From 25f1a2379575951be492b68f0974a265b474a5ca Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:33:06 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 01/49] channels update --- docs/manual-link-tagging.md | 66 +------------------------------------ 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 65 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/manual-link-tagging.md b/docs/manual-link-tagging.md index 0ed9eff6..d7fe6a3d 100644 --- a/docs/manual-link-tagging.md +++ b/docs/manual-link-tagging.md @@ -4,68 +4,4 @@ title: Paid campaigns, UTM tags and conversion attribution import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; -Whenever you post a link in social media, paid advertising or send it in an email newsletter, you can choose to add a special query parameter to the link. When for instance `?ref=` query parameter is present, Plausible Analytics will show it as the referral source. - -Tagging your links helps you minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category. It also helps you better track your marketing campaigns and see which campaigns are responsible for most conversions. - -`ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters are all valid and supported. - -:::tip Referral sources are counted only when they start a new session -This is why you don't see all the referral sources of your own visits if you for instance click to test several different UTM tagged links at the same time. You would need to start a new session by using a different browser, a different IP address or a different device for the new source to be included in the report -::: - -## How to UTM tag links in your marketing campaigns - -Here's an example of what you can do when you want to send a newsletter to your subscribers. - -If you simply link to your site with `yourdomain.com`, anyone who clicks on it would fall within the "**Direct / None**" referral source. - -But if you link to `yourdomain.com?ref=Newsletter` anyone who clicks on that will show "**Newsletter**" as the referrer source. This will allow you to see how many people have clicked on your link in the newsletter. - -Here are examples of links with the different query parameters that are supported by Plausible Analytics: - -* `yourdomain.com?ref=Newsletter` -* `yourdomain.com?source=Newsletter` -* `yourdomain.com?utm_source=Newsletter` - -For any clicks on any of the above links, "**Newsletter**" would be listed as a referral source in your Plausible Analytics dashboard. - -You can also go a bit deeper and track your links in more detail using UTM tags: - -* `yourdomain.com?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=NovemberNewsletter&utm_content=Link` - -For any clicks on the above link, "**Newsletter**" would be listed as a referral source in your Plausible Analytics dashboard, "**Email**" would be listed as the medium, "**NovemberNewsletter**" would be listed as the campaign and "**Link**" would be listed as the content. - -Read more about "[how to use UTM parameters to track your campaigns and understand the dark traffic](https://plausible.io/blog/utm-tracking-tags)". - -:::tip Prefer to completely stop tracking UTM tags and other query parameters on your site? -Please [follow these instructions](stop-tracking-utm-tags.md) -::: - -## Segment between organic traffic and paid marketing campaigns - -Note that UTM tags are case sensitive. In the "**Top Sources**" report of your Plausible dashboard, each source is consolidated into a single entry regardless of capitalization stemming from UTM tagging differences. - -For instance, clicks that you get from Facebook which are not tagged by UTMs are labeled with a referral source "**Facebook**" by Facebook itself. If you tag some links that you share on Facebook with the utm_source=facebook, clicks on those links will be consolidated alongside other Facebook clicks in the "**Facebook**" source in the “**All**” tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. This is in order to make it easier for you to keep track and get a combined overview of all the clicks from Facebook. - -Want to see the specific source data? Just click on any entry to see specific source breakdowns or explore the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. To isolate your UTM tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" reports within the "**Campaigns**" tab. - -You can also use [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md) to filter the stats by multiple UTM tags at the same time for more powerful segmenting of traffic. It's also possible to filter out traffic from a specific UTM tag. - -:::tip Does your site use custom query parameters in URLs? -A page like `yoursite.com/blog/index.php?article=some_article&page=11` will be reported as `yoursite.com/blog/index.php` in the "**Top Pages**" report of your Plausible dashboard as we strip custom parameters. You can manually enable these custom parameters to be tracked. [See how here](custom-query-params.md). -::: - -## Custom events and conversion attribution - -Goals and custom events allow you to track actions that you want your visitors to take on your site. Actions such as registering for a trial account, purchasing a product or completing a checkout form of an ecommerce store. - -Conversion rate - -By [setting up goals and custom events](goal-conversions.md), you can track the number of conversions, conversion rate, referrer sources and entry pages that are driving conversions and the top pages that people convert on. You can also track [ecommerce revenue](ecommerce-revenue-tracking.md). And you can [set up funnels](funnel-analysis.md) to track the user journey too. - -Custom goal conversion rate - -Click on any specific referral source in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate (CR) of that referral source for any of your goals. You can also click on any goal in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate of that specific goal coming from any referral source or any landing page. This works even if your site operates [across multiple subdomains](subdomain-hostname-filter.md). - -Due to the privacy-first nature of our product and the fact that we don't use cookies and other long term identifiers, the conversion attribution in Plausible is based on last click attribution. The referral source of the visit on which the purchase was made will be credited for that conversion. +See more on [how Plausible records your paid campaigns, UTM-tagged links and conversion attribution](https://plausible.io/docs/top-referrers). From e5b4ea8dbde6475c61e7370d8577b7b3d3db3565 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:41:39 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 02/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 68 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------- 1 file changed, 47 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 8a01e3ba..d0068893 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -1,47 +1,73 @@ --- -title: Top Sources +title: Aquisition channels, refferal sources and paid campaigns --- import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; -Your "**Top Sources**" report shows which referral sources are driving traffic to your website. Click the "**Details**" button to get extra insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual referral source. Click on any metric heading to sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order. Click on any referral source to filter the dashboard by it. +Your "**Top Sources**" report shows aquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that are driving traffic to your website. This helps you understand your best converting promotional activities. -The Top Sources report also includes the "**Campaigns**" tab where you can see the traffic tagged with UTM tags such as `utm_source`, `utm_medium` and `utm_campaign`. You can use UTM tags to understand which marketing and promotional activities are driving traffic that converts best. +Click on any individual entry to filter the dashboard by it. Click the "**Details**" button to get extra insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual entry. Click on any metric heading in the "**Details**" view to sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order. -Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md), you can filter the stats by multiple sources or multiple UTM tags at the same time for more powerful segmenting of traffic. It's also possible to filter out traffic from a specific referral source. +Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md), you can filter the stats by multiple channels, sources or UTM tags at the same time for more powerful segmenting of traffic. It's also possible to filter out traffic from a specific channel, referral source or UTM tag. Top Referrers - multiple filters -Note that all referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site. This is why you don't see all your own referral sources if you click to test several different UTM tagged links at the same time. Only the first one would be included in the "**Top Sources**" report. You would need to start a new session by for instance waiting more than 30 minutes or using a different device, browser or IP address. +## Aquisition channels -The fact that the referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site prevents external domains such as a payment gateway that the user is being taken through to show up in the referrers list. No need for you to manually exclude referrers. +In the "**Channels**" tab, you can see a break down of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**" and "**Paid Search**". This for instance allows you to segment your traffic between organic traffic and paid marketing campaigns. -There are two distinct ways that Plausible Analytics collects the referrer source for a visitor: +## Referral sources -## 1. Automatic by the `referer` header +In the "**Sources**" tab, you can see the full list of your traffic sources. -The `referer` header (the HTTP header is misspelled with one r for historical reasons) is the default and automated way of tracking referrer sources of web traffic. The `referer` header works well for the majority of cases but there are some limitations and fall-backs with using it for various historical and technical reasons. +Note that browsers now only send the domain name of the referrer and not the actual URL. If `thatblog.com/one-post/` sends you visitors, you will see `thatblog.com` in your sources list but won’t be able to see the exact post URL itself. [See more here](https://plausible.io/blog/referrer-policy). -Note that all the major browsers have stopped sending the detailed info on [referral sources](https://plausible.io/blog/referrer-policy). Chrome, Safari and Firefox now only send the full domain name of the referrer and not the actual URL. This affects all analytics services including Plausible. It means that if `thatblog.com/one-post/` sends you visitors, you will see `thatblog.com` in your referral sources list but won’t be able to see the exact post URL itself. +And know also that referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site. This is why you may not see all sources of your own visits if you click to test several different links at the same time. You would need to start a new session by using a different browser, IP address or device for the additional sources to be included in the report. This prevents external domains such as payment gateways showing up in the list of sources. -### "Direct / None" traffic without a referrer source +### Consolidation of sources -Not every request from a browser will have the referrer specified, and the `referer` header isn't always accurate. +UTM tags are case sensitive. This may result in the traffic sources being badly categorized. To help reduce this issue, in the "**Sources**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report, each source is consolidated into a single entry regardless of capitalization stemming from UTM tagging differences. -This is why you see the "**Direct / None**" referrer source in the "**Top Sources**" report. This covers all the traffic where the referrer isn't passed. These could be clicks from email, clicks from documents, clicks from messengers and other mobile apps, bookmarks, people typing in the URL directly into the browser and more. You may also know it as "**dark traffic**". +For instance, clicks that you get from Facebook which are not tagged by UTMs are labeled with a referral source "**Facebook**" by Facebook itself. If you tag some links that you share on Facebook with the utm_source=facebook, utm_source=fb or utm_source=facebook-ads, clicks on those links will be consolidated alongside other Facebook clicks in the "**Facebook**" entry in the “**All**” tab of your "**Top Sources**" report. This is in order to make it easier for you to keep track and get a combined overview of all the clicks from Facebook. -By default, we attempt to uncover traffic originating from Android apps which is traditionally categorized as direct traffic in web analytics. The volume of "**android-app**" entries in your "**Top Sources**" report will vary based on your site and audience. For sites with significant mobile traffic, this recovers 10% or more previously unattributed traffic from apps like Gmail, Slack and Telegram. +To isolate your UTM tagged clicks from other clicks, check the "**Campaigns**" tab. -Here’s a non-exhaustive list of other problems with the header: +### Keyword phrases from Google search -* Whenever someone is moving from `http` to `https` or vice versa, the `referer` header is dropped. +Note that Google does not include the search keywords in the referrer. This means that you can see that the visitor is coming from Google search but you can't see which keyword phrase they used to find you. -* Facebook `referer` only includes the fact that the visitor came from Facebook. Facebook never sends the post or comment ID where someone clicked. +To fix this, you can integrate your Plausible account [with Google Search Console](google-search-console-integration.md) so that the keyword phrases people discover your site with show in your Plausible dashboard. After integrating with Search Console, you can click on the "**Google**" entry in the "**Top Sources**" report to view these keyword phrases. -* Google does not include the search keywords in the referrer, so you can see that the visitor is coming from Google search, but you can't see which keyword phrase they used to find you. To fix this, you can [integrate your account](google-search-console-integration.md) with Google Search Console so the keyword phrases people discover your site with show in your Plausible Analytics dashboard. After integrating with Search Console, you can click on "**Google**" to view these. +## Paid marketing campaigns -## 2. Manual by link tagging +In the "**Campaigns**" tab, you can see the traffic tagged with UTM tags. -To minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category, you can add special query parameters such as UTM tags to your links. `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters are all valid and supported by Plausible Analytics. +To isolate your UTM tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" reports within the "**Campaigns**" tab. -See "[Manual link tagging](manual-link-tagging.md)" section of the documentation for the full instructions. +## How to reduce the volume of dark traffic + +Not all traffic to your website will have the referrer header specified in the browser. This "**dark traffic**" is why you see the "**Direct / None**" source in the "**Top Sources**" report. These are typically clicks from emails, documents, instant messengers, mobile apps or bookmarks. + +By default, we attempt to uncover traffic originating from Android apps which is traditionally categorized as direct traffic in web analytics. The volume of "**android-app**" entries in your "**Top Sources**" report will vary based on your site and audience. + +To minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category, you can add special query parameters such as UTM tags to your links whenever you post a link in social media, paid advertising or an email newsletter. `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters are all valid and supported by Plausible. + +Tagging links helps you better track your marketing campaigns and see which campaigns are responsible for most conversions. Here's an example of how to tag your links: `yourdomain.com?