Google Analytics uses Channels to group similar traffic together, but when it doesn’t know where to group the traffic, it will end up in the (Other) Channel. This issue can be resolved by updating how channels are defined, adding new channels, or updating the tagging on incoming links.
- Review what traffic is in the (Other) Channel
- Identify which channels the traffic should be in
- Go to Customize Channels within the View Settings
- Update the channel definitions to match the incoming traffic
- Create New Channels for the traffic if necessary
How Does Google Analytics Group Traffic By Channels?
The Default Channel Groupings within Google Analytics are based upon a set of rules that define the channel. When the rules are matched, the traffic is sorted into that channel. When the traffic doesn’t match any of the existing rules, it will end up in the (Other) Channel.
Use the table below to see the default channel definitions in Google Analytics. To keep things simple, they’re all focused on the UTM_ Mediums. If you use the mediums from the table, you can ensure the traffic will show up in the right channel. If you’re interested in adding new channels or fixing the (Other) channel, you’ll see more information below.
| Channel Name | Channel Definition Rule (based on UTM_Medium) |
|---|---|
| Affiliates | Medium = affiliate |
| Direct | Medium = (none) |
| Display | Medium = display, cpm or banner |
| Medium = email | |
| Organic Search | Medium = organic |
| (Other) | Medium does not match any of the other channels |
| Other Advertising | Medium = cpv, cpa, cpp or context-text |
| Paid Search | Medium = cpc, ppc or paidsearch |
| Referral | Medium = referral |
| Social | Medium = social, social-network, social network, social-media OR social media |
What Is The (Other) Channel In Google Analytics?
The (Other) Channel is traffic to your site that does not match any of the channel definitions for Google Analytics. This happens most often when UTM_Parameters are created that don’t line up with the definitions in the table above.
It’s important to note that the channel definitions are case-sensitive. Meaning “email” mediums will be grouped in the Email Channel, but “Email” mediums will be grouped in (Other). If you run into this issue, you can update your tagging only to include the lowercase “email” or you can update the Channel Definition to include the uppercase “Email.”
How To Fix The (Other) Channel In Google Analytics
Find out what traffic is showing in the (Other) channel
- Go to the Channels Report in Google Analytics (Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels)
- Click on the (Other) Channel in the first column of the table.
- Ensure “Source” is the highlighted primary dimension
- Click on the “Secondary Dimension” drop-down
- Search for “medium” and click it when it shows
- In the top right corner adjust the date range for the last 30 days (longer if necessary)
- In the bottom right corner, set the “show rows” to include all of the rows listed.
- Make sure the number of rows shown (left value) is Greater Than the number of rows (right value).
- In the top right corner, click Export > Google Sheets. (Excel or CSV work as well)
Group Your Traffic Into The Correct Channel
- Open the spreadsheet and highlight the full list of Sources and Mediums (include the headings)
- Copy/Paste this list into a new tab
- Add “Channel” in the first row, directly to the right of the data you pasted in.
- Fill out the column with each Channel that should match each source/medium.
- You can create a New Channel Name at this point, such as Paid Social.
- Sort the Channel column, so all of the channels are grouped together
Go To The Channel Settings Within Your Google Analytics View
- Go into the Google Analytics Admin by clicking “Admin” in the bottom left corner of Google Analytics.
- In the View Column (on the right), click Channel Settings > Channel Grouping.
- Click the “Default Channel Grouping” link to open up the channel settings
Update The Channel Definitions To Match Your Incoming Traffic
By using the spreadsheet you created with the list of sources and mediums, you can start to update the channel definitions to better group your traffic moving forward. Most likely, the most straightforward approach will be adding rules based around the mediums, as they should be more consistent than individual sources.
Quick Items To Review Before Starting:
- AND vs. OR when matching
- AND means all items must be matched for traffic to be grouped in that channel.
- OR means any of the items must be matched for traffic to be grouped in that channel.
