# Website Referral Analysis

ReferralHero's Website Referral Analysis uses our proprietary algorithm to accurately track and analyze unique visitors to your website. It automatically identifies advocates and referrals, providing deep data insights into naturally occurring referrals and showcasing the significant impact of word-of-mouth on your business. This tool provides the following benefits:

* Automatically identify potential advocates
* Automatically track the volume of referrals coming to your website
* Automatically know what web pages get shared the most 

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Note: If an active visitor is identified as a subscriber at any time, their profiles are matched and merged.
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## Active Visitor Profiles

When the Website Referral Analysis feature is enabled, each website visitor will appear as either a Referred Visitor or a Non-Referred Visitor, depending on how they arrived at your site.

**Referred Visitor**

Referred visitors are users who arrive via a referral link. These profiles can be viewed in the Subscribers list by using the Group filters to segment by subscriber type.

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**Non-Referred Visitor**

Non-Referral Visitors are users who arrive without a referral link. A dedicated **Non-Referred Visitors tab** is available to view all non-referred visitors.

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This view is only available when the **Display non-referred visitor profiles** toggle is enabled under the Launch settings in the Website Referral Analysis campaign.

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## Implementing Website Referral Analysis

It is recommended to run this tool by itself or alongside another one of ReferralHero’s growth tools.

**Setting Up Website Referral Analysis**

1. Create a new campaign&#x20;
2. Select the template “Website Referral Analysis”

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3. Launch Settings
   1. Install the ReferralHero global tracking code in the header of your website.
   2. **Apply referral tracking to all website visitors** settin&#x67;**:**&#x20;
      1. Enable this setting to apply referral tracking logic to every visitor on your website—even if they didn’t land via a referral link.
      2. This feature automatically identifies advocates and referrals, offering deep data insights into naturally occurring referrals, such as when someone shares your website URL directly from their browser.
      3. The Cookie Window determines how long a visitor cookie remains valid. By default, this is set to 90 days, meaning the unique visitor will be tracked for up to 90 days after visiting your website.

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Note: For accounts created after Feb 28 2024, you only need to install the global tracking code once. Skip this step if it has already been added to your website header.
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**Scenario Overview 1**

1. A visitor arrives at your website without a referral link and is created as a non-referred visitor in the Website Analysis campaign.
2. The non-referred visitor signs up for your referral campaign, becoming a non-referral subscriber in the referral campaign.
3. They share their referral link with friends.
4. When a friend visits your website via the referral link, a referred visitor profile is created in the referral campaign.
5. The referred visitor signs up, converting into a referred subscriber in the referral campaign.

**Scenario Overview 2**

1. A visitor arrives at your website without a referral link and is created as a non-referred visitor in the Website Analysis campaign.
2. They copy your website URL and share it with friends.
3. A friend visits your website via the shared link and is created as a referred visitor in the Website Analysis campaign.
4. The non-referred visitor later signs up for your referral campaign, becoming a non-referral subscriber in the referral campaign.
5. The referred visitor signs up, converting into a referred subscriber in the campaign.

## Remove MWR from Google Analytics Reports

The unique MWR associated with each referral link can result in distinct values appearing in different columns within Google Analytics reports. Fortunately, Google Analytics provides an option to exclude URL parameters, ensuring a cleaner and more streamlined presentation of your data in the reports.

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**NOTE:** This exclusion applies to future data tracked by Google Analytics and does not affect existing reports or page URLs that already have an MWR parameter attached.
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**Steps to Remove MWR from Google Analytics Reports:**

1. In your Google Analytics account, navigate to the “Admin” section.
2. Under the View column, access "View Settings".
3. Locate the “Exclude URL Query Parameters” option and enter “mwr”.
4. Click on the Save button to apply the exclusion, and you're all set.