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=NovemberNewsletter&utm_content=Link` + +For any clicks on the above link, "**Newsletter**" would be listed as a referral source in your Plausible dashboard, "**Email**" would be listed as the medium, "**NovemberNewsletter**" would be listed as the campaign and "**Link**" would be listed as the content. + +Read more about "[how to use UTM parameters to track your campaigns and understand the dark traffic](https://plausible.io/blog/utm-tracking-tags)". + +## Custom events and conversion attribution + +Goals and custom events allow you to track actions that you want your visitors to take on your site. Actions such as registering for a trial account, purchasing a product or completing a checkout form of an ecommerce store. + +Conversion rate + +By [setting up goals and custom events](goal-conversions.md), you can track the number of conversions, conversion rate, referrer sources and entry pages that are driving conversions and the top pages that people convert on. You can also track [ecommerce revenue](ecommerce-revenue-tracking.md). And you can [set up funnels](funnel-analysis.md) to track the user journey too. + +Custom goal conversion rate + +Click on any specific referral source in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate (CR) of that referral source for any of your goals. You can also click on any goal in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate of that specific goal coming from any referral source or any landing page. This works even if your site operates [across multiple subdomains](subdomain-hostname-filter.md). + +Due to the privacy-first nature of our product and the fact that we don't use cookies and other long term identifiers, the conversion attribution in Plausible is based on last click attribution. The referral source of the visit on which the purchase was made will be credited for that conversion. From 6ae2c16587983454ade2c9674d8a1162b6b11f62 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:42:09 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 03/49] Update sidebars.js --- sidebars.js | 1 - 1 file changed, 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/sidebars.js b/sidebars.js index 1c49c166..a0861936 100644 --- a/sidebars.js +++ b/sidebars.js @@ -31,7 +31,6 @@ module.exports = { 'guided-tour', 'compare-stats', 'filters-segments', - 'manual-link-tagging', 'google-search-console-integration', 'realtime-dashboard', 'top-referrers', From 56377b6156d064190928cc9753490a9222e97dd8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:44:29 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 04/49] Update custom-query-params.md --- docs/custom-query-params.md | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/custom-query-params.md b/docs/custom-query-params.md index 0af3204a..e1a32bbd 100644 --- a/docs/custom-query-params.md +++ b/docs/custom-query-params.md @@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ title: Tracking custom query parameters --- -Query parameters `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` are valid and supported by Plausible out of the box. The parameters themselves are stripped from the page paths so they are not shown in the "**Top Pages**" report but they are used for source attribution of marketing campaigns. You can check all the clicks on links with UTM tags in the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. Read more about [tagging links with query parameters here](manual-link-tagging.md). +Query parameters `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` are valid and supported by Plausible out of the box. The parameters themselves are stripped from the page paths so they are not shown in the "**Top Pages**" report but they are used for source attribution of marketing campaigns. You can check all the clicks on links with UTM tags in the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. Read more about [tagging links with query parameters here](top-referrers.md). Other than the source attribution query parameters listed above, Plausible strips all other query parameters for privacy purposes. This means that pages like `yoursite.com/blog/index.php?article=some_article&page=11` will be reported as `yoursite.com/blog/index.php` in the "**Top Pages**" report of your Plausible dashboard. @@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ At this point, your entire setup should look like this: ``` :::note -The `+ window.location.search` is needed to persist source acquisition query parameters from your actual URL. Plausible uses `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters for source acquisition. [Learn more here](manual-link-tagging.md). +The `+ window.location.search` is needed to persist source acquisition query parameters from your actual URL. Plausible uses `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters for source acquisition. ::: That's it! You're now tracking the complete URLs of the pages that include custom parameters. From 04562b23937c6dbeca867df898d86e0b169d3007 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:45:57 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 05/49] Update stop-tracking-utm-tags.md --- docs/stop-tracking-utm-tags.md | 6 +++--- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/stop-tracking-utm-tags.md b/docs/stop-tracking-utm-tags.md index 401cd1a7..c315c882 100644 --- a/docs/stop-tracking-utm-tags.md +++ b/docs/stop-tracking-utm-tags.md @@ -2,11 +2,11 @@ title: Stop tracking UTM tags and other query parameters --- -By default, Plausible strips all query parameters for privacy purposes [except for](manual-link-tagging.md) `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term`. If you prefer to stop tracking these parameters as well, please follow these instructions: +By default, Plausible strips all query parameters for privacy purposes [except for](top-referrers.md) `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term`. If you prefer to stop tracking these parameters as well, please follow these instructions: ## 1. Add the `manual` script extension -You should use [our manual script extension](script-extensions.md#plausiblemanualjs). To do so, please change your Plausible script snippet `src` attribute from `https://plausible.io/js/script.js` to `https://plausible.io/js/script.manual.js`. +You should use [our manual script extension](script-extensions.md). To do so, please change your Plausible script snippet `src` attribute from `https://plausible.io/js/script.js` to `https://plausible.io/js/script.manual.js`. The new snippet will look like this (make sure to change the `data-domain` attribute to the domain you added to your Plausible account): @@ -53,4 +53,4 @@ At this point, your entire setup should look like this: ``` -That's it! You're now no longer tracking any UTM tags or other parameters. We will use the [referrer header](top-referrers.md#1-automatic-by-the-referer-header) to display the sources of the traffic instead. If the referring site doesn't send any referrer header, the traffic will fall within the "Direct / None" source. +That's it! You're now no longer tracking any UTM tags or other parameters. We will use the [referrer header](top-referrers.md) to display the sources of the traffic instead. If the referring site doesn't send any referrer header, the traffic will fall within the "**Direct / None**" source. From 5f4776bbc7f90804c079cf6a33774a9d1aeb2866 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:48:11 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 06/49] Update guided-tour.md --- docs/guided-tour.md | 6 ++++-- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/guided-tour.md b/docs/guided-tour.md index b8564211..c0aa0236 100644 --- a/docs/guided-tour.md +++ b/docs/guided-tour.md @@ -68,12 +68,14 @@ You can sort any report by such performance metrics by clicking on any metric he ## Top Sources -See all the top referral sources of traffic ranked by the number of unique visitors. You can click on the "**Details**" button to see the full list which also includes additional metrics such as the bounce rate and visit duration of the individual referral. [Read more here](top-referrers.md). +See all the aquisition channels and sources of traffic ranked by the number of unique visitors. You can click on the "**Details**" button to see the full list which also includes additional metrics such as the bounce rate and visit duration of the individual referral. -You can click into the "**Campaign**" tabs of the Top Sources report to see your campaigns isolated from other traffic sources. These are visitors coming from UTM tagged links such as those in your emails, social media or in your paid advertising campaigns. Click on "**Medium**", "**Source**", "**Campaign**", "**Term**" and "**Content**" to explore these. You can learn more about [link tagging here](manual-link-tagging.md). +You can click into the "**Campaign**" tabs of the Top Sources report to see your campaigns isolated from other traffic sources. These are visitors coming from UTM tagged links such as those in your emails, social media or in your paid advertising campaigns. Click on "**Medium**", "**Source**", "**Campaign**", "**Term**" and "**Content**" to explore these. Note that the referral sources including UTM and other query parameters are counted only when they start a new session on your site. +[Read more here](top-referrers.md). + ## Top Pages See all the most visited pages on your site ranked by the number of unique visitors. You can click on the "**details**" button to see the full list with additional metrics. The number of pageviews, bounce rate, and time on page for the individual pages are included too. From 97d8efcec19bbf00634f0b03c6c1b60482d9faf4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:49:31 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 07/49] Update script-extensions.md --- docs/script-extensions.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/script-extensions.md b/docs/script-extensions.md index f12ddaef..ce93288e 100644 --- a/docs/script-extensions.md +++ b/docs/script-extensions.md @@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ It's especially helpful to redact and aggregate multiple pages whose URLs contai #### Track custom query parameters for complete page URLs -By default, Plausible strips all query parameters for privacy purposes [except](manual-link-tagging.md) `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term`. +By default, Plausible strips all query parameters for privacy purposes [except for](top-referrers.md) `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term`. This means that pages like `yoursite.com/blog/index.php?article=some_article&page=11` will be reported as `yoursite.com/blog/index.php` in the "**Top Pages**" report of your Plausible dashboard. From dac7ff9f99113ecfc71ef00108da1de215d36af1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:50:25 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 08/49] Update metrics-definitions.md --- docs/metrics-definitions.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/metrics-definitions.md b/docs/metrics-definitions.md index 8110cd3a..16260ceb 100644 --- a/docs/metrics-definitions.md +++ b/docs/metrics-definitions.md @@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ The total revenue of orders tracked. This is a part of the [revenue attribution ## UTM parameters -To minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "Direct / None" category, you can add special query parameters (UTMs) to your links. UTMs help you better understand where your traffic is coming from. Plausible Analytics supports `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term`. Read more about [tagging your links](manual-link-tagging.md). +To minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "Direct / None" category, you can add special query parameters (UTMs) to your links. UTMs help you better understand where your traffic is coming from. Plausible Analytics supports `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term`. Read more about [tagging your links](top-referrers.md). ## Unique Conversions From bc717e2a33db17191b3c9b5921b7527dcb093697 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:51:26 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 09/49] Update your-plausible-experience.md --- docs/your-plausible-experience.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/your-plausible-experience.md b/docs/your-plausible-experience.md index c81daee0..1e5190bd 100644 --- a/docs/your-plausible-experience.md +++ b/docs/your-plausible-experience.md @@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ See full details on our [goal conversions and behavior analytics](goal-conversio To minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "direct / none" referral source, you can add special query parameters to your links in social media, email newsletters and your paid advertising campaigns. -`ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters are all valid and supported by Plausible Analytics. [Learn more here](manual-link-tagging.md). +`ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters are all valid and supported by Plausible Analytics. [Learn more here](top-referrers.md). You'll then be able to follow the visitor journey from a paid ad click to a conversion on your site directly in your Plausible dashboard. All the UTM tagged clicks will be displayed in the Campaign tabs of your Top Sources report and all the conversions will be in the Goal Conversions section. You can then [filter your Plausible dashboard](filters-segments.md) by a specific goal to see conversion rate for all the individual sources of traffic, landing pages and so on. From 7f3a2e0597c40a36f07d8ad414ef6986cd98435f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:52:15 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 10/49] Update troubleshoot-integration.md --- docs/troubleshoot-integration.