Apr/26 Sales Analysis Shows Moderated Web Traffic Growth, Strong Sales Growth

Research evidence excerpt

Apr/26 Sales Analysis Shows Moderated Web Traffic Growth, Strong Sales Growth

Marketing Channels

• Direct: traffic sent from users that entered a URL into a browser, used saved bookmarks, or

clicked a direct link from outside the browser (such as on Microsoft Word or an app). Direct traffic

will often come from people with an awareness of, or affinity for, a given site.

• Referrals: traffic sent from one website to another, through a direct link. Includes affiliates,

content partners, and traffic from direct media buying or news coverage. A website with high

traffic from Referrals likely has a strong affiliate strategy or enjoys significant media coverage.

• Organic Search: traffic sent via organic, non-paid results on search engines such as Google or

Bing (SEO). A website that generates a large amount of traffic from Organic Search is optimizing

for top ranks in search results.

• Paid Search: traffic sent from paid search ads on a search engine such as Google or Bing (SEM &

PPC). A website that generates a large amount of traffic from Paid Search is spending advertising

budgets to increase brand awareness and target relevant audiences.

• Email: traffic sent from web-based email clients such as Gmail. Email traffic comes from the URL

of a web-based email client.

• Display Traffic: traffic sent from Display and Video ads via a known ad-serving platform (i.e.,

GDN, Doubleclick). A website that generates a large amount of traffic from Display ads is

spending advertising budgets to increase brand awareness and attract a relevant audience.

• Social: traffic sent from social media sites such as Facebook or Reddit (organic and paid),

including direct media buying from Facebook. Visits from Social are easily influenced (as a result

of a viral article, meme, image, etc.).