Last updated: July 29, 2024
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When using the Sources tab in the traffic analytics tool, HubSpot categorizes different traffic metrics into sources. You can see this in your Sources chart and table. HubSpot will categorize traffic based on the URL that the visitor clicked.
Please note: when viewing traffic analytics reports, it's expected that past report data may change over time, as HubSpot will reprocess analytics data if it's able to gather more accurate data. For example, you may see data change if HubSpot is able to merge sessions or if contacts' original sources are updated.
How traffic is categorized into each source
HubSpot follows a set of rules to categorize traffic into a specific source, and checks the full page URL and the referring domain, if available, against these rules. The source is categorized using the First page seen property. They are applied in this order:
| Order | Rule | Source |
| 1 | The "utm_medium" parameter is “social” and the "utm_source" is exactly the name of a recognized social network. OR The "utm_medium" parameter is "social" and the referring domain is a social media site. |
Organic social |
| 2 | The "source" parameter contains the word “adword”, “ppc”, or “cpc”. | Paid search |
| 3 | The "gclid" parameter is present, as it is the Google click ID. | Paid search |
| 4 | The "utm_medium" parameter contains "paid," "ppc," or "cpc", and the "utm_source" parameter is exactly the name of a recognized social network. OR The "utm_medium" parameter contains "paid," "ppc," or "cpc", and the referring domain is a social media site. OR The "utm_source" or "utm_medium" contains "paidsocial". |
Paid social |
| 5 | The "utm_source", "utm_medium", or "utm_campaign" parameter is present and the referring domain is google.com. |
Paid search |
| 6 | The "utm_source", "utm_medium", or "utm_campaign" parameter is present and contains the word "adword," "ppc," or "cpc". | Paid search |
| 7 | The "utm_source", "utm_medium", "utm_campaign", or "source" parameter contains the word “email”. | Email marketing |
| 8 | The "utm_source", "utm_medium", "utm_campaign", or "source" parameter is present and does not contain the word “email”, “adword”, “ppc”, or “cpc”. | Other campaigns |
| 9 | Referring domain is a social media site. | Organic social |
| 10 | Referring domain is a mail domain or RSS reader. | Direct traffic |
| 11 | Referring domain is a search engine. | Organic search |
| 12 | The referring domain is considered internal traffic based on the listed site domains in reports settings. | None |
| 13 | Referring domain is not a social media site or search engine. | Referral |
| 14 | No referring domain or tracking URL. | Direct traffic |
Definitions and drill-down data of each source
Each source has one or two levels of data that you can view. To drill down into these details, click the source in the table in the Sources tab.
Organic Search
Traffic categorized under Organic Search comes from non-paid search results in known search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.- To view the keywords used in the search engine, click the Organic search source in the Sources table. When there are Unknown keywords (SSL), it is likely due to the search engine encrypting user data. For example, Google encrypts all search terms entered by their users.
- To view the referring search engine (e.g., Google, Bing, Yahoo), click a keyword .
Referrals
Traffic categorized under Referrals comes from external sites that link to your website. HubSpot does not categorize visits from your added site domains as referrals, as they are not external sites.- To view the referrer domain that linked the visitors to your site, click the Referrals source in the Sources table.
- To view the specific pages from the domain that links to your site, click a referrer.
- A referring domain may have more than one page that links to your site.
- If the page's link to your site has been removed, it remains in your referrals data as it is still historically accurate.
Organic social
Traffic categorized under Organic social comes from social media websites or apps. An example is when a visitor shares your content or website on their social media account, and their followers visit your content.- To view the social media channels that led visitors to your site, click the Organic social source in the Sources table. HubSpot recognizes the following social media networks:
- BlogCatalog
- CoTweet
- Delicious
- Digg
- Facebook (HubSpot will also recognize "fb")
- Fark
- Flickr
- FriendFeed
- Google+
- HackerNews
- HootSuite
- Instagram (HubSpot will also recognize "ig")
- Knol
- links.hubspot.com
- LiveJournal
- Meebo
- Metacafe
- Mixx
- MyBlogLog
- MySpace
- Ning
- Orkut
- Plurk
- Propeller
- Quora
- Qq (HubSpot includes traffic from the subdomains: xw, mp, mail, and feeds of qq.com)
- Seesmic
- Slashdot
- Slide
- SlideShare
- Snapchat
- Sphinn
- StumbleUpon
- Squidoo
- Technorati
- TikTok
- Tip'd
- Triiibes
- Tumblr
- Twitch
-
- Vimeo
- Wikipedia
- X
- YouTube
- Zhihu
- To view if there were campaigns related to the social media shares, click the site. This is derived if the URL contains the "utm_campaign" parameter. HubSpot's social publishing tool automatically adds this parameter if there is a campaign associated to the post.