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/troubleshoot-integration.md b/docs/troubleshoot-integration.md index 439afd8e..eb13351a 100644 --- a/docs/troubleshoot-integration.md +++ b/docs/troubleshoot-integration.md @@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ Plausible is built to be privacy-first and compliant with various privacy regula ## I don't see my own referral source -All referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site. This is why you don't see all your own referral sources if you for instance click to test several different [UTM tagged links](manual-link-tagging.md) at the same time. Only the first one would be included in the "**Top Sources**" report. You would need to start a new session by for instance waiting more than 30 minutes or using a different device, browser or IP address to have the subsequent sources counted too. +All referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site. This is why you don't see all your own referral sources if you for instance click to test several different [UTM tagged links](top-referrers.md) at the same time. Only the first one would be included in the "**Top Sources**" report. You would need to start a new session by for instance waiting more than 30 minutes or using a different device, browser or IP address to have the subsequent sources counted too. The fact that the referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site prevents external domains such as a payment gateway that the user is being taken through to show up in the referrers list. No need for you to manually exclude referrers. From a91342e1ef0f3f660d08543c13706174c8c46b3e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:52:58 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 11/49] Update custom-locations.md --- docs/custom-locations.md | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/custom-locations.md b/docs/custom-locations.md index b2f8aa0c..a52b98af 100644 --- a/docs/custom-locations.md +++ b/docs/custom-locations.md @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ This is especially helpful to redact and aggregate multiple pages whose URLs con Follow the steps below to learn how you can specify a custom location for your pages and aggregate page URLs that contain identifiers: ## 1. Add the `manual` script extension -To specify a custom location for your event, you must use [Plausible's manual script extension](script-extensions.md#plausiblemanualjs). +To specify a custom location for your event, you must use [Plausible's manual script extension](script-extensions.md). To do so, change your Plausible script snippet `src` attribute from `https://plausible.io/js/script.js` to `https://plausible.io/js/script.manual.js`. @@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ plausible('pageview', { u: "https://yourdomain.com/my-custom-location" + window. ``` :::note -The `+ window.location.search` is needed to persist query parameters from your actual URL. Plausible uses `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters for source acquisition. [Learn more here](manual-link-tagging.md). +The `+ window.location.search` is needed to persist query parameters from your actual URL. Plausible uses `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters for source acquisition. [Learn more here](top-referrers.md). ::: At this point, your entire setup should look like this: From 19437f218d38af86638218d2f7b66d9eb7d69436 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:55:35 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 12/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 6 +++--- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index d0068893..26011b5d 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -1,10 +1,10 @@ --- -title: Aquisition channels, refferal sources and paid campaigns +title: Acquisition channels, referral sources and paid campaigns --- import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; -Your "**Top Sources**" report shows aquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that are driving traffic to your website. This helps you understand your best converting promotional activities. +Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that are driving traffic to your website. This helps you understand your best converting promotional activities. Click on any individual entry to filter the dashboard by it. Click the "**Details**" button to get extra insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual entry. Click on any metric heading in the "**Details**" view to sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order. @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md Top Referrers - multiple filters -## Aquisition channels +## Acquisition channels In the "**Channels**" tab, you can see a break down of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**" and "**Paid Search**". This for instance allows you to segment your traffic between organic traffic and paid marketing campaigns. From 7372884cc5479c97b3f7868b0df2484dd153d531 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:56:50 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 13/49] Update guided-tour.md --- docs/guided-tour.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/guided-tour.md b/docs/guided-tour.md index c0aa0236..1e966366 100644 --- a/docs/guided-tour.md +++ b/docs/guided-tour.md @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ You can sort any report by such performance metrics by clicking on any metric he ## Top Sources -See all the aquisition channels and sources of traffic ranked by the number of unique visitors. You can click on the "**Details**" button to see the full list which also includes additional metrics such as the bounce rate and visit duration of the individual referral. +See all the acquisition channels and sources of traffic ranked by the number of unique visitors. You can click on the "**Details**" button to see the full list which also includes additional metrics such as the bounce rate and visit duration of the individual referral. You can click into the "**Campaign**" tabs of the Top Sources report to see your campaigns isolated from other traffic sources. These are visitors coming from UTM tagged links such as those in your emails, social media or in your paid advertising campaigns. Click on "**Medium**", "**Source**", "**Campaign**", "**Term**" and "**Content**" to explore these. From 3b78986aabad5c9cd46bcc24e101cce5a668960f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 14:24:18 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 14/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 10 +++++----- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 26011b5d..12e402da 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ title: Acquisition channels, referral sources and paid campaigns import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; -Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that are driving traffic to your website. This helps you understand your best converting promotional activities. +Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This helps you understand your best converting promotional activities. Click on any individual entry to filter the dashboard by it. Click the "**Details**" button to get extra insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual entry. Click on any metric heading in the "**Details**" view to sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order. @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md ## Acquisition channels -In the "**Channels**" tab, you can see a break down of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**" and "**Paid Search**". This for instance allows you to segment your traffic between organic traffic and paid marketing campaigns. +In the "**Channels**" tab, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**" and "**Paid Search**". This allows you to segment your traffic between organic traffic and paid marketing campaigns. ## Referral sources @@ -26,11 +26,11 @@ And know also that referral sources are counted only when they start a new sessi ### Consolidation of sources -UTM tags are case sensitive. This may result in the traffic sources being badly categorized. To help reduce this issue, in the "**Sources**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report, each source is consolidated into a single entry regardless of capitalization stemming from UTM tagging differences. +UTM tags are case sensitive which may lead to traffic sources being duplicated or miscategorized. To mitigate this issue, the "**Sources**" tab in the "**Top Sources**" report consolidates each source into a single entry, disregarding capitalization or naming differences in UTM tags. -For instance, clicks that you get from Facebook which are not tagged by UTMs are labeled with a referral source "**Facebook**" by Facebook itself. If you tag some links that you share on Facebook with the utm_source=facebook, utm_source=fb or utm_source=facebook-ads, clicks on those links will be consolidated alongside other Facebook clicks in the "**Facebook**" entry in the “**All**” tab of your "**Top Sources**" report. This is in order to make it easier for you to keep track and get a combined overview of all the clicks from Facebook. +For instance, clicks that you get from Facebook which are not tagged by UTMs are labeled with a referral source "**Facebook**" by Facebook itself. If you tag some links that you share on Facebook with utm_source=facebook, utm_source=fb or utm_source=facebook-ads, clicks on those links will be consolidated alongside organic clicks in the "**Facebook**" entry in the “**All**” tab of your "**Top Sources**" report providing a unified view of all Facebook clicks. -To isolate your UTM tagged clicks from other clicks, check the "**Campaigns**" tab. +You can still isolate your UTM tagged clicks from organic traffic and view their original labels in the "**Campaigns**" tab of "**Top Sources**". ### Keyword phrases from Google search From 728be3b427970481ded52ee95c5523ee118255a8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 14:27:08 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 15/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 6 +++--- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 12e402da..e4f5d0ce 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -58,16 +58,16 @@ For any clicks on the above link, "**Newsletter**" would be listed as a referral Read more about "[how to use UTM parameters to track your campaigns and understand the dark traffic](https://plausible.io/blog/utm-tracking-tags)". -## Custom events and conversion attribution +## How to track conversion attribution Goals and custom events allow you to track actions that you want your visitors to take on your site. Actions such as registering for a trial account, purchasing a product or completing a checkout form of an ecommerce store. Conversion rate -By [setting up goals and custom events](goal-conversions.md), you can track the number of conversions, conversion rate, referrer sources and entry pages that are driving conversions and the top pages that people convert on. You can also track [ecommerce revenue](ecommerce-revenue-tracking.md). And you can [set up funnels](funnel-analysis.md) to track the user journey too. +By [setting up goals and custom events](goal-conversions.md), you can track the number of conversions, conversion rate, referrer sources and entry pages that are driving conversions and the top pages that people convert on. You can also track [ecommerce revenue](ecommerce-revenue-tracking.md) and [set up funnels](funnel-analysis.md) to track the user journey too. Custom goal conversion rate -Click on any specific referral source in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate (CR) of that referral source for any of your goals. You can also click on any goal in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate of that specific goal coming from any referral source or any landing page. This works even if your site operates [across multiple subdomains](subdomain-hostname-filter.md). +Click on any specific source in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate (CR) of that referral source for any of your goals. You can also click on any goal in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate of that specific goal coming from any source or any landing page. This works even if your site operates [across multiple subdomains](subdomain-hostname-filter.md). Due to the privacy-first nature of our product and the fact that we don't use cookies and other long term identifiers, the conversion attribution in Plausible is based on last click attribution. The referral source of the visit on which the purchase was made will be credited for that conversion. From 25c7557286628845fa0ca4a062f6a10a92877622 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 14:28:35 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 16/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index e4f5d0ce..5d126898 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ Not all traffic to your website will have the referrer header specified in the b By default, we attempt to uncover traffic originating from Android apps which is traditionally categorized as direct traffic in web analytics. The volume of "**android-app**" entries in your "**Top Sources**" report will vary based on your site and audience. -To minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category, you can add special query parameters such as UTM tags to your links whenever you post a link in social media, paid advertising or an email newsletter. `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters are all valid and supported by Plausible. +To further minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category, you can add special query parameters such as UTM tags to your links whenever you post a link in social media, paid advertising or an email newsletter. `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters are all valid and supported by Plausible. Tagging links helps you better track your marketing campaigns and see which campaigns are responsible for most conversions. Here's an example of how to tag your links: `yourdomain.com?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=NovemberNewsletter&utm_content=Link` From 32b07737e0e55822fc19cdd86cf4cd14219b9fc8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2024 14:25:00 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 17/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 36 ++++++++++++++++++------------------ 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 5d126898..656e2277 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -4,55 +4,55 @@ title: Acquisition channels, referral sources and paid campaigns import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; -Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This helps you understand your best converting promotional activities. +Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This information helps you understand your best converting promotional activities. -Click on any individual entry to filter the dashboard by it. Click the "**Details**" button to get extra insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual entry. Click on any metric heading in the "**Details**" view to sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order. +Click on any individual entry within the "**Top Sources**" report to segment your audience by it. Click the "**Details**" button to get extra insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual entry. Click on any metric heading in the "**Details**" view to sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order. -Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md), you can filter the stats by multiple channels, sources or UTM tags at the same time for more powerful segmenting of traffic. It's also possible to filter out traffic from a specific channel, referral source or UTM tag. +Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md), you can filter the stats by multiple channels, sources or UTM tags at the same time for more powerful traffic segmentation. You can also exclude traffic from a specific channel, referral source or UTM tag. Top Referrers - multiple filters ## Acquisition channels -In the "**Channels**" tab, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**" and "**Paid Search**". This allows you to segment your traffic between organic traffic and paid marketing campaigns. +In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**" and "**Paid Search**". This allows you to segment your traffic between organic traffic and paid marketing campaigns. ## Referral sources -In the "**Sources**" tab, you can see the full list of your traffic sources. +In the "**Sources**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the full list of your individual referral sources. -Note that browsers now only send the domain name of the referrer and not the actual URL. If `thatblog.com/one-post/` sends you visitors, you will see `thatblog.com` in your sources list but won’t be able to see the exact post URL itself. [See more here](https://plausible.io/blog/referrer-policy). +Note that browsers only send the domain name of the referrer and not the actual URL. If `thatblog.com/one-post/` sends you visitors, you will see `thatblog.com` in your sources list but won’t see the exact post URL itself. [See more here](https://plausible.io/blog/referrer-policy). -And know also that referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site. This is why you may not see all sources of your own visits if you click to test several different links at the same time. You would need to start a new session by using a different browser, IP address or device for the additional sources to be included in the report. This prevents external domains such as payment gateways showing up in the list of sources. +Know also that referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site. This is