Direct traffic in Google Analytics 4 (and how to fix it)

[@nziggypatlechat3892]

Thank for clarifying the Google analytics 4 'direct' sources issues.

[@richardsondan]

Another excellent video - keep it up J!

[@Monirul_IslamBD]

Hi Julius, Great video. Thanks a lot. You showed why Direct traffic occurs. Could you please also share info on why unassigned data occurs?

[@darshakpatel4005]

Unassigned occurs because source medium does not follow Channel grouping rules.

[@NexusCircuit]

Great walkthru of the various misattributions, Julius. Quick question: for a client, I'm noticing around 50% of key events like purchase being missed. What are some of the reasons for this other than not accepting cookie consent and faults in the datalayer implementation? (I've tested the datalayer multiple times and I don't think it's because of cookie consent)

[@darshakpatel4005]

Browser side tracking implementation which does not work as expected when ad blockers are present on the browser.

[@ChristianValencia-q5w]

What about subfolders? Is it ok to create multiple properties for the same domain?

[@websuasion]

This was awesome. So many great examples.

[@AbhayKanojiaMichaelilu]

GA4 is showing organic traffic to direct traffic to my website... i have added ga4 code to header to all pages.. but I don't understand why it is showing as direct traffic.. could you help?

[@daviers01]

Sharing here my summary: Some scenarios where a referrer may lose or be attributed to direct traffic: - Transitioning from HTTP to HTTPS or vice versa - Users interacting with the website without updating the cookie consent - Links in PDFs or Emails do not have UTM parameters - Some pages missing GA4 / GTM tracking installations - Use of rel='noreferrer' - Incorrect handling of unwanted referrals - Not utilizing a single GA4 properties for different domains/subdomains - Cookie limitations or expirations - GA4 processing errors

[@apparentlyayesha]

Thanks, Julius for this helpful info. If a user rejects cookies, does google count that as direct or unknown?

[@ArturPakosch]

Thanks for the helpful content (as always). Question: How would you exclude that spambot traffic otherwise?

[@darshakpatel4005]

GA4 has capabilities to exclude known bot traffic however if anything unexpected occurs than one need to take steps accordingly to exclude bot traffic .

[@jansets]

Thank you for the clarification.

[@phuoclongnguyen5670]

The http to https one is quite enlightening.

[@dtps_champion6016]

nice one!