Can C3 capture SEO, Social and Referral Traffic?

The C3 Metrics site tag captures click data as it flows to your website, differentiating the source by reading a query string variable within the destination URL.

For example, if a user clicks thru on a Display ad, the URL may be as follows:

The C3 site tag would read the ‘c3ch’ and ‘c3nid’ parameters and source this visit in the Display channel coming from XYZ Media.

In the absence of a query string, C3 looks to the location referrer to help determine the source of the traffic.  If the originating source is from one of the top 100 Search Engines, it is categorized as such. For example if a user clicks on an organic shop.mydomain.com search result at Google, the visit would be categorized in the SEO Channel coming from Google SEO.

If the originating source is from one of the top 100 Social Networks it is placed in the Social Media channel.

If the referrer header is empty, which is seen in direct traffic, the visit is sourced to Organic.

One caveat: If the C3 site tag is placed within an iFrame (such as a Floodlight tag), the C3 site tag is forced to act a bit differently in order to function. When placed directly onto a website, the C3 site tag utilizes JavaScript to read the query strings for clicks and the location referrer for Organic, SEO and Social. In an iFrame scenario, due to cross-domain security restrictions, the site tag cannot utilize JavaScript for query strings and must rely upon location referrer. When C3 is placed within an iFrame, in the absence of a query string, it is unable to differentiate between SEO, Social and Organic, so all non-query string click data is categorized as Organic.