why you may not see all sources of your visits if you click to test several different links simultaneously. You would need to start a new session by using a different browser, IP address or device for the additional sources to be included in the report. This prevents external domains such as payment gateways showing up in the sources list without you manually needing to exclude them. -### Consolidation of sources +### Consolidation of duplicate sources -UTM tags are case sensitive which may lead to traffic sources being duplicated or miscategorized. To mitigate this issue, the "**Sources**" tab in the "**Top Sources**" report consolidates each source into a single entry, disregarding capitalization or naming differences in UTM tags. +UTM tags are case-sensitive, which may lead to duplicated or miscategorized traffic sources all depending on how the different links are tagged. To mitigate this issue, the "**Sources**" tab in the "**Top Sources**" report consolidates each source into a single entry, disregarding capitalization or naming differences in UTM tags. -For instance, clicks that you get from Facebook which are not tagged by UTMs are labeled with a referral source "**Facebook**" by Facebook itself. If you tag some links that you share on Facebook with utm_source=facebook, utm_source=fb or utm_source=facebook-ads, clicks on those links will be consolidated alongside organic clicks in the "**Facebook**" entry in the “**All**” tab of your "**Top Sources**" report providing a unified view of all Facebook clicks. +For instance, clicks you get from Facebook which are not tagged by UTMs are labeled with a referral source "**Facebook**" by Facebook itself. Suppose you tag some links that you share on Facebook with `utm_source=facebook`, `utm_source=fb` or `utm_source=facebook-ads`. In that case, clicks on those tagged links will be consolidated alongside organic clicks within the "**Facebook**" entry in the "**All**" tab of your "**Top Sources**" report providing a unified view of all Facebook clicks. -You can still isolate your UTM tagged clicks from organic traffic and view their original labels in the "**Campaigns**" tab of "**Top Sources**". +You can still isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from organic traffic and view their original labels in the "**Campaigns**" tab of "**Top Sources**". ### Keyword phrases from Google search -Note that Google does not include the search keywords in the referrer. This means that you can see that the visitor is coming from Google search but you can't see which keyword phrase they used to find you. +Note that Google does not include the search keywords in the referrer. This means that you can see that a visitor is coming from a Google search but you can't see which keyword phrase they used to find you. To fix this, you can integrate your Plausible account [with Google Search Console](google-search-console-integration.md) so that the keyword phrases people discover your site with show in your Plausible dashboard. After integrating with Search Console, you can click on the "**Google**" entry in the "**Top Sources**" report to view these keyword phrases. ## Paid marketing campaigns -In the "**Campaigns**" tab, you can see the traffic tagged with UTM tags. +In the "**Campaigns**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the traffic arriving to your site from UTM-tagged links. -To isolate your UTM tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" reports within the "**Campaigns**" tab. +To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" reports within the "**Campaigns**" tab. ## How to reduce the volume of dark traffic Not all traffic to your website will have the referrer header specified in the browser. This "**dark traffic**" is why you see the "**Direct / None**" source in the "**Top Sources**" report. These are typically clicks from emails, documents, instant messengers, mobile apps or bookmarks. -By default, we attempt to uncover traffic originating from Android apps which is traditionally categorized as direct traffic in web analytics. The volume of "**android-app**" entries in your "**Top Sources**" report will vary based on your site and audience. +By default, we attempt to uncover traffic originating from Android apps which is traditionally categorized as direct traffic in web analytics. The volume of these clicks in your "**Top Sources**" report will vary based on your site and audience. To further minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category, you can add special query parameters such as UTM tags to your links whenever you post a link in social media, paid advertising or an email newsletter. `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters are all valid and supported by Plausible. -Tagging links helps you better track your marketing campaigns and see which campaigns are responsible for most conversions. Here's an example of how to tag your links: `yourdomain.com?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=NovemberNewsletter&utm_content=Link` +Tagging links helps you better track your marketing campaigns and see which are responsible for most conversions. Here's an example of how to tag your links: `yourdomain.com?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=NovemberNewsletter&utm_content=Link` For any clicks on the above link, "**Newsletter**" would be listed as a referral source in your Plausible dashboard, "**Email**" would be listed as the medium, "**NovemberNewsletter**" would be listed as the campaign and "**Link**" would be listed as the content. @@ -68,6 +68,6 @@ By [setting up goals and custom events](goal-conversions.md), you can track the Custom goal conversion rate -Click on any specific source in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate (CR) of that referral source for any of your goals. You can also click on any goal in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate of that specific goal coming from any source or any landing page. This works even if your site operates [across multiple subdomains](subdomain-hostname-filter.md). +Click on any specific source in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate (CR) of that referral source for any of your goals. You can also click on any goal in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate of that specific goal coming from any source or landing page. This works even if your site operates [across multiple subdomains](subdomain-hostname-filter.md). -Due to the privacy-first nature of our product and the fact that we don't use cookies and other long term identifiers, the conversion attribution in Plausible is based on last click attribution. The referral source of the visit on which the purchase was made will be credited for that conversion. +Due to the privacy-first nature of our product and the fact that we don't use cookies and other long-term identifiers, the conversion attribution in Plausible is based on last-click attribution. The referral source of the visit on which the purchase was made will be credited for that conversion. From 9ee664844cb76403aa6a5a92426def3d3777f1e4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2024 14:28:08 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 18/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 8 ++++---- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 656e2277..4f9f3bd9 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -12,11 +12,11 @@ Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md Top Referrers - multiple filters -## Acquisition channels +## Channels In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**" and "**Paid Search**". This allows you to segment your traffic between organic traffic and paid marketing campaigns. -## Referral sources +## Sources In the "**Sources**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the full list of your individual referral sources. @@ -38,9 +38,9 @@ Note that Google does not include the search keywords in the referrer. This mean To fix this, you can integrate your Plausible account [with Google Search Console](google-search-console-integration.md) so that the keyword phrases people discover your site with show in your Plausible dashboard. After integrating with Search Console, you can click on the "**Google**" entry in the "**Top Sources**" report to view these keyword phrases. -## Paid marketing campaigns +## Campaigns -In the "**Campaigns**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the traffic arriving to your site from UTM-tagged links. +In the "**Campaigns**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the traffic arriving to your site from links tagged with UTM tags and other query parameters. To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" reports within the "**Campaigns**" tab. From 4d8d001bc0f6da967810ed4aae50681742644835 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2024 16:14:53 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 19/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 30 +++++++++++++----------------- 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 4f9f3bd9..4da0eabe 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ title: Acquisition channels, referral sources and paid campaigns import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; -Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This information helps you understand your best converting promotional activities. +Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This information helps you understand your best converting paid campaigns and other promotional activities. Click on any individual entry within the "**Top Sources**" report to segment your audience by it. Click the "**Details**" button to get extra insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual entry. Click on any metric heading in the "**Details**" view to sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order. @@ -40,11 +40,21 @@ To fix this, you can integrate your Plausible account [with Google Search Consol ## Campaigns -In the "**Campaigns**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the traffic arriving to your site from links tagged with UTM tags and other query parameters. +Are you running paid ads on Facebook, Google and other ad platforms? It's possible to track paid campaigns and conversions with Plausible. In the "**Campaigns**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the traffic arriving to your site from links tagged with UTM tags and other query parameters. To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" reports within the "**Campaigns**" tab. -## How to reduce the volume of dark traffic +### How to track paid ad conversion attribution + +Goals and custom events allow you to track actions that you want your visitors to take on your site. Actions such as registering for a trial account, purchasing a product or completing a checkout form of an ecommerce store. By [setting up goals and custom events](goal-conversions.md), you'll be able to follow the visitor journey from a paid ad click to a conversion on your site. + +Filter your dashboard by a specific goal to see the number of conversions, conversion rate (CR), referrer sources and entry pages that are driving conversions and the top pages that people convert on. You can also track [ecommerce revenue](ecommerce-revenue-tracking.md) and [set up funnels](funnel-analysis.md). This works even if your site operates [across multiple subdomains](subdomain-hostname-filter.md). + +Custom goal conversion rate + +Due to the privacy-first nature of Plausible and the fact that we don't use cookies and other long-term identifiers, the conversion attribution is based on last-click attribution. The referral source of the visit on which the purchase was made will be credited for that conversion. + +## How to tag reduce the volume of dark traffic Not all traffic to your website will have the referrer header specified in the browser. This "**dark traffic**" is why you see the "**Direct / None**" source in the "**Top Sources**" report. These are typically clicks from emails, documents, instant messengers, mobile apps or bookmarks. @@ -57,17 +67,3 @@ Tagging links helps you better track your marketing campaigns and see which are For any clicks on the above link, "**Newsletter**" would be listed as a referral source in your Plausible dashboard, "**Email**" would be listed as the medium, "**NovemberNewsletter**" would be listed as the campaign and "**Link**" would be listed as the content. Read more about "[how to use UTM parameters to track your campaigns and understand the dark traffic](https://plausible.io/blog/utm-tracking-tags)". - -## How to track conversion attribution - -Goals and custom events allow you to track actions that you want your visitors to take on your site. Actions such as registering for a trial account, purchasing a product or completing a checkout form of an ecommerce store. - -Conversion rate - -By [setting up goals and custom events](goal-conversions.md), you can track the number of conversions, conversion rate, referrer sources and entry pages that are driving conversions and the top pages that people convert on. You can also track [ecommerce revenue](ecommerce-revenue-tracking.md) and [set up funnels](funnel-analysis.md) to track the user journey too. - -Custom goal conversion rate - -Click on any specific source in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate (CR) of that referral source for any of your goals. You can also click on any goal in your dashboard to see the number of conversions and the conversion rate of that specific goal coming from any source or landing page. This works even if your site operates [across multiple subdomains](subdomain-hostname-filter.md). - -Due to the privacy-first nature of our product and the fact that we don't use cookies and other long-term identifiers, the conversion attribution in Plausible is based on last-click attribution. The referral source of the visit on which the purchase was made will be credited for that conversion. From 23a3b7c23892055a66d3b516ec003567e76966c2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2024 16:19:54 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 20/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 4da0eabe..e9d413dd 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ Know also that referral sources are counted only when they start a new session o UTM tags are case-sensitive, which may lead to duplicated or miscategorized traffic sources all depending on how the different links are tagged. To mitigate this issue, the "**Sources**" tab in the "**Top Sources**" report consolidates each source into a single entry, disregarding capitalization or naming differences in UTM tags. -For instance, clicks you get from Facebook which are not tagged by UTMs are labeled with a referral source "**Facebook**" by Facebook itself. Suppose you tag some links that you share on Facebook with `utm_source=facebook`, `utm_source=fb` or `utm_source=facebook-ads`. In that case, clicks on those tagged links will be consolidated alongside organic clicks within the "**Facebook**" entry in the "**All**" tab of your "**Top Sources**" report providing a unified view of all Facebook clicks. +For instance, clicks you get from Facebook which are not tagged by UTMs are labeled with a referral source "**Facebook**" by Facebook itself. Suppose you tag some links that you share on Facebook with `utm_source=facebook`, `utm_source=fb` or `utm_source=facebook-ads`. In that case, clicks on those tagged links will be consolidated alongside organic clicks within the "**Facebook**" entry in the "**Sources**" tab of your "**Top Sources**" report providing a unified view of all Facebook clicks. You can still isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from organic traffic and view their original labels in the "**Campaigns**" tab of "**Top Sources**". From f3987c35e12dce8e0eebe76edd5b5a01efc96a1c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2024 16:21:46 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 21/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index e9d413dd..7c525ba7 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ Filter your dashboard by a specific goal to see the number of conversions, conve Due to the privacy-first nature of Plausible and the fact that we don't use cookies and other long-term identifiers, the conversion attribution is based on last-click attribution. The referral source of the visit on which the purchase was made will be credited for that conversion. -## How to tag reduce the volume of dark traffic +## How to reduce the volume of dark traffic Not all traffic to your website will have the referrer header specified in the browser. This "**dark traffic**" is why you see the "**Direct / None**" source in the "**Top Sources**" report. These are typically clicks from emails, documents, instant messengers, mobile apps or bookmarks. From 39c38a13ce66ee4482b6f24e0267bd44ffd9ab51 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2024 16:40:23 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 22/49] Update top-pages.md --- docs/top-pages.