Which Default Traffic Source Dimensions Does Google Analytics Report For Each Website Visitor?
Question: Which Default Traffic Source Dimensions Does Google Analytics Report For Each Website Visitor?
Options
- Campaign and Ad Content
- Campaign and Medium
- Source, Medium, Campaign, and Ad Content
- Source and Medium
Answer: 4. Source and Medium
Explanation
The Source and the Medium are the two parameters that Google Analytics reports by default for each visitor. The “Source” field is used to indicate the visitor’s true point of origin, such as Google, Bing, YouTube, Facebook.com, etc. The term “Medium” refers to the method a visitor uses to find the website, such as organic, social, or referral.
What Is a Medium In Google Analytics?
Broad categories called “mediums” are used to group together different types of visitors that come to your website. For instance, the term “Organic” is a Medium since it includes traffic from search engines like Google. Other types of mediums include “referral,” “social,” and “paid.”
Medium will provide us with some further information about the bucket that the source would truly fall under. For instance, organic traffic sources would be Google, Baidu, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yahoo. Those are all natural search engines.
These have been divided into a few more categories. You wouldn’t have any, right? This is where you would notice direct traffic originating from if you didn’t know the medium. Email, referrals, or money would be available. All of those are Medium examples because they each have a variety of sources underlying them.
Mediums are of two types:
System-Defined Medium
System-defined mediums are already pre-defined by the Google Analytics reports. Some examples are:
- Organic
- PPC
- CPC
User Defined Medium
In Google Analytics, we can define various custom mediums as well. These are referred to as User-defined mediums. An example of a user-defined medium that I have used is paid social.
What Is A Source In Google Analytics?
If you have an active website, then it might be receiving some form of traffic. The amount of traffic can either be small or can be pretty significant as well.
Sources refer to various web pages from other websites that are responsible for redirecting traffic and users to your website.
If you wish to know which traffic source is most valuable, you need to check your Google Analytics dashboard. It contains information about your sources and mediums.
You get recommendations for enhancing user experiences and conversion rates, which you can use to boost conversion.
What Are Some Sources In Google Analytics?
If you’re curious about the sources that Google Analytics supports, a few of their general categories are as follows:
1. Search Engines
This refers to traffic from particular search engines, like Google and Bing.
When consumers enter your website from search engine results using the term they were looking for, Google logs the source of the traffic along with the “search engine name.”
2. Social Media
Baidu, Bing, Google, and other search engines all keep track of all traffic coming from social networking sites. If visitors to your website are coming through Facebook, Google will therefore report the traffic as coming from social media, which in this case is the website Facebook.
3. Site Recommendations
Google defines traffic sent to your website from other web pages as site recommendations, often known as referred traffic.
You must keep in mind that the word “referrals” won’t appear on your source tab. Instead, the URL of that website that is bringing you visitors will be shown over there.
4. Traffic Generated Directly
You may be wondering at this point what type of source it is if users directly input the URL of your website. Additionally, you may be curious about what would happen if people opened the link from documents.
That kind of traffic is referred regarded to be Direct Traffic.
Google can tell that visitors are originating from direct searches, saved bookmarks, or the actual website by looking at the “Direct” source. Visitors to this location arrive with little or no knowledge.
Now that you know the numerous sources in Google Analytics, you might wish to track sources from the outside. This is because Google is not providing you with that information, not in a Google Analytics tab, at least. Therefore, you must build your own sources and should track other traffic sources.
What Is The Difference Between Sources And Mediums In Google Analytics?
The phrases in Google Analytics are sometimes misinterpreted to mean the same thing because they are connected to the traffic and referral to your website.
Even if they are closely related to the traffic to your website, the “medium” of your traffic in Google Analytics explicitly refers to the types of sources you are employing. Google, Baidu, Bing, and other search engines are examples of sources that fall under the category of organic search.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions):
People ask several questions regarding which default traffic source dimensions does Google Analytics reports for each website visitor. The answers are:
Ans – Some default sources in Google Analytics are:
• Search Engine websites like Google, Baidu, and Bing.
• Social networking websites like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and more.
• Website referrals.
Ans – Data that gets collected by Google Analytics are:
• User interactions in the form of average session duration.
• Referring websites.
• Type of web browsers that users use.
• Devices used by website visitors.
Ans – Yes, emails can be a default source in Google analytics. Most big enterprises use email marketing. Here, Google Analytics records emails as a traffic source.
Ans – No, Google Analytics is not only used for websites. In addition, you can track the analytical performance of applications too.
Final Take Away
So, which default traffic source dimensions does Google Analytics report for each website visitor?
The answer is Source and Medium.
By default, various traffic sources and mediums are reported by Google Analytics regarding website visitors. These traffic sources include social networking websites, search engine results, direct referrals, and direct Google URL inputs.
However, there are also various other default traffic source dimensions that Google analytics reports. Check your website’s Google Analytics reports to find out more!
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