The video is in the works. Until then, the guide will get you there.
Step-by-step guide
Where to find the All channels report
In the side menu, click "Acquisition".
A submenu opens. Choose "All channels" there.
The All channels report opens.
Why a separate channel report?
In the acquisition overview you see which channels are out front. But a high visit count on its own does not tell you whether those visitors are the right ones. 5,000 visits from an ad sounds excellent until you realize that nearly all of them were gone again after two seconds.
That is exactly where this report comes in. It puts every channel to the test and shows you side by side: how many visitors come from here, and how well do they behave?
The period being analyzed always follows the date selection at the top. Set a different period there, and the entire report adjusts immediately.
The flow chart: where do your visitors come from, and what do they do?
At the very top you see a flow chart. Your channels are on the left, three possible behaviors on the right. The streams in between show how the visitors from each channel behaved.
One detail explains the whole report: every channel bar is normalized to 100%. So what you compare here is the quality of the channels, not their size. A small channel and a large one are the same height, so you can line them up fairly. The absolute visit count sits to the right of it.
The three behaviors:
| Result | What it means |
|---|---|
| Engaged | At least 30 seconds on the site and more than one action. Genuine interest. |
| Looking around | A visit without engagement but without an immediate bounce either. Still looking around. |
| Bounce | One page only, no action, gone right away. |
What you spot here: a channel that brings in lots of visitors but mostly produces "Bounce" is delivering the wrong visitors. And a small channel with a high "Engaged" share is often worth more than its thin visit count suggests.
What you can do: put more into the channels with a high engaged share. With channels that show a lot of bouncing, take a closer look: does the landing page match what the visitor expected? Often a lot of bouncing comes down to the wrong audience setting in your advertising.
A common case that is quickly explained: an ad promises a "free consultation", but the landing page shows the price list first. The visitor hesitates and leaves. In the flow chart you see that as a wide bounce stream, and the fix usually is not a new ad but a matching landing page.
The six metrics
To the right of the chart, six metrics sum up the essentials:
| Metric | What it shows | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Total visits | All visits across all channels. | Your overall volume. |
| Active channels | How many channels are sending you visitors. | Many mean a healthy spread, few mean a concentration risk. |
| Strongest channel | The channel with the most visits, with its share in percent. | Your most important source. |
| Best engagement | The channel with the highest engagement share, with the percentage. | The channel bringing you the best quality visitors. |
| Biggest growth | The channel that gained the most compared with the previous period, with the percentage. | Where something is picking up right now. A channel on the rise. |
| Bounce rate | The overall bounce rate across all channels. | How many visitors are gone right away. The lower, the better. |
The most important comparison sits in two of these metrics. Always look at "Strongest channel" and "Best engagement" next to each other:
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Both the same channel | Ideal. Plenty of good visitors come from there. Keep it up. |
| Two different channels | Your biggest channel is not your best one. Build out the engagement winner, the foundation is already right there, only the volume is missing. |
Also keep an eye on "Biggest growth", something is taking shape there. And use the "Bounce rate" as a quick health check for your visitors as a whole.
Trend by channel
Below that, a chart shows how your channels developed over time.
In the top right you find a toggle:
- Absolute: the actual visit counts per channel.
- Share %: the percentage each channel contributes to the total
Showing and hiding channels: above the curve sits a legend with every channel (Direct, Organic search, Referrals and so on). Click a channel in the legend to hide its line. A second click brings it back. That way you show only the channels you want to compare right now, without the others cluttering the picture.
What you spot with it: the Absolute view shows you growth and decline in plain numbers. The Share view uncovers the shifts between channels. For example, when organic search grows in share while paid search falls back. In absolute numbers you often do not see that at all, in the percentage view you see it immediately.
What you can do: use "Share %" to check whether you are becoming less dependent on paid channels or whether a dependency is quietly growing in the background. And hide the big channels through the legend for a moment to see how your smaller ones are developing. In the full chart, they easily get lost.
Both views can be right at the same time, and that is exactly where the benefit sits. A channel can grow in absolute numbers and still shrink in share because another one is growing even faster. Anyone who looks at only one view misses half the story.
