The video is in the works. Until then, the guide will get you there.
Step-by-step guide
Where to find the Acquisition overview
In the side menu, click "Acquisition".
A submenu opens. Choose "Overview" there.
The Acquisition overview page opens.
What does acquisition mean?
Acquisition counts every visitor who found their way to you through a channel. Through Google, through a newsletter, through a link on somebody else's site, through an ad. In short: everyone who was guided to you along some route.
Not included are the direct visitors, meaning the ones who typed in your address themselves or used a bookmark. You usually know those people already. This overview is about the others: the ones your marketing brings you.
The period being analyzed always follows the date selection at the top. Set a different period there, and the entire report adjusts immediately.
The five metrics at the top
Five metrics sit at the very top. Together they tell you whether your marketing is bringing in visitors and whether they are the right ones.
| Metric | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Acquisition visits | How many visits came through a channel, so not directly. That is the harvest from your marketing. |
| Paid traffic share | How much of that comes from paid advertising. A high value means you are buying a lot of visits. |
| Strongest channel | The channel with the most visits. Your most important source, the one that deserves the most attention. |
| Engagement rate | How many visitors genuinely engage with your site instead of disappearing again after a few seconds. Higher is better. |
| Active sources | How many different sources are sending you visitors. Many sources mean a healthy spread. |
Two metrics are worth a second look.
The paid traffic share reveals how dependent you are on your ad budget. If 80 percent of your visitors come from paid ads, then your flow dries up the moment you turn the budget off. A healthy balance also has a strong organic base that keeps running without ad money.
And the engagement rate is the honest counterpart to volume. 5,000 visits sounds excellent. But if the engagement rate is in the basement, you attracted the wrong visitors: they come, take a quick look, and are gone again. Lots of visits with little engagement is expensively purchased air.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Lots of visits, high engagement | Working. More of that. |
| Lots of visits, low engagement | You are attracting the wrong people. Check your audience or your message. |
| Few visits, high engagement | The right people are coming, just too few of them. More reach pays off here. |
| Few visits, low engagement | This channel brings you nothing. Put your energy somewhere else. |
The trend (the chart)
Below that, a line chart shows day by day how your visitors from acquisition are developing. One curve is the visits, the other the unique visitors behind them.
This is where the chart becomes your proof of impact. Did you send a newsletter, run an ad, or post something on social media? In the trend, you see right away whether it did anything. A spike upward on exactly the right day and you know it landed. If the spike does not come or turns out tiny, the campaign did little. You can hardly measure a campaign's success more honestly.
Also watch the gap between the two curves. If they sit close together, every visitor came exactly once. If the visits curve runs clearly above the other, people are coming back. And returning visitors are usually the more valuable ones.
A word on patience: paid ads and newsletters take effect immediately, often within hours. SEO and organic posts need weeks. So do not judge every channel by the same yardstick. A flat day after a blog post means nothing at all, a flat day after a newsletter certainly does.
The three boxes at the bottom
Below the chart you find three compact boxes. Each one shows a small chart plus a top list. If you want to dig deeper, the link in the top right, the "→", takes you to the full detail report.
Strongest channels
A donut chart plus a list shows you which types of channels your visitors come through:
| Channel | What is behind it |
|---|---|
| Direct | Address typed in by hand or a bookmark. |
| Organic search | Through search engines, without a paid ad. |
| Paid search | Through search ads such as Google Ads. |
| Organic social media | Through regular posts on LinkedIn, Instagram, and the like. |
| Paid social media | Through advertising on social networks. |
| Through newsletters and mailings. | |
| Display advertising | Through banner ads. |
| Messenger | Through WhatsApp, Telegram, and similar. |
| Referrals | Through links on other websites. |
| Other campaigns | Any other tagged campaigns. |
This box tells you where your marketing is working. If organic search is strong, your SEO is paying off. If paid search is out front, a lot hangs on your ad budget. The "All channels" link opens the full report.
