Analyze traffic sources with attribution

Understand which marketing channels, campaigns, and referrers drive the most valuable traffic to your website by combining UTM tracking, attribution, and the breakdown insight.

Step 1: Tag your links with UTM parameters

Add UTM parameters to all links in your marketing campaigns so Umami can identify where traffic comes from. See Measure campaigns for details.

Example tagged URLs:

https://example.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=spring_sale
https://example.com/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_digest
https://example.com/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=product_launch

Step 2: View UTM data

Open the UTM insight to see a breakdown of traffic by each UTM parameter. This shows you at a glance which sources, mediums, and campaigns are driving the most views.

Step 3: Set up attribution

The Attribution insight goes deeper by connecting traffic sources to specific conversion actions.

1. Open the Attribution insight.
2. Choose an attribution model:
   • First-Click: Credits the first touchpoint. Useful for understanding what introduced users to your site.
   • Last-Click: Credits the final touchpoint before conversion. Useful for understanding what closes the deal.
3. Choose the conversion action (e.g., Viewed page /thank-you or Triggered event purchase).
4. Run the insight.

The results show which referrers, UTM sources, and channels contributed most to conversions under your chosen model.

Step 4: Break down by channel

Use the Breakdown insight to segment conversion data further:

• Break down by Referrer to see which specific sites send converting traffic.
• Break down by UTM Campaign to compare campaign performance side by side.
• Break down by Country to see which markets respond best to your campaigns.

Putting it all together

Here's a typical workflow for evaluating a marketing campaign:

1. Tag all campaign links with consistent UTM parameters before launch.
2. Monitor the UTM insight during the campaign to watch traffic flow in.
3. Run Attribution after the campaign to see how many conversions it drove.
4. Compare against the previous period to measure the campaign's incremental impact.
5. Break down by channel to identify which specific placements or ads performed best.

This gives you a complete picture of your marketing ROI without relying on third-party tracking pixels or cookies.