Why do GA campaign codes appear in source/medium lists when they don't link to the page?

Question

I am viewing this Google Analytics report for one page on my website:

Google Analytics > Behaviour > Site Content > Secondary Dimension > Source/Medium

I've also tried using this method with the same results:

Google Analytics > Behaviour > Landing Page > Secondary Dimension > Full Referrer

The entries in the list of results include the following

• google / cpc (Google AdWords)
• "EDM" / email (clicks from emails that are tracked)
• (direct) / (none) (no medium/source tracked)
• google / organic (Google Search)
• "website" / referral (websites that link to the page)
• bing / organic (Bing Search)

These are all fine.

My question is about some GA campaign codes which appear in this list as well. These campaign codes are used on links that do not link to the page I am analysing. I would expect that traffic via a campaign code must link directly to the page otherwise, they should not appear in the list. Other campaign codes that do link to the page also appear in this list and are fine.

Why do campaign codes appear in this list if they are not used to link to the page being analysed?

Is Google Analytics tracking users who subsequently visit the page after clicking a link with a campaign code?

Answer 1

In case of:

Google Analytics > Behaviour > Site Content > Secondary Dimension > Source/Medium

I guess you meant Google Analytics > Behaviour > Site Content > All Pages then from it Secondary Dimension > Source/Medium - in this case you will see Source/Medium entries sticking to all pages that a given user browses during one session. For example, if you run AdWords campaign, session will be marked google / cpc. If a user visits more pages than just the landing page, all of these pages will have google / cpc in Source/Medium - as long as that session lasts. Default time is 30 minutes, meaning that whichever page is visited by that user, the Source/Medium dimension will be carried over. There is one exception from this 30 min rule - the session settings will be overwritten and session timer reset if the user clicks a link with utm_* tags. (That's why it is a bad idea to use utm_* on internal links.)

In case of:

Google Analytics > Behaviour > Landing Page > Secondary Dimension > Full Referrer

I guess you meant Google Analytics > Behaviour > Site Content > Landing Pages then from it Secondary Dimension > Full Referrer - I am not sure I understand this use case correctly, because in this particular report you can not see the utm_* tags in Landing Page column - utms are stripped before URL gets into the report. The Full Referrer field will show utm_source value.

Say that you have page A and page B. Page A is linked from mailings etc., and should be seen as landing page with proper Source/Medium values. If you see page B in the same report, then something is wrong along the way, such as:

• Someone from your team used utm_* tags somewhere, while linking to page B
• There is something misconfigured (CMS, redirects, tracking codes, GTM? - hard to say without having a look on the site itself), which makes your tags stick to URL, further than just the landing page, and allows user to visit page B with the same set of tags
• If page B is a landing page but has Source/Medium or other utm_* values different than what you or your team are using, then you are spammed by fake requests via Measurement Protocol. This is well known issue, unfortunately you can not do much about it other than play whack-a-mole with filters.

However, if page B shows up in the All Pages report with Source/Medium values as page A, this is correct and means that there were sessions during which page A and page B were both visited.