Acquisition¶
The Acquisition report summarizes visits by traffic channel for the selected date range. Each visit is attributed once to the channel that starts the visit, while page-view totals remain separate from the visit count. It provides a higher-level traffic-source view than the Referring sites report, which remains focused on individual referring domains.
Channel table¶
The channel table shows:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Channel | The acquisition channel assigned to the visit source. |
| Visits | The number of visits attributed to the channel. |
| Traffic share | The channel percentage of all visits in the selected range. |
| Change | The visit change compared with the previous equivalent period when comparison data is available. |
Channels¶
BimBeau Privacy Analytics uses the stored source category for the report. The available channels can include Direct, Organic Search, AI Assistants, Paid Search, Paid Social, Organic Social, Referrals, Email, Other Campaigns, and Other, depending on the captured traffic sources and tracking data available for the selected period. Campaign parameters take priority over the referring domain for Email, Paid Social, Paid Search, Organic Social, and Other Campaigns classification. Referring domains classify AI assistants, search engines, social networks, external referrals, and direct visits when no higher-priority campaign context is available.
Attribution uses the first acquisition signal identified during a visit. Internal navigation and later page views without campaign or external-referrer information inherit that visit attribution. Direct represents the absence of an acquisition signal: a direct visit can be upgraded when a campaign or external referrer is subsequently identified, but Direct cannot replace a known non-direct channel. A later campaign during the same visit does not replace the visit's first known non-direct channel; a new visit establishes a new attribution.
Google Ads and Meta Ads are platforms or sources, not primary acquisition channels. The acquisition report classifies traffic by channel first: Paid Search, Paid Social, Organic Social, Email, Referrals, Direct, AI Assistants, Organic Search, Other Campaigns, or Other.
Channel classification follows these source rules:
| Channel | Classification rule |
|---|---|
| Visits with UTM parameters that identify an email or newsletter source, medium, or campaign context. | |
| Paid Search | Google Ads search traffic with gclid or paid search UTM values is classified as Paid Search. Paid search UTM media include cpc, ppc, paidsearch, paid_search, and sem when the source is not classified as social traffic. |
| Paid Social | Meta, Facebook, or Instagram paid traffic with paid social UTM values is classified as Paid Social. Paid social signals include media such as paid_social, social_paid, paidsocial, paid-social, and social sources with paid media such as sponsored, ads, cpc, ppc, or paid. |
| Organic Social | Social referrers without paid campaign signals are classified as Organic Social. |
| Other Campaigns | Generic UTM campaigns without a more specific rule are classified as Other Campaigns. |
| AI Assistants | Visits that match known AI assistant sources through tracking data or the referring domain when available. |
| Organic Search | Visits that match search-engine sources through tracking data or the referring domain when available. |
| Referrals | Visits from an external referring domain when no more specific channel applies. |
| Direct | Visits without usable campaign, click identifier, or external referrer data. |
| Other | Visits with source data that does not match another channel. |
The channel labels shown in the admin interface are localizable labels. The underlying classification still uses stable channel keys so the report remains consistent across languages.
URLs, campaigns, and Paid Search¶
If Clean URL query parameters is enabled, BimBeau Privacy Analytics can still preserve common marketing attribution keys through the Allowed query parameters setting.
New installs include the common attribution keys utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, gclid, gbraid, wbraid, and msclkid by default. Existing installs with a missing or empty allowlist are backfilled once during activation or upgrade checks, while custom non-empty allowlists are preserved.
Important
Do not put personal data in UTM values or advertising query parameters. Campaign values may be stored for attribution and reporting.
Export¶
Exports are a Pro feature. When export actions are available in BimBeau Privacy Analytics Pro, you can download acquisition channel rows in the supported analytics export formats.