- 99% of the time, you will be using OR for your channel rules.
- System Defined Channel
- You’ll see these as the default rules when editing channel definitions.
- 99% of the time, you will keep these in place on the channel, and use OR for additional rules.
- Different Match Types (mediums used as examples, but matches can work for any dimension)
- Exactly Matches: The text you enter needs to match the medium exactly.
- Contains: The text you enter will be inside of the medium.
- Starts With: The medium has the text you entered at the beginning.
- Ends With: The medium has the text you entered at the end.
- Matches RegEx: The medium matches your Regular Expression.
- Is One Of: The mediums can be listed in this section.
- Display Colors
- (100% optional). In certain reports, channels are associated with specific colors that can be set here.
- Retroactive Data
- Channel updates start working when you add them but do not change any historical data within GA.
The Channel Definition Broken Out
- Name Of Channel: What the channel is called. Don’t change existing channel names, but use it for new ones.
- Dimension: What you are using to match against. Generally, the “medium” is recommended.
- Match Value: Enter the text from your spreadsheet here.
- Match Type: Broken out above, but lets you select how the Match Value and Dimension are related/defined.
- “-“, OR, AND: Define how the rules interact. AND means all items must be matched, while OR means any items.
A Quick Introduction To Match Types
The Match Types in your channel settings allow you to define the relationship between the Dimension and the Match Value, so you can better group your traffic correctly. Most of these are straight forward and do not require further explanation, but breaking them out will help you see the best way to match your data.
| + Match Type | – Match Type | Match Type Definition (for the +’s, the -‘s are the opposite) |
|---|---|---|
| Exactly Matches | Does Not Exactly Match | The Value and Dimension are equal to each other |
| Contains | Does Not Contain | The Value is within the Dimension |
| Starts With | Does Not Start With | The Value is at the beginning of the Dimension |
| Ends With | Does Not End With | The Value is at the end of the Dimension |
| Is One Of | Is Not One Of | The Dimension is matched by one of the items on the list |
| Matches RegEx | Does Not Match RegEx | The Dimension is matched by the Regular Expression Value |
Which Match Type To Use?
Depending on your use case, Exactly Matches or Contains should match most items you’ll be adding. The Starts With and Ends With types will be used less often but can be helpful in specific scenarios.
If you have a list of items, you can use the “Is One Of” match type. “Is One Of” is a user-friendly way to add a list of items that prevents you from hitting “OR” and creating a new rule for every item you want to add—more details in the next section.
“Matches RegEx” or Regular Expressions is a bit more advanced to implement but can be used to create more advanced rules that will make your life easier. Look 2 sections ahead for more details on this.
How To Use “Is One Of” Match Type When Creating Custom Channels?
The “Is One Of” match type in Google Analytics helps create a list of items that should be matched by the rule. You can use the Channel Report with a secondary dimension of source/medium to identify wrongfully grouped traffic.
When UTM Parameters are not on all links in emails, it’s common to see traffic in the Referral channel that came from an email. If you go to the Referral Report in Google Analytics (Acquisition > All Traffic > Referrals) and search for “mail,” you’re bound to find several email sites with traffic that should move into the email channel.
- Using the list from above, go into the email channel settings.
- Select “Source/Medium” as the Dimension.
- You could also do Medium=Referral AND then a second rule based on Source.
- Select “Is One Of” as the Match Type
- Enter the first item, click enter to select it once highlighted in blue.
- Hit enter to move to a new line and search for the following item.
- Click Done in the bottom left corner when you’ve added all the items
How To User The “Matches RegEx” When Creating Channel Definitions?
Regular Expressions are a writing format that allows you to create different matching rules within the text. In the same way, we’re selecting “starts with” or “ends with,” RegEx can be used to create those rules in a single line.
