How to See Referral Traffic in Google Analytics 4

To see referral traffic in Google Analytics 4, you'll need to navigate to the "Acquisition" section, where you can find data on how users are reaching your website.

In Google Analytics 4, referral traffic is tracked through the "Acquisition" section, which is a key place to find this information.

To access the "Acquisition" section, click on the "Reports" tab in the top navigation menu and then select "Acquisition" from the dropdown menu.

Once you're in the "Acquisition" section, you can view data on how users are reaching your website, including referral traffic.

To set up referral traffic in GA4, log into your GA4 account and navigate to Traffic Acquisition. Here, you can filter for referral traffic using the search bar above the table to show only the referral traffic sources. You can also add "session source" to see the actual referrers.

To view referral traffic in GA4, you can add "Session source" dimension in rows, "event count" metric in values, and "Session default channel grouping" in Filters, selecting filter type "contains" and typing "Referral".

You can also create a custom referral report in GA4 by following the steps outlined in the article. To do this, you'll need to replace the XXXXXXX with your own property ID and save it under your main collection.

Here's a step-by-step guide to setting up referral traffic in GA4:

1. Log into your GA4 account

2. Navigate to Traffic Acquisition

3. Filter for referral traffic using the search bar

4. Add "session source" to see the actual referrers

5. Create a custom referral report by following the steps outlined in the article

To understand referral traffic in GA4, you need to know where to find it. You can locate your referral traffic data in Google Analytics 4 by navigating to Traffic Acquisition, filtering for referral traffic, and adding session source to see the actual referrers.

Referral traffic in GA4 refers to visits that come to your website from other websites outside of search engines. This includes traffic from partner websites, social media, and other external sources.

To analyze referral traffic, you can group your referrals into topic buckets and see which ones perform better. For instance, if you're a SaaS company with an email client product, you can group your referrals by topic, such as tech magazines, online reviews websites, websites about entrepreneurs, tech influencers, and websites about email marketing.

You can also use a dedicated referral traffic report in GA4 to monitor insights and optimize your digital marketing efforts. Leveraging referral traffic data effectively can lead to stronger online presence, increased engagement, and growth for your business.

Here are the three main traffic types in GA4:

To find the referral path in GA4, you can use the GA4 dimension "Page referrer" with the "session_start" event, or use external paid resources like Semrush and Ahrefs.

To analyze referral traffic in GA4, you should first understand how much referral traffic your website receives, what your referrals are, and find the exact page URL of the referral website where your company or product was mentioned. This process starts by understanding how much referral traffic your website receives, what your referrals are, finding the exact page URL of the referral website where your company or product was mentioned, and looking at how the referral traffic from referrals and their pages perform separately.

You can find the referral traffic data in Google Analytics 4 by logging into your GA4 account, navigating to Traffic Acquisition, and filtering for referral traffic using the search bar. Alternatively, you can create a custom referral report in GA4 by adding the "Session source" dimension and the "Session Default Channel Group" filter.

By analyzing the referral traffic, you can identify which referrals bring high-quality traffic and which ones don't convert well, and then dive deeper into analytics to understand why it's happening and what you can do to improve it.

If you're seeing your own domain or subdomain in the referral traffic report, it's likely because you didn't set up Google Analytics 4 correctly.

You'll need to go to Admin -> Data Streams -> Web Data Stream Details -> Configure Tag Settings -> Configure your domains and include all domains that match your company ones and that you want to exclude since it's self-referral traffic.

GA4 automatically collects data about all your subdomains, so it's not necessary to set it up additionally.

To exclude self-referrals, follow these steps:

The Acquisition Report is where you'll find the earliest indication of referral traffic in Google Analytics 4. This report can be found in the Traffic Acquisition section, and it's where you'll see the channels through which users acquired your website.

To see the users acquired via Referral, you can scroll down on the table until you reach the channel termed referral, or type "referral" in the search bar of the table to find the data.

Changing the default dimension to source/medium will allow you to find the websites that show referral to be their medium. You can also type "referral" in the search bar of the table to find all the domain names referring to your website.

Adding the dimension "Landing page + Query string" in the table will help you find the pages that receive users from the referral websites.

Here's a quick reference to help you navigate the Acquisition Report:

By analyzing this data, you can identify the most popular landing pages for referral traffic and optimize them to provide better service quality and enhance the customer experience.

Troubleshooting Referral Traffic in GA4 can be a challenge, especially when you see your website domain or subdomains listed as referral sources. This can happen when you have multiple subdomains or when your payment gateway provider is sending traffic to your site.

To clean up your GA4 property, you can use the "contains" filter type in the "Session default channel grouping" filter, and type "Referral" to exclude your own website traffic. However, this may not be enough, and you may need to use additional techniques to remove unwanted referral sources.

If you're seeing your payment gateway provider or user password recovery provider listed as referral sources, you can use a dedicated article for more information on how to clean up your GA4 property.

If you're not seeing referral traffic in GA4, it could be because the referral traffic is being set to the "Other" or "Unknown" channel.

The referral traffic is set to "Other" or "Unknown" when the referrer's domain is not specified in the URL. For example, a URL like "https://www.google.com/search?q=example" would be set to "Other" because the referrer's domain is not specified.

Make sure the referral traffic is being sent to GA4 correctly by checking the website's referral URL. A referral URL typically starts with a referrer's domain, such as "https://example.com".

GA4 uses a default setting of "Other" for referral traffic, so you may need to manually adjust the setting in the GA4 configuration to see referral traffic.

Self-referrals in Google Analytics can be a real problem if left unchecked. They appear when your domain is listed as a referral source, which can happen due to missing tracking codes or incorrect cross-domain tracking.

Regular checks for self-referrals are crucial for maintaining data integrity. This is because self-referrals can prevent skewed data, making it harder to analyze your marketing strategies' effectiveness.

Incorrect cross-domain tracking can lead to self-referrals. This is why it's essential to understand and address the nuances of referral traffic and self-referrals.

Creating a report in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a crucial step in tracking referral traffic. To create a referral traffic report, go to Reports, and from there, go to Library.

You can create a new report and choose the template "Traffic Acquisition". Remove all dimensions except for "Session source". Add the "Session Default Channel Group" filter and include "Referral" there.

Save the report and name it "Referral Traffic Report". Finally, add it to "Life Cycle" in the Reports section and republish "Life Cycle". Now, you can access your referral stats more conveniently.

Organizing Referral Traffic in GA4 is crucial to ensure you're only tracking relevant traffic. You can find your website domain or subdomains in the Referral channel, which can be cleaned up using techniques mentioned in Example 2.

To clean up your GA4 property, you'll need to apply different techniques depending on the type of referral source. For instance, if you have a payment gateway provider, you can use a specific technique to exclude it from your referral data.

You can find your website domain or subdomains in the Referral channel by selecting the "contains" filter type and typing "Referral" in the "Session default channel grouping" field, as seen in Example 1.

To exclude unwanted referral sources, you can use the "Exclude" feature in GA4. This feature allows you to remove irrelevant traffic from your referral data, ensuring only relevant traffic contributes to your referral data, as mentioned in Example 8.

Here's a step-by-step guide to exclude unwanted referral sources:

By organizing your referral traffic in GA4, you can ensure you're only tracking relevant traffic and making data-driven decisions to improve your online presence.