.g. Paid Social, Organic Search, Direct), and a Channel Group (Paid, Brand, or Owned)
Data that matches no channel appears as Default in your reports
What is a marketing channel?
A channel is a unified view of data from different datasources, matched by rules you define.
Every brand defines channels slightly differently. The Channel Builder gives you full flexibility to define those rules yourself, using three dimensions:
Channel Name — a freely named label (e.g.
Meta | Paid Social | DE)Channel Category — one of 14 standard categories: Paid Social, Paid Search, Influencer, Organic Search, Direct, Email, Display, and more
Channel Group — the channel type: Paid, Brand, or Owned
Getting these dimensions right is what makes your Profitability, Attribution, and Marketing reports meaningful.
Getting your channel rules right is one of the most impactful things you can do in Klar — and most of it comes down to a clean naming convention for your UTM parameters. If you have any questions setting these up, just reach out via the support chat inside Klar. We're happy to help you get your channels exactly the way you want them.
There will be several channels added to your Klar account per default with corresponding "usual" channel rules. Check and adjust them to your individual UTM parameter logic.
How does data get mapped to a channel?
Three types of data are mapped to each channel:
Channel Performance & Costs — spend, clicks, and impressions from your connected ad accounts (Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, etc.) and any Custom Costs Google Sheets
Sessions & On-page Behaviour — sessions, bounces, time on site, cart rate — sourced from Google Analytics 4
Orders & Revenue — Klar uses your shop system (e.g. Shopify or Shopware) as a base and matches Google Analytics data on top of it, as GA4 has more reliable channel information. If there is a match, GA4 data takes priority; if not, the shop system data remains.
How to create a new Channel
In the left sidebar, go to Store Configurator → Channels
Several default channels are pre-configured — review and adjust them to match your UTM naming convention before adding new ones
Click + Create Channel
Enter a Channel Name and select the Channel Category and Channel Group
Connect the relevant datasources and add filter conditions using the AND / OR logic (see below)
Click Save
If data could match multiple channels, drag channels to reorder them — the list runs top to bottom, and the first matching channel wins
How do conditions and groups work?
Each datasource connection can have one or more filter conditions. The available fields depend on the datasource — for example, a Google Ads datasource exposes Campaign Name, while a GA4 datasource exposes UTM Source, UTM Medium, UTM Campaign, and Visit Source.
The three operators:
Contains — value appears anywhere in the field
Does Not Contain — excludes traffic matching that value; useful for keeping paid channels clean from referral or influencer traffic
Like — partial/pattern match; e.g.
fbcatchesfbclid,fb-ads, and any other value containingfbNot Like — excludes partial matches
Starts With — value appears at the beginning of the field
Does Not Start With — excludes values that start with a specific string
AND vs. OR:
Use AND when all conditions must be true — click Add Condition and the connector defaults to AND
Use OR when any one condition is enough — click Add Nested Condition to add an OR value within a condition
Groups let you combine AND and OR logic. Each group has its own internal logic, and groups themselves are connected by AND or OR.
Example — Meta Paid channel (GA4 datasource):
UTM Medium → Does Not Contain →
referralAND UTM Source → Contains →
facebookORmetaORinstagramOR UTM Source → Like →
fbORigAND UTM Medium → Does Not Contain →
influencer
This matches Meta sessions while excluding referral traffic and influencer traffic — both of which are handled in their own separate channels.
To match data from a second datasource (e.g. the Klar Pixel or a Post-Purchase Survey), click Add Data Source Group and set up a separate set of conditions for that datasource.
Note: Klar matching is case-insensitive — google, Google, GOOGLE, and even GooGLe all match the same rule.
Handling Direct and Google fallback orders
Some orders arrive without UTM data and can't be matched through normal channel rules. For these, Klar falls back to the shop system visit source field (e.g. Shopify Visit Source), which typically contains values like Direct or Google.
Direct → match this into your Direct channel.
Google (without UTMs) → you have two options:
Route it into your largest existing Google channel (e.g. Branded Paid Search)
Create a dedicated Google Fallback channel with a
Shopify Visit Source = googlerule
Important: If you use the shop system visit source, always place that channel at the bottom of your list. It should only catch orders that have no UTM data — not override orders that do.
What happens if nothing matches?
A well-configured Channel Builder should match close to 100% of traffic and costs. Any order or session with n/a across all dimensions — with no matching channel — appears as Default in your reports.
⚠️ If you see a large Default volume, check your UTM parameters and channel rules. The Channel Naming Blueprint shows example setups for the most common channel configurations.