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/top-pages.md b/docs/top-pages.md index bfcee948..65377599 100644 --- a/docs/top-pages.md +++ b/docs/top-pages.md @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ --- -title: Top Pages +title: Top content, landing pages and exit pages --- import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; From 05b6707c53b253d1f009b8113b3c498e53907773 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2024 16:41:13 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 23/49] Update devices.md --- docs/devices.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/devices.md b/docs/devices.md index c3ebbf6f..d25e44b5 100644 --- a/docs/devices.md +++ b/docs/devices.md @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ --- -title: Devices +title: Top devices, browsers and operating systems --- import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; From 16961d135aa932cf11f7cdb771671cc72aa91929 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2024 16:41:56 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 24/49] Update countries.md --- docs/countries.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/countries.md b/docs/countries.md index f653c8d8..5b75cfb5 100644 --- a/docs/countries.md +++ b/docs/countries.md @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ --- -title: Locations +title: Top countries, regions and cities --- import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; From cfca266ad2ae2148a4efd4fe8e816bbeee34a3ca Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2024 16:53:55 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 25/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 20 ++++++++++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 7c525ba7..c89a2b1c 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -14,7 +14,13 @@ Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md ## Channels -In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**" and "**Paid Search**". This allows you to segment your traffic between organic traffic and paid marketing campaigns. +In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**" and "**Paid Search**". This allows you to segment your traffic between organic traffic and paid marketing campaigns. These are the definitions and descriptions of each channel available: + +| Channel | Definition | +| :---------- | :---------------- | +| Organic Social | List | + +Note that channel groupings and definitions may evolve as the market changes. We will keep this list up-to-date with any changes. ## Sources @@ -60,7 +66,17 @@ Not all traffic to your website will have the referrer header specified in the b By default, we attempt to uncover traffic originating from Android apps which is traditionally categorized as direct traffic in web analytics. The volume of these clicks in your "**Top Sources**" report will vary based on your site and audience. -To further minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category, you can add special query parameters such as UTM tags to your links whenever you post a link in social media, paid advertising or an email newsletter. `ref`, `source`, `utm_source`, `utm_medium`, `utm_campaign`, `utm_content` and `utm_term` query parameters are all valid and supported by Plausible. +To further minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category, you can add special query parameters such as UTM tags to your links whenever you post a link in social media, paid advertising or an email newsletter. + +Query parameters that are valid and supported by Plausible: + +* `ref` +* `source` +* `utm_source` +* `utm_medium` +* `utm_campaign` +* `utm_content` +* `utm_term` Tagging links helps you better track your marketing campaigns and see which are responsible for most conversions. Here's an example of how to tag your links: `yourdomain.com?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=NovemberNewsletter&utm_content=Link` From 920cdc052df07ded7e60f7385f215b2eb41205a6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2024 17:36:39 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 26/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 13 +++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index c89a2b1c..8df5b5bd 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -50,6 +50,19 @@ Are you running paid ads on Facebook, Google and other ad platforms? It's possib To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" reports within the "**Campaigns**" tab. +### GCLID, FBCLID and other marketing parameters + +Plausible also records clicks coming from links tagged with GCLID, FBCLID and other paid marketing parameters. You can see these and filter by them within the "**UTM Medium**" section of the "**Top Sources**" report. Do note that we do strip the values of these parameters as they are considered unique identifiers and are not compliant with GDPR without user consent. These are the mrketing parameters that we do record but that we do strip the unique values of: + +* `gclid` +* `gbraid` +* `wbraid` +* `msclkid` +* `fbclid` +* `twclid` + +This is why we do recommend that you use UTM tags when tagging your paid ad campaigns. We do not strip the values of UTM tags. + ### How to track paid ad conversion attribution Goals and custom events allow you to track actions that you want your visitors to take on your site. Actions such as registering for a trial account, purchasing a product or completing a checkout form of an ecommerce store. By [setting up goals and custom events](goal-conversions.md), you'll be able to follow the visitor journey from a paid ad click to a conversion on your site. From beee036a6088934f5d11d694ec04a650232f605d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 09:56:57 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 27/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 6 +++++- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 8df5b5bd..3ffbe5b5 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -28,7 +28,11 @@ In the "**Sources**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the fu Note that browsers only send the domain name of the referrer and not the actual URL. If `thatblog.com/one-post/` sends you visitors, you will see `thatblog.com` in your sources list but won’t see the exact post URL itself. [See more here](https://plausible.io/blog/referrer-policy). -Know also that referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site. This is why you may not see all sources of your visits if you click to test several different links simultaneously. You would need to start a new session by using a different browser, IP address or device for the additional sources to be included in the report. This prevents external domains such as payment gateways showing up in the sources list without you manually needing to exclude them. +### No need to manually exclude unwanted sources + +With Plausible, there's no need for you to manually exclude unwanted referral sources like payment processors such as PayPal, Stripe or Paddle to keep your data clean. + +Referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site. This prevents external domains such as payment gateways showing up in the list of sources when for instance visitors briefly leave your site to make a payment before returning back. The source that brought the visitor to your site in the first place will be the one attributed for that conversion. ### Consolidation of duplicate sources From ec7b71f2d1a01005036c78d6d55bf52e8dae9129 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 09:59:46 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 28/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 4 ++++ 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 3ffbe5b5..0254579f 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -81,8 +81,12 @@ Due to the privacy-first nature of Plausible and the fact that we don't use cook Not all traffic to your website will have the referrer header specified in the browser. This "**dark traffic**" is why you see the "**Direct / None**" source in the "**Top Sources**" report. These are typically clicks from emails, documents, instant messengers, mobile apps or bookmarks. +### We attempt to uncover some direct traffic + By default, we attempt to uncover traffic originating from Android apps which is traditionally categorized as direct traffic in web analytics. The volume of these clicks in your "**Top Sources**" report will vary based on your site and audience. +### Tag all the links that you control + To further minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category, you can add special query parameters such as UTM tags to your links whenever you post a link in social media, paid advertising or an email newsletter. Query parameters that are valid and supported by Plausible: From 6be1cade59bad404237628f732895c37881b1282 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 10:09:35 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 29/49] Update countries.md --- docs/countries.md | 4 +++- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/countries.md b/docs/countries.md index 5b75cfb5..3f674056 100644 --- a/docs/countries.md +++ b/docs/countries.md @@ -8,8 +8,10 @@ Your "**Locations**" report shows where in the world your visitors are coming fr Click on any country to see the list of regions within that country where your visitors are coming from. Click on any region to see the list of cities within that region. You can also use the "**Countries**", "**Regions**" and "**Cities**" tabs on the top of the report. -To improve the accuracy, visitors that use VPN services and the Tor browser are grouped under the "**Anonymous VPN Service**" entry in the "**Countries**" tab. This eliminates noise that VPNs add to locations and makes it easy to view the percentage of visitors using VPNs. +## Visitors using VPNs and similar services +To improve the location accuracy, visitors using VPN services or the Tor browser are grouped under the "**Anonymous VPN Service**" entry in the "**Countries**" tab. This method reduces the noise caused by analytics tools recording VPN server locations instead of actual user locations, while also making it easier to view the percentage of visitors using VPNs. + You can use the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard to segment the traffic by multiple countries, regions or cities at the same time. This allows you to group specific geographical regions and display only that traffic. Countries - multiple filters From 0e5f62807c5908678d287227b0b0ab437bdfc29a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 10:17:52 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 30/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 10 +++++++--- 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 0254579f..f3321c6f 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -56,16 +56,20 @@ To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the t ### GCLID, FBCLID and other marketing parameters -Plausible also records clicks coming from links tagged with GCLID, FBCLID and other paid marketing parameters. You can see these and filter by them within the "**UTM Medium**" section of the "**Top Sources**" report. Do note that we do strip the values of these parameters as they are considered unique identifiers and are not compliant with GDPR without user consent. These are the mrketing parameters that we do record but that we do strip the unique values of: +Plausible also records clicks from links tagged with GCLID, FBCLID and other paid marketing parameters. You can view and filter these within the "**UTM Medium**" section of the "**Top Sources**" report. + +Please note that we strip the values of these paid marketing parameters because they are considered unique identifiers and are not GDPR-compliant without user consent. This means you can view and filter your dashboard by the audience coming from GCLID-tagged links, but you will not see the unique identifier for each visitor. + +These are the marketing parameters that we do record and list in the "**UTM Medium**" section but that we do strip the unique values of: * `gclid` -* `gbraid` +* `gbraid` * `wbraid` * `msclkid` * `fbclid` * `twclid` -This is why we do recommend that you use UTM tags when tagging your paid ad campaigns. We do not strip the values of UTM tags. +This is why we recommend using UTM tags when tagging your paid ad campaigns for more powerful insights. Unlike the marketing parameters listed above, we do not strip the values of UTM tags. ### How to track paid ad conversion attribution From a0589fe5c2d5e96fe5c510df453bd5ba256c805e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 10:54:29 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 31/49] Update docs/top-referrers.md Co-authored-by: Hricha Shandily <103104754+Hricha-Shandily@users.noreply.github.com> --- docs/top-referrers.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index f3321c6f..aba8b9f1 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ title: Acquisition channels, referral sources and paid campaigns import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; -Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This information helps you understand your best converting paid campaigns and other promotional activities. +Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This information helps you understand where your traffic originates, which sources are most effective, and how specific campaigns perform. For eg., This is where you can understand how much SEO traffic you get from different search engines, social media, how PPC campaigns perform, or other marketing efforts like SMS marketing or video marketing perform in bringing traffic to the site. Click on any individual entry within the "**Top Sources**" report to segment your audience by it. Click the "**Details**" button to get extra insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual entry. Click on any metric heading in the "**Details**" view to sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order. From d9605014b565d05279685dcda117136e0ff57b3b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 10:54:36 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 32/49] Update docs/top-referrers.md Co-authored-by: Hricha Shandily <103104754+Hricha-Shandily@users.noreply.github.com> --- docs/top-referrers.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index aba8b9f1..97a0f63b 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Note that channel groupings and definitions may evolve as the market changes. We ## Sources -In the "**Sources**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the full list of your individual referral sources. +In the "**Sources**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the full list of your individual referral sources. Some examples include "Google," "Facebook," "LinkedIn," "Reddit," "chatgpt," etc. Note that browsers only send the domain name of the referrer and not the actual URL. If `thatblog.com/one-post/` sends you visitors, you will see `thatblog.com` in your sources list but won’t see the exact post URL itself. [See more here](https://plausible.io/blog/referrer-policy). From 2c60534ffd146c84fcd8cd23798bae5f56ae4979 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 10:54:46 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 33/49] Update docs/top-referrers.md Co-authored-by: Hricha Shandily <103104754+Hricha-Shandily@users.noreply.github.com> --- docs/top-referrers.