While you could teach an entire course on RegEx, below are the essential items that can create more advanced matches within Google Analytics Custom Channels.
| RegEx Character | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ^ | Start With |
| $ | Ends With |
| | | OR |
| .* | Any # of Characters, including 0 (no space) |
| \. | Period “.” |
RegEx Examples:
- The | is used to say OR. Meaning if I want to match both facebook.com and instagram.com
- Match Example: facebook|instagram
- The . on its own means any character. The \ makes it a period in RegEx. So using the example above
- Match Example: facebook\.com|instagram\.com
- If there is a site called howtousefacebook.com, it would match the above filter.
- Match Example: ^facebook\.com|instagram\.com
- Twitter traffic sometimes shows as t.co in Google Analytics.
- This will match domains ending in T, and both .co’s and .com’s
- To ensure the source matches correctly, I want to start and end the match type.
- Match Example: ^t\.co$
- Combining all of the social sites into a single rule would look like the following
- Match Example: ^facebook\.com|instagram\.com|^t\.co$
- The .* is meant to be a wildcard. It can match any number of characters, including none.
- If your media team used the following utms, they would all fall into the (Other)
- paid-social, paid social, paid_social and paidsocial
- By adding a rule medium “matches regex” paid.*social
- You’ve matched all 4 variations with a single filter.
- If your media team used the following utms, they would all fall into the (Other)
Update An Existing Channel: Email Traffic Showing In (Other) Channel In Google Analytics
As mentioned above, it’s common to see traffic using the “Email” medium despite the channel only matching the “email” medium. By updating the channel definition to include both, we can better group the traffic moving forward.
- Open The Email Channel in the Channel Settings Tab
- Click “OR” because we want to group traffic that matches Email or email.
- Select “Medium” from the drop-down list
- Keep “exactly matches” as the Match Type.
- Type Email in the field for the Match Value
- Click Done in the bottom left corner.
- If you’re done editing channels, click Save at the bottom of the page.
Create A New Channel: How To Track Paid Social Traffic In Google Analytics
When advertising on social media sites and driving traffic to your website, you’ll want to see how that traffic is performing inside of Google Analytics. Because there is spend associated with this traffic, you also want to break out organic social traffic. Separating the paid and organic social will help you analyze the performance of the traffic and understand the impact of your media dollars.
- Click “Define a new channel” at the top of the channel settings page.
- Name your channel “Paid Social” or whatever makes sense based on the traffic.
- Select “Medium” from the drop-down list
- Choose “matches regex” as the Match Type.
- Type paid.*social in the Match Value and click Save.
- The .* in RegEx means any number of characters, including 0 characters (no space).
- Meaning it will match paid-social, paid social, paid_social, and paidsocial.
- Click Done in the bottom left corner.
- If you’re done editing channels, click Save at the bottom of the page.
The Order Of Channels Matters
On the channel settings page, the order of the channels is essential. The traffic will be associated with the first channel from the top that matches. The example below demonstrates how traffic could fall into the wrong channel if the order of the channels is not factored in.
Imagine you’re running email campaigns with the source “newsletter” and medium “email.” Your partner agency is running emails to the same landing page with the source “partner-email” and the medium “email”
- A Partner Email channel has been added, when the source / medium is equal to “partner-email / email”
- If the Partner Email Channel is below the Email Channel, those emails will end up in the Email Channel.
- Because the medium=email for the partner email, it will be reviewed and pulled into the Email Channel first.
- If the Partner Email Channel is above the Email Channel, those emails will end up in the Partner Email Channel.
- Because it matched the Partner Email Channel first, it won’t even be reviewed by the Email Channel.
- Simple fixes include adding a “does not contain” rule to the Email Channel or updating the UTM Parameters.
What’s Next:
Having the ability to update existing channels and add new ones within Google Analytics will help to improve the quality of your data collection moving forward. And not seeing the (Other) channel makes things much more streamlined to review. The next step in improving data quality would be to upgrade your campaign tracking and ensure that your UTM naming conventions are up to par.
