You probably know how many people visit your website and how long they stay, but do you know where your visitors come from?
Website traffic sources help you identify how customers access your website and determine which channels generate the best return on investment (ROI) for your business.
Join us as we explain the benefits of tracking your traffic, which traffic sources to look out for, and how to analyze your data to grow your business.
What are website traffic sources?
Website traffic sources refer to the marketing channels a visitor uses to discover and access your website.
If your website is the destination, think of a traffic source as the type of transportation a visitor uses to get there.
Traffic sources can tell you a lot about how visitors find your website and which marketing channels are the most effective.
Why is it important to measure website traffic sources?
You may not have thought about tracking where your website visits are coming from before. However, doing so can help you make the most out of your marketing investment and ensure you target the right customers.
Here are the top 3 reasons why measuring your traffic sources can help you grow.
It helps you see which marketing channels are working best
When you use a wide range of different marketing channels to promote your business, it’s essential to see which ones lead to the most growth.
By measuring your traffic sources, you can see not only which marketing channels drive the most traffic to your site, but also which ones generate the most sales and conversions.
This means your marketers can focus their efforts on the channels that yield the best results.
It helps you understand your target audience
It’s vital to know as much as possible about your target customers. Monitoring and measuring your traffic sources can provide valuable insight into not only where they spend their time online, but how they behave.
Let’s say you find out your website appears in a larger proportion of search results on Yahoo than on Google. Running a paid advertising campaign on Yahoo is likely to lead to additional traffic from your ideal customers.
It helps you plan your future marketing strategy
By identifying which marketing channels lead to the most traffic and conversions and where your target audience spends their time, you can determine where to spend money moving forward.
Tracking traffic sources can also help you identify potential businesses and websites to collaborate with. If you get lots of traffic from a specific site, it may be worth forging a partnership or guest posting there.
How to track website traffic sources
There are a wide range of tools you can use to track traffic sources, but the easiest and most cost-effective one is Google Analytics.
Google Analytics recognizes traffic coming from specific places (like social media platforms and other sites) and summarizes this in a traffic acquisition report. This report breaks down each traffic source and looks at:
- How many sessions each traffic source is responsible for (by session, we mean the period of time a user spends on your website)
- The average engagement time per session per traffic source
- The number of events (conversions) per traffic source
While Google Analytics can track the majority of traffic sources, you can customize and add your own traffic sources to get a fuller picture. You can do this by going to Settings, Data Display, and Segments.
You can also use Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) parameters to track website traffic. These are additional pieces of code you can add to a URL to track marketing campaigns and determine the source of specific website traffic.
The 7 different types of website traffic sources
Now that we’ve looked at what traffic sources are and how to track them, what are the different places your site traffic can come from?
There are 7 main types of traffic sources to consider:
Type #1: Direct traffic
Direct traffic refers to users who visit a website without clicking on a link on another site.
Key direct traffic sources include:
- Typing a URL (like mailchimp.com) directly into a browser address bar
- Clicking on a bookmarked or favorited site
- Clicking on a link outside of a web browser, for example, in Microsoft Word
High levels of direct traffic can mean strong brand recognition—prospective customers are actively seeking out your brand.
However, high levels of direct traffic can also indicate a potential issue with how you track traffic. In Google Analytics, if a website visit doesn’t have information about its referral source, it’s classed as direct traffic by default.
Type #2: Referral traffic
Referral traffic is traffic that comes from visitors who arrive at a website through a link on an external site. For example, an inbound link from a blog, news article, online directory, or partner website.
High levels of referral traffic can mean your brand is relatively well-known and your outreach efforts are paying off.
However, it’s essential to review your referral data in detail. Not all sources of referral traffic are equal, and it’s important to see which sites generate the highest conversion rates for your business.
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Type #3: Organic search engine traffic
Organic search engine traffic (or organic traffic) is traffic that comes from unpaid search results. For example, when a prospective customer searches for a specific keyword or phrase in Google, Bing, Yahoo, or other such search sites and clicks on a weblink.
