Your move - traffic sources in Google Analytics and how to use them
- owwwla
- Dec 4, 2021
- 10 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
We've all been eyeing the Black Friday and Black Week promotions. In more than one store, traffic over the past seven days has skyrocketed, or at least slightly scratched the surface. And if you're reading this shortly after publication, you know what I'm talking about. For customers, it's a frenzy of discounts; for stores, higher-than-usual advertising rates and a ton of work. And finally, the tally. Because pleasing customers is one thing (who doesn't love that), but in the end, it all has to add up and benefit the store owner as well.
It's not just about shops, though. Mikołaj, for example, travels around the world and runs a blog. Mainly for family and friends, to let them know everything's okay, of course. Over time, however, his popularity grew, and Miki began being invited to travel meetups and radio interviews. After each such meeting with his audience, his blog receives a new wave of interest. In his free time, Mikołaj checks his Google Analytics account, curiously observing who read about his travels and from where.
And that's true, right? The main reason for using tools like Google Analytics is to measure and analyze website traffic. In this article, I'll focus on explaining where that traffic comes from, how it's recorded in reports, and what you can learn from it. I'll also explain the meaning behind the names used in reports and why sometimes long strings of (seemingly) random characters are "pasted" onto our website addresses.
We start as always with the table of contents - you can jump directly to the topic you are interested in:
Where does the traffic come from, or a few words about the source, medium and channels
As I wrote in the introductory article on Internet traffic (Traffic on the website and what's so important about it), programs that record what is happening on websites collect data about the activity of devices such as Internet browsers. So when we talk about a user visit, we mean actually the views of specific pages in a web browser, and when we talk about measuring the source of traffic, Analytics gives information about the web domain from which the user came to your website. So we look at one step before - the one that led to the visit to your website.
We can check the data generally referred to as traffic source in Google Analytics in the Acquisition reports (Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition), where we select the dimension we're interested in: Session – Source/Medium, Session – Default Channel Group, and Session – Campaign. What do the dimensions presented there mean, and how do they differ?
Source - this is the source where the traffic related to your content comes directly from, such as a search engine (google, bing, ecosia.com) or a domain (mojachatkanadmorzem.pl, zonea-analityki.pl). There may also be a "(direct)" result for direct inputs.
Medium - This is a general source parameter, such as organic search results, paid cost-per-click (cpc) search results, and referral site. There may also be a result of "(none)" for direct inputs, i.e. those where your website URL has been typed (pasted) directly into the browser's address bar.
These dimensions are therefore read directly from the URLs from which users come to your site with Analytics attached.
The sources grouped according to certain characteristics are channels. By default, the configured channels are as follows:
Direct – corresponds exactly to the medium "(none)".
Organic Search – corresponds exactly to the “organic” medium, assuming that the source belongs to the list of search engines, e.g. google, bing, duckduckgo, ecosia.com.
Referral – corresponds to sources assigned to the "referral" medium, but excludes domains associated with social media. Therefore, facebook.com will appear as source/medium: facebook.com/referral, but in channels, it will be assigned to social networks. Alternatively, the "app" or "link" mediums can also be used.
Organic Social – includes sources assigned to the "referral" medium, which are related to social media, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogger, or Zalo. You can also manually add one of the medium values, which, according to Google documentation, denotes social media: "social," "social-network," "social-media," "sm," "social network," "social media."
Paid Social – contains sources related to social media, e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogger or Zalo, which are marked as paid traffic in the medium, such as "ppc", "retargeting", "paid", "cpc", etc.
Email – corresponds to sources assigned to the "email" medium. Recommended for use in capturing traffic from newsletters. Using the word "newsletter" in a medium inevitably leads traffic to the "Unassigned" channel.
Paid Search – corresponds to sources assigned to a medium containing, among others, "cpc", "ppc", "paidsearch".
Affiliates – this corresponds to the "affiliate" medium (worth remembering for your own use, such as collaborating with influencers 😊).
Display – corresponds to the sources assigned to the medium containing, among others "display", "cpm", "banner".
Paid Other – corresponds to sources assigned to the medium containing, among others, "cpv", "cpa", "cpp", "content-text".
Audio relates to traffic from podcast apps. Corresponds to medium = "audio".
Cross-network – is a channel that groups traffic from Google ads running on different networks simultaneously, for example as part of the Smart Shopping, Performance Max or Demand Gen campaigns. In this case, the campaign name contains "cross-network".
