What is Performance by Traffic Source?
Performance by Traffic Source helps you understand performance metrics for each channel that brings visitors to your site. This report makes it easier to see which sources are driving traffic, engagement, and earnings, so you can better understand what’s working and where new growth opportunities may be emerging.
The report pulls in data from your Google Analytics account and groups individual referrers into key traffic sources. Here’s a breakdown of what’s included in each source:
- Google Search: All Google referrer values, including non-US versions and alternate values like www.google.com vs search.google.com.
- Bing: All Bing referrer values.
- Yahoo: All Yahoo referrer values.
- Email: All Email referrer values, including traffic from your own email campaigns and other email sources.
- Pinterest: All Pinterest referrer values, including non-US versions.
- Facebook: All Facebook referrer values, including www.facebook.com, m.facebook.com, l.facebook.com, lm.facebook.com, etc.
- Instagram: All Instagram referrer values, including www.instagram.com, m.instagram.com, l.instagram.com, lm.instagram.com, etc.
- Twitter: All Twitter referrer values, including non-US versions.
- ChatGPT: All ChatGPT referrer values.
- Reddit: All Reddit referrer values.
- MSN: All MSN referrer values, including msn_articles and msn_slideshow.
- Flipboard: All Flipboard referrer values.
- SmartNews: All SmartNews referrer values.
- NewsBreak: All NewsBreak referrer values, including newsbreakapp.
- GRO: All GRO referrer values, including traffic formerly categorized as GrocersList.
- Direct: Traffic that comes in without a referrer value.
- Other: Traffic that does not fall into one of the above groups.
Performance by Traffic Source surfaces the following metrics for each page of your site:
- Sessions: The number of visits to your site from a specific traffic source.
- Pageviews: Raptive relies on Google Analytics to report pageviews for each site in our network. Google Analytics measures a pageview whenever someone loads a page on a website or their browser history state is changed by the active site.
- RPM: Revenue per 1,000 sessions. Total ad earnings divided by sessions for the same time period multiplied by 1,000.
- Page RPM: Revenue per 1,000 pageviews. Total ad earnings divided by pageviews for the same time period multiplied by 1,000.
- Earnings: The amount of money you earned.
- Pages per Session: The average number of pages viewed during each session from a specific traffic source.
- Impressions per Pageview: The amount of ad impressions that were served, on average, for each pageview to a specific URL (ads in view refresh every 30 seconds)
- CPM: “Cost per mille” or “cost per 1,000" refers to the revenue you make for every 1,000 ad impressions that were filled.
- Viewability: A measurement of how well ads on the page are seen by readers (higher viewability can lead to higher earnings)
Powered by Google Ad Manager 360, Performance by Traffic Source blends revenue data with Google Analytics pageviews for each URL in the report. Access complete and reliable lifetime earnings as far back as the data is available!
You can click the arrows in the column headers to sort by another metric or to reverse-sort. When you do this, an updated set of pages will populate in the table. So, if you choose to sort by the highest Page RPM, your 100 pages with the highest Page RPM from the selected traffic source will display. Reverse-sort to see your 100 pages with the lowest Page RPM from that source.
Notes:
- Performance by Traffic Source data is available from August 7, 2021, onward.
- On May 15, 2024, we corrected an issue in which some null traffic sources were being rolled up into Other instead of Direct, and applied this change retroactively in the dashboard.
- On July 16, 2024, we rolled up additional traffic sources into their parent categories and applied these changes retroactively in the dashboard to make your data as accurate as possible.
- On August 27, 2024, we added Email as a separate traffic source. Previously, email traffic was included in the Direct and Other sources. Email reporting before this date may be incomplete.
- On November 7, 2024, we broke out additional traffic sources for Flipboard, MSN, SmartNews, and NewsBreak. Previously, these sources were included in Other. We applied these changes retroactively to make your data as accurate as possible.
- On June 16, 2026, we broke out additional top traffic sources, including Bing, Yahoo, ChatGPT, Reddit, and GRO. GRO includes traffic formerly categorized as GrocersList. Previously, these sources were included in Other. We applied these changes retroactively to make your data as accurate as possible.
FAQs
Q: How does traffic get assigned to “Email”?
A: We look for UTM parameters that, when included as part of a linked URL, identify traffic as having come from email. UTM is a tracking method used to analyze the effectiveness of marketing campaigns by attaching specific tracking information to URLs. UTM parameters are the individual tags added to URLs.
When one of your site visitors clicks on a link with UTM parameters, the data is sent to analytics tools (such as Google Analytics), which helps you identify the traffic source for that site visit.
Some common URL identifiers for email include:
- utm_medium=email (Note: this also captures identifiers before and after “email”, such as “WY_email” or “email_button”)
- utm_medium=rss
- utm_medium=newsletter
- utm_medium=campaign
- utm_medium=flodesk
- utm_medium=feedblitz (Note: this also captures identifiers before and after, such as “feedblitzemail” or “feedblitzrss”)
Q: Why don’t I have any email traffic and/or revenue?
A: Check the URLs in your email newsletters to ensure they include utm_medium parameters that identify email traffic. Most email service providers apply these parameters automatically. Contact our team if you need help identifying or adding UTM parameters.
Q: Why is my email RPM super high and/or why is my email traffic so low when I’m seeing revenue from it?
A: If you’re using Monster Insights, it could be because of the “Privacy Guard”. You could test disabling the Privacy Guard in Monter Insights which should allow Google Analytics to track properly.