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 97a0f63b..93f03ffb 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ You can still isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from organic traffic and view their ### Keyword phrases from Google search -Note that Google does not include the search keywords in the referrer. This means that you can see that a visitor is coming from a Google search but you can't see which keyword phrase they used to find you. +Note that Google does not include the search keywords in the referrer. This means that you can see that a visitor is coming from a Google search but you can't see which keyword phrase they used to visit your site. To fix this, you can integrate your Plausible account [with Google Search Console](google-search-console-integration.md) so that the keyword phrases people discover your site with show in your Plausible dashboard. After integrating with Search Console, you can click on the "**Google**" entry in the "**Top Sources**" report to view these keyword phrases. From 5e76e904f94a7584d94ae01c1eff43e610d54f3d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 10:54:54 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 34/49] Update docs/top-referrers.md Co-authored-by: Hricha Shandily <103104754+Hricha-Shandily@users.noreply.github.com> --- docs/top-referrers.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 93f03ffb..e74041ba 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ Filter your dashboard by a specific goal to see the number of conversions, conve Custom goal conversion rate -Due to the privacy-first nature of Plausible and the fact that we don't use cookies and other long-term identifiers, the conversion attribution is based on last-click attribution. The referral source of the visit on which the purchase was made will be credited for that conversion. +Due to Plausible’s privacy-first approach—without using cookies or long-term identifiers—conversion attribution relies on last-click attribution. This means the referral source of the visit leading to the purchase is credited for the conversion. ## How to reduce the volume of dark traffic From 23316284458444ebbf785b06d6293ba749f4fd05 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 10:55:02 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 35/49] Update docs/top-referrers.md Co-authored-by: Hricha Shandily <103104754+Hricha-Shandily@users.noreply.github.com> --- docs/top-referrers.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index e74041ba..2aa811e8 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ By default, we attempt to uncover traffic originating from Android apps which is ### Tag all the links that you control -To further minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category, you can add special query parameters such as UTM tags to your links whenever you post a link in social media, paid advertising or an email newsletter. +To further minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category, you can add special query parameters such as UTM tags to your links whenever you post a link in social media, paid advertising, an email newsletter, or anywhere else. Query parameters that are valid and supported by Plausible: From 9cc474fef53bae1c3482da718bc92e0f0f9af361 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 10:55:12 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 36/49] Update docs/guided-tour.md Co-authored-by: Hricha Shandily <103104754+Hricha-Shandily@users.noreply.github.com> --- docs/guided-tour.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/guided-tour.md b/docs/guided-tour.md index 1e966366..37d0a383 100644 --- a/docs/guided-tour.md +++ b/docs/guided-tour.md @@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ You can sort any report by such performance metrics by clicking on any metric he See all the acquisition channels and sources of traffic ranked by the number of unique visitors. You can click on the "**Details**" button to see the full list which also includes additional metrics such as the bounce rate and visit duration of the individual referral. -You can click into the "**Campaign**" tabs of the Top Sources report to see your campaigns isolated from other traffic sources. These are visitors coming from UTM tagged links such as those in your emails, social media or in your paid advertising campaigns. Click on "**Medium**", "**Source**", "**Campaign**", "**Term**" and "**Content**" to explore these. +You can use the "**Campaigns**" dropdown section in the Top Sources report to view your campaigns separately from other traffic sources. These are visitors coming from UTM tagged links such as those in your emails, social media or in your paid advertising campaigns. Click on "**Medium**", "**Source**", "**Campaign**", "**Term**" and "**Content**" to explore these. Note that the referral sources including UTM and other query parameters are counted only when they start a new session on your site. From eee1708b7511f7cf1209a1d60d230ae1272c5d5c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 10:55:20 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 37/49] Update docs/troubleshoot-integration.md Co-authored-by: Hricha Shandily <103104754+Hricha-Shandily@users.noreply.github.com> --- docs/troubleshoot-integration.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/troubleshoot-integration.md b/docs/troubleshoot-integration.md index eb13351a..da0d0ea6 100644 --- a/docs/troubleshoot-integration.md +++ b/docs/troubleshoot-integration.md @@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ Plausible is built to be privacy-first and compliant with various privacy regula ## I don't see my own referral source -All referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site. This is why you don't see all your own referral sources if you for instance click to test several different [UTM tagged links](top-referrers.md) at the same time. Only the first one would be included in the "**Top Sources**" report. You would need to start a new session by for instance waiting more than 30 minutes or using a different device, browser or IP address to have the subsequent sources counted too. +All referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site. This is why you don't see all your own referral sources if you for instance click to test several different [UTM tagged links](top-referrers.md) at the same time. Only the first one appears in the "**Top Sources**" report. You would need to start a new session—such as by waiting 30 minutes or using a different device, browser, or IP address, to have the subsequent sources counted too. The fact that the referral sources are counted only when they start a new session on your site prevents external domains such as a payment gateway that the user is being taken through to show up in the referrers list. No need for you to manually exclude referrers. From f9086ba05be6f4505e4b0e59b34ac057af7b0301 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2024 11:05:56 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 38/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 6 ++++-- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 2aa811e8..69d321bc 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -4,7 +4,9 @@ title: Acquisition channels, referral sources and paid campaigns import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; -Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This information helps you understand where your traffic originates, which sources are most effective, and how specific campaigns perform. For eg., This is where you can understand how much SEO traffic you get from different search engines, social media, how PPC campaigns perform, or other marketing efforts like SMS marketing or video marketing perform in bringing traffic to the site. +Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This information helps you understand where your traffic originates, which sources are most effective and how specific campaigns perform. + +For instance, this is where you can understand how much traffic you get from different search engines, social media, how your PPC campaigns or other marketing efforts perform. Click on any individual entry within the "**Top Sources**" report to segment your audience by it. Click the "**Details**" button to get extra insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual entry. Click on any metric heading in the "**Details**" view to sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order. @@ -24,7 +26,7 @@ Note that channel groupings and definitions may evolve as the market changes. We ## Sources -In the "**Sources**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the full list of your individual referral sources. Some examples include "Google," "Facebook," "LinkedIn," "Reddit," "chatgpt," etc. +In the "**Sources**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the full list of your individual referral sources. Some examples include "Google", "Facebook", "LinkedIn", "Reddit", "chatgpt.com" etc. Note that browsers only send the domain name of the referrer and not the actual URL. If `thatblog.com/one-post/` sends you visitors, you will see `thatblog.com` in your sources list but won’t see the exact post URL itself. [See more here](https://plausible.io/blog/referrer-policy). From 90bb7c23f6dfbac5a211b655a217bdcf92608dae Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 10:46:44 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 39/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 22 ++++++++++------------ 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 69d321bc..c13de09d 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -4,11 +4,9 @@ title: Acquisition channels, referral sources and paid campaigns import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; -Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This information helps you understand where your traffic originates, which sources are most effective and how specific campaigns perform. +Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This information helps you understand where your traffic originates, which referral sources are most effective and how specific marketing campaigns perform. -For instance, this is where you can understand how much traffic you get from different search engines, social media, how your PPC campaigns or other marketing efforts perform. - -Click on any individual entry within the "**Top Sources**" report to segment your audience by it. Click the "**Details**" button to get extra insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual entry. Click on any metric heading in the "**Details**" view to sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order. +Click on any individual entry within the "**Top Sources**" report to segment your audience by it and see the best performing landing pages or highest converting goals. Click the "**Details**" button to get extra insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual entry. Click on any metric heading in the "**Details**" view to sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order. Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md), you can filter the stats by multiple channels, sources or UTM tags at the same time for more powerful traffic segmentation. You can also exclude traffic from a specific channel, referral source or UTM tag. @@ -16,7 +14,7 @@ Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md ## Channels -In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**" and "**Paid Search**". This allows you to segment your traffic between organic traffic and paid marketing campaigns. These are the definitions and descriptions of each channel available: +In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**", "**Paid Search**", "**Email**" and more. These are the definitions and descriptions of each channel available: | Channel | Definition | | :---------- | :---------------- | @@ -26,9 +24,9 @@ Note that channel groupings and definitions may evolve as the market changes. We ## Sources -In the "**Sources**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the full list of your individual referral sources. Some examples include "Google", "Facebook", "LinkedIn", "Reddit", "chatgpt.com" etc. +In the "**Sources**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the full list of your individual referral sources such as "**Google**", "**Facebook**", "**LinkedIn**", "**Reddit**" and "**chatgpt.com**". -Note that browsers only send the domain name of the referrer and not the actual URL. If `thatblog.com/one-post/` sends you visitors, you will see `thatblog.com` in your sources list but won’t see the exact post URL itself. [See more here](https://plausible.io/blog/referrer-policy). +Browsers only send the domain name of the referrer and not the actual URL. If `thatblog.com/one-post/` sends you visitors, you will see `thatblog.com` in your sources list but won’t see the exact post URL itself. [See more here](https://plausible.io/blog/referrer-policy). ### No need to manually exclude unwanted sources @@ -42,17 +40,17 @@ UTM tags are case-sensitive, which may lead to duplicated or miscategorized traf For instance, clicks you get from Facebook which are not tagged by UTMs are labeled with a referral source "**Facebook**" by Facebook itself. Suppose you tag some links that you share on Facebook with `utm_source=facebook`, `utm_source=fb` or `utm_source=facebook-ads`. In that case, clicks on those tagged links will be consolidated alongside organic clicks within the "**Facebook**" entry in the "**Sources**" tab of your "**Top Sources**" report providing a unified view of all Facebook clicks. -You can still isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from organic traffic and view their original labels in the "**Campaigns**" tab of "**Top Sources**". +You can isolate your paid clicks from organic traffic or organic clicks from paid traffic by using the "**Channels**" tab or the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. ### Keyword phrases from Google search -Note that Google does not include the search keywords in the referrer. This means that you can see that a visitor is coming from a Google search but you can't see which keyword phrase they used to visit your site. +Google does not include the search keywords in the referrer. This means that you can see that a visitor is coming from a Google search but you can't see which keyword phrase they used to visit your site. -To fix this, you can integrate your Plausible account [with Google Search Console](google-search-console-integration.md) so that the keyword phrases people discover your site with show in your Plausible dashboard. After integrating with Search Console, you can click on the "**Google**" entry in the "**Top Sources**" report to view these keyword phrases. +To fix this, you can integrate your Plausible account [with Google Search Console](google-search-console-integration.md) so that the keyword phrases people discover your site with show in your Plausible dashboard. After integrating with Search Console, you can click on the "**Google**" entry in the "**Top Sources**" report to view your keyword phrases. ## Campaigns -Are you running paid ads on Facebook, Google and other ad platforms? It's possible to track paid campaigns and conversions with Plausible. In the "**Campaigns**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the traffic arriving to your site from links tagged with UTM tags and other query parameters. +Are you running paid marketing campaigns on Facebook, Google and other ad platforms? "**Campaigns**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report allows you to see the traffic arriving to your site from links tagged with UTM tags and other query parameters. To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" reports within the "**Campaigns**" tab. @@ -81,7 +79,7 @@ Filter your dashboard by a specific goal to see