The Referring Sites report shows the websites that are sending traffic to you. 

Use the Referring Sites report for the following analysis tasks:

• Track the influence of key websites on-site traffic to your website and measure its value.
• Identify areas of extra value to capitalize on or to re-sort the data by the number of sessions.
• Identify traffic sources that generate a fair amount of traffic but do not generate an appropriate amount of conversion. The referrers at the top of this list are areas for possible improvement.
• Identify potential business partners or affiliates who are driving traffic and are converting well.
• Use the Average Session Length and Bounce Rate metrics to identify the quality of the traffic from the referring sites.
• Review traffic and conversion for the Referring Sites channel in the Marketing Channels report comparing performance to other marketing channels.
• Use the Digital Analytics Benchmark to benchmark the referring sites channel to understand if traffic and conversion from this channel are above or below the industry benchmark.

The Referring Sites report can include either the same-session or attribution metrics. Same-session metrics attribute all user activity to the referral source, which initiates each session or visit. Attribution windows use Digital Analytics visitor profiles to look across multiple sessions/visits and reassign credit according to the selected attribution window rules. Where visitors ultimately convert through Direct Load, attribution windows can help to determine the value of the paid campaign touchpoints that lead to a conversion.

Get intraday reporting on Referring Sites reports

You can enable intraday reporting on your Referring Sites report by opening a ticket with Acoustic support. When you open the ticket, make sure to specify a frequency for how often you want the report generated. The default is every 4 hours.

Here's what you can do with intraday:

• See when your report was last updated. Open the report, click the Calendar icon, and today’s date. A timestamp tells you when your report was lasted generated. The timestamp uses a "Current as of <date><time>" format, where <date> and <time> are set to the time zone and date format for your client id.
• Get updates on metrics by opening the report and looking at the Tiny-icon on the metric.

Intraday is not supported on segmented or filtered reports and does not support Week-to-date, Month-to-date, Quarter-to-date, Year-to-date, and Custom Date Range reports (rollup functionality). It is also not supported for click attribution metrics, such as New Visitors 14 days - backward - last click or Page Views 14 days - backward - average click.

Referring Sites report use case

The following use case shows how to select and compile data about referrers using the Referring Sites report. Your task is to identify the traffic and conversion on your company website from Twitter and Facebook. The following is an extract of your results from the Referring Sites report.

Based on the data from the report, you find that Facebook drives more traffic and has a higher conversion rate when compared to Twitter. However, Twitter drives more Events Completed and has a lower Bounce Rate and Average Session Length when compared to Facebook.

You create a segment for each of the referring sites. You apply your Twitter segment to the Events report to determine which Events are being completed on your website for sessions coming from Twitter. You also apply your Twitter and Facebook segments to the Page Categories report to analyze landing page performance. You then use this data in conjunction with LIVEview to optimize landing pages for sessions coming to your company website from Facebook and Twitter.

Key performance indicators for the Referring Sites report

Focus on the following key performance indicators when analyzing data in the Referring Sites report.

Unique Visitors

The number of unique visitors as determined by a count of distinct persistent cookies.

Unique Buyers / Visitors

The ratio of visitors who purchased a product to all visitors who visited your site: Unique Buyers divided by Unique Visitors.

Online: Sales

Sales generated ruing the selected time period that is attributed to the referring site.

Bounce Rate

The percentage of sessions that were single-page sessions during the selected time period, that is attributed to the referring site. A high percentage shows that visitors are "bouncing" off their arrival page without visiting other pages on your site.

New Visitor Percentage

The percentage of first-time visitors during the selected time period attributed to the referring site.

Additionally, if you edit the Referring Sites report, you can add these metrics.

Average Session Length

The average length of sessions during the selected time period attributed to the referring site.

Buying Sessions / Total Sessions

Buying sessions divided by total sessions.

Event Points

The total number of event points. Event data is collected by the Conversion Event tag. Action Type = 1 reflects an initiation. Action Type = 2 reflects a completion. Passing Event Point values is optional.

Event Points / Session

The average number of event points per session: Event Points divided by Sessions. Event data is collected by the Conversion Event tag. Action Type = 1 reflects an initiation. Action Type = 2 reflects a completion. Passing Event Point values is optional.

Event Sessions

The total number of sessions that consist of at least one completed event. Event data is collected by the Conversion Event tag. Action Type = 1 reflects an initiation. Action Type = 2 reflects a completion. Passing Event Point values is optional.

Events Completed

The number of conversion events completed. A count of the collected Conversion Event tags where type = 2. Event data is collected by the Conversion Event tag. Action Type = 1 reflects an initiation. Action Type = 2 reflects a completion. Passing Event Point values is optional.

Events Completed / Session

The number of events completed divided by session.

New Visitors

The total number of new visitors (persistent cookie values that were not seen previously).

One Page Sessions

The total number of sessions with a single page.

Online: Average Order Value

The average value of a submitted online order: Online: Sales divided by Online: Orders.

Online: Average Shipping & Handling

The average shipping and handling fees for transactions completed via online channels.

Online: Buying Sessions

The number of sessions in which an order was placed via online channels.

Online: Orders

The total number of orders placed in online channels. A count of the Order tag.

Online: Total Shipping & Handling

The total shipping and handling value for orders completed via online channels.

Online: Unique Buyers

The total number of visitors who purchased one or more products via online channels.

Page Views

The total number of times the page (or category that contains the page) was viewed. A count of the collected Page View tags.

Page Views / Session

The average number of pages viewed in a visitor session during the selected time period, attributed to the referring site.

Sessions

The number of sessions during the selected time period attributed to the referring site.