Traffic sources and tags

For information about determining referral sources, see the description of the Sources, Summary report.

Yandex Metrica receives information about different advertising systems from tags, which are parameters in the ad's link. If an ad system doesn’t add a special label to your link, you can manually form the link using the UTM or Openstat label. For the complete list of values, see the “Advertising systems” report section.

Links are marked with the necessary tags

There could be several reasons for this.

Imagine the path from the user clicking the link to the Yandex Metrica report:

  1. Creating the tag for the link.
  2. Clicking the link and going to the site.
  3. Loading the code snippet for the tag on the site.
  4. Collecting data for the tag and analyzing reports.
    As a result, there are many steps between the first and last stage where data could be lost.

Imagine the path from the user clicking the link to the Yandex Metrica report:

  1. Creating the tag for the link.
  2. Clicking the link and going to the site.
  3. Loading the code snippet for the tag on the site.
  4. Collecting data for the tag and analyzing reports.
    As a result, there are many steps between the first and last stage where data could be lost.

As a result, there are many steps between the first and last stage where data could be lost.

Reasons at the tag creation stage
  • Tags are not formed correctly: required values are missing, parameter names are incorrect, there are superfluous question mark symbols or spaces, and so on.
  • When copying ads from one ad system to another, the tags were not changed, so the traffic is linked to another ad system.
Reasons at the click stage
  • The user stopped the page from loading and closed the page before it opened. This could be an accidental click on a mobile phone or tablet.
  • The page didn’t load due to problems with site accessibility, it loaded incorrectly in a certain browser.
  • The ad specifies a URL that redirects to a page that doesn't have the Yandex Metrica tag installed.
  • The ad specifies a URL that redirects to another page, and the UTM labels are lost.
  • When the user goes to the site, other scripts that are loading block the tag from working.
  • The ad specifies an invalid URL that doesn’t open a page.
Reasons at the code snippet loading stage
  • The Yandex Metrica tag isn't installed on landing pages or it's installed incorrectly.
  • The tag didn’t load on the site because the user’s browser (or a corporate proxy server) has a plugin that prohibits downloading tracking tags.
  • The user’s antivirus system blocks the tag from loading.
Reasons at the report analysis stage

If you are comparing reports for Yandex Metrica and another system or ad management account, data might differ. This is due to the fact that services have different ways of registering a user’s interaction with a site.

For example, in the advertising account, not only a transition to the site may be considered as a click, but also viewing ad details or transitioning to a group page on a social network. Yandex Metrica only counts users who land on the site.

You might also have different attribution models chosen in ad managers.

For more information, see Learn more about the Tags report group.

The recommendations did not help

Please note: Our support team will never initiate a call to you. Do not follow any instructions of people who call you and introduce themselves as the Yandex Metrica support team.

Yandex Metrica and other web analytics systems and ad managers have different ways of registering a user's interaction with a site and calculating statistics. For example, in the advertising account, not only a transition to the site may be considered as a click, but also viewing ad details or transitioning to a group page on a social network. Yandex Metrica only counts users who land on the site.

Also check that:

  • You are comparing correct data for the same time period in Yandex Metrica and the other system.
  • The Last click attribution is used by default in Yandex Metrica reports. If necessary, change the attribution settings in Yandex Metrica to make them match the attribution settings in your system.
Data checked

This might happen for the following reasons:

  • The filters in Yandex Metrica under Settings → Filters are too narrow. As a result, not all of the data is collected.
  • Yandex Metrica filters robots out of statistics. It’s possible that the other system included robot traffic in their statistics. You can check for robot traffic on the site in the Reports → Monitoring → Robots report.
  • The tag didn’t load on the site because the user’s browser (or a corporate proxy server) has a plugin that prohibits downloading tracking tags. Antivirus systems with high security might also prevent tags from loading.

Also make sure that the Yandex Metrica tag is installed on all the domains and subdomains that the other system is collecting statistics for. To view data for domains that have the Yandex Metrica tag installed, go to Reports → Content → Popular.

The recommendations did not help

Please note: Our support team will never initiate a call to you. Do not follow any instructions of people who call you and introduce themselves as the Yandex Metrica support team.

