Analytics: What are content referral sources?

Content referral sources (UTM parameters) help you understand which features and promotion methods are most effective at driving employees to content in your organization.

The Content referral source tile in Global (under the Content tab), Site, and Page analytics will allow you to see how effective different sources are for driving users to content. This allows managers to best optimize how to promote their content.

Referral source

The item or feature responsible for referring a user to a content item. For example, the carousel on the site dashboard.

Content items

The total number of unique content items (page/album/event/blog post) referred by each source.

Referrals

The total number of content referrals generated by each referral source. A high count/percentage is an indication that the referral source is effective at referring users to content however this calculation does not account for the total number of content items.

Avg referrals per item

The total number of content referrals generated by each referral source in relation to the number of content items. A high count/percentage is an indication that the referral source is effective at referring users to content items.

Title definitions when viewing Content referral analytics

Display Name Definition
N/A (Direct/Undefined)

"Direct / Undefined" is traffic for which the referrer is unknown.

The different types of Direct / Undefined traffic
The following is an incomplete list of the cases in which a user navigates to your site in a way which will result in Direct / Undefined traffic. In all such cases the sessions will be marked as “Direct / Undefined”:

  • User types in a URL
  • User clicks on a bookmark
  • User clicks on a link in an e-mail from Outlook or Thunderbird or similar desktop software
  • User clicks on a link in Skype or other desktop messengers
  • User clicks on a link in a PDF, DocX, ODF, XLSX or a different type of document
  • User clicks on a link in a mobile app
  • User clicks on a link from a secured site (https://something) to your non-secured site (just http://something)
  • User clicks through a URL-shortener or in a different scenario where certain JS is being used (rare)
  • User clicks on a link in any desktop software in general
Activity notifications email Linked from activity notification emails. These emails relate to how one's profile email notifications are set up, e.g., your content is liked or commented or shared, content is marked as Must read, content notification from sites I follow, invites to events, etc.
Analytics monthly report Linked from Simpplr's automated monthly analytics report emails. These emails are sent to App and Site managers on a monthly basis with high-level analytics and referrer the user back to the app for more information
App analytics Linked from global analytics
Combined timeline content Linked from a feed post
Content analytics Linked from content analytics dashboard
Content detail page - Related content Linked from related content that displays at the bottom of content (displays in groups of 3 when present)
Content onboarding listing Linked from the content onboarding listing feature
Deep link Linked from mobile push notifications
Email summaries - Personalized content Linked from Personalized content email notification
Email summaries - Top stories Linked from Personalized content email notification
Embedded link Embedded link
Events listing Linked from the events page (accessed from the user menu drop-down)
External auto complete External auto complete
External search External search
Favorites Linked from Favorites page (accessed from the user menu drop-down)
Favorite feed Linked from the favorite feed
Feed popular content Popular content from the home feed
Feed popular content in site Feed popular content in site
Feed post grouped Feed post grouped
Feed post shared Linked from feed post on the timeline
Feed post timeline Linked from feed post on the timeline
Global auto-complete Global auto-complete
Global search Global search
Home carousel Linked from the home carousel
Home dashboard Linked form the home dashboard
Home dashboard tile Linked from tiles on the home dashboard (relates to tiles that innately display content; manually copied Simpplr URLs pasted into a feed post are not tracked)
Home feed Linked from home page feed (includes links from popular content & recently published feed blocks added in blank release; manually copied Simpplr URLs pasted into a feed post will not be tracked)
Home feed smart post Linked from a home feed smart post
Home onboarding smart post Linked from home onboarding smart post
In-app notifications Linked from any in-app notification link
Manage site analytics tab Linked from site analytics dashboard
Microsoft Teams Linked from content dynamically posted via Simpplr's MS Teams integration (manually copied Simpplr URLs pasted into a Teams channel are not tracked)
Monthly report Linked from app analytics monthly report dashboard (not the same as analytics monthly report emails)
Must read listing Linked from Must reads page (accessed from the user menu drop-down)
My content Linked from the My content page (accessed from the user menu drop-down)
Newsletter Linked from Newsletter
Onboarding Onboarding
Profile menu Linked from the user profile menu
Recent searches Linked the recent searches list that displays when initially clicking on the global search box
Related content Linked from the related content section at the end of content pages
Search auto-completion Linked from clicking on the auto-completion list that displays while entering text in the global search box
Search results Linked from the top or content search results tabs for global search
Site analytics Linked from any site analytics page
Site content onboarding section Linked from site onboarding content section
Site content tabs Linked from any of the content listed on any of the following site tabs: pages, events, albums
Site carousel Linked from any site carousel
Site dashboard Linked from the site dashboard
Site dashboard tile Linked from any site dashboard tile 
Site feed Linked from any site feed (manually copied Simpplr URLs pasted into a site feed post or content comment will not be tracked)
Site smart feed onboarding section Linked from the site smart feed onboarding section
Slack Will track content dynamically posted via Simpplr's Slack integration (manually copied Simpplr URLs pasted into a channel will not be tracked)
SMS for content notifications Linked from SMS notifications
SMS must read Linked from must read SMS notification
Source Source
Topic detail page Linked from Topic detail page (accessed when clicking on a topic at the bottom of content or clicking on a hashtag link).
User profile - Published content Linked from Published content page (accessed when clicking on Show all in the Published content section of a user's profile page).

 

Content Items Column Referrals Column
Total number of unique pieces of content referred to from this source. NUMBER: Total number of referrals from this source.
  PERCENTAGE: Total number of referrals from this source / Total number of referrals from all tracked sources displayed


Note:

A referral is another name for a content view. However, the total "referral" count does not equal to the total "Content views" in the View graph because some referral sources are not tracked yet in this data. For example, referrals from links in our mobile application are not yet tracked. Additionally, manually copied Simpplr URLs, used within Simpplr (e.g., in posts, pages, tiles, etc.) or externally (e.g., sent in an email), are not tracked either.

 

The Referrals per item column tells you how effective the source is at driving traffic volume.

Number: Total number of referrals from this source / total number of unique pieces of content referred from this source Average number of referrals per item. Tells you how effective the source is for driving traffic to unique pieces of content.
Percentage: Referral per item number / total number of referrals per item for all counts displayed Helpful for showing referral-per-item effectiveness in the display bar to compare with all the other referral averages displayed. 
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  • Top Stories is one but not listed here - what does that refer to?

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