topic Google Ads showing as Direct Traffic in Ads

Google Ads showing as Direct Traffic

AdamBecker98 — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:43:02 GMT

Hi all,

Lots of similar posts to this, but I figured I'd give it a shot:

We’ve been reviewing our Original Source attribution in HubSpot and flagged some misattribution. Over the past six months, about 20% of our total new contacts have been labeled as Direct Traffic, but came through paid Google Ads, based on valid UTMs captured at the time of form submission.

We investigated and think our UTM tagging and account setup/integration with our website is up to snuff. This leaves us with some possible reasons: cookie consent not accepted, return visitors, browser privacy settings, or delayed script loading (less likely) - the usuals.

Does this sound like a reasonable real-world rate of misattribution based on privacy factors alone or should we keep digging? If so, and since we have reliable utm_source values for most contacts, any advice on reporting based on UTM source rather than Original Source?

Thanks!

Re: Google Ads showing as Direct Traffic

karstenkoehler — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:43:22 GMT

Hi @AdamBecker98,

HubSpot sorts traffic as per this table: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/reports/understand-hubspots-traffic-sources-in-the-traffic-analytics-tool#how-traffic-is-categorized-into-each-source

Can you confirm your utms are set up accordingly?

Best regards

Re: Google Ads showing as Direct Traffic

AdamBecker98 — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 14:01:43 GMT

Hey Karsten!

Thanks for the reply and the link,

We double-checked our UTM structure against HubSpot’s guidelines and everything looks correct — utm_source=google, utm_medium is either cpc or paid_search, and utm_campaign and utm_term are consistently present.

That being said, what do you think?

Re: Google Ads showing as Direct Traffic

adeleyuboco — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:58:41 GMT

We have also been experiencing the same issue with our Google Ads and even our Facebook ads. The marketing agency handling our ad campaigns had us install the AFL plugin into our HubSpot account to make sure the UTM parameters are in place. It's somehow helped address some of the issues, but a considerable number of contacts coming from these ads still reflect Direct Traffic in their Original Traffic Source. I do have to point out that they have not installed and launched the cookie consent banner on our website (they didn't explain why they opted to do this). I'm not sure if this is a factor causing the misattribution of traffic source of our paid leads. Would greatly appreciate your help on this.

Re: Google Ads showing as Direct Traffic

Jaycee_Lewis — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 15:29:56 GMT

Hey, @adeleyuboco welcome to our community! Great question.

I think we have multiple factors working here — ad blockers, privacy-focused browsers, and not having your cookie banner installed, because it helps make sure that the tracking cookie gets set correctly.

Here are 2 places to check for more clues:

Check your mobile vs. desktop attribution rates - mobile users have much higher ad blocker usage, so if your mobile traffic shows way more “Direct” sources, that’s a red flag
Look at your browser breakdown in HubSpot analytics - Firefox and Safari users have built-in privacy protections that can mess with attribution, so see if those browsers show higher direct traffic rates

I hope this helps get you moving forward! — Jaycee