Mobile Push Notifications works when a user clicks on a notification from an app, but the app itself isn't active at the time. The medium ends in "push" or contains "mobile" or "notification," or the source is "firebase."
Organic Shopping, meaning organic search results for shopping, links on shopping sites like Amazon or Ebay (though Allegro isn't on this list). Alternatively, a campaign name containing "shop" or "shopping."
Paid Shopping is traffic from advertising links on shopping sites like Amazon or eBay (though Allegro isn't on this list). Alternatively, the campaign name contains "shop" or "shopping" AND the medium contains a paid traffic designation, such as "ppc," "retargeting," "paid," "cpc," etc.
Paid video is traffic from ads on services like YouTube, Vimeo, or TikTok. The source belongs to a list of video services, and the medium includes "cp," "ppc," retargeting," or "paid."
Organic video is traffic from videos on services like YouTube, Vimeo, or TikTok. The source belongs to a list of video services, and the medium contains "video."
SMS, traffic from links sent via SMS. To be included here, the source or medium must equal "sms."
Unassigned, that is, the rest, for example (not set) or (data not available)
When checking reports for individual pages, you can also add channel or source/medium as an additional dimension, allowing you to see where users were most likely to come from. By the way, remember that the Acquisition section includes two detailed reports: Traffic Acquisition and User Acquisition.
In the first one, the dimensions are based on individual sessions, so you'll see names like Session – Source/Medium, Session – Campaign, and Session – Default Channel Group. In the second, the data is based on the ACQUISITION source of the user, so all of their sessions will be attributed to the source of their first website visit.
How does this work in practice? Let's assume that a new client of Marek's saw an ad for My Place By The Sea on a travel portal and first accessed the site via the Referral channel. Next time, they'll do so from Bing's organic search results, and then again by entering the address in their browser. How will this data be displayed in the aforementioned reports? In Traffic Acquisition, these will be three sessions from mojepodroze.pl / referral, Bing / organic, and (direct) / (none) sources, plus one user. In User Acquisition, these will be one user and three sessions, but assigned to mojepodroze.pl / referral, i.e., the source/medium of the first visit.
To be fair, this specific source will be visible to the user for the data retention period set in GA4, which is a maximum of 14 months (50 months in the paid version of 360). After that, any acquisition source outside this period will be removed from reports, and the user acquisition will be assigned to the next highest source, which in our example would be bign / organic. Therefore, it's best to analyze user acquisition for shorter periods or in BigQuery, where all the data is kept as long as the BQ project exists.
What are „gclid” and „fbclid”?
Mikołaj likes to check whether the blog articles he recommends during meetings are gaining popularity. He looks at each one individually, checking the source and medium of the session in the additional dimensions of the Pages and Screens report, and also checking data for specific days. However, he's noticed that sometimes his post URLs contain additional strings of characters, such as:
?fbclid=IwAR1oxWXnYnwfbFfFMfKgFtvCWxoERX63nCdlHzgMxv-9z4J6-Wrq_YKtcEU.
These are elements that identify clicks on specific posts, in this case on Facebook (the "fbclid" element). Zalo's "zarsrc" may also be present, and certainly other social media platform "signatures." If you encounter any, please add them in the comments below. This may help other readers 😊
Miki started paying attention to various additions to web addresses and also discovered that after clicking on a Google Ads ad, he sees a string with the "gclid" element in the address bar. This isn't visible in Analytics, but if you advertise on the Google Network, your Analytics can record traffic data from specific campaigns and ad groups thanks to the "gclid" elements in this string. However, redirects can sometimes occur between the ad and the landing page containing the store or a specific product. These redirects cause the "gclid" element to disappear, and neither Analytics nor Ads can determine which ad the visit originated from. Then, the visit is placed in the (direct)/(none) bucket, where Analytics lumps not only direct visits but also anything it can't attribute to other sources. That's why it's worth monitoring traffic as much as possible.
Is it worth using UTM in Google Ads campaigns?
For many years, using auto-tagging in Google Ads campaigns was sufficient for Analytics to read all campaign data from the "gclid" parameter. Since the introduction of consent mode, Google recommends using UTM parameters in addition to auto-tagging. In situations where GA4 is unable to read data from "gclid," it will use the source, medium, and campaigns entered manually in the UTM.
