Glossary: Traffic Channel

A traffic channel is the grouping used to describe where visitors come from: organic search, paid social, direct, referral, email, and so on. Grouping raw referrer data into channels makes it possible to compare acquisition sources at a glance.

Examples

• A visitor arriving from a Google search is classified under the organic search channel.

• A wallet connect that follows a click from a Twitter/X post is attributed to the social channel.

• A team compares deposit volume by traffic channel to decide where to invest marketing spend.

Traffic channels in crypto apps

Crypto traffic comes from places that standard channel rules often miss: X and Farcaster posts, Discord and Telegram groups, wallet in-app browsers, newsletters, AI assistants and referral codes. Many of these strip the referrer, so UTM parameters and referral codes do more of the work. The channel also matters after the visit, because teams want to know which channel brings wallets that transact, not only visitors.

Example

A visitor clicks a Google ad that carries a gclid, but the in-app browser drops the referrer. Formo still puts the session in Paid Search because of the click ID. The same visitor returns next week from a bookmark, and that session is Direct.

How Formo classifies traffic channels

Formo assigns each event one of 13 channels with a priority ladder, and the first rule that matches wins. The inputs are the external referrer domain, utm_source, utm_medium, the ref parameter and ad click IDs. A paid signal, which is a paid utm_medium or any ad click ID, puts traffic in a paid channel; Google and Microsoft click IDs on their own go to Paid Search, and Meta, TikTok, X, LinkedIn and Reddit click IDs go to Paid Social. Referrers from your own root domain are ignored, and a visit with no referrer, UTM, referral code or click ID is Direct.

Traffic reports use the channel of each session’s entry page view. Revenue and volume breakdowns use the channel of each event. A contract event inherits the attribution of the same wallet’s SDK session from the last hour, or counts as Direct when there is none.

Related reading

Explore UTM Parameters, Referrers / Sources, Direct Traffic, and Organic Search.

FAQs

What’s the difference between a traffic channel and a referrer?

A referrer is the specific source (a URL or app); a channel is the broader category that source is grouped into.

How many traffic channels are there?

Definitions vary, but common channels include direct, organic search, social, referral, email, and paid. Formo uses 13: Paid Search, Paid Video, Paid Social, Email, Display, Referrals, Paid Other, AI, Organic Search, Organic Social, Organic Video, Referrers and Direct.

Can wallet activity be grouped by traffic channel?

Yes, if campaign or referrer context is captured and explicitly linked to an account or wallet event. Report the matching rule and unmatched share; a public address alone does not reveal its traffic source.