#casestudy: Doctor Google, Comedian Facebook : Traffic Sources in Mediapanel

Check out our analysis: Mediapanel study results for February 2023

Information about traffic sources allows you to determine from what type of pages users came to a website. For this case study five of the largest websites in terms of reach in two categories - "Humor" and "Health and medicine" - were analyzed. As it turned out, the way of media consumption in both cases is different.

Looking for humor - to "social networks"

The averaged data for the 5 analyzed websites from the "Humor" category indicate that the main source of traffic for these websites are social media. On average, as many as 89% of users who visited the analyzed websites in February had previously browsed social media. The result is slightly "lowered" by the category leader - demotywatory.pl - in whose case "social media" was the source of traffic for 49% of users in February. Another, almost equally popular source for this website are referral pages (48%) and direct entries ( 47%) These data do not add up, because one user could reach a given page from different types of websites in the analyzed period.

We observe a similar trend when analyzing traffic in the context of pageviews. On average, as much as 81% of the page views on the analyzed sites are made by users who came across them from social media, with demotywatory.pl once again "breaking" out of the pattern. In the case of a popular meme site, the main source of traffic for pageviews is direct, i.e. direct visits to the site (40%). Social media is the source of traffic for only 10% of pageviews performed on "demotivators".

The analysis of traffic sources in the context of time spent on pages from the "Humor" category confirms the above conclusions. Once again, social dominates - the average for the TOP 5 websites is 77% - which provides only 2% of the time spent on the website per month.

When looking for medical advice - to the search engine

Pages in the “Health and Medical” category have completely different characteristics. The analysis of the averaged data for the TOP 5 websites on this subject shows that the main source of traffic in their case are search engines. Their advantage over other types of pages is not as clear as in the previous example.

Although search engines are the most popular source of traffic in the context of user analysis (on average, 72% of them go to the TOP 5 websites of the category from searches), but only 49% of page views made on health-related websites come from "search". 32% of them come from websites other than social and search (source referral).

Also, half of the time spent on the largest health websites comes from search engines – this percentage is equal to 50%. In second place were again “referral” sources (34%). It is worth noting that in the “Health and medicine” category, individual websites in the top 5 differ in terms of dominant traffic sources.

Traffic Sources in Mediapanel research

Information on traffic sources has been available in the Mediapanel study since the beginning of 2023. They allow you to determine from which type of pages users came to a given website, divided into:

• direct (direct visits to the site),
• search (search engines),
• social (social media)
• and referral (other sources).

Data is available for audited and non-audited parties, broken down by PC, Phones and PC + Phones platforms.

All Mediapanel users have access to the new type of data, regardless of the type of research access package they have. Traffic sources are also available via the API.

About Mediapanel Research

Mediapanel is the first cross-media study in Poland based on a single source. The study combines site-centric measurement (measurement scripts at the site and application level) and user-centric measurement (panelists' behavior). In the production of data, we use proprietary, internationally recognized methodologies and algorithms. The Mediapanel study provides a complete and reliable picture of the Polish online market. It offers the possibility of analyzing and comparing the viewership of websites, applications and streaming materials on various types of devices, optimization of advertising budgets, comparison of traffic on desktops and laptops at home (PC-home) and at work (PC-work), as well as determining the position of the entity and its competition.

You can read more about the Mediapanel here.

For countries other than Poland, click here and read more about gemiusAudience Research.