Google Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking website traffic and user behaviour. It allows businesses to understand their customers better and make informed decisions about their digital marketing strategies. One of the most important pieces of data that Google Analytics provides is the source of website traffic, which is broken down into different “mediums”. Knowing what these mediums are and how they are categorized can help businesses to make better decisions about their digital marketing efforts.
Defining "Medium" in Google Analytics
A “medium” in Google Analytics is a way of categorizing the source of website traffic. It is used to group together different sources of traffic, such as organic search, direct links, or referral links. Knowing the medium of website traffic can help businesses to understand how their customers are finding their website and which digital marketing strategies are working best.
Google Analytics provides a default list of mediums, which includes: organic, cpc, referral, direct, and none. Organic refers to visitors who have found the website by searching on a search engine such as Google or Bing. CPC refers to visitors who have found the website by clicking on a paid advertisement. Referral refers to visitors who have found the website by clicking on a link from another website. Direct refers to visitors who have typed in the website’s URL into their browser. None refers to traffic that is not attributed to any of the other mediums.
What Is Not Considered a Default "Medium"
While Google Analytics provides a default list of mediums, there are other sources of website traffic that are not considered a default “medium”. These sources include email campaigns, social media campaigns, and display ads.
Email campaigns refer to visitors who have found the website by clicking on a link in an email. Social media campaigns refer to visitors who have found the website by clicking on a link from a social media platform such as Facebook or Twitter. Display ads refer to visitors who have found the website by clicking on a banner ad on another website.
Google Analytics does not categorize these sources of website traffic as a default “medium”, but it is still possible to track them. This can be done by setting up custom campaign parameters, which will allow businesses to track the source of website traffic and gain insights into the effectiveness of their digital marketing campaigns.
In conclusion, Google Analytics provides a default list of mediums for categorizing website traffic, but there are other sources of traffic that are not considered a default “medium”. These sources include email campaigns
Google Analytics is a powerful digital analytics tool used by businesses and marketers to track user web and mobile usage behaviors, understand customer journeys, and measure website performance. By default, it is set up to track the “medium” of a website session – in other words, the channel that drove the customer to a website. Knowing which mediums are properly tracked through Google Analytics is essential, so that marketers and businesses can measure and quantify the results of their marketing efforts.
For Google Analytics, the default “medium” includes the following:
direct: refers to visitors who directly type in the URL to reach a website, either because they’re already familiar with it or because they have remembered the URL from an earlier advertisement
organic: refers to visitors who search for a website and find it through search engine results
referral: refers to visitors who have followed a link from another website to reach a website
However, there are other “mediums” that are not considered part of the default in Google Analytics and must be changed manually. These include:
social: refers to visitors who found a website by clicking a link on a social network like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn
email: refers to visitors who clicked on a link from an email
cpc: refers to visitors who followed a link from a pay-per-click ad
app: refers to visitors who accessed a website through a mobile device app
By tracking these additional mediums, businesses gain a better understanding of how users interact with their sites and can get a more accurate idea of where to allocate their money for marketing efforts.
Google Analytics is an essential tool for digital marketers and businesses alike. Knowing which mediums are tracked by default and which ones need to be added manually will help marketers better understand user behavior and track website performance more accurately.