Channel overview
The table lists all channels with their metrics:
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| Channel | The name of the channel. |
| Visits | Number of visits. |
| Share | Share of the total. |
| Unique visitors | How many different visitors are behind it. |
| Ø Visit duration | Average time spent. |
| Bounce rate | Share of immediate bounces. |
| Trend | A small curve showing the development. |
Comparing Visits and Unique visitors is especially worthwhile here. If the two values sit close together, every visitor came exactly once. If the visit count is clearly higher, people are coming back, and that speaks clearly for the quality of that channel.
How to use the table
- Sorting: click a column heading to sort ascending or descending.
- Looking into a channel: click a row. You then see the most visited sources within that channel. With "Organic search" those are the individual search engines, with "Referrals" the individual websites. "← Back to channel overview" takes you back to the full list.
- Opening the detail report: in the detail view, the "Open detail report" link takes you straight to the channel's full page.
What this table does for you: it connects volume (visits) and quality (Ø visit duration, bounce rate) in one place. And clicking into a row answers the next logical question: which specific source is actually behind this channel?
Note: which channel types are shown is explained in the article Acquisition overview.
Aha moments you will recognize
The All channels report is the page where many people see, honestly for the first time, what is really working in their marketing. A few patterns you will recognize quickly:
- The big channel that only delivers bounces. In the flow chart it is wide, but the stream runs almost entirely into "Bounce". Lots of visitors, little effect. Usually a sign that the advertising is speaking to the wrong audience.
- The small channel that suddenly shines. Few visits, but a solid "Engaged". That channel deserves more attention because the right visitors come from there.
- The shift you only see in percent. In the Absolute view everything is growing, all good. Switch to "Share %" and suddenly you notice that paid search makes up a bigger and bigger part. Your dependence on the ad budget is growing without anybody noticing.
- Two search engines, two worlds. You click into "Organic search" and see that visitors from one search engine stay considerably longer than those from the other. A hint about where your content lands better and sometimes about where you have not been looking at all.
What is in it for me?
The All channels report is your marketing cockpit for channel quality. It answers the questions that actually matter:
- Quality, not just volume? The flow chart shows you which channel brings engaged visitors and which one only brings numbers.
- Where does the effort pay off? The strongest channel and the best engagement show it side by side.
- Is something shifting? The trend in the percentage view uncovers developments before they turn into a problem.
- What is specifically behind it? Clicking into a channel row takes you from the channel type down to the individual source.
The real value sits in a single insight: the biggest channel is rarely the best one. Anyone who hands out budget purely by visit count often feeds exactly the channel that delivers the least. This report flips the question around. Not "where do the most come from" but "where do the right ones come from".
And if you take only one thing from this: compare "Strongest channel" with "Best engagement" once a month. If they are two different ones, you just found your next task.
Common questions
Why are all channels the same height in the flow chart, even though one of them is much bigger?
Because every channel bar is normalized to 100%. That way you compare quality fairly, not size. The real visit count sits to the right of it.
When does a visit count as "engaged"?
When the visitor spent at least 30 seconds on the site and took more than one action. Both have to apply.
I only have a small budget. Which channel should I bet on?
Look at "Best engagement" first, not at "Strongest channel". The channel with the best engagement brings you the right visitors, even if there are still only a few of them. That is exactly where more effort pays off, because the foundation is already right.
What is the difference from the acquisition overview?
The overview is the quick look at the whole picture and mainly shows volume. This report goes deep: it puts volume and quality side by side and lets you look into every channel.
I spend a lot on ads. How can I tell whether it is worth it?
In the flow chart, compare paid search with your free channels. If engagement is considerably worse with the paid visitors, you are paying for visitors who leave again quickly. In that case your money is in the wrong place.
How can I tell that I am dependent on a single channel?
When one channel stays above half of your visits in "Share %". If that channel falls away, your entire flow collapses. A look at "Active channels" shows you how broadly you are set up.
A channel shows 100 percent engagement. Too good to be true?
Usually yes. Check the visit count next to it. With a handful of visits, any percentage is coincidence. Only from a few dozen visits on does the number mean something.
Why does "Direct" show up as a channel, even though it is not marketing at all?
Because Trustlytics lines up every origin here, including the ones without a channel. In practice that is useful as a benchmark: you usually know your direct visitors already, and they are often the yardstick your marketing channels have to measure up to. If "Direct" is suspiciously large, your campaigns may be missing their tags.
How often should I look in here?
Once a month is enough, plus after a bigger campaign. Channel quality changes slowly, and checking daily only leads to you mistaking random fluctuation for a trend.