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
-
Google Analytics - Tracking multiple thankyou pages?
Hi Guys, I want to track email opt-ins for multiple thank you pages. The setup is as follows: http://image.prntscr.com/image/57632e05a15f42fda0b8ffec2d176460.png I have not yet built the thank you pages, so i was wondering what the URL should be to make it easy to track them in GA? I'm thinking: domain.com/thankyou-page/page1 Then using regular expression in GA to track /thankyou-page/ Would this be a good way to go about it? Cheers. f6c7r0
Reporting & Analytics | | spyaccounts110 -
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 -
How does Google Maps/G+ traffic show up in Analytics?
Hi Moz Community, I've been trying to figure out how traffic from Google Maps (and G+) shows up in Google Analytics and am struggling to find a good answer online. If someone finds a business through Google Maps and then clicks on the website in the Maps listing, does that show up as a referral from Google Maps? Our site shows virtually zero traffic from Google Maps even though we have a number of listing. Two related questions: if someone clicks through to a G+ page from a Maps result and then visits our website from the G+ page, does that show up in Analytics as a referral from G+? Is traffic from Google Maps or G+ ALSO counted as organic traffic? (Would it be possible to accidentally double-count a visit as both organic and a referral from Maps/G+? Thanks everybody!
Reporting & Analytics | | JohnGroves0 -
Is there an efficient way to block/filter referral spam in Google Analytics for a large network of websites?
Hello, everyone - I'm looking for guidance on how to block or filter referral spam in Google Analytics. But I'm needing to block for an entire network of Wordpress websites. We have two networks which total over 2,500 websites. We are currently blocking sites we find out about via htaccess. This works, but only after we see we are getting hit with the spam. Updating 2,500+ Google Analytics accounts with filtering is not an ideal option due to the time factor and the fact that new bots coming out almost daily. We can continue the htaccess method, but does anyone have any other ideas for blocking referral spam for a large network of sites? These are the other ideas we have. 1. Blocking all traffic from Russia and China based up subnets. We know many will still get through, but it should block 50% of it, we hope.
Reporting & Analytics | | copyjack
2. Moving sites to Google Tag manager. This is a huge tasks but we have seen that sites using Tag Manager are not effected, at least for now. Other ideas are appreciated!0 -
Google Analytics Auto Report Config
Buonpormeriggio from 15 degrees C, very cloudy wetherby UK 🙂 In Google Analytics I love how you can eMail dashboard reports as illustrated here:
Reporting & Analytics | | Nightwing
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/philpotts-tweak-auto-date-range-2_zps3e2b3e50.jpg But a client wants a weekly report but with a week range from Tues to Mon so my question is please:
How do you or can you tweak the date range so when you select weekly it doesnt spit out the standard Mon to sunday report (or Whatever it is). Thanks is advance,
David0 -
Google Analytics - Keywords (not set) or ( not provided) WHY???
In Analytics, most of my visitors are landing on my home page, but when trying to see wich keywords they use, most of them are: (not set) or ( not provided) See screencast: http://screencast.com/t/AKwPW76qLVsN Can you tell why? What is going on? Is there a way to solve this? Thank you, BigBlaze
Reporting & Analytics | | BigBlaze2050 -
Google Analytics Goals are not recording
Hello! I've set up Goals within Google Analytics and they aren't registering. I'm wondering if someone can review what I've set up to see if I've entered something wrong. I'm trying to track enrollments. Here's the site info: Enroll URL: http://www.careplusdentalplans.com/individuals/enroll-careplus/ Upon completion, the user goes to a Thank You page and our CMS generates a trailing URL parameter. For example: http://www.careplusdentalplans.com/index.php/individuals/enroll-careplus-thank-you/#123456789 My Goal info in GA: Goal URL: /individuals/enroll-careplus-thank-you/
Reporting & Analytics | | SmileMoreSEO
Match Type: Head Match (to disregard trailing URL parameter)
Goal Funnel: Step 1: /individuals/enroll-careplus/ I'm curious if the problem lies in either: The URL: Notice how the URL adds /index.php/ on the thank you page. In that case, should I enter the full URL in the Goal instead of the truncated URL? The Funnel: Is it necessary to show the initial Enroll page or if I'll see that in the Flow Visualization regardless? Thanks in advance for helping me out. Erik0 -
Tips for migrating Google News traffic?
We are about to relaunch a site that gets a lot of Google News traffic. We are not changing domain, but the site structure is changing greatly, with the URLs of both news index pages and articles being shaken up. Obviously, we've 301-ed every page to its closest equivalent on the new site. We've also got a news sitemap. As we are not changing domain, is there anything further we need to do to help protect our Google News traffic. On a related note, does anyone have a relaible way of measuring traffic from Google News listings in universal search?
Reporting & Analytics | | Dennis-529610