Using Mixpanel to Differentiate Direct, Paid, and Search Traffic

Vlad S.

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does anyone know of a way to use mixpanel to distinguish between direct vs paid vs search traffic?

9 comments

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Andrew S.
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not sure that this answers your question re "search" vs "paid" bc I have not look at what initial referring domain has for one vs the other. but for "direct", this convo talked about using the initial referring domain. https://mixpanelcommunity.slack.com/archives/C02RUV27S3V/p1724327972273609?thread_ts=1724325963.888699&cid=C02RUV27S3V
Vlad S.
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yeah, the direct category is the "easiest" to look at by using the referrer field, I was more interested in being able to distinguish paid sources from organic ones (my execs think we should be able to do this, but I'm highly skeptical, since ad companies are pretty secretive with their data)
Andrew S.
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maybe you can use "search engine" on page view (null = not search, a value = search) for if it's a search source
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Andrew S.
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and presumably a paid campaign should use some sort of utm_campaign so if null vs a value it is paid search?
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Vlad S.
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ha! yeah I thought about the UTM tags, but I'm not in charge of our campaigns and I'm pretty sure the marketing team hasn't been adding the UTM tags dilligently (or at all)
Vlad S.
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ok cool, your thoughts echo mine, there's likely no "silver bullet" for this, just good old data munging and shoulder shrugging
Andrew S.
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https://i.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExemh0ZjUydG00bnp2aHZ3a2kxYXEyZGZidm9sN[…]2MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/l3vRkGgMfvANIFtE4/giphy.gif
🤷1
Vlad S.
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I mean even when you have "perfect" data, attribution is still kind of a nightmare, since everyone has their own complex path to your site and trying to sum all those up into three categories is fraught
Andrew S.
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totally

Andrew S.
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not sure that this answers your question re "search" vs "paid" bc I have not look at what initial referring domain has for one vs the other. but for "direct", this convo talked about using the initial referring domain. https://mixpanelcommunity.slack.com/archives/C02RUV27S3V/p1724327972273609?thread_ts=1724325963.888699&cid=C02RUV27S3V
Vlad S.
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yeah, the direct category is the "easiest" to look at by using the referrer field, I was more interested in being able to distinguish paid sources from organic ones (my execs think we should be able to do this, but I'm highly skeptical, since ad companies are pretty secretive with their data)
Andrew S.
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·
maybe you can use "search engine" on page view (null = not search, a value = search) for if it's a search source
Loading attachments
Andrew S.
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·
and presumably a paid campaign should use some sort of utm_campaign so if null vs a value it is paid search?
Loading attachments
Vlad S.
·
·
ha! yeah I thought about the UTM tags, but I'm not in charge of our campaigns and I'm pretty sure the marketing team hasn't been adding the UTM tags dilligently (or at all)
Vlad S.
·
·
ok cool, your thoughts echo mine, there's likely no "silver bullet" for this, just good old data munging and shoulder shrugging
Andrew S.
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·
https://i.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExemh0ZjUydG00bnp2aHZ3a2kxYXEyZGZidm9sN[…]2MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/l3vRkGgMfvANIFtE4/giphy.gif
🤷1
Vlad S.
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I mean even when you have "perfect" data, attribution is still kind of a nightmare, since everyone has their own complex path to your site and trying to sum all those up into three categories is fraught
Andrew S.
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totally