haven't checked yet but did find this article about serp sitelink changes on the exact day i saw traffic drop.

http://searchengineland.com/recent-changes-organic-sitelinks-cause-major-drops-impressions-gsc-264424

It's contributions like Trenton's above that make me love the Moz community. I will check all that you suggested and report back.

thought i'd add the GA graph that shows the switch

xv9pBw5

so would a JS redirect make the session count as direct traffic?

Thanks Sean!

Here is the final URL:
http://www.oneworldplayproject.com/buy-bulk-soccer-balls/?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=bulk&utm_content=bulk10&utm_term=300

Here is the URL in the ad that people could type in. This is a redirect to the www. version:
oneworldplayproject.com

Also, these are only image ads so there is no display URL being shown.

I am also curious why Organic would drop though. But let's play this out first.

So on Oct. 21, our direct traffic increased 3x and our organic traffic decreased 3x. And it has been that way ever since. Almost like they flip flopped. Additionally, that was the same day I started retargeting to our site. I have tagged all the links from the ads and they're being counted as google paid clicks in GA. And our accounts are linked. I am just dumbfounded as to how this could happen.

So I think I might have uncovered the source of traffic.

• A huge company in Argentina used our own video footage to make a video about our product and posted it to their facebook page with over 1.5 million followers. It got shared 7500 times, 500 comments and 1800 likes. It is a company that stretches through all of south and central america which would account for the spanish speaking traffic boost.

• While reading the comments from the people that purchased on our site since the spike, a lot of them said Facebook video.

So the next question I guess would be. How do you find a viral video about yourself if they don't tag you?

So here's my situation:

My company's website usually receives around 80 organic visits/month and 50 direct visits/month from Mexico. However, in July we saw a small uptick to around 170 for each and then in the last 7 days we are in the middle of a massive spike which has put us up to 1400 visits for organic and 820 visits for direct in August. The traffic spike continues as we are almost up to 500 visits just today!

Things to know:

• The visitors are purchasing from our store, staying on our site, browsing around, basically acting like real traffic.
• I was unable to identify any new links, press, and we did not do any specific Mexico optimization (spanish keywords).
• We sell a ball and it is called The One World Futbol, but it's always been called a futbol before so nothing new here. our website is www.oneworldplayproject.com.
• Everyone coming organically is searching our name, not keywords.
• We updated our shopping cart a few days before the massive traffic spike and significantly lowered the cost to ship to Mexico.
• Our Latin America director went to Mexico to work there for a month a few days before the spike and sent out a bunch of emails, texts, phone calls, what's app notifications to his large network. From what I am told by others here he has a vast network throughout Mexico, Central America and South America.
• We have also seen large traffic increases in other Latin American countries during this same time period just nothing like Mexico.
• We just hired an awesome social media coordinator who is extremely focused and is implementing a kick-ass social strategy
• We launched a branding campaign called #MakeLifePlayFull with press releases and ad spend behind it.

PHEW! That was a lot of info for you to digest.

So on the surface this seems like great news. BUT I want to understand WHY this is happening. Could it really just be the combination of all these things listed above or is it just a combination of our connected guy being in Mexico with better shipping costs? Why is it mainly happening in Mexico? Why is it so sustained? I suspect that if it is from our guy it would drop off quickly. Any thoughts on what to look at? I'm stumped.