This might happen for the following reasons:

  • Robot filtering is disabled in Yandex Metrica under Settings -> Filters. As a result, the reports show data for all the robot traffic on the site.
  • The other system has overly strict filters defined.
  • The other system’s tag isn’t installed on all the domains, including mobile versions of the site.
The recommendations did not help

Please note: Our support team will never initiate a call to you. Do not follow any instructions of people who call you and introduce themselves as the Yandex Metrica support team.

This might happen for the following reasons:

  • One of the site’s landing pages doesn’t have the tag code embedded on it.
  • The site might have JavaScript that runs before the tag code and performs an internal redirect on the site. For example, this could be code for A/B testing. You can detect this code by a redirect on the site (this is usually a redirect to the same page on the site with extra parameters added to the URL). To solve this issue, contact your webmaster.
  • Your hosting provider might have enabled protection from DDOS attacks This could add redirects before going to the site. Contact your hosting provider and ask them to disable this protection.
The recommendations did not help

Please note: Our support team will never initiate a call to you. Do not follow any instructions of people who call you and introduce themselves as the Yandex Metrica support team.

Choose the protocol your site uses:

In this case, you won’t see the traffic source if this source uses a secured HTTPS connection.

  • You can switch your site to a secured HTTPS connection. You can get an encryption certificate for free through the Let’s Encrypt project, which is a non-profit certification center supported by many prominent representatives of the internet industry.
  • If you can edit links on the source site, add the utm_referrer tag to them and specify the source site as the tag’s value. For more information, see Learn more about the Tags report group.
The recommendations did not help

Please note: Our support team will never initiate a call to you. Do not follow any instructions of people who call you and introduce themselves as the Yandex Metrica support team.

The source site might be encrypting the referrer. In this case, you won't be able to solve the problem within your site or Yandex Metrica.

Add the utm_referrer tag to the site links and specify the source site as the tag’s value.

The recommendations did not help

Please note: Our support team will never initiate a call to you. Do not follow any instructions of people who call you and introduce themselves as the Yandex Metrica support team.

Imagine the path from the user clicking the link to the Yandex Metrica report:

  1. Creating the tag for the link.
  2. Clicking the link and going to the site.
  3. Loading the code snippet for the tag on the site.
  4. Collecting data for the tag and analyzing reports.

As a result, there are many steps between the first and last stage where data could be lost.

Reasons at the tag creation stage
  • Tags are not formed correctly: required values are missing, parameter names are incorrect, there are superfluous question mark symbols or spaces, and so on.
  • When copying ads from one ad system to another, the tags were not changed, so the traffic is linked to another ad system.
Reasons at the click stage
  • The user stopped the page from loading and closed the page before it opened. This could be an accidental click on a mobile phone or tablet.
  • The page didn’t load due to problems with site accessibility, it loaded incorrectly in a certain browser.
  • The ad specifies a URL that redirects to a page that doesn't have the Yandex Metrica tag installed.
  • The ad specifies a URL that redirects to another page, and the UTM labels are lost.
  • When the user goes to the site, other scripts that are loading block the tag from working.
  • The ad specifies an invalid URL that doesn’t open a page.
Reasons at the code snippet loading stage
  • The Yandex Metrica tag isn't installed on landing pages or it's installed incorrectly.
  • The tag didn’t load on the site because the user’s browser (or a corporate proxy server) has a plugin that prohibits downloading tracking tags.
  • The user’s antivirus system blocks the tag from loading.
Reasons at the report analysis stage

If you are comparing reports for Yandex Metrica and another system or ad management account, data might differ. This is due to the fact that services have different ways of registering a user’s interaction with a site.

For example, in the advertising account, not only a transition to the site may be considered as a click, but also viewing ad details or transitioning to a group page on a social network. Yandex Metrica only counts users who land on the site.

You might also have different attribution models chosen in ad managers.

For more information, see Learn more about the Tags report group.

Please note: Our support team will never initiate a call to you. Do not follow any instructions of people who call you and introduce themselves as the Yandex Metrica support team.

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