Direct Traffic

Rockerbox will define a conversion as being driven by “Direct Traffic” if there were no other marketing touchpoints that led a user to convert.

Example 1:

Path to conversion is Search->Facebook->Direct->Conversion. This would be reported out as:

  1. Search
  2. Facebook
  3. Conversion

In the above scenario, conversion credit would only be distributed between Search and Facebook.

Example 2:

The Path to conversion is Direct->Conversion. This would be reported out as:

  1. Direct

In the above scenario, conversion credit would be assigned 100% to the direct touchpoint.

Applying Attribution Credit to Direct Traffic

Example 1:

Path to conversion is Search->Facebook->Direct->Conversion. Conversion credit would be allocated as follows:

  • First Touch: Search receives 100% of conversion credit
  • Last Touch: Facebook receives 100% of conversion credit
  • Even Weight: Search and Facebook each receives 50% conversion credit respectively
  • Statistical: Search and Facebook get X% and Y% of conversion credit, based on the model. X+Y=100%

Example 2:

Path to conversion is Direct->Conversion. Direct would get 100% of the conversion credit regardless of attribution methodology. This means that when analyzing Direct as a channel, the result is the same regardless of attribution methodology as Direct only includes users that engaged with 0 non-direct marketing touchpoints.

Reducing Direct %

Reducing Direct Traffic gives you more insights into your marketing impact on user actions. You can use the following tactics to reduce Direct for your conversions.

  1. Map your existing Direct URLs
  2. Add more Marketing data
  3. Add more user identification data

A) Map Eligible Traffic

A potential Marketing Event will be treated as Direct if either of the following are true:

  • If doesn’t meet any of your existing mapping rules in Rockerbox
  • It meets a rule set in Channels > Exclusions

Review all URLs that are classified as Direct and see if they are classified correctly. It’s quite common for there to be URLs that should be mapped to a channel.

Less common are URLs that are excluded as marketing events but should actually be included. For example, Rockerbox has default Channels > Exclusions for many payment providers.

This is so that a checkout flow that redirects to a payment provider's website doesn’t count as a marketing event. However, you may have a partnership with a payment provider where they refer traffic back to your site. You would not want to exclude those referrals.

B) Add more Marketing data

Your customers might have heard about you from a channel that isn’t tracked through your current setup. In that case, adding more marketing data will reduce Direct. Examples include:

C) Add more User data

Passing user data to Rockerbox more frequently can help identify users. These tactics include:

Attribution Type

Since Direct conversions don’t have any marketing touchpoints assigned to them, changing the Attribution Type between First Touch, Last Touch, Even Weight, or Multi-Touch will never impact the number of conversions attributed to Direct.


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