Direct traffic, decoded & what buyers say

For orders with no UTM tag and no ad click id, the "Direct traffic, decoded" section on /seo infers a plain-English origin from the landing page and referrer instead of leaving it as an unhelpful "direct" row. The inferred classes are Instagram bio or DM, email (untagged), shared link or messaging, brand search or typed, and genuinely unknown.

The guess comes from real patterns: an Instagram or Facebook in-app-browser referrer reads as a bio link or DM, a webmail or click-tracking domain reads as an untagged newsletter link, a deep product or collection landing page with no referrer reads as a link pasted into a chat or text, and a bare homepage with no referrer reads as someone searching or typing your brand name.

"What buyers say" reconciles the post-purchase "How did you hear about us?" survey against what your tracking actually sees, the classic dark-social gap (survey says a channel drove a real share of buyers, tracking sees far less of it). It also shows, order by order, when a survey answer confirms or corrects a "direct traffic, decoded" guess.

Turn the survey on by adding the "Post-purchase survey" block to your Thank-you page in Shopify admin: Online Store > Checkout > Thank you page > Add block.