the number of conversions, conve Custom goal conversion rate -Due to Plausible’s privacy-first approach—without using cookies or long-term identifiers—conversion attribution relies on last-click attribution. This means the referral source of the visit leading to the purchase is credited for the conversion. +Due to Plausible’s privacy-first approach without using cookies or long-term identifiers conversion attribution relies on last-click attribution. This means the referral source of the visit leading to the purchase is credited for the conversion. ## How to reduce the volume of dark traffic From 62b846d42a1bd7f972fff3fbcac8b4c56d5eb10b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 11:15:28 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 40/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 12 ++++++------ 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index c13de09d..b0948859 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -4,17 +4,17 @@ title: Acquisition channels, referral sources and paid campaigns import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl'; -Your "**Top Sources**" report shows acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This information helps you understand where your traffic originates, which referral sources are most effective and how specific marketing campaigns perform. +The "**Top Sources**" report displays acquisition channels, referral sources and marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your website. This information helps you understand where your traffic originates, which referral sources are most effective and how specific marketing campaigns perform. -Click on any individual entry within the "**Top Sources**" report to segment your audience by it and see the best performing landing pages or highest converting goals. Click the "**Details**" button to get extra insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual entry. Click on any metric heading in the "**Details**" view to sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order. +You can click on any individual entry within the "**Top Sources**" report to segment your audience by that source and view the best performing landing pages or highest converting goals. Click the "**Details**" button to access additional insights such as the visit duration and bounce rate for the individual entry. In the "**Details**" view, you can sort and arrange your data in ascending or descending order by clicking any metric heading. -Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md), you can filter the stats by multiple channels, sources or UTM tags at the same time for more powerful traffic segmentation. You can also exclude traffic from a specific channel, referral source or UTM tag. +Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md), you can filter the stats by multiple channels, sources or UTM tags simultaneously for more powerful traffic segmentation. You can also exclude traffic from a specific channel, referral source or UTM tag. Top Referrers - multiple filters ## Channels -In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**", "**Paid Search**", "**Email**" and more. These are the definitions and descriptions of each channel available: +In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**", "**Paid Search**" and "**Email**". These are the definitions and descriptions of each channel available: | Channel | Definition | | :---------- | :---------------- | @@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ These are the marketing parameters that we do record and list in the "**UTM Medi * `fbclid` * `twclid` -This is why we recommend using UTM tags when tagging your paid ad campaigns for more powerful insights. Unlike the marketing parameters listed above, we do not strip the values of UTM tags. +We recommend using UTM tags when tagging your paid ad campaigns, as they provide more powerful insights. When a UTM tag is present in the link, it takes priority over other parameters. And unlike the marketing parameters listed above, we do not strip the values of UTM tags. ### How to track paid ad conversion attribution @@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ Filter your dashboard by a specific goal to see the number of conversions, conve Custom goal conversion rate -Due to Plausible’s privacy-first approach without using cookies or long-term identifiers conversion attribution relies on last-click attribution. This means the referral source of the visit leading to the purchase is credited for the conversion. +Due to Plausible’s privacy-first approach, which avoids using cookies or long-term identifiers, conversion attribution relies on last-click attribution. This means the referral source of the visit that leads to the purchase is credited for the conversion. ## How to reduce the volume of dark traffic From 488ec435d24f4151e0fcd891e945f781a0307f7e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 11:34:13 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 41/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 54 +++++++++++++++++++++---------------------- 1 file changed, 26 insertions(+), 28 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index b0948859..71f88402 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -50,17 +50,33 @@ To fix this, you can integrate your Plausible account [with Google Search Consol ## Campaigns -Are you running paid marketing campaigns on Facebook, Google and other ad platforms? "**Campaigns**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report allows you to see the traffic arriving to your site from links tagged with UTM tags and other query parameters. +The "**Campaigns**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report allows you to see the traffic arriving to your site from links tagged with UTM tags and other query parameters. -To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" reports within the "**Campaigns**" tab. +### How to tag your paid campaign links -### GCLID, FBCLID and other marketing parameters +Are you running paid marketing campaigns on Facebook, Google and other ad platforms? We recommend you tag your paid campaign links with UTM parameters. These are the query parameters that are valid and supported by Plausible: -Plausible also records clicks from links tagged with GCLID, FBCLID and other paid marketing parameters. You can view and filter these within the "**UTM Medium**" section of the "**Top Sources**" report. +* `ref` +* `source` +* `utm_source` +* `utm_medium` +* `utm_campaign` +* `utm_content` +* `utm_term` + +Here's an example of how to tag your links: `yourdomain.com?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=novemberoffer&utm_content=sustainability&utm_term=discount` + +To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" reports in the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. + +### GCLID, FBCLID and other special marketing parameters + +If the UTM tag is not present within the link, Plausible also records clicks from GCLID, FBCLID and other paid marketing parameters. You can view and filter these within the "**UTM Medium**" section of the "**Top Sources**" report. Please note that we strip the values of these paid marketing parameters because they are considered unique identifiers and are not GDPR-compliant without user consent. This means you can view and filter your dashboard by the audience coming from GCLID-tagged links, but you will not see the unique identifier for each visitor. -These are the marketing parameters that we do record and list in the "**UTM Medium**" section but that we do strip the unique values of: +This is why we recommend using UTM tags when tagging your paid ad campaigns. When a UTM tag is present in the link, it takes priority over other parameters. And unlike the marketing parameters listed below, we do not strip the values of UTM tags which provides you more powerful insights. + +These are the special marketing parameters that we do record and list in the "**UTM Medium**" section but that we do strip the unique values of: * `gclid` * `gbraid` @@ -69,18 +85,16 @@ These are the marketing parameters that we do record and list in the "**UTM Medi * `fbclid` * `twclid` -We recommend using UTM tags when tagging your paid ad campaigns, as they provide more powerful insights. When a UTM tag is present in the link, it takes priority over other parameters. And unlike the marketing parameters listed above, we do not strip the values of UTM tags. - -### How to track paid ad conversion attribution +### How to track conversion attribution Goals and custom events allow you to track actions that you want your visitors to take on your site. Actions such as registering for a trial account, purchasing a product or completing a checkout form of an ecommerce store. By [setting up goals and custom events](goal-conversions.md), you'll be able to follow the visitor journey from a paid ad click to a conversion on your site. -Filter your dashboard by a specific goal to see the number of conversions, conversion rate (CR), referrer sources and entry pages that are driving conversions and the top pages that people convert on. You can also track [ecommerce revenue](ecommerce-revenue-tracking.md) and [set up funnels](funnel-analysis.md). This works even if your site operates [across multiple subdomains](subdomain-hostname-filter.md). - -Custom goal conversion rate +Filter your dashboard by a specific goal to see the number of conversions, conversion rate (CR), referrer sources, marketing campaigns and entry pages that are driving conversions. You can also track [ecommerce revenue](ecommerce-revenue-tracking.md) and [set up funnels](funnel-analysis.md). This works even if your site operates [across multiple subdomains](subdomain-hostname-filter.md). Due to Plausible’s privacy-first approach, which avoids using cookies or long-term identifiers, conversion attribution relies on last-click attribution. This means the referral source of the visit that leads to the purchase is credited for the conversion. +Custom goal conversion rate + ## How to reduce the volume of dark traffic Not all traffic to your website will have the referrer header specified in the browser. This "**dark traffic**" is why you see the "**Direct / None**" source in the "**Top Sources**" report. These are typically clicks from emails, documents, instant messengers, mobile apps or bookmarks. @@ -91,20 +105,4 @@ By default, we attempt to uncover traffic originating from Android apps which is ### Tag all the links that you control -To further minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category, you can add special query parameters such as UTM tags to your links whenever you post a link in social media, paid advertising, an email newsletter, or anywhere else. - -Query parameters that are valid and supported by Plausible: - -* `ref` -* `source` -* `utm_source` -* `utm_medium` -* `utm_campaign` -* `utm_content` -* `utm_term` - -Tagging links helps you better track your marketing campaigns and see which are responsible for most conversions. Here's an example of how to tag your links: `yourdomain.com?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=NovemberNewsletter&utm_content=Link` - -For any clicks on the above link, "**Newsletter**" would be listed as a referral source in your Plausible dashboard, "**Email**" would be listed as the medium, "**NovemberNewsletter**" would be listed as the campaign and "**Link**" would be listed as the content. - -Read more about "[how to use UTM parameters to track your campaigns and understand the dark traffic](https://plausible.io/blog/utm-tracking-tags)". +To further minimize the amount of traffic that falls within the "**Direct / None**" category, we recommend that you add query parameters such as UTM tags to your links whenever you post a link in social media, paid advertising, an email newsletter or anywhere else. Read more about [how to use UTM parameters to track your campaigns and understand the dark traffic](https://plausible.io/blog/utm-tracking-tags). From 481d55af3c3b2466f71a3f0465da990b629dedbd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2024 11:37:03 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 42/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 71f88402..2af897aa 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ Are you running paid marketing campaigns on Facebook, Google and other ad platfo Here's an example of how to tag your links: `yourdomain.com?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=novemberoffer&utm_content=sustainability&utm_term=discount` -To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" reports in the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. +To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" sections in the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. ### GCLID, FBCLID and other special marketing parameters From dbd9fa4a95e0b98de4b053a8b60fcaa4f305e10b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2024 10:28:47 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 43/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 33 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++------- 1 file changed, 26 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 2af897aa..a87c5281 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -14,13 +14,32 @@ Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md ## Channels -In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**", "**Paid Search**" and "**Email**". These are the definitions and descriptions of each channel available: - -| Channel | Definition | -| :---------- | :---------------- | -| Organic Social | List | - -Note that channel groupings and definitions may evolve as the market changes. We will keep this list up-to-date with any changes. +In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**", "**Paid Search**" and "**Email**". Here are the definitions and descriptions of each channel: + +| Channel | Definition | +| :---------------------------------- | :----------------------------- | +| Affiliates | `Medium` is "affiliate" | +| Audio | `Medium` is "audio" | +| Cross-network | `Medium` is "cross-network" | +| Direct | `Source` is "(direct)" **AND** `Medium` is "(not set)" or "(none)" | +| Display | `Medium` is "display", "banner", "expandable", "interstitial" or "cpm" | +| Email | `Source` is "gmail", "email", "e-mail", "e_mail" or "e mail" **OR** `Medium` is "email", "e-mail", "e_mail" or "e mail" | +| Mobile Push Notifications | `Source` is "firebase" **OR** `Medium` is "mobile", "notification" or ends with "push" | +| Organic Search | `Source` is a known search site **OR** `Medium` is organic | +| Organic Shopping | `Source` is a known shopping site **OR** `Campaign` matches regex ^(.*(([^a-df-z]|^)shop|shopping).*)$ | +| Organic Social | `Source` is a known social site **OR** `Medium` is "social", "social-network", "social-media", "sm", "social network" or "social media" | +| Organic Video | `Source` is a known video site **OR** `Medium` matches regex ^(.*video.*)$ | +| Paid Other | `Medium` matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$ | +| Paid Search | `Source` is a known search site **AND** `Medium` matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$ **OR** the link includes a "gclid" or "msclkid" parameter | +| Paid Shopping | `Source` is a known shopping site **OR** `Campaign` matches regex ^(.*(([^a-df-z]|^)shop|shopping).