Issues with Traffic Source Attribution from Instagram Linktree and LinkedIn
SOLVE
Hello,
I am experiencing issues with traffic source attribution from my Instagram Linktree and LinkedIn. For example, traffic coming from this link: https://linktr.ee/accountablehq is being incorrectly tagged as Direct Traffic instead of showing the original source.
I would like to understand the root cause of this issue. Is there a known problem with how Instagram or LinkedIn attribute traffic?
Specifically, why might traffic from these two sources be classified as direct traffic? For reference, here is a HubSpot article that attempts to explain this phenomenon, but it’s not entirely clear: Why Do I Have More Direct Traffic Than Expected?.
Interestingly, traffic from other sources, such as Reddit, is correctly tagged as Social.
I am currently using cookie tracking, as it’s challenging to add UTM parameters to all the links in my application.
Issues with Traffic Source Attribution from Instagram Linktree and LinkedIn
SOLVE
Linktree has an article about adding utm parameters to the links. It looks to be pretty straightforward. https://linktr.ee/help/en/articles/5434179-how-to-add-utm-parameters . If I had to guess Hubspot is likely not recognizing the source and is not filtering it in its javascript so it ends up as direct traffic. I would also raise this as a support ticket so it gets in front of the Hubspot team for a potential fix (this is a user to user forum).
Issues with Traffic Source Attribution from Instagram Linktree and LinkedIn
SOLVE
Linktree has an article about adding utm parameters to the links. It looks to be pretty straightforward. https://linktr.ee/help/en/articles/5434179-how-to-add-utm-parameters . If I had to guess Hubspot is likely not recognizing the source and is not filtering it in its javascript so it ends up as direct traffic. I would also raise this as a support ticket so it gets in front of the Hubspot team for a potential fix (this is a user to user forum).