Most frequent referrers
A bar chart plus a list of the external websites sending you the most visitors, each with the site's icon. That way you spot which link or mention actually brings you visitors. Handy for checking whether a partnership or a press article did anything. The "All referrers" link opens the "Referring websites" report.
This box gets interesting above all when a site shows up that you knew nothing about. Somebody linked to you, mentioned you, or recommended you without you noticing. Worth a look: sometimes there is a partner behind it you could do more with.
Most used search engines
A bar chart plus a list of the search engines visitors use to find you, each with its logo. Google is usually out front. But Bing, DuckDuckGo, or AI searches like ChatGPT are showing up more and more. If the share of AI searches grows, that is a pointer: you should be findable there too. The "All search engines" link opens the "Visibility" report.
Aha moments you will recognize
The overview is usually where it clicks. A few patterns you will recognize quickly:
- A high paid share with a low engagement rate at the same time. You are buying a lot of visits, but the wrong visitors. Time to review your ad audiences.
- Almost everything comes from a single source. While it is going well, that feels comfortable. But if that one source falls away, after a Google update, for example, your flow stops. A concentration risk worth tackling before it hurts.
- A spike in the trend on exactly the day after the newsletter. Then it worked. From now on you can tell with one look whether a campaign was worth it.
- Organic search growing quietly in the background. No fireworks, but a channel that brings you visitors without you paying per click. That is exactly where patience pays off.
- "Direct" is suspiciously large. If a big share of your visitors supposedly types in your address by hand, something is usually off. Most likely your newsletters and campaigns are missing their tags, which is why those visitors end up in the wrong bucket.
What is in it for me?
The acquisition overview is your marketing cockpit. It answers the questions that count without you having to search:
- What is working? The strongest channel and the channel split show it.
- Volume or quality? Weigh the visits against the engagement rate, then you know.
- Did a campaign work? The trend shows the spike after each one.
- How dependent am I? The paid share and the number of active sources give you the answer.
The real value is that you stop guessing. Marketing budgets get handed out by gut feeling surprisingly often: people do what they have always done and hope. Here you see which channel actually brings in visitors and which one only keeps you busy. That is the difference between a hunch and a decision.
If you want to go deeper, the three "→" links take you straight to the detail reports. The overview stays deliberately the quick look at the whole picture.
Common questions
What exactly counts as "acquisition" and what does not?
Every visitor who came to you through a channel, so through search, social media, a newsletter, advertising, or somebody else's link. Not included are the direct visitors who typed in your address themselves. That is why the number here is lower than the total visits in the visitors overview.
Why is the overview almost empty on the first day?
Because only the real-time view counts immediately. All the other reports are processed overnight and appear the next morning. On the second day the overview fills up on its own.
What does a high "paid traffic share" mean?
That a large part of your visitors comes from paid advertising. That is not bad in itself, but it makes you dependent on the budget. Turn the ads off, and this flow dries up right away. A strong organic base alongside it gives you more peace of mind.
What is the engagement rate, and how is it different from the bounce rate?
The engagement rate shows the share of visitors who genuinely engage with your site. The bounce rate shows the opposite, namely, the share that leaves again right after a single page. So with the engagement rate, higher is better. With the bounce rate, it is the other way around. Lots of visitors with low engagement usually means you are attracting the wrong ones.
Do AI searches like ChatGPT really get counted?
Yes, as long as a visitor comes to you from there. Sources like that appear among the most used search engines. A growing share is a good sign for being present there.
My newsletter does not show up anywhere. What is going on?
Most likely the tag in the link is missing. Email programs pass along no origin, which is why visitors like that land under "Direct". Build the link with the campaign URL builder before you send, and next time the newsletter shows up cleanly as a channel of its own.
How often should I look in here?
Once a week is enough for the overview, plus the day after a bigger campaign. Checking daily usually just leads to you mistaking normal fluctuation for a trend.