Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Referral Traffic vs. Campaign Traffic in Google Analytics
-
I have two sites: a blog and an ecommerce site. The blog funnels people to the ecommerce site. In Analytics I'm seeing declines in referral traffic from the blog to the ecommerce site. During the same time I'm seeing an increase in campaign traffic to the ecommerce site, with most campaign traffic coming from the blog. I believe the increase in campaign traffic is largely a result of simply having installed more tracking links. This leads me to believe that the declines I'm seeing in referral traffic is simply a result of the increase in campaign traffic. In other words, what was once counted and reported as being referral traffic is now being counted and reported as campaign traffic. So my question is this: In Google Analytics is campaign traffic ALSO reported as referral traffic, or is campaign traffic reported separately and not duplicated in referral traffic reports?
I'll provide a concrete example to make this more clear in case it isn't:
Say site X sends 1000 visits each month to site Y. Say 50 of those visits come from a single link on X. If that link is changed so that campaign Z data info added (via the Google URL Builder), would you expect to then see 950 referral visits each month from site X to site Y plus 50 campaign visits to site Y via new campaign Z, or would you continue to see 1000 referral visits plus the new 50 campaign visits?
Many thanks in advance to anyone that can shed some light on this.
-
Thank you very much, Martijn and ThompsonPaul, for your responses. I searched everywhere for an answer online, but couldn't find an answer to this somewhat obscure question. Your answers finally clarify this for me. Thanks again!
-
As long as the link is correctly tagged with full primary Analytics variables (utm source, medium and campaign) it will show only under campaigns, Mark. It's an either/or process. Traffic can't be recorded under 2 sources or else your analytics would be completely inaccurate (artificially inflated for every tracked link).
Hope that makes sense?
Paul
-
Hi Mark,
This really depends on how you've tagged your outgoing links to your ecommerce site. If you provide another medium or source within the UTM parameters it might be that it will only pop up under campaign traffic instead of referral traffic. Could you provide us with an example to help you out?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to change domains in Google Analytics without losing the data
Hi there, We recently changed our domain from .COM to .NET so that all our subdomains from external pages matched. Right now in Google Console we have our new .NET website being tracked, but in GA we are still tracking .COM. It is also causing issues with MOZ crawling our site because of the .COM/.NET discrepancy. My question is what is the best way to change our Google Analytics from .COM to .NET without losing historical data and what considerations do we need to change before implementing this? Our team was concerned that just downloading the old data would be too vast and it we wouldn't be able to continue manipulating it dynamically in GA. Thanks!!
Reporting & Analytics | | cPanel-LLC.0 -
Google Analytics Goals - Button Tracking
Does anyone know if there is a really easy way to track a button in Google Analytics yourself? It seems that most button click goal setups involve some use of tricky code and I'm wondering if there is a much easier way to do this that will allow us to simply setup and track certain button clicks as goal conversions in Analytics. Your help here is much appreciated!
Reporting & Analytics | | Gavo0 -
Tracking 301 redirect traffic in Google Analytics
if I 301 redirect www.mywebsite.com to go to www.yourwebsite.com, how can I track the traffic in Google Analytics that is coming from mywebsite.com?? I don't think that's a referral traffic, is it?
Reporting & Analytics | | Armen-SEO0 -
Would updating Meta Titles affect Google analytics tracking?
Hi All, I need a little bit of help. We need to optimize our blog's articles Meta titles for SEO which all exceed 100 characters. I was told that if we change the titles, google analytics would split the tracking pages and count the data as 2 pages (old title and new title). Has any of you have this experience before and if so, is there a way to avoid google analytics counting this as two pages? Thanks in advance! Viviana http://analyteguru.com/ http://analyteguru.com/ http://analyteguru.com/
Reporting & Analytics | | mchoi0 -
Set Up of Goal Tracking with Google Analytics-$750 a Fair Price????
Greetings Moz Community! My firm operates commercial real estate website that contains 3-4 forms. Each form represents a goals. Google Analytics has been set up for years, but it does not track these form completions/goals properly. My SEO firm has offered to configure Goals on Google Analytics for $750. Is this a fair price? If the set up takes one hour, I am really over paying. But if this is a complex project that may take 7-9 hours the pricing seems OK. Also, the SEO firm will require an additional $750 in the future to set up event tracking. Is this excessive? I might add that my developer will need to add code to my web site. My SEO company has proven reliable and accurate. I can go to sleep at night knowing they are doing a good job. Where as my Argentinian developers really try their best, but perhaps because of the language barrier, they can make mistakes from time to time. I am willing to pay a premium to ensure that the job is done correctly domestically, however I don't appreciate over paying. Is the $750 payment for setting up Google Analytics reasonable assuming the job is done well??? Thanks,
Reporting & Analytics | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
Is it possible to use Google Tag Manager to pass a user’s text input into a form field to Google analytics?
Hey Everyone, I finally figured out how to use auto event tracking with Google Tag Manager, but didn't get the data I wanted. I want to see what users are typing into the search field on my site (the URL structure of my site isn't set up properly to use GA's built-in site search tracking). So, I set up the form submit event tracking in Google Tag Manager and used the following as my event tracking parameters: Category: Search Action: Search Value When I test and look in Google Analytics I just see: "search" and "search value." I wanted to see the text that I searched on my site. Not just the Action and Category of the event.... Is what I'm trying to do even possible? Do I need to set up a different event tracking parameter? Thanks everyone!
Reporting & Analytics | | DaveGuyMan0 -
Why is Google Analytics showing index.php after every page URL?
Hi, My client's site has GA tracking code gathering correct data on the site, but the pages are listed in GA as having /index.php at the end of every URL, although this does not appear when you visit the site pages. Even if there is a redirect happening for site visitors, shouldn't GA be showing the pages as their redirect destination, i.e. the URL that visitors actually see? Could this discrepancy be adversely affecting my search performance? Example page: http://freshstarttax.com/innocent-spouse/ shows up in GA as http://freshstarttax.com/innocent-spouse/index.php thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | JMagary0 -
Weird info from google analytics?
Hi Could anyone explain what these visits are in Google Analytics? Under traffic sources and organic I am seeing lots of entries with data like below. Any ideas what kind of traffic this is? Is it a bot and if so what is their purpose of it and is it recommended that you block it? Pages/Visit 1.00 Avg. Time on Site 00:00:00 % New Visits : 100% Bounce Rate: 100.00% Many Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | ocelot0