Email marketing
Traffic categorized under Email marketing comes from HubSpot marketing emails or email links that contain a value of "email" in any of the following parameters:
- utm_source
- utm_medium
- utm_campaign
- source
Below, learn more about how to view your email marketing source data:
- To view the campaigns, click the Email marketing source in the Sources table. These values are derived from the "utm_campaign" parameter in the URL. HubSpot's marketing email tool automatically adds this parameter when the email is associated to a campaign.
- The value "hs_email" is the default campaign value for HubSpot marketing emails sent without being associated to a campaign.
- The value "hs_automation" is the default campaign assigned to automated emails sent through workflows.
- To view the name of the email, click the email campaign, derived from the "utm_content" parameter in the URL the visitor used to arrive at your site. The "utm_content" parameter is added automatically for emails sent through HubSpot.
- Please note: if the name of the email is HubSpot Marketing Email Preview, it was a test marketing email sent.
Paid search
Traffic categorized under Paid search comes from paid search campaigns (e.g., Google AdWords).- To view the paid search campaigns specifically, click the Paid search source in the Sources table. This is derived from the "utm_campaign" parameter in the URL.
- To view the search term that led the visitor to your site, click a campaign. If the URL is from a content network like AdSense, the data will be grouped under Content Network (AdSense or Other). If the keyword cannot be identified, the data will be grouped under Unknown Keywords SSL.
- HubSpot usually derives the search term for the Paid search category from the "q" parameter in the visitor's URL.
- To identify this parameter, view the First Referring Site property value in the contact record you want to check for.
- In the URL, identify the "q" parameter. This is the search term. If the "q" parameter is empty, HubSpot checks for the value in the "utm_term" parameter. If both parameters do not exist or have no values, the keyword cannot be identified.
Paid social
Traffic categorized under Paid social comes from a paid social campaign.- To view the social media channels that contributed to this source, click the Paid social source in the Sources table. This is derived from the "utm_source" parameter in the URL. HubSpot recognizes the following social media networks:
- BlogCatalog
- CoTweet
- Delicious
- Digg
- Facebook (HubSpot will also recognize "fb")
- Fark
- Flickr
- FriendFeed
- Google+
- HackerNews
- HootSuite
- Instagram (HubSpot will also recognize "ig")
- Knol
- links.hubspot.com
- LiveJournal
- Meebo
- Metacafe
- Mixx
- MyBlogLog
- MySpace
- Ning
- Orkut
- Plurk
- Propeller
- Quora
- Seesmic
- Slashdot
- Slide
- SlideShare
- Snapchat
- Sphinn
- StumbleUpon
- Squidoo
- Technorati
-
- Tip'd
- Triiibes
- Tumblr
- Twitch
-
- Vimeo
- Wikipedia
- X
- YouTube
- Click the social media channel to view its campaigns. This is derived from the "utm_campaign" parameter in the URL.
Direct traffic
Traffic categorized under Direct traffic do not have an indication of their source. Typically, these are people who typed the URL directly in their browser, or removed all query parameters before entering a site. To view the entrance URLs for these visitors, click the Direct traffic source.
Learn more about why you'd have more direct traffic than expected.
Other campaigns
Traffic categorized under Other campaigns usually comes from tracking URLs created in HubSpot.- To view the campaign, click the Other campaigns source in the Sources table. This is derived from the "utm_campaign" parameter in the URL.
- To view the values for "utm_source" and "utm_medium", click a campaign.
Offline sources
Traffic categorized under Offline sources comes from offline sources. This appears if you select the Include offline sources checkbox in the Sources tab.
However, because these metrics come from offline sources, they will not have certain metrics, such as sessions. To view the source drilldown data of the new contacts, click the Offline sources source.
