{"id":47751,"date":"2019-04-30T06:35:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T13:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eigene-homepage-erstellen.net\/?p=47751"},"modified":"2019-04-29T17:58:27","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T00:58:27","slug":"is-direct-traffic-an-indicator-of-brand-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eigene-homepage-erstellen.net\/blog\/analytics\/is-direct-traffic-an-indicator-of-brand-strength.htm","title":{"rendered":"Is Direct Traffic an Indicator of Brand Strength?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you’ve gone into Google Analytics lately to look at your website performance, you’ll notice a large chunk of traffic and conversions attributed to “Direct.” <\/p>\n

It’s tempting to think all those visitors came to your website because they either already know your brand, or saw some kind of offline advertising you did. But in this post, we’ll lay out a few reasons why that isn’t always the case, and what you can do to get a true understanding of your brand strength in Google Analytics.<\/p>\n

Some Background on “Direct” Traffic<\/h2>\n

A very common misconception in digital marketing is that Direct traffic is registered when a user visits your website by typing your URL into their browser, or from bookmarking the site. <\/p>\n

This might have to do with Google’s definition<\/a> of Direct source traffic, which is as “users that typed your URL directly into their browser, or who had bookmarked your site.”<\/p>\n

This is true, but not comprehensive.<\/p>\n

Direct traffic is actually:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Users who type your URL directly into their browser<\/li>\n
  2. Users who bookmark your site and navigate to it from their bookmark<\/li>\n
  3. Users from any source where Google Analytics can’t detect referral information<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    That third grouping of traffic can create a black box for marketers. <\/p>\n

    We hope to shed some light into that black box and provide you with a handful of metrics and reports to better show the strength of your brand through Direct traffic.<\/p>\n

    Direct Traffic That isn’t Actually Direct<\/h2>\n

    When traffic arrives on your site that doesn’t fit any other Google Analytics channel and can’t be considered actual Direct traffic, we refer to it as “dark” traffic. <\/p>\n

    Recently, Portent Analytics Architect Michael Wiegand did a study and found that an average of 17.6% of our clients’ traffic was dark.<\/a><\/p>\n

    For example, if you’re getting Direct traffic to pages deep in your website, or to URLs that would be unnatural for someone to type into a browser, then that traffic is likely “dark” traffic. Depending on the page content and volume of landing page sessions, a bookmark may also not be likely.<\/p>\n

    However, “dark” does not necessarily mean “bad” traffic. It simply means that Google Analytics cannot track where the user came from when they arrived on your site. The reality is that there is a growing number of reasons for this. Some examples of sources that GA sometimes cannot track are:<\/p>\n