Understanding Your Website Traffic Sources with HubSpot Analytics

Understanding where your website traffic comes from is crucial for optimizing your marketing efforts and maximizing ROI. HubSpot's Traffic Analytics tool helps you break down your traffic into different sources, providing insights into which channels are most effective at driving visitors to your site. This article dives deep into how HubSpot categorizes traffic sources within its analytics tool, empowering you to make data-driven decisions.

Why Traffic Source Analysis Matters

Analyzing traffic sources allows you to:

• Identify high-performing channels: Focus your resources on the sources that drive the most valuable traffic.
• Understand user behavior: Learn how visitors from different sources interact with your website.
• Optimize marketing campaigns: Refine your strategies based on the performance of each channel.
• Improve ROI: Allocate your budget effectively by investing in the most profitable sources.

How HubSpot Categorizes Traffic Sources

HubSpot's traffic analytics tool automatically categorizes website traffic based on specific rules. These rules examine the full page URL and referring domain (if available) to determine the source. The "First page seen" property is used for categorization, and the rules are applied in a specific order, ensuring accurate attribution.

Here's a breakdown of the traffic sources and the rules HubSpot uses to identify them:

• Organic Social: Traffic from social media platforms.

  • utm_medium parameter is "social" and utm_source matches a recognized social network (e.g., Facebook, Twitter).
  • Referring domain is a social media site.

• Paid Search: Traffic from paid advertising campaigns on search engines.

  • Source parameter contains "adword," "ppc," or "cpc."
  • gclid parameter is present (Google Click ID).
  • utm_medium parameter contains "paid," "ppc," or "cpc" and utm_source is a social network.
  • utm_source, utm_medium, or utm_campaign contains "adword", "ppc", or "cpc", and the referring domain is google.com.

• Paid Social: Traffic from paid advertising on social media platforms.

  • The "utm_medium" parameter contains "paid," "ppc," or "cpc", and the referring domain is a social media site.
  • The "utm_source" or "utm_medium" contains "paidsocial".

• Email Marketing: Traffic from email campaigns.

  • utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, or source parameter contains "email."

• Other Campaigns: Traffic from custom marketing campaigns using tracking URLs.

  • utm_source, utm_medium, or utm_campaign parameter is present but doesn't contain "email," "adword," "ppc," or "cpc."

• Referrals: Traffic from external websites linking to your site.

  • Referring domain is not a social media site or search engine.

• Organic Search: Traffic from unpaid search results on search engines.

  • Referring domain is a search engine (e.g., Google, Bing, Yahoo).

• Direct Traffic: Traffic where the source is unknown (e.g., direct URL entry, bookmarks).

  • No referring domain or tracking URL is present.
  • Referring domain is a mail domain, or RSS reader.

• None: Internal traffic.

  • Referring domain is considered internal traffic based on the listed site domains in reports settings.

Exploring Traffic Source Data in HubSpot

HubSpot allows you to drill down into each traffic source to gain more granular insights. By clicking on a specific source in the Traffic Analytics tool, you can view:

• Keywords (Organic Search): The search terms visitors used to find your site. Note that "Unknown keywords (SSL)" may appear due to search engine encryption. Google encrypts all search terms entered by users.
• Referring Domains (Referrals): The specific websites that are sending traffic your way .
• Social Media Channels (Organic Social & Paid Social): The social platforms driving traffic to your site (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn). HubSpot recognizes a LOT of social media networks!
• Campaigns (Email Marketing, Paid Search, Paid Social, Other Campaigns): The marketing campaigns associated with the traffic. HubSpot will automatically add this parameter if there is a campaign connected to your post when using their social publishing tool.
• Entrance URLs (Direct Traffic): The specific pages visitors accessed directly.

Understanding Email Marketing Data

When viewing data in the Sources table, there are a few default campaign values for HubSpot marketing emails:

• hs_email is the default campaign if the marketing email was sent without being associated with a campaign.
• hs_automation is the default campaign assigned to automated emails sent through workflows.

Best Practices for Traffic Source Analysis

• Use UTM parameters: Consistently use UTM parameters in your campaign URLs to accurately track traffic sources.
• Exclude internal traffic: Filter out traffic from your own team to avoid skewing your data. You can define internal traffic based on the listed site domains in reports settings.
• Monitor trends over time: Track traffic sources regularly to identify changes and patterns.
• Integrate with other tools: Connect HubSpot with other marketing platforms to gain a holistic view of your data .

Troubleshooting Traffic Source Discrepancies

Sometimes, you might notice discrepancies in your traffic source data. Here are some common causes and solutions:

• Missing UTM parameters: Ensure all your campaign URLs have properly configured UTM parameters.
• Incorrect categorization: Double-check HubSpot's categorization rules and adjust your UTM parameters accordingly.
• Data processing delays: Keep in mind that HubSpot may reprocess analytics data to gather more accurate information, leading to changes over time, this can occur if HubSpot is able to merge sessions or if contacts' original sources are updated.

Conclusion

By understanding how HubSpot categorizes traffic sources and leveraging its Traffic Analytics tool, you can gain valuable insights into your website's performance. Use this data to optimize your marketing strategies, improve ROI, and drive more qualified traffic to your site.