What Is Unassigned and Direct/None Traffic in GA4 and How to Fix It

Seeing a lot of unassigned or direct/none traffic in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)? This could be hindering your marketing efforts.

Attributing revenue to a specific channel in GA4 is important for marketers and online merchants because it helps them make informed decisions about their ad campaigns. 

When there are attribution gaps in GA4, knowing what marketing channels are working is difficult. 

So, how do you fix high unassigned or direct/none traffic in GA4? And how can you benefit from making these fixes?

This article covers:

• • What it is?
  • Benefits of Minimizing Attribution Gaps
  • Actionable Steps for Better Attribution in GA4

 

What Is Unassigned and Direct/None Traffic?

You’ll typically see unassigned and direct/none traffic in the Acquisition reports within GA4 when Google can’t determine the source of the traffic.

While both unassigned and direct/none traffic reflect an attribution limitation within GA4, there are nuances between them.

Let’s start by breaking down unassigned traffic.

Located within the GA4 channel grouping, the unassigned designation means the traffic couldn’t be categorized into a default channel grouping such as paid search, email, or direct.

Now, let’s look at direct/none traffic.

You may see direct/none traffic when looking at source/medium within your GA4 Acquisition reports.

“Direct” refers to the source, and “none” refers to the medium. Essentially, direct/none means Google can’t tell how a user’s session on your website started.

Benefits of Minimizing Attribution Gaps

Is it worth taking action in order to minimize attribution gaps in GA4?

Absolutely! Here’s a few reasons why:

• Better attribution: reducing these instances helps you understand where your visitors are actually coming from.
• Reliable reports: reports will be cleaner and more reliable, which supports your ability to make data-driven decisions.
• More precise ROI analysis: measure the effectiveness (ROI) of different channels, campaigns, and strategies.
• Optimized campaigns: effectively allocate your marketing resources and implement more strategies that work.
• Better decision-making: make informed decisions regarding your marketing strategies and business goals.
• Identifying issues: find tracking issues or gaps in your marketing setup. Fixing these issues can help you deliver an optimized user experience. 

Actionable Steps for Better Attribution in GA4

There are several actions you can take to reduce the amount of unassigned and direct/none traffic in GA4 and get better visibility into your marketing channels. 

Below is a checklist of recommendations from Elevar analysts:

1. Did you tag all of your inbound URLs with UTM parameters?
2. Do your UTM links have the proper formatting?
   • Avoid using more than one question mark in a UTM string.
   • Use hyphens instead of spaces to separate words or characters in a UTM string.
3. Are the UTMs you created following a consistent pattern across your marketing channels?
4. Are you adding UTMs to links from your own website, such as on homepage banners, navigation, etc.? If so, remove those UTM links because this changes the way events and transactions are being attributed.
5. Are your UTM parameters properly installed? 
   • Is your tracking code installed on every page before the closing tag?
   • Do your UTM tags have the correct source and medium parameters?
6. Are you following Google’s default channel grouping definitions for creating UTM tags?
7. Did you check to see if URL shorteners are stripping away referral details?

Keep in mind that it might not be possible to eliminate unassigned and direct/none traffic entirely, but these are steps you can take to make an improvement.

Questions about Unassigned and Direct/None Traffic?

Another option to improve your data accuracy in GA4 is with the Elevar server-side integration for GA4. 

The Elevar GA4 integration guarantees 99%+ purchase data accuracy. Plus, Elevar helps you attribute more conversion event data, which can lower your unassigned and direct/none traffic.

See how to reduce unassigned and direct/none traffic with Elevar.

Have questions about reducing your unassigned and direct/none traffic? We’re here to help!

Schedule a call with us to see how we can help you improve the quality of your GA4 data.