Finding the domain from which your traffic originates in Google Analytics

I am nosey. I mean really nosey. I have hotjar, leadfeeder and Google Analytics running on most of my sites. It is one thing to know that a random amount of visitors were close to a conversion (but did not convert), but I need more details! Here’s what I like to answer:

• Did someone come to my site from an email signature even if they never responded to my email?
• Did a repeat customer from a specific city and specific company come back and order? Did someone else from the company order (perhaps indicating word of mouth referral)?
• Is a competitor spying on me?

Those are just a few areas I like to keep tabs on. It can be a real manual pain to monitor activity from specific domains or companies…even with specific Google Analytics dashboards or shortcuts.

There is a quick secondary dimension I like to apply in Google Analytics which allows me to see from which domain visitors are coming.

There is, of course, the Network Domain report in Google Analytics:

but I find that does not provide the domain detail I want. I add a secondary dimension of Network Domain to potentially provide the URL details I seek. In so doing, I now know the URL from which the traffic originates.

The beauty of any Secondary Dimension is that it can be applied in the majority of reports. Another area that I monitor is page traffic from specific network domains.

Go to the All Pages report and add your Network Domain as Secondary Dimension. Now I can see what domains are hitting which pages and answer the questions posed above.

When I combine this data with Lead Feeder (as one example), I can get a decent picture of traffic origination and, if I am really studious, compare recent emails opens or clicks with domains from this report to see if an email leads to ROI.

This is a quick and dirty approach to reporting but Network Domain is a dimension I, more often than not, do not see companies using.

If you use secondary dimensions in other ways, comment below and share with the class.