A Crash Course on Website Attribution Channels
Your website is the most accessible sales asset you have. It’s open 24/7 to users worldwide; understanding how folks land on your domain is critical to growing your digital presence. Tools like Google Analytics 4 help marketers understand the value of each website traffic source, identify opportunities to grow, and evaluate cross-channel attribution that defines the holistic customer journey.
Investing in growing your most valuable attribution channels is a smart way to increase brand awareness, improve traffic quality, and improve marketing efficiency over time.
The Six Types of Web Traffic
Creating and maintaining a well-designed, easy-to-use website is important to establish credibility and give users a smooth experience. No matter how pretty your site is, it’s a waste if no one finds it. There are six primary acquisition channels in Google Analytics 4, with a few other buckets we’ll also mention.
The “Big Six” traffic sources are:
· Organic search
· Direct
· Referral
· Paid
· Social media
What is Organic Search?
Organic search is any web traffic from search engines like Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo. If you Google “SEO company in Traverse City” and click a non-paid link, that’s organic search. It’s important to note that organic search is a long-term investment. Robust search engine optimization takes two or three months to have an impact and often much longer to generate conversions consistently. However, Organic has the best shelf life and is typically of higher quality than most other website traffic sources.
Organic web traffic as a share of total channels varies by industry, the size and age of the site, and many other factors. We tend to shoot for 60-80%; clients with an active paid search strategy will have a lower share of organic sessions.
Fast fact: Nearly 80% of users skip paid ads on the search engine results page (SERP) and only focus on organic results.
What is Direct Traffic?
Direct traffic refers to sessions that didn’t come from any other channel. When users type in your domain (or start to type it in and have their browser Autofill the result), that’s a direct session.
Direct traffic from employees (or yourself!) can muddy your direct traffic, so be sure to exclude your IP address in Google Analytics. When you know your data is clean, direct sessions can be extremely useful for gauging returning users, especially for B2B websites with longer sales or research cycles.
Fast fact: In most cases, direct sessions shouldn’t account for more than 20% of your total session count over any period of time. If your site is substantially higher or you’ve experienced a spike in direct traffic, get in touch.
What is Referral Traffic?
Referral traffic marks users who came to your site from another external website via backlinks. For example, if you’re reading about bike trails on Brick Wheels’ site and follow a link to Northern Michigan Mountain Bike Association, that’s a referral session.
Referral sessions are often very high quality and have high engagement rates. Those backlinks also give your site “street cred” with Google and can improve your organic performance over time.
Fast fact: You can break down referral traffic further by looking at the source/medium report in GA4 to see who’s sending traffic your way!
What is Paid Search?
Paid search refers to users captured from paid search, display ads, or pay-per-click campaigns. Paid search is the opposite of organic search in nearly every way; its impact is immediate but ends the second you’re out of budget. Paid can get very expensive in some industries and requires consistent monitoring and improvement to stay efficient.
Fast fact: Advertisers will spend $190 billion on paid search in 2024 – it’s the fastest-growing advertising segment in the world.
What is the Email Channel?
Email sessions are those from your dedicated email marketing campaign, but ensure you have your email platform tagged correctly. Misattributed email sessions can show up as direct sessions or (not set), making determining email’s return on investment difficult. For small businesses, email marketing is incredibly effective in supporting customer loyalty, generating quality site sessions, and shortening the sales cycle.
Fun fact: Email marketing has an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent. That’s a darn good investment.
Read more: 5 Types of Emails Your Small Business Should Automate
What About Social?
Google Analytics 4 breaks social traffic sessions into two buckets.
Organic social, like organic search, refers to all sessions from social posts that are not boosted. If you were scrolling on Facebook, saw my post with this blog and clicked the link, that’s organic social.
Paid social, like paid search, are site sessions from paid social media posts or ads.
Organic social media tends to be of higher quality, which makes sense; those users likely follow your page and dig your product or service. Organic social is also scalable with a consistent posting schedule and great content.
Fast fact: 81% of users are influenced by their friends’ social media posts. Actively monitor how users talk about your brand online, especially on social media.
The Catch-All: What Is (not set) in Google Analytics 4?
(not set) sessions could just as easily be dubbed (we don’t know). These sessions are typically the result of one or more variables:
· Privacy settings
· Ad blockers
· Improperly tagged ads or UTM parameters
Marketers can’t prevent their users from opting for closed privacy settings or using ad blockers, but it’s okay. Every site is different, but we tend to see more sessions (not set) on sites with more mobile traffic and a higher ratio of iPhone users. It’s tempting to filter out (not set) sessions from your reports, but don’t; it’s better to monitor it to spot substantial changes in those sessions over time.
So, What’s a Good Channel Attribution Breakdown?
There’s no universal benchmark for sessions by channel, but we do set goals for our small business and association clients. Most of our accounts don’t have the budget to run paid search, but paid social is a valuable tool.
· Organic is the best long-term investment
· Paid search and social should promote events or sales (spend money to make money)
· Referral sessions should come from sponsored events, chambers of commerce, and other industry partners
A rough breakdown might be:
· Organic: 60-65%
· Referral: 10-15%
· Organic social: 5-10%
· Paid social: 5%
· Direct: Less than 10%
Get More Out of Your Digital Marketing
We’ve been in the digital marketing game for over a decade. No matter how your website supports your business, Sovis Media makes your digital assets more impactful. For effective and affordable SEO, social and email marketing, get in touch.