*)$ **AND** `Medium` matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$ | +| Paid Social | `Source` is a known social site (including abbreviations IG and FB) **AND** `Medium` matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$ **OR** `Source` includes a known social site which ends with "ad" or "ads" (as in "fb-ads" or "facebook_feed_ad" | +| Paid Video | `Source` is a known video site (including abbreviation YT) **AND** `Medium` matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$ **OR** `Source` includes a known video site which ends with "ad" or "ads" (as in "yt-ads") | +| Referral | `Medium` is "referral", "app" or "link" | +| SMS | `Source` is "sms" **OR** `Medium` is "sms" | + +We align our channel lists and definitions closely with Google Analytics to make your transition to Plausible as seamless as possible. However, we strive to stay more up-to-date with newer sites and platforms. For example, in Plausible, Temu is categorized as a shopping site, Perplexity as a search site and Discord as a social site, among others. + +Please note that channel groupings and definitions may evolve as the market changes. We will keep this list updated to reflect any adjustments. ## Sources From aab3bf2e83e68f35def94dd1ef168d6ff571dc51 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2024 10:33:47 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 44/49] Update top-referrers.md From ecec842396b5c27552b251286e1e7be4b7335b8b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2024 10:37:53 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 45/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 12 ++++++------ 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index a87c5281..b06e1a53 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -26,14 +26,14 @@ In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see a bre | Email | `Source` is "gmail", "email", "e-mail", "e_mail" or "e mail" **OR** `Medium` is "email", "e-mail", "e_mail" or "e mail" | | Mobile Push Notifications | `Source` is "firebase" **OR** `Medium` is "mobile", "notification" or ends with "push" | | Organic Search | `Source` is a known search site **OR** `Medium` is organic | -| Organic Shopping | `Source` is a known shopping site **OR** `Campaign` matches regex ^(.*(([^a-df-z]|^)shop|shopping).*)$ | +| Organic Shopping | `Source` is a known shopping site **OR** `Campaign` matches regex `^(.*(([^a-df-z]|^)shop|shopping).*)$` | | Organic Social | `Source` is a known social site **OR** `Medium` is "social", "social-network", "social-media", "sm", "social network" or "social media" | -| Organic Video | `Source` is a known video site **OR** `Medium` matches regex ^(.*video.*)$ | +| Organic Video | `Source` is a known video site **OR** `Medium` matches regex `^(.*video.*)$` | | Paid Other | `Medium` matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$ | -| Paid Search | `Source` is a known search site **AND** `Medium` matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$ **OR** the link includes a "gclid" or "msclkid" parameter | -| Paid Shopping | `Source` is a known shopping site **OR** `Campaign` matches regex ^(.*(([^a-df-z]|^)shop|shopping).*)$ **AND** `Medium` matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$ | -| Paid Social | `Source` is a known social site (including abbreviations IG and FB) **AND** `Medium` matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$ **OR** `Source` includes a known social site which ends with "ad" or "ads" (as in "fb-ads" or "facebook_feed_ad" | -| Paid Video | `Source` is a known video site (including abbreviation YT) **AND** `Medium` matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$ **OR** `Source` includes a known video site which ends with "ad" or "ads" (as in "yt-ads") | +| Paid Search | `Source` is a known search site **AND** `Medium` matches regex `^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$` **OR** the link includes a "gclid" or "msclkid" parameter | +| Paid Shopping | `Source` is a known shopping site **OR** `Campaign` matches regex `^(.*(([^a-df-z]|^)shop|shopping).*)$` **AND** `Medium` matches regex `^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$` | +| Paid Social | `Source` is a known social site (including abbreviations IG and FB) **AND** `Medium` matches regex `^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$` **OR** `Source` includes a known social site which ends with "ad" or "ads" (as in "fb-ads" or "facebook_feed_ad" | +| Paid Video | `Source` is a known video site (including abbreviation YT) **AND** `Medium` matches regex `^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$` **OR** `Source` includes a known video site which ends with "ad" or "ads" (as in "yt-ads") | | Referral | `Medium` is "referral", "app" or "link" | | SMS | `Source` is "sms" **OR** `Medium` is "sms" | From 3236bcbedb3a50a74061509a00af10fb1ee4b9ec Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2024 11:14:01 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 46/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index b06e1a53..09361cfa 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ Are you running paid marketing campaigns on Facebook, Google and other ad platfo Here's an example of how to tag your links: `yourdomain.com?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=novemberoffer&utm_content=sustainability&utm_term=discount` -To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**", "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" sections in the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. +To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**" (UTM Source section also includes any traffic tagged with "ref" and "source" parameters), "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" sections in the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. ### GCLID, FBCLID and other special marketing parameters From c5a568fb401be123e7bd2908869612cbc1b6fee1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2024 11:40:56 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 47/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 8 ++++---- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 09361cfa..6b4c0315 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ Using [the "**Filter**" button on the top of your dashboard](filters-segments.md ## Channels -In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see a breakdown of your sources into high-level categories such as "**Organic Social**", "**Paid Search**" and "**Email**". Here are the definitions and descriptions of each channel: +In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can view a breakdown of your sources categorized into high-level groups such as "**Organic Social**", "**Paid Search**" and "**Email**". By clicking on any individual channel, you can see a detailed list of the specific sources within that channel that are driving traffic to your site. Below are the definitions and descriptions for each channel: | Channel | Definition | | :---------------------------------- | :----------------------------- | @@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ Please note that channel groupings and definitions may evolve as the market chan ## Sources -In the "**Sources**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the full list of your individual referral sources such as "**Google**", "**Facebook**", "**LinkedIn**", "**Reddit**" and "**chatgpt.com**". +In the "**Sources**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the full list of your referral sources such as "**Google**", "**Facebook**", "**LinkedIn**", "**Reddit**" and "**chatgpt.com**". Browsers only send the domain name of the referrer and not the actual URL. If `thatblog.com/one-post/` sends you visitors, you will see `thatblog.com` in your sources list but won’t see the exact post URL itself. [See more here](https://plausible.io/blog/referrer-policy). @@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ UTM tags are case-sensitive, which may lead to duplicated or miscategorized traf For instance, clicks you get from Facebook which are not tagged by UTMs are labeled with a referral source "**Facebook**" by Facebook itself. Suppose you tag some links that you share on Facebook with `utm_source=facebook`, `utm_source=fb` or `utm_source=facebook-ads`. In that case, clicks on those tagged links will be consolidated alongside organic clicks within the "**Facebook**" entry in the "**Sources**" tab of your "**Top Sources**" report providing a unified view of all Facebook clicks. -You can isolate your paid clicks from organic traffic or organic clicks from paid traffic by using the "**Channels**" tab or the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. +You can still isolate your paid clicks from organic traffic or organic clicks from paid traffic by using the "**Channels**" tab or the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. ### Keyword phrases from Google search @@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ Are you running paid marketing campaigns on Facebook, Google and other ad platfo Here's an example of how to tag your links: `yourdomain.com?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=novemberoffer&utm_content=sustainability&utm_term=discount` -To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**" (UTM Source section also includes any traffic tagged with "ref" and "source" parameters), "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" sections in the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. +To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**" (here you can also see any traffic tagged with "ref" and "source" parameters), "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" sections in the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. ### GCLID, FBCLID and other special marketing parameters From 8d13ec25be1516ed1cff3e538155bfc5d5e2c3c0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2024 11:48:49 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 48/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 6b4c0315..55ab73b7 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ Please note that channel groupings and definitions may evolve as the market chan In the "**Sources**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can see the full list of your referral sources such as "**Google**", "**Facebook**", "**LinkedIn**", "**Reddit**" and "**chatgpt.com**". -Browsers only send the domain name of the referrer and not the actual URL. If `thatblog.com/one-post/` sends you visitors, you will see `thatblog.com` in your sources list but won’t see the exact post URL itself. [See more here](https://plausible.io/blog/referrer-policy). +Note that browsers only send the domain name of the referrer and not the actual URL. If `thatblog.com/one-post/` sends you visitors, you will see `thatblog.com` in your sources list but won’t see the exact post URL itself. [See more here](https://plausible.io/blog/referrer-policy). ### No need to manually exclude unwanted sources @@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ Are you running paid marketing campaigns on Facebook, Google and other ad platfo Here's an example of how to tag your links: `yourdomain.com?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=novemberoffer&utm_content=sustainability&utm_term=discount` -To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from the organic clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**" (here you can also see any traffic tagged with "ref" and "source" parameters), "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" sections in the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. +To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from other clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**" (here you can also see any traffic tagged with "ref" and "source" parameters), "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" sections in the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. ### GCLID, FBCLID and other special marketing parameters From 3784008455dfa6f411b4c9183fb29bb643b692a6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Marko Saric <34340819+metmarkosaric@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2024 23:27:47 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 49/49] Update top-referrers.md --- docs/top-referrers.md | 19 +++++-------------- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-) diff --git a/docs/top-referrers.md b/docs/top-referrers.md index 55ab73b7..ff5a3c74 100644 --- a/docs/top-referrers.md +++ b/docs/top-referrers.md @@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ In the "**Channels**" tab within the "**Top Sources**" report, you can view a br | Organic Social | `Source` is a known social site **OR** `Medium` is "social", "social-network", "social-media", "sm", "social network" or "social media" | | Organic Video | `Source` is a known video site **OR** `Medium` matches regex `^(.*video.*)$` | | Paid Other | `Medium` matches regex ^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$ | -| Paid Search | `Source` is a known search site **AND** `Medium` matches regex `^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$` **OR** the link includes a "gclid" or "msclkid" parameter | +| Paid Search | `Source` is a known search site **AND** `Medium` matches regex `^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$` **OR** `Source` is Google and the link includes a "gclid" parameter **OR** `Source` is Bing and the link includes a "msclkid" parameter **OR** `Source` is "adwords" or includes a known search site which ends with "ad" or "ads" (as in "googleads") | | Paid Shopping | `Source` is a known shopping site **OR** `Campaign` matches regex `^(.*(([^a-df-z]|^)shop|shopping).*)$` **AND** `Medium` matches regex `^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$` | | Paid Social | `Source` is a known social site (including abbreviations IG and FB) **AND** `Medium` matches regex `^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$` **OR** `Source` includes a known social site which ends with "ad" or "ads" (as in "fb-ads" or "facebook_feed_ad" | | Paid Video | `Source` is a known video site (including abbreviation YT) **AND** `Medium` matches regex `^(.*cp.*|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$` **OR** `Source` includes a known video site which ends with "ad" or "ads" (as in "yt-ads") | @@ -87,22 +87,13 @@ Here's an example of how to tag your links: `yourdomain.com?utm_source=adwords&u To isolate your UTM-tagged clicks from other clicks, you can segment the traffic by using the "**UTM Medium**", "**UTM Source**" (here you can also see any traffic tagged with "ref" and "source" parameters), "**UTM Campaign**", "**UTM Content**" and "**UTM Term**" sections in the "**Campaigns**" tab of the "**Top Sources**" report. -### GCLID, FBCLID and other special marketing parameters +### gclid and msclkid marketing parameters -If the UTM tag is not present within the link, Plausible also records clicks from GCLID, FBCLID and other paid marketing parameters. You can view and filter these within the "**UTM Medium**" section of the "**Top Sources**" report. +If the UTM tag is not present within the link, Plausible also records clicks from "gclid" and "msclkid" which are special paid marketing parameters. You can view and filter these within the "**UTM Medium**" section of the "**Top Sources**" report. -Please note that we strip the values of these paid marketing parameters because they are considered unique identifiers and are not GDPR-compliant without user consent. This means you can view and filter your dashboard by the audience coming from GCLID-tagged links, but you will not see the unique identifier for each visitor. +Please note that we strip the values from "gclid" and "msclkid" parameters because they are considered unique identifiers and are not GDPR-compliant without user consent. This means you can view and filter your dashboard by the audience coming from "gclid" or "msclkid" tagged links, but you will not see the unique identifier for each visitor. -This is why we recommend using UTM tags when tagging your paid ad campaigns. When a UTM tag is present in the link, it takes priority over other parameters. And unlike the marketing parameters listed below, we do not strip the values of UTM tags which provides you more powerful insights. - -These are the special marketing parameters that we do record and list in the "**UTM Medium**" section but that we do strip the unique values of: - -* `gclid` -* `gbraid` -* `wbraid` -* `msclkid` -* `fbclid` -* `twclid` +This is why we recommend using UTM tags when tagging your paid ad campaigns. When a UTM tag is present in the link, it takes priority over other parameters. And unlike the "gclid" and "msclkid" marketing parameters, we do not strip the values of UTM tags which provides you more powerful insights. ### How to track conversion attribution