Organic traffic does not include paid search ads—this comes under paid traffic, which we’ll look at later in this article.
High levels of organic search traffic are a sign that your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts are working well. You’re targeting the right keywords and creating high-quality content that provides value to customers.
While organic search traffic is a great way to bring visitors to your website, it’s essential not to be overly reliant on it as a traffic source. A change in the search engine algorithm or a Google penalty can mean you see significantly less traffic to your website.
Type #4: Social media traffic
Social media traffic (or organic social traffic) is traffic that comes from organic social media posts on social media sites including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Paid social ads, on the other hand, come under paid traffic, which we will cover a little later.
High levels of social media traffic show that your brand’s content is entertaining and engaging so your audience wants to share it with their followers and connections.
However, like referral traffic, it’s essential to dig deep into your data to see which posts lead to the most website activity. High engagement on a post doesn’t necessarily lead to a boost in conversions and sales.
Type #5: Email marketing traffic
Email marketing traffic is traffic that comes from a link in an email. This could be an email newsletter, a promotional email, or a lead nurturing sequence.
High levels of email traffic indicate that your email campaigns are effective and your subscribers actively engage with your content.
However, it’s essential to properly tag any links in your email campaigns using UTM parameters. If you don’t, Google Analytics may inaccurately mark your email traffic as direct traffic instead.
Type #6: Paid traffic
Paid traffic is traffic that arrives on a website after clicking on a paid advertisement.
Paid traffic sources include:
- Banner ads
- Paid social network ads
- Paid search ads
- Display ads
- Native advertising
High levels of paid traffic potentially show that your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns are working well and you’re driving highly targeted traffic to your website.
However, it’s important to check that visitors clicking on your paid ads are converting. If not, it’s a sign that you’re targeting the wrong people or your landing pages don’t align with your ad messaging.
You can do this by measuring the return on ad spend (ROAS) each paid traffic campaign generates—this is the amount of revenue you generate per dollar of ad spend. A high ROAS shows that the people clicking on your ads are converting on your site.
Type #7: Unknown traffic
You can easily identify where most sources of your website traffic have come from. However, there may be a handful of visitors that you can’t track.
Unknown traffic refers to any visits where the source of the traffic can’t be determined. This could be because there’s an issue with the tracking code, the visitor is using an ad blocker, or due to a browser’s inbuilt privacy features.
Some unknown traffic is referred to as dark social traffic. This is when someone shares links to a site through private channels like WhatsApp, Slack, or Facebook Messenger, or through SMS. Because these channels are locked down, it’s harder to identify the source of the link.
It’s normal to receive a low level of unknown traffic sources to your site. However, high levels can indicate potential issues with your website or marketing campaigns.
What is the best source of website traffic?
There isn’t a definitive answer—the right traffic source for you will depend on a number of factors. Some things to consider include:
- Your budget: If you have a small budget, you may want to focus on low-cost and no-cost marketing channels like SEO and social media. If you have a larger budget, you may benefit from paid advertising.
- Your goals: What you want to achieve will affect how you ideally drive traffic to your site. For example, if you want to increase customer loyalty, email marketing is a great tool.
- Your target audience: Different target audiences prefer different marketing channels. For example, younger visitors may prefer TikTok to Facebook.
Regardless of which source of traffic you want to prioritize, it’s essential to make sure your site traffic comes from a variety of different sources.
That way, if there’s an issue with one of your marketing channels, you can still ensure a steady flow of traffic, clicks, and conversions across your other channels.
Key takeaways
- What is a website traffic source? A website traffic source identifies the specific marketing channels visitors use to access (and convert) on your website.
- There are 7 types of traffic sources: Direct traffic, referral traffic, organic traffic, social media traffic, email marketing traffic, paid traffic, and unknown traffic.
- Regularly check your traffic sources: You can use web analytics platforms like Google Analytics to review your traffic sources and enhance your marketing efforts.
Diversify your portfolio: It’s best to get traffic from a variety of different marketing channels rather than rely on just one traffic source.