In my page session tracking post, I covered what I consider the most important website analytics report: page sessions. Now, I want to cover what I believe is the second most valuable report—sessions by channel.
Since I’ve only recently started focusing on my website, my channel data isn’t impressive yet, but it’s enough to highlight the insights this report provides. I also don’t have any Paid Search or Email traffic yet, which are common channels for most websites.
Historically, businesses focused on a single channel. That expanded into multi-channel marketing, and today, omnichannel is the goal. Success in all your channels requires regularly evaluating each channel’s performance.
When assessing traffic, keep these key factors, listed in least to most important, in mind:
- Impressions – An indicator of your content being viewed and a verification that your data collection is indeed working.
- Visits – Shows that people are clicking and arriving at your site.
- The Right Visitors – Not just any traffic, but those that fit your target audience.
- Conversions – Typically a form submission, purchase, or engagement with key content like a video or PDF.
General Questions to Ask About Your Channel Data
Before diving into individual channels, consider these broader questions:
- Does anything look inaccurate? Look for anomalies that might indicate tracking issues.
- Are there seasonal trends? Does traffic spike around holidays, industry events, or specific times of the year like when school is/isn’t in session?
- Can traffic spikes be linked to marketing campaigns, news, or other activities?
- Which channels drive the highest engagement and conversions? High traffic doesn’t always mean high value.
- Are your investments (time and money) in each channel yielding proportional returns?
- Are there underperforming channels that need attention? Weak performance could signal issues with visibility, messaging, or targeting.
Industry Benchmarks for Channel Traffic
While every website’s traffic distribution varies based on industry, audience, and strategy, here are some general benchmarks:
- Direct Traffic: ~15% (often influenced by brand recognition and offline marketing).
- Organic Search: ~27% of total traffic (varies widely based on SEO efforts).
- Paid Search Traffic: ~10% (varies based on ad spend and campaign strategy).
- Referral Traffic: ~16% (depends on partnerships, PR, and external links).
- Email Traffic: ~6% (highly dependent on list quality and campaign effectiveness).
- Social Media Traffic: ~5% (higher for industries with strong social engagement).
These averages can fluctuate significantly:
- B2B websites tend to rely more on direct and referral traffic.
- eCommerce often sees more paid search and social traffic.
- Media and entertainment benefit from increased social and referral traffic.
Ultimately, the best benchmark is your own historical data. Google Analytics’ Benchmarking Reports can provide industry-specific comparisons, but tracking your own trends over time is the best way to measure success.
Channel-Specific Insights and Questions
Direct Traffic
Visitors who type your URL directly or use bookmarks.
Industry Benchmark: ~15% of traffic.
- Potential Issues: Can be inflated by tracking errors (e.g., missing UTM parameters in emails or incorrect redirects).
- Key Insights: A high direct traffic percentage often indicates strong brand awareness. However, if it’s unusually high, check for tracking gaps.
Organic Traffic
Visitors from unpaid search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!
Industry Benchmark: ~27% of traffic.
- Key Insights: Monitor keyword rankings, clickthrough rate, and organic conversion rates.
Paid Traffic
Paid traffic from Google Ads, Bing Ads, etc.; Paid social includes Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.; Paid video includes YouTube, TikTok, etc.
Industry Benchmark: ~10% of traffic.
- Key Insights: Keyword performance is crucial; high cost per click’s may indicate a need for better targeting.
Referral Traffic
Visitors from external websites.
Industry Benchmark: ~16% of traffic.
- Key Insights: Monitor where your referral traffic originates. High-quality backlinks improve both referral traffic and SEO.
Email Traffic
Visitors from email or newsletter campaigns.
Industry Benchmark: ~6% of traffic.
- Key Insights: Email UTM tracking is essential; missing tags can cause traffic to be misclassified as direct.
Other Traffic Sources
Affiliates
- Key Insights: Strong for eCommerce; track partner performance.
Audio Ads
- Key Insights: Emerging channel with varying engagement levels.
SMS & Push Notifications
- Key Insights: Highly dependent on user opt-in rates.
Unassigned Traffic
- Potential Issues: If this number is significant, it could indicate broken tracking, bot traffic, or possible valid traffic. If valid traffic, confirm if an existing channel should be used or create a custom channel to categorize them correctly.
Final Thoughts
Analyzing traffic by channel isn’t just about seeing where visitors come from—it’s about understanding intent, engagement, and ROI. Use these benchmarks as a reference, but focus on how your traffic mix evolves over time. Consistently refining your approach based on channel insights will help you drive more targeted, high-quality traffic and improve conversion rates.