Traffic Sources

In internet language, "traffic" is a different term for "website visitors." For example, if viewers visit your newsletter from a Facebook post, you could say you have a lot of "Facebook traffic."

The "source" is how each visitor found the site. At Smore, the source of a visit is essentially, "How did that visitor find my newsletter?"

Visitors can come from many sources: Facebook posts, links from other websites, Google search results, your emails, and many more.

We categorize visitors by looking at where they came from and then assigning them a group from one of the possible sources listed in "Incoming" in the Analytics section.

For additional information about the Analytics Feature, please click on the button below:

Smore defines 6 source types:

1. Website

Visitors come from a link on another website.
If a blog has a link to your newsletter, and someone clicks that link, then their source would be "Website." These are also sometimes known as "referrals" or "referral traffic."

2. Email

These are visitors that have opened your Smore newsletter.

This will only be counted if you've used the "Share with Email" tool. Once someone sees the newsletter in their email app, a view with an "Email" source is counted.

3. Direct

These are usually visitors that typed the newsletter's URL directly in the browser.

For example, if you type "abc.com" in your browser and click Enter, ABC.com will register a "direct" visit.

In some cases, to protect privacy, apps might "disguise" visits to look like direct visits. This hides which app the user was using. Some direct visits to your newsletters might be because users came from apps. These apps might include email apps and social network apps.

4. Smore

Visits from within the Smore network of newsletters are classified as "Smore" visits.

5. Facebook, Twitter

When you share your newsletter on Facebook or Twitter, and someone clicks that link and goes to your newsletter, it will register as a "Facebook" or a "Twitter" visit.