Default traffic sources

How Attribution sorts traffic into sources

Attribution sorts every visit into a source by looking at its referring URL and the parameters on the destination URL. On the dashboard a source is a filter: a paid channel you built, or one of the default sources described below. Conversions and revenue are then credited to the sources of the visits that preceded them, according to the attribution model and the settings of your view.

A new dashboard starts with a set of default sources. You can see how any of them is configured by clicking the settings icon next to it.

All Traffic

The first row of the dashboard. All Traffic is the sum of every attributed source: the visits in the date range, and the conversions and revenue the model credited to them, across every filter on your dashboard. It is the total after modeling, so it follows your attribution type, model and traffic options. All Traffic is also the default source in the Dashboard Builder, where it stands for every visit in the range.

Ad channels

Your paid sources appear as soon as you connect an ad platform. For Google Ads, Facebook, Microsoft Ads, LinkedIn and the other ad integrations, Attribution tracks the clicks automatically and creates the channel and its filters for you, mirroring the campaigns and ads as they exist on the platform, and pulls the spend every day so cost sits next to the conversions and revenue each source earned. See the Ad integrations pages for what each platform tracks.

Direct Traffic

Whether direct visits receive credit is a view setting: the traffic options of your view decide if direct traffic is included in the model, excluded, or included only until a cutoff event such as a signup. Including it suits e-commerce companies and businesses with many disconnected transactions; excluding it suits companies whose users visit every day, such as SaaS. See Model customizations for the four options.

A visit lands in Direct Traffic when its referring URL and parameters match no filter and there is no referrer at all. Common ways that happens:

Type-in traffic. Someone types your URL from memory. It is the only truly "direct" way to reach you.
Bookmarks. A bookmarked visit carries no referrer.
Email links without tracking parameters. Without parameters an email click cannot be traced back to the email. Always add tracking parameters to the links in your emails.
Links in documents. A link embedded in a Word document or a PDF carries no referrer, so the visit is direct unless the link has tracking parameters.
Secure to non-secure linking. If your site is on http and the visitor comes from an https site, the browser drops the referrer and the visit looks direct.
Links from native mobile apps. A link opened from an app's feed, such as the Facebook app, carries no referrer either.

The key to accurate attribution is adding tracking parameters to your links wherever you can.

Organic Traffic

A visit is Organic when its referring URL matches a search engine and carries no advertising parameters: Google, Bing and Yahoo each have their own filter, and the "Other" organic filter covers wow.com, aol.com, aolsearch.com, baidu.com, duckduckgo.com and ask.com by default.

You can change what the "Other" organic filter includes by clicking its settings icon.

Social Traffic

A visit is Social when its referring URL matches Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and carries no advertising parameters.

You can add domains to the Social Traffic filters by clicking the settings icon.

Unsegmented Traffic

A visit that matches none of your filters lands in Unsegmented Traffic, and so do the conversions credited to it. Unsegmented traffic comes in two kinds:

Tagged Traffic is any visit carrying a parameter for which no filter exists yet. Clicking the Tagged Traffic link takes you to the Dashboard Builder, where you can create the filters that will then appear on your dashboard.

Referral Traffic is any visit with a referring URL that no filter covers yet. Click the Referral Traffic link to create filters for these visits.

Unknown Source

Unknown Source holds the conversions that cannot be credited to any visit. A conversion is credited to the visits before it; when an event arrives with no preceding visit for that user, there is no touchpoint to credit, and the event lands here. If Attribution is installed properly there is always a visit before a conversion, so a sizeable Unknown Source is a sign to investigate. Around 5% of conversions landing here is normal; more than 5–10% usually means an installation issue.

Common causes:

Users who predate your install. When you connect Attribution, your site or your integrations may already send events for existing users who have never visited with the snippet installed. This is common for users who rarely visit but whose events keep firing, usually from the server side (a monthly subscription, for instance).
A conversion integration without identified visitors. Leads, contacts or deals created in HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce or Stripe can only be tied to a visit if the person was identified on your site with an email trait beforehand. Records imported or created by hand have no visit history.
Tracking the event before the page view. Sometimes your code looks like this:
```
Attribution.track('Landing Page Event');
Attribution.page();
```
Technically correct, but the event fires a fraction of a second before the page view, so for a first-time visitor the event arrives with no visit to credit. Call page() before track():
```
Attribution.page();
Attribution.track('Landing Page Event');
```
Ad blockers. Most ad blockers block Attribution (or Segment) page views and identify calls but not server-side events, so those events arrive without a visit.
Other causes, mostly technical or an incorrectly set up snippet. If a significant share of events lands in Unknown Source, contact us to verify your installation.

Raw Traffic

The last row of the dashboard. Raw Traffic is everything Attribution received in the selected date range before any modeling: every visit, every conversion event and all revenue dated inside the range, whatever source they came from and whether or not a visit could be credited. It ignores the attribution type, the model and the traffic options, and keeps only your view's conversion event and revenue group, so it is the row to audit against your own tools.

Raw Traffic and All Traffic differ by design. All Traffic is modeled: under Marketer Spend View it counts conversions that happened after the range because the visits that earned them are inside it, and traffic options can keep some visits from receiving credit. Raw Traffic counts by date only. When the two disagree, the gap is the effect of your view's settings, not missing data.