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Classifying where visitor traffic comes from.
Visitor journeys are grouped into top-level marketing channels so you can see exactly how people arrive on your site.
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Madlitics classifies every visit into standardized attribution channels using UTM parameters, click IDs, and referring domains. Each visit is first assigned a high-level channel (similar to Google Analytics default channel groupings), then supporting details (ie. source, campaign, keywords, content, and landing page) are mapped into Segments for richer reporting.
Whenever possible, Madlitics relies on UTM parameters and click identifiers as the clearest attribution signals. When those are missing or incomplete, it falls back to referring domains to detect organic, referral, social, video, shopping, or AI-assistant traffic, preserving attribution context even when tracking isn’t perfect.
With 18 attribution channels across paid, organic, owned, and referral traffic, Madlitics uses channel definitions that are practical for today’s reporting and flexible enough to evolve with changing marketing patterns.
Traffic from your network of affiliate partners promoting your site using tracked links; distinct from general referral traffic when commercial partner performance needs to be measured separately.
utm_medium is one of (“affiliate” or “affiliates”)
Visitors from ads or links tied to audio platforms such as podcasts or streaming-audio platforms.
utm_medium is one of (“podcast” or “audio”)
Traffic driven by creators, influencers, and ambassadors promoting to their own audiences.
utm_source or utm_medium contains ("influencer", "creator", "ambassador")
Display includes banner, programmatic, and visual ad placements that are not classified as search, social, shopping, or video.
utm_medium is one of (“display”, “banner”, “expandable”, “interstitial”, “cpm”)
Visits from tracked links inside newsletters, lifecycle emails, sales outreach, and automated sequences.
utm_medium or utm_source is one of (“email”, “e-mail”, or “e_email”)
Free clicks (ie non-paid visits) from AI search, AI assistants, and AI-answering platforms.
Free clicks (ie non-paid visits) from search engines.
utm_medium is “organic”
Free clicks (ie non-paid visits) from shopping sites, marketplaces, or product discovery surfaces.
Free clicks (ie non-paid visits) from social platforms, capturing traffic from standard posts, shares, etc. from social platforms.
utm_medium is one of ("social", "social-network", "social-media", "sm", "social network", "social media") AND (utm_source or referring domain) matches a recognized list of social networks
Free clicks (ie non-paid visits) from video-sharing platforms, covering traffic from standard video descriptions, channel pages, profile links, and non-sponsored shares.
utm_medium matches regex ^(.video.)$
Traffic that includes utm_source, utm_medium, or utm_campaign, or has a referring domain present, but does not match any previous channel rule.
utm_source, utm_medium, or utm_campaign or referring domain present AND does not match previous results
Paid Search includes visits from search advertising platforms such as Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, etc.
utm_source, utm_medium, or utm_campaign contains ("paidsearch")utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, or utm_content contains ("adwords")gclid or msclkid parameter is presentutm_source, utm_medium, or utm_campaign parameter is present AND referring domain matches a recognized list of search enginesutm_medium matches regex ^(.cp.|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$
Paid Shopping includes ad traffic from shopping engines, product listing ads, and retailer-sponsored placements.
utm_source or utm_medium contains "shopping" or "pla"utm_medium is (ppc|cpc|paid|pla) AND referral domain matches a recognized list of shopping sites
Email includes visits from tracked links inside newsletters, lifecycle emails, sales outreach, and automated sequences.
utm_source or utm_medium contains "paidsocial" utm_medium matches regex ^(paid|ppc|cpc|.cp.|retargeting)$ AND (utm_source or referring domain) matches a recognized list of social networks utm_source or referring domain) matches a recognized list of social networks AND (gclid or fbclid) is present
Paid Video includes advertising traffic from video platforms.
utm_medium is (“paidvideo”) utm_medium matches regex ^(.cp.|ppc|retargeting|paid.*)$
Traffic from mobile or web push notifications, including campaign links sent through push platforms.
utm_medium ends with (“push”)utm_medium is (“mobile”) utm_medium contains (“notification”) utm_source is (“firebase”)
Visits from tracked text-message links.
utm_source or utm_medium is (“sms”)
Non-ad visits from other websites or apps that are not search, social, video, shopping, or AI sources.
utm_medium is one of (”referral”, “app”, or “link”)
Direct traffic includes visits with no clear campaign or referral source, such as users who typed the URL directly, used a bookmark, or arrived from an unclassified source.
In addition to the traffic source fields, Madlitics can also store landing-page attribution so each submission keeps the destination context tied to the original visit. This makes it possible to answer two different attribution questions at once: where the visitor came from and what type of page first captured their attention. That combination is often more actionable than source data alone.
The first page URL visited before the form submission
A categorized landing page grouping such as /articles/, /integrations/, /demos/, etc.
