Traffic Source Configuration

Learn how to configure traffic sources to create realistic referral patterns that match your marketing strategy and improve your analytics data.

Configuring Traffic Sources

To configure traffic sources for your campaign:

Navigate to Project Settings: From your dashboard, select the project you want to configure or create a new one.
Find the Traffic Source Section: In the project settings form, locate the "Traffic Source & Geo-Targeting" section.
Select Traffic Source Type: Choose from Direct, Search Engines, Referring Websites, Social Media, or Mixed Sources.
Configure Source-Specific Settings: Based on your selection, additional configuration options will appear.
Save Your Settings: Click "Save Changes" to apply your traffic source configuration.

Pro Tip: For the most realistic traffic patterns, use the "Mixed Sources" option with a distribution that matches your actual marketing strategy. For example, if you're actively promoting on social media, include a higher percentage of social traffic.

Direct Traffic Configuration

Direct traffic is the simplest to configure:

Select "Direct / Bookmark" from the Traffic Source Type dropdown.
No additional configuration is needed for direct traffic.

Direct traffic will appear in your analytics as visitors who came directly to your website without a referring source. This is useful for simulating:

Users who type your URL directly into their browser
Users who click on links in emails (in many cases)
Users who access your site from browser bookmarks
Users who click on links in desktop applications or PDFs

Search Engine Traffic Configuration

To configure search engine traffic:

Select "Search Engines" from the Traffic Source Type dropdown.
Enter Keywords: In the "Search Keywords" field that appears, enter the keywords you want to simulate users searching for, one per line.

Pro Tip: For more realistic search traffic, use a mix of branded keywords (your company or product name) and non-branded keywords (general terms related to your products or services). This creates a more natural keyword distribution in your analytics.

Example keyword list:

best traffic generator
buy website traffic
increase website visitors
traffic creator reviews
how to boost website traffic
organic traffic service
website traffic analytics

Search engine traffic will appear in your analytics as organic search traffic from various search engines, with the keywords you specified (when available in the analytics platform).

Note: Due to privacy changes in browsers and search engines, many analytics platforms (including Google Analytics) no longer show the specific keywords users searched for, displaying them as "(not provided)" instead. However, the traffic will still be correctly categorized as organic search traffic.

Referral Traffic Configuration

To configure referral traffic:

Select "Referring Websites" from the Traffic Source Type dropdown.
Enter Referring Websites: In the "Referring Websites" field that appears, enter the URLs of websites you want to simulate as referrers, one per line.

Example referrer list:

https://example-blog.com/best-traffic-services
https://industry-forum.com/traffic-discussion
https://partner-website.com
https://directory.com/web-services
https://review-site.com/traffic-creator-review

Pro Tip: For more realistic referral patterns, include a mix of industry blogs, forums, directories, and partner websites. Using specific page URLs (not just domain names) creates more authentic referral data in your analytics.

Referral traffic will appear in your analytics as visitors coming from other websites, with the specific referring domains and URLs you specified.

Social Media Traffic Configuration

To configure social media traffic:

Select "Social Media" from the Traffic Source Type dropdown.
Enter Social Media Sources: In the "Social Media Sources" field that appears, enter the names of social media platforms or their URLs, one per line.

Example social media source list:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Instagram
Pinterest
Reddit
YouTube

You can also use specific URLs for more detailed social media referrals:

https://facebook.com/groups/webmasters
https://twitter.com/digitalmarketing
https://linkedin.com/company/your-company
https://instagram.com/influencer_name

Pro Tip: Match your social media traffic sources to your actual social media marketing strategy. If you're active on specific platforms, make sure those platforms have a higher representation in your traffic configuration.

Social media traffic will appear in your analytics as visitors coming from social media platforms, with the specific platforms you specified.

Mixed Traffic Configuration

Mixed traffic provides the most realistic traffic pattern by combining multiple sources:

Select "Mixed Sources" from the Traffic Source Type dropdown.
Configure All Source Types: All configuration fields for search, referral, and social will appear.
Enter Keywords: Add search keywords as described above.
Enter Referring Websites: Add referral sources as described above.
Enter Social Media Sources: Add social media platforms as described above.

With mixed traffic, Traffic Creator will automatically distribute your traffic across the different source types, creating a more natural and diverse traffic pattern in your analytics.

