Once in awhile I’ll be looking at our traffic report in Analytics and notice a blast of traffic to us from a site that I haven’t seen before. Unless that traffic is coming from the referring site’s homepage, there really isn’t a great way to see where it’s coming from. This is especially discouraging if the traffic isn’t converting at a high conversion rate. I want the opportunity to learn how we’re being linked to, reach out to the site owner and discuss ways to improve the conversion rate.

Have you run into a similar issue? It’s definitely possible to access the specific referring URL in Analytics, but a custom report is necessary. It takes a few moments to setup, but once it’s saved, you’ll be able quickly access the report in the future.

To see specific referring URLs:

1. Click the Customization link at the top of Analytics.
2. Select New Custom Report.
3. Under Metric Groups, add the metrics Pageviews, Transactions and Ecommerce Conversion Rate.
4. Next to Type, click the Flat Table tab. Add the dimensions Source/Medium, Referral Path, Language and Country.
5. Next to Type, click the Map Overlay tab. Add the metrics Pageviews, Transactions and Ecommerce Conversion Rate.
6. Save the report.

This custom report will now be available for quick access when clicking the Customization tab. Select the saved report and you’ll be given your Source/Medium report. However the difference is when you click one of the specific Source/Medium links, you’ll receive a list of the pages for each Source that is referring traffic and sales to your site.

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