Can we influence the type of incoming traffic?
UTM is a way for Analytics to correctly attribute traffic source and medium (and therefore channel) to sessions, based on our intentions. It can be attached to a URL shared in a post, article, or email. A UTM might look like this (bold):
https://www.mojepozdroze.pl?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=mail&utm_campaign=argentina
To the appropriate parameters ("source", "medium", "campaign", "ID", "term" - for paid keywords, "content" - for additional information) are assigned values that will be loaded into Google Analytics reports, for example :
Source: newsletter
Medium: mail
Campaign: Argentina
In the case of advertising campaigns, of course, it is worth adding information about paid keywords or other important information that will distinguish campaigns from each other. However, these three parameters above are the basic ones.
Where can you then check the collected data? In the Traffic Acquisition > Session – Source / Medium and Session – Campaign reports. You can also, of course, add them as a secondary dimension (blue plus icon next to the first column of the table) in other reports.
How to use the potential of UTMs for the source, medium, campaign?
So, if you want to control website visitor data, UTM parameters will be useful. However, remember that programs that create external landing pages (called landing pages) and newsletter programs often add their own UTMs, which can overwrite yours. First, check how this works for you to avoid unnecessary work. Also, make sure you understand how campaign names are created in these programs. Sometimes, when copying a template from a previous newsletter, the name gets duplicated, creating "Copy Copy Copy Newsletter 1." This isn't an error, technically speaking, but it would be easier to analyze data with clear campaign titles, wouldn't it?
Protip: When creating UTMs, think about how you want each parameter to be saved to avoid confusion, such as the media "email", "e-mail" and "Email" which will be three different values for Analytics. It is best to list them on a spreadsheet available to the entire team.
How to build a UTM?
You can use the online tool Campaign URL Builder. It works as a form where you enter the landing page address, source name, medium, campaign, and other parameters. A pre-built address with UTM parameters integrated appears at the end of the form. You can copy it and use it immediately.
If you need to build a more complex UTM structure, including multiple sources and other parameters, you may find it more convenient to use a spreadsheet. You can create rules there that automatically combine entered elements and the target page address with the existing UTM. This will avoid discrepancies in the naming of individual parameters and speed up your work.
How to read reports based on inbound traffic data?
How to use the data you have about the sources of website traffic? As always with Analytics, be sure to ask it questions. For example, Mikołaj asks: how many people have entered my blog after the last radio interview, using the link on the program's website? After that, he goes to the report User Acquisition > Dimension: First user source/medium and checks traffic from radio.pl / interview. He put these parameters in the UTM and now knows exactly who used his link. This data will be copied along with the link when someone copies it from the radio website and sends it by text or messaging (WhatsApp, Messenger, etc.). Otherwise, traffic from instant messaging is also direct entry.
What other activities can be measured with links from UTMs?
a. Organic promotional campaigns - information posted on social media that has a specific purpose, such as social campaigns without a paid advertising budget.
b. Newsletter - it is worth checking how many people enter the website after reading the newsletter and whether they come back.
c. Mailing - that is, more and more popular campaigns conducted by e-mail - it is worth measuring their effects well.
d. Buttons with an address to be "shared" in the media - often have the medium of "share", which shows which button worked to drive traffic to the site.
Why is it worth adding UTM to a link posted on social media?
We already know that Facebook adds an entire long string to the URL to track clicks on fanpages and posts in groups. Theoretically, all social networks are recognized by Google Analytics as sources of traffic. In practice, however, it happens that some of them become unrecognizable (too many redirects?) And eventually end up in reports as "(direct) / (none)". I used to test LinkedIn once and saw such results personally. To avoid an unpleasant surprise, you can just use links from UTM and not worry about the data afterwards. Especially when (as on LinkedIn) the original address of your website is hidden under an abbreviation or under words.
Protip: It's worth checking your default Google channel group definitions to use the UTMs that GA4 will assign to the appropriate channel.
Now that you know exactly how you can influence the accuracy of the data in your Analytics reports, so it's time for your move :-)
Additional materials (click to go)
Articles:
Knowledge Base: Traffic on the website and what's so important about it
Google: Source / medium
Google: Default channel definitions
Google: Campaign URL Builder
If you have questions or topics that are not covered here, and you are particularly interested in, write to me, I will be happy to help. Maybe the next article will be an answer to your question.
Owwwla
Comments