Traffic Plan	Default Mixed Traffic Distribution	Customization Options
Economy	Direct: 40% Search: 30% Referral: 20% Social: 10%	Basic source selection only
Professional	Direct: 35% Search: 35% Referral: 15% Social: 15%	Full source customization
Expert	Direct: 30% Search: 40% Referral: 15% Social: 15%	Full source customization with percentage control

Pro Tip: Expert plan users can fine-tune the exact percentage distribution of each traffic source type, creating highly customized traffic patterns that precisely match their marketing strategy or target analytics profile.

UTM Parameters for Campaign Tracking

For more advanced analytics tracking, you can include UTM parameters in your referral and social media URLs:

https://partner-website.com?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=spring2023
https://facebook.com/groups/webmasters?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=group_promo

UTM parameters allow for more detailed campaign tracking in analytics platforms like Google Analytics. The key UTM parameters are:

utm_source: Identifies the source of your traffic (e.g., google, newsletter, partner_site)
utm_medium: Identifies the medium (e.g., cpc, banner, email, social)
utm_campaign: Identifies the specific campaign (e.g., spring_sale, product_launch)
utm_content: Identifies specific content within an ad or link (e.g., logo_link, text_link)
utm_term: Identifies search terms for paid search campaigns

Important: When using UTM parameters, be consistent with your naming conventions to ensure accurate tracking in your analytics platform. Use lowercase letters, avoid spaces (use underscores or hyphens instead), and maintain consistent parameter values across similar campaigns.

Best Practices for Traffic Source Configuration

Follow these best practices to create the most effective and realistic traffic source configuration:

Match Your Marketing Strategy

Configure traffic sources to reflect your actual marketing channels and efforts. If you're investing heavily in social media, include more social traffic in your configuration.

Use Realistic Referrers

Include referrers that would logically send traffic to your site, such as industry blogs, forums, directories, and partner websites. Avoid using competitors as referrers.

Diversify Keywords

Use a mix of branded and non-branded keywords, with variations in length and specificity. Include long-tail keywords for more realistic search patterns.

Include Relevant Social Platforms

Focus on social media platforms that are relevant to your industry and target audience. For B2B, emphasize LinkedIn; for visual products, include Instagram and Pinterest.

Use Mixed Traffic for Realism

Most websites receive traffic from multiple sources. Using the "Mixed Sources" option creates the most natural traffic pattern in your analytics.

Align with Geo-Targeting

Ensure your traffic sources make sense for your geo-targeting settings. For example, use country-specific social media platforms for targeted regions.

Troubleshooting Traffic Source Issues

If your traffic isn't appearing with the correct source in your analytics:

Verify that your analytics tracking code is properly installed on all pages of your website
Check if your analytics platform has filters that might be affecting source attribution
Ensure you've correctly configured the traffic source in your project settings
For referral and social traffic, make sure you've entered valid URLs or platform names
Be aware that some analytics platforms may categorize traffic differently than others
Allow 24-48 hours for analytics data to fully process and update

If you're using Google Analytics 4, note that it categorizes traffic sources differently than Universal Analytics (GA3), so the source attribution may appear different than expected.

This is normal behavior for Google Analytics due to privacy changes in search engines:

Google and most other search engines no longer pass keyword data to analytics platforms
This affects both real organic traffic and simulated traffic
The traffic will still be correctly categorized as organic search traffic
You can see the search engine name (Google, Bing, etc.) but not the specific keywords
This limitation applies to all websites, not just traffic from Traffic Creator

If you need to track specific keywords, consider using UTM parameters with the utm_term parameter in your configuration.

If your mixed traffic is appearing mostly as direct traffic:

Check if you've entered enough referrers, keywords, and social media sources in your configuration
Verify that the URLs you've entered for referrers are valid and properly formatted
Ensure you're using the correct format for social media sources
Be aware that Economy plan users have limited control over the traffic source distribution
Consider upgrading to the Professional or Expert plan for more precise traffic source control
Check if your analytics platform has filters that might be affecting source attribution

For Expert plan users, you can manually adjust the percentage distribution of each traffic source type to reduce the proportion of direct traffic.

Yes, you can simulate traffic from specific campaigns or ads using UTM parameters:

Select "Referring Websites" or "Social Media" as your traffic source type
Add URLs with UTM parameters to your referrer or social media source list
Include all relevant UTM parameters (source, medium, campaign, content, term)
Use consistent naming conventions for your UTM parameters

Example URL with UTM parameters:

https://partner-website.com?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=spring2023&utm_content=sidebar_ad

This will appear in your analytics as traffic from a specific campaign, allowing you to track it separately from other traffic sources.

Traffic Source Configuration