How Usermaven categorizes traffic into default channels
Understanding how Usermaven attributes your website traffic to different channels is essential for accurately analyzing your marketing efforts and user engagement. This guide explains how Usermaven first evaluates your custom channels and then applies its default channel mapping rules.
In this guide, you'll learn about:
User-defined (custom) channel mapping
Usermaven allows you to create custom channels to categorize traffic according to your business needs and campaign structure.
Custom channels let you override or supplement the default channel definitions.
Why use custom channels?
Tailored categorization
Group traffic into channels specific to your business, such as:
Affiliates
Brand Paid Search
Influencer Campaigns
Partner Referrals
Override default mapping
If the default rules don't match your attribution model, custom channels ensure traffic is categorized the way you want.
Greater flexibility
Break broader channels into more specific groups for deeper reporting.
Priority of custom channels
Custom channels are always evaluated before Usermaven's default channels.
If traffic matches a custom channel, it is assigned immediately and the default channel rules are skipped.
If you have multiple custom channels, they are evaluated from top to bottom. The first matching channel is assigned.
You can reorder channel priority by dragging and dropping channels in:
Settings → Workspace Settings → Setup → Channel Mapping.
Creating a custom channel
Navigate to:
Settings → Workspace Settings → Setup → Channel Mapping
Then:
Click Add a Custom Channel.
Enter a channel name.
Define one or more matching conditions.
Conditions can be based on:
UTM Source
UTM Medium
UTM Campaign
Landing Page URL
Referrer
You can combine conditions using AND and OR logic to build more advanced matching rules.
Where custom channels appear
Once created, custom channels are available throughout Usermaven, including:
Web Analytics
Attribution reports
Dashboards
Other reports that use channel data
Data Usermaven uses for channel mapping
If traffic doesn't match a custom channel, Usermaven evaluates the following information.
UTM Parameters
utm_sourceutm_mediumutm_campaign
Referrer
Usermaven classifies the referrer to determine whether it is:
Search
Social
Email
AI Search
This classification is then used when evaluating the default channels.
Click IDs & URL Parameters
Usermaven also checks advertising identifiers such as:
gclid
msclkid
fbclid
wbraid
gbraid
dclid
yclid
sznclid
Default channel mapping sequence
If traffic doesn't match a custom channel, Usermaven evaluates the following channels in order. The first matching rule wins.
Paid Social
Paid Search
Display Ads
Email
AI Search
Organic Search
Organic Social
Other Campaigns
Referral
Direct (Specific Case – Internal Referrer)
Direct (Fallback)
Paid Social
Traffic is assigned to Paid Social when Usermaven identifies a social source, social referrer, or social click context, and paid indicators are present.
Paid indicators include mediums such as:
paid
paid_social
paid-social
social_paid
social-paid
cpc
cpm
cpa
boost
ads
advertising
Supported social sources include:
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
X (Twitter)
TikTok
Pinterest
Reddit
Snapchat
Threads
Meta
Note: Social sources using mediums like display, banner, or video are still classified as Paid Social because Paid Social is evaluated before Display Ads.
Examples:
utm_source | utm_medium | Channel |
|---|---|---|
paid_social | Paid Social | |
meta | ads | Paid Social |
cpc | Paid Social | |
banner | Paid Social |
Paid Search
Traffic is assigned to Paid Search only when both conditions are true.
Search context
The referrer is recognized as a search engine, or utm_source matches a known search engine such as:
Google
Bing
Microsoft
Yahoo
Yandex
Baidu
DuckDuckGo
Brave
Kagi
Paid indicator
One of the following is present:
Paid-search mediums such as:
cpc
ppc
paidsearch
sem
adwords
googleads
shopping
pmax
or paid search click IDs:
gclid
msclkid
wbraid
gbraid
yclid
sznclid
Note: Unknown sources with paid-looking mediums do not automatically become Paid Search.
Example:
utm_source=example_partner
utm_medium=cpcThis does not qualify as Paid Search because no search context exists.
It will instead fall through to Other Campaigns.
Display Ads
Traffic is assigned to Display Ads when display, video, or programmatic advertising indicators are detected.
Examples include:
display
banner
gdn
native
video
cpv
instream
outstream
bumper
trueview
preroll
pre-roll
mid-roll
post-roll
interstitial
expandable
mraid
richmedia
programmatic
dv360
dbm
or when the URL contains:
dclid
Traffic is assigned to Email when the referrer is classified as an email platform or email-related UTM values are detected.
Supported values include:
email
e-mail
e.mail
e_mail
newsletter
digest
drip
Common email providers include:
SendGrid
Mailchimp
customer_io
Braze
Postmark
SparkPost
Mandrill
AI Search
Traffic is assigned to AI Search when:
The referrer is identified as AI Search, or
utm_sourcematches a bounded AI source token.
Supported sources include:
ChatGPT
Perplexity
Claude
Gemini
Copilot
Grok
Meta AI
You.com
Note: Matching is token-bounded, so only complete AI source names are matched. For example, a value likemychatgptcampaignwill not be classified as AI Search becausechatgptis not a standalone token.
Organic Search
Traffic is assigned to Organic Search when:
The referrer is recognized as a search engine, and
Either no basic UTM campaign fields are present, or
utm_mediummatches search-related values such as:organic
seo
organic search
Organic Social
Traffic is assigned to Organic Social when:
The referrer or social context is identified as social, or
fbclidis present,
and either:
No basic UTM campaign fields are present, or
utm_mediummatches values such as:social
organic social
community
forum
ugc
creator
Paid-looking mediums such as paid, boost, ads, advertising, cpc, cpm, cpa, and ppc are excluded.
Other Campaigns
This channel captures remaining tagged campaigns that were not matched by earlier rules.
Traffic is assigned here when utm_source, utm_medium, or utm_campaign is present after the following channels have been evaluated:
Paid Social
Paid Search
Display Ads
Email
AI Search
Organic Search
Organic Social
Referral
Traffic is assigned to Referral when:
A referrer exists, and
The significant domain of the referrer differs from the significant domain of the current URL.
Direct (Specific Case – Internal Referrer)
Traffic is assigned here when:
A referrer exists, and
The significant domain of the referrer matches the significant domain of the current URL
This typically represents users navigating within the same website.
Direct (Fallback)
This is the final fallback channel.
Traffic is assigned here when none of the previous rules match.
Typical examples include:
Users typing your URL directly
Bookmarks
Missing referrer information
Untagged traffic that doesn't satisfy any previous rule
Tips for accurate channel tracking
Use consistent UTM parameters across all marketing campaigns.
Create custom channels for business-specific attribution needs.
Review Other Campaigns regularly to identify opportunities for better tagging.
Audit your channel mappings periodically to ensure new traffic sources are categorized correctly.
Conclusion
Usermaven categorizes traffic by first evaluating your custom channels, followed by its default channel mapping rules in a fixed order.
Because the first matching rule determines the assigned channel, consistent UTM tagging and well-defined custom channels help ensure accurate attribution and more reliable reporting across your marketing efforts.
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