[GA4] Traffic acquisition report

The Traffic acquisition report is a pre-made detail report that's designed to help you understand where your website and app visitors are coming from. It specifically shows where new and returning users come from. It differs from the User acquisition report, which shows where new users come from.

Traffic source dimensions

The Traffic acquisition report provides cross-channel traffic source dimensions, a special set of product-agnostic dimensions that help you dig into how you acquire users.

These cross-channel traffic source dimensions provide information across organic and paid traffic sources, google-paid sources and third-party paid sources, buying platforms (e.g., Google Ads, Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360), and publisher or inventory sources (e.g., Google Search, YouTube).

View the report

1.  Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. From the left menu, select Reports .
3. On the left, select Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.

Don't see the report? If you don't see the report on the left, the report may have been removed or the report isn't included in your default set of reports. If you're an editor or administrator, you can add the report to the left navigation. Learn how to add the report

Where the data comes from

You have the option to collect traffic-source data by manually tagging your destination URLs, or by creating integrations between Analytics and your ad platforms (e.g., Google Ads, Search Ads 360, or Display & Video 360) and using the auto-tagging feature available with those integrations.

View data for one traffic source

To find data for one traffic source, you can search for the traffic source in the search bar above the table. For example, to view organic Google Search traffic, search "google / organic" and press Enter.

Dimensions in the report

The Traffic acquisition report includes the following cross-channel traffic source dimensions. These dimensions provide a single, unified view across all traffic sources and marketing channels. The names of the cross-channel traffic source dimensions do not reference any specific integration, channel, or source platform.

Each of the following cross-channel traffic source dimensions includes the word "Session," indicating that the dimension describes a user's most recent session, regardless of whether they're a new or returning user. Learn more about scopes

Metric	What it is	How it's populated
Session campaign	The name of a promotion or marketing campaign that led to a conversion event in a session.	To learn how to populate this dimension, see Traffic-source dimensions, manual tagging, and auto-tagging.
Session default channel grouping	Channel groupings are rule-based definitions of your traffic sources. Default channel groups include 'Direct', 'Organic Search', 'Paid Social', 'Organic Social', and 'Email'. Learn more about the dimension values This is the default dimension for the report.	To learn how to populate this dimension, see Traffic-source dimensions, manual tagging, and auto-tagging.
Session medium	The method for acquiring users in a new session.	To learn how to populate this dimension, see Traffic-source dimensions, manual tagging, and auto-tagging.
Session source	A representation of the publisher or inventory source from which traffic originated. For example, users who return to your website from Google Search show as "google" in the Session source dimension. Examples include “google”, “youtube”, and “gmail”.	To learn how to populate this dimension, see Traffic-source dimensions, manual tagging, and auto-tagging.
Session source / medium	The source and medium associated with a new session.	To learn how to populate this dimension, see Traffic-source dimensions, manual tagging, and auto-tagging.
Session source platform	The platform where you manage buying activity (i.e., where budgets and targeting criteria are set). Examples include: 'DV360' (traffic from Display & Video 360 marketing activity) 'Google Ads' (traffic from Google Ads marketing activity) 'Manual' (traffic that isn't from Google media marketing activity) 'SA360' (traffic from Search Ads 360 marketing activity) 'SFMC' (traffic from Salesforce Marketing Cloud marketing activity) 'Shopping Free Listings' (traffic from Google Merchant Center marketing activity)	To learn how to populate this dimension, see Traffic-source dimensions, manual tagging, and auto-tagging.

Metrics in the report

The report includes the following metrics. If you are an Editor or Administrator, you can add or remove metrics in the report.

Metric	What it is	How it's populated
Average engagement time per session	The average time that your website was in focus in a user's browser or an app was in the foreground of a user's device during each session.	This metric is populated automatically.
Conversions	The number of times users triggered a conversion event.	Populate this metric by marking an event as a conversion.
Engaged sessions	The number of sessions that lasted 10 seconds or longer, or had 1 or more conversion events or 2 or more page or screen views.	This metric is populated automatically.
Engaged sessions per user	The average number of engaged sessions per user.	This metric is populated automatically.
Engagement rate	The percentage of sessions that were engaged sessions. Learn more	This metric is populated automatically.
Event count	The number of times users triggered an event.	This metric is populated automatically.
Events per session	The average number of events per session.	This metric is populated automatically.
Sessions	The number of sessions that began on your website or app.	This metric is populated automatically.
Total revenue	The total revenue from purchases, in-app purchases, subscriptions, and ad revenue.	This metric is the sum of the purchase, in_app_purchase, app_store_subscription_renew, and app_store_subscription_convert events, as well as ad revenue, which is populated via the Google AdMob integration, Google Ad Manager integration, or by sending the ad_impression event from a third-party integration. Important: When setting up the purchase event, make sure you provide values for both the value and currency parameters. Otherwise, you won't see purchase data for the Total revenue metric.
Users	The number of distinct users who visited your website or application.	This metric is populated automatically.

Troubleshooting

How do I find the traffic sources for a particular page or screen?

You can find the traffic sources for a web page or app screen by either applying a report filter to the report, or adding a secondary dimension and using the search above the dimension drop-down.

Option #1: Apply a report filter

To apply a report filter:

1. Click + Add filter at the top of the report.
2. In the 'Build filter' dialog on the right, leave 'Include' selected.
3. In the 'Dimension' drop-down, select 'Page path and screen class'.
4. In the 'Dimension values' drop-down, select the page path or screen class.
5. Click OK.
6. Click Apply.

Option #2: Add a secondary dimension

To add a secondary dimension and search for the page or screen:

1. Next to the dimension drop-down, click .
   
2. Select Page path and screen class.
3. Use the search above the dimension drop-down to find the page or screen.

How do I filter out traffic sources from the report?

You can use a report filter to filter out traffic sources from the Traffic acquisition report.

To apply a report filter:

1. Click + Add filter at the top of the report.
2. In the 'Build filter' dialog on the right, select 'Include' and choose 'Exclude' instead.
3. In the 'Dimension' drop-down, select 'Session source' (or another traffic source dimension).
4. In the 'Dimension values' drop-down, select the values you want to filter out.
5. Click OK.
6. Click Apply.

How do I see weekly or monthly data instead of daily data?

The Traffic acquisition report currently provides access to daily data, not weekly or monthly data.