03. Definitions used in acquisition reports

Definitions Used in Acquisition Reports

Google analytics uses different dimensions in the acquisition reports. Here is how they are defined:

1. Channel

Channel (or Channel Grouping) is the roll up of traffic sources that groups several marketing activities.

Default channels used in the reports:

  • Social
  • Organic Search
  • Paid Search
  • Direct
  • Referral
  • Affiliates
  • eMail

Figure 1: Example Acquisition Report by channel

Figure 1: Example Acquisition Report by channel

2. Source

"Source" is the origin of the traffic, such as the actual search engine (e.g. Google), the web domain, etc.

Figure 2: Example Acquisition report by source

Figure 2: Example Acquisition report by source

3. Medium

"Medium" is the general category of the source, for example organic search (organic), cost per click (CPC), web referral (referral) etc.

Note: Medium is often reported together with source to provide more info on the nature of the traffic. E.g. source can be Google, medium can be organic or CPC (Google/organic or Google/CPC)

Figure 3: Example Report by Source/Medium

Figure 3: Example Report by Source/Medium

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