Marketing analytics taxonomy
The Spacetime marketing analytics taxonomy is a standardized framework used to name, classify, and organize campaign data across all of your different marketing efforts.
Built with the contributions of top-tier travel marketers and agency leaders, this taxonomy creates a new gold standard for the industry—and one that's ever-improving to bring clarity required by modern travel brands looking to scale.
Channel Collections & Groups
Collections
Channel Collections are just that, collections of Channel Groups, designed to categorize traffic into meaningful groups for analysis in insights.
Collections give an overview of performance, and identify broad looks at where to start dialing in.
Groups
Channel Groups are the expanded upon and refined industry-standard sources that are used for traffic analysis.
Groups are designed to segment data into individual categories within collections. Groups streamline the ability to find and take action when more precision is needed.
Definitions
Organic
Organic encompasses unpaid traffic sources where visitors arrive via search engines, social media, video platforms, or shopping listings without ad spend. It relies on the quality and relevance of content, product data, and presence on metasearch engines or directories to drive natural engagement.
Direct
The channel by which users arrive at your site or app via a saved link or by manually entering your URL. It often represents brand awareness or repeat visitors.
Referral
Traffic arriving via non-ad links on other websites, such as blogs or news sites. It is a catch-all group for third-party traffic where no specific tracking campaign or financial arrangement is identified.
Organic Search
Traffic that comes from unpaid search engine results. This includes visitors finding your site through algorithms on engines like Google or Bing rather than paid advertisements.
Organic Social
Traffic originating from non-paid posts, stories, or interactions on social media platforms. This includes visitors clicking links in your profile bio or timeline updates.
Organic Video
Users who arrive at your site via unpaid video content on platforms like YouTube or Vimeo. This traffic comes from clicks on links within video descriptions or channel profiles.
Organic Metasearch
Traffic from unpaid listings on metasearch engines that aggregate price and availability. These are standard listings that appear without a specific bidding model attached.
Organic Shopping
Visitors arriving from unpaid product listings on shopping engines or tabs. This traffic is driven by the quality and relevance of product data rather than ad spend.
Organic Directory Listing
Visitors coming from unpaid citations or profiles on online directories. This includes traffic from basic listings on sites like Tripadvisor and Google My Business.
Paid
Paid covers all traffic acquired through financial investment, including search ads, social media sponsorship, display banners, and video commercials. It aggregates diverse paid strategies ranging from targeted shopping and metasearch placements to broad cross-network campaigns and affiliate partnerships.
Paid Search
An ad type that functions as an inbound intent marker where the user was shopping for a term, typed it in, and was acquired. Advertisers bid on relevant keywords to display text or shopping ads in search results.
Paid Social
Traffic from social media platforms specifically used to display sponsored ads to targeted audiences. Formats can vary, including sponsored posts, video ads, and carousel ads.
Paid Video
Users arriving at your site or app via ads on video sites like TikTok, Vimeo, and YouTube.
Paid Metasearch
Traffic from aggregators that gather data, such as prices and availability, from many different websites. This includes paid placements on engines like Google Hotel Ads, Tripadvisor, Kayak and others.
Paid Shopping
Users arriving at your site or app via paid ads on shopping sites like Amazon, eBay, or individual retailer sites.
Paid Directory Listing
Traffic from paid business listings or enhanced profiles on directory sites, like specific paid campaigns on Tripadvisor for example.
Paid Native
Sponsored content that matches the form and function of the editorial content on a publisher's site. This makes the advertisements feel less intrusive than traditional display ads.
Paid Other
Users arriving at your site or app via ads, but not through an ad identified as Search, Social, Shopping, or Video. For example, if there was a Google Click ID that hasn't been matched through your ad account integration.
Cross-network
Ads that appear on a variety of networks (e.g., Search and Display) to drive traffic. This includes campaign types like Demand Gen, Performance Max, and Smart Shopping.
OTT
Over-the-Top video advertisements delivered directly to a viewer through a streaming service. These ads play before, during, or after video content on devices like Roku.
Display
Visual ads, such as banners, delivered online usually with call-to-action messaging that links to a landing page.
Affiliate
Traffic driven by partners who are paid a commission for the leads or sales they generate. These links are mandatory to track and measure the ROI of partner programs.
Messaging
Messaging consolidates traffic originating from direct communication channels, including both transactional and marketing emails as well as SMS and chat platforms. It captures users engaging with personal or automated messages, whether they are receiving order updates, newsletters, or interacting via apps like WhatsApp.
Transactional Email
Traffic generated from non-promotional emails sent to facilitate an agreed-upon transaction. This includes order confirmations, receipts, and shipping notifications.
Marketing Email
Traffic from emails sent primarily to promote a product, service, or content. This category covers newsletters, sales announcements, and nurturing campaigns.
Other Email
Email traffic known from the referrer or source (e.g., an email client) but lacking specific UTMs to indicate if it is transactional or marketing.
Text Messaging
Traffic originating from SMS, RCS, or iMessage links sent to mobile devices
Chat
Traffic originating from messaging apps and platforms, such as WhatsApp.
AI
This collection tracks high-intent traffic coming from generative AI tools, conversational search engines, and on-site chatbots. It distinguishes between organic referrals from platforms like ChatGPT and paid placements within AI interfaces to monitor the impact of artificial intelligence on site visitation.
AI Platform
Traffic originating from links within generative AI tools and conversational search engines like ChatGPT or Gemini. This isolates high-intent traffic specifically from AI consumers.
Paid AI Platform
A custom channel to distinguish paid advertising within AI interfaces from organic AI referrals.
Site Chatbot
Traffic or interactions driven by automated chatbot tools embedded on a website. This tracks users engaging with on-site virtual assistants.
Omnichannel
This collection bridges the gap between physical and digital experiences by tracking traffic from offline sources such as print materials, direct mail, and QR codes. It allows for the measurement of digital responses to real-world assets like brochures, webcams, and physical mailers.
Traffic resulting from URLs or QR codes placed on physical print materials. This allows for tracking the digital response to offline print campaigns.
QR Code
Users arriving at the site by scanning a Quick Response code. These are often used in physical locations or on printed collateral to bridge offline and online experiences.
Webcam
Traffic originating from links associated with live webcam feeds. This is common for destinations or resorts showcasing real-time views.
Direct Mail
Traffic generated from physical mailers sent to a user's address. It is typically tracked via personalized URLs (PURLs) or specific landing pages.
Internal
Internal accounts for interactions that occur within the organization or on the site itself, such as employee visits, Wi-Fi logins, and clicks on internal calls-to-action. It is primarily used to filter out non-customer traffic or to track specific on-site behaviors without overriding the original marketing source.
Onsite CTA
Internal interactions like button or link that used marketing UTMs for tracking. We recommend using custom parameters (instead of UTM parameters) or event tracking to track internal interactions on your site or elsewhere.
Internal Traffic
Visits to the site from employees or internal systems. This data is often filtered out of main reports to maintain data accuracy.
Wifi Login
Traffic generated when users connect to a provided Wi-Fi network, often redirecting them to a landing page. This is common in hospitality and retail environments.
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