Track where your visits come from in traffic sources

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Track where your visits come from in traffic sources

Last updated October 22, 2026 19:22

Find out which channels and campaigns drive traffic and revenue to your site.

Use the Traffic sources panel to find where visitors came from before they landed on your site and which of those sources bring the most value to your site or store. Use it to find which channels (search engines, blogs, social media, email, and ads) drive the most visits, orders, and revenue.

Also try: Traffic analytics, Creating trackable links, and Sales analytics.

The Traffic sources panel is available in all plans. What you can track depends on your plan.

Open your traffic sources analytics

To view your traffic sources report:

1. Open the Analytics panel, click Traffic, then click Traffic sources.
2. Use the Date range dropdown menu at the top of the panel to filter results by time frame. Data is available starting from January 2014.
3. Click the tabs to filter by KPI. On the Core, Plus, and Advanced plans, you can filter by Visits, Revenue, Checkouts, Conv. rate, AOV (average order value), and RPV (revenue per visit). On the Basic plan, you can filter by Visits.

What counts as traffic sources?

A traffic source is where a visitor came from before they landed on your site, like a link on another site, an email campaign, or a search engine results page. We group sources into channels, such as Direct, Social, and Email, so you can compare how each one performs.

Traffic source data on each plan

How are my store orders attributed to a traffic source?

For Commerce KPIs like revenue and conversion, traffic sources are based on a visitor’s “last click,” or the exact link a visitor came from before placing an order. If a visitor visits your site from two different sources and buys something on the second visit, their order is credited to the second source.

Recurring subscription product renewals don’t appear in the report because these happen automatically. The initial subscription purchase does appear in the report.

What are traffic channels?

Channels are groups of traffic sources. We group sources into channels so you can review how each one performs. If no visits came from a channel, that channel doesn't appear in the panel. For example, if nothing came from a source we categorize as Display ads, you won't find Display ads listed.

Channels on each plan

Direct traffic

Someone typed your URL into their browser rather than arriving from another page. Links opened in a new window also count as Direct.

Display ads traffic

Traffic from display ads on other sites.

Email traffic

Traffic from email marketing campaigns.

• For Email Campaigns, you can review revenue generated by each campaign in your site's analytics, with more detail in the Email Campaigns dashboard.
• For Mailchimp, traffic from forms are visitors who followed a link at the end of a mailing list signup form. Traffic from campaigns means visitors who followed a link inside an email. To find specific campaign names, connect Mailchimp to a form or newsletter block. Learn more about using Mailchimp with Squarespace.

Note: To attribute Mailchimp campaign traffic to the Email channel, check E-commerce link tracking when you set up the campaign in Mailchimp. Otherwise the traffic counts as Direct.

Paid traffic

On the Basic plan, this channel combines traffic from display ads and from paid searches.

Paid search traffic

Paid searches in Google and other search engines.

Paid social traffic

Paid advertisements on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X.

Referral traffic

Websites and blogs that link to your content and don't fit another channel.

Search traffic

Organic traffic from Google and other search engines.

Social traffic

Traffic from social media platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and X.

Tip: To drive more traffic from social media, use our built-in tools for pushing content, share buttons, and Pinterest save buttons.

Tor exit nodes traffic

Traffic from an anonymous source, like a VPN or an anonymous browser.

Compare channels in the traffic breakdown table

The table breaks down each channel's performance so you can compare channels and find your most valuable referrers.

To see every source in a channel click the arrow beside the channel name. Click again to see specific paths under each source, which identifies the exact origin of a visit, like a single page on a referring site or a Pin on Pinterest.

Find the traffic from your ad campaigns

Which channel an ad campaign appears in depends on the platform and the kind of link you used:

• Google Ads: Always appears in Paid search, even if you create trackable links with the URL builder.
• Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, X, and YouTube Ads: Appears in Paid social if you create trackable links. Untracked links appear in Social.
• Email Campaigns: Links are tracked automatically, and traffic appears in Email.
• Instagram Shopping: Links are tracked automatically, and traffic appears in Social.

Read your traffic sources graph

What the graph looks like depends on where you're reviewing your analytics.

• Computer
• Squarespace app

The line graph shows trends over time, with one line per channel. Hover over any point to see each channel's data for that time frame.

Use the Daily dropdown menu to change the time scale.

The card's bar graph shows all your traffic sources for the time frame you've set, ranked by total visits. On the Core, Plus, and Advanced plans, you can rank them by Revenue, Visits, Orders, Conv. rate, AOV, or RPV instead.

Why is most of my traffic showing as “Direct”?

Direct can look inflated when it includes your own visits, your Mailchimp traffic, or your referral traffic.

Why your own visits count as Direct

Your activity doesn't count while you're logged in, but when you're logged out we can't identify the visit as yours — so it counts as Direct, or as whichever source you clicked through from. To avoid this, visit hide your own activity from analytics.

Why Mailchimp traffic counts as Direct

If you’re using Mailchimp, check E-commerce link tracking when you set up the campaign in Mailchimp. Otherwise the traffic counts as Direct.

Why Referral traffic counts as Direct

When a visitor arrives from a third-party site, that site should appear in the Referral channel. Mismatched SSL settings can send it to Direct instead:

• If your site uses the Insecure setting, referral traffic from secure sites appears in Direct.
• If your site is Secure and a third-party site links to the HTTP version of your URL, that traffic also appears in Direct. Ask them to link to the HTTPS version.

Why doesn’t my traffic sources revenue match my Sales report?

Revenue, Conversion rate, AOV, and RPV can differ between this Traffic sources and Sales, because the two count from different dates:

• Traffic sources attributes revenue to the day the visit happened.
• Sales attributes it to the day the order was placed.

So if a customer visits one day, leaves the tab open, and orders the next, Traffic sources counts it on the first day and Sales counts it on the second. The longer your date range, the larger the difference can be.

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Track where your visits come from in traffic sources