Then on the receiving end, you use lookup tables or functions to decode the various aspects of the key, and explicitly define the relevant utm parameters in the call to Google Analytics (which it natively supports as an alternative to implicitly sniffing them from the URL string). Or if your encoding scheme is simple enough, you can send the key directly to GA and use Advanced custom filters[1] to decode the utm parameters there.
[1] https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033162?hl=en
At least with this approach, the PITA becomes more explicit and easier to justify the tooling needs, allowing for it to be addressed and tackled at the outset by the upstream implementation team, rather than cascading to downstream consumers.