What is the default channel group in GA4?
GA4 sorts every visit into a channel, such as Organic Search, Direct, Referral or Email, using rules on source and medium. Each channel in plain words.
The default channel group is GA4's way of sorting visits into a few buckets, such as Organic Search, Direct, Referral and Email, using rules on each visit's source and medium. It gives you a quick overview where the full list of sources would be too long.
The channels, in plain words
| GA4 channel | Means | SimpleDash calls it |
|---|---|---|
| Direct | No referrer and no tags | Direct |
| Organic Search | Unpaid search engine results | Search |
| Organic Social | Unpaid links from social sites | Social |
| Referral | Links on other sites | Other sites |
Links tagged with utm_medium=email | ||
| AI Assistant | Visits from AI assistants | AI assistants |
| Organic Video | Unpaid video sites | Video |
| Organic Shopping | Unpaid shopping sites | Shopping |
| Paid Search | Search ads | Search ads |
| Paid Social | Social ads | Social ads |
| Display | Display ads | Display ads |
| Unassigned | Didn't match any rule | Unknown |
How the rules work
GA4 looks at the source, the medium and sometimes the campaign name. For example, a medium of email makes a visit Email, and a known social site with no paid medium makes it Organic Social. A visit with an unusual medium may match nothing and become Unassigned.
Your own channel groups
You can't edit the default group, but you can create your own (Admin → Data display → Channel groups), for example to group all AI assistants together. How.
In SimpleDash
The Sources card has a Channels tab with these channels in plain words.
Sources
- Google: Default channel group
Last updated
Source and medium
Source is who sent a visit (google, newsletter); medium is how (organic, referral, email). How GA4 sets them, and how to control them with UTM tags.
Landing page
The landing page is the first page someone saw in a visit. Why it matters for SEO and launches, where to find it in GA4, and what (not set) means there.