Traffic & Acquisition

Analyze aggregate traffic in Behavior Intelligence: visitors, sessions, channels, devices, landing pages, bounce rate, and daily trends with period comparison.

Traffic page overview

Traffic & Acquisition is the canonical source for sitewide volume metrics. Where Overview compresses insights into cards, Traffic expands them into full charts, sortable tables, and export-ready datasets for the selected date range. Use it to answer: How many people came? From where? On what devices? Which entry pages matter most?

All numbers respect global toolbar filters—date range, comparison period, and any active segment. Changing a segment immediately recalculates KPIs and charts without a full page reload.

Traffic KPIs explained

Visitors — Unique visitor IDs (cookie-based) in the range.
Sessions — Grouped visits; a returning visitor may generate multiple sessions on different days.
Pageviews — Total page_enter events.
New vs returning — First-seen visitor vs repeat visitor IDs.
Bounce rate — Sessions with a single page view and no meaningful engagement signal.
Engagement — Composite signals such as multi-page sessions, scroll depth, or clicks when configured.

Definitions align with Sessions and Overview so you never reconcile conflicting numbers between pages.

Daily trend and comparison

The daily trend chart plots sessions and pageviews per day. Enable comparison to overlay the prior period—essential for week-over-week reporting. Export the underlying series via Report Builder if you need CSV for slides.

Seasonality and campaigns

Annotate mentally (or in Growth Plan notes) when major campaigns ran so spikes are not misread as organic growth. Marketing page UTM tables help attribute paid and email spikes back to specific sources.

Channels and devices

Donut charts summarize acquisition channels using the SourceTaxonomy classifier: organic search, direct, referral, social, email, paid, and unknown. Device chart splits mobile, desktop, and tablet using user-agent parsing stored at ingest.

Channel classification depends on referrer, UTM parameters, and landing context. Ensure UTM tracking is enabled in Settings → Marketing so campaign links do not collapse into "direct."

Geographic and browser distributions

Country breakdown requires the MaxMind geo database configured in Data Quality. Browser breakdown uses simplified families (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, etc.) unless you enable full browser storage in Settings for deeper diagnostics.

Tip: Save a segment for "organic mobile USA" and apply it on Traffic before reviewing landing pages—you will prioritize SEO and UX fixes for your highest-value cohort.

Landing and exit pages

Landing pages rank entry URLs by session count—critical for SEO and paid ads QA. Exit pages show where sessions most often end. High-traffic landing pages with poor downstream clicks belong in Content and Journeys investigations.

Click a landing page to open Journeys when path data exists. Pair exit page analysis with Funnels to see whether users abandon before conversion steps.

Reporting workflows

Export channel and landing tables monthly for leadership decks. Combine Traffic with Marketing attribution when explaining budget shifts—session share differs from conversion credit. Document UTM conventions in Marketing before quarterly paid campaigns so Traffic channel charts stay trustworthy.

Benchmarking new sites

Young properties show volatile bounce and new-user ratios. Wait for 30 days of baseline before setting anomaly expectations. Compare weekday patterns before redesigning navigation based on one slow weekend.

Additional best practices

Behavior Intelligence works best when tracking coverage, funnel definitions, and team review rituals stay aligned. Revisit this guide after major site changes—new theme, consent plugin, or checkout provider—and confirm Realtime, Data Quality, and Tracking Plan still agree.

Share direct help links from the in-app help panel so teammates read the same canonical definitions. Press Ctrl+K in the help center to jump between related guides quickly.

Align date ranges before comparing metrics across pages.
Document segment names when sharing screenshots.
Verify fixes in Realtime before closing Growth Plan items.
Keep UTM conventions consistent for Marketing and Traffic.
Schedule AI analysis after enough post-change data accumulates.

Working with the global toolbar

Every major Behavior Intelligence report page shares a global toolbar controlling date range, comparison mode, saved views, and active segments. Understanding this toolbar prevents the most common reporting mistake: discussing metrics that look contradictory because two pages use different ranges or filters.

Date ranges support presets (last 7, 28, 90 days) and custom intervals. Comparison mirrors the prior period of equal length. When comparison is off, KPI deltas hide—do not assume zero change. Saved views capture all toolbar state; teach teammates to check the view name in the header before screenshotting for leadership.

Connecting insights to action

Analytics value appears when insights change behavior. Behavior Intelligence routes findings through Growth Plan, Anomalies, and AI Intelligence into prioritized work. A metric without an owner becomes wallpaper. Assign DRI (directly responsible individual) per Growth Plan card and set verification dates.

Cross-link investigations: Traffic anomaly → Sessions sample → Journeys path → Tracking Plan coverage → Funnel step fix. This sequence resolves most conversion mysteries without external tools.

Data freshness expectations

Raw events ingest in near real time on Realtime. Daily aggregates power most dashboard KPIs and typically finalize after processor cron completes overnight in site timezone. Intraday numbers on Traffic are directional, not audit-final. Export via Report Builder after period close for finance-adjacent reporting.

Security and access control

Report data stays inside WordPress authenticated admin. REST endpoints require configured capabilities. Do not expose API keys or disable capability checks for convenience. View-only roles should not access Settings, Tracking Plan writes, or AI job triggers unless policy explicitly allows.

Module updates and compatibility

After Imaginit Core or Behavior Intelligence updates, revisit Getting Started verification steps: Realtime test, Data Quality health, one saved report run. Release notes may add event types or metrics—refresh Report Builder definitions if preview validation fails. Theme changes always trigger Tracking Plan re-crawl before trusting click metrics.