Decrease in Visit Referrals - Seasonal, or something else?

[Kerri]

Thought I'd check in and see if anyone else was experiencing a noticeable drop in visit referrals last week in particular? Compared to a consistent % for nearly the last 3 months, we saw a clear 5% drop in referrals. 

We did make some changes with Khoros that may have impacted this (we were hoping for a positive change!) but thought I'd check on seasonality experienced by others. I know we have a large audience in France that may account for some of this as Aug is popular for vacation. It seems odd to see such a clear change from week to week.

Any thoughts would be appreciated! 

[Wendy_S]

Are you able to look at other metrics such as country of visit. If you have a large South European customer base then August is vacation month, especially the past and coming weeks. We see a lot of seasonality during summer for our global communities.

[tyw]

Do you have another analytics tool you can reference to see if things line up?

As much as COVID derailed things I'd bet its summer holiday drop-off 

[Kerri]

Had some time to dig into GA more and it seems it's likely the seasonality piece, particularly when factoring in that ALL metrics are down once I look deeper. A lot of our traffic is passive so the 5% decrease is likely reflective of the broader engagement trend.

Just looked a little strange for that ONE week to drop so fast, but we'll keep an eye on it. Thanks all!

[Wendy_S]

Well, just coming back from 3 weeks Italy I could clearly notice summer break starting in Italy which usually is 1 week before Ferragosto and 1 week after (current week). It was noticeably more busy than the weeks before 😁

I know France does not celebrate Ferragosto but if all your metrics took a dip it's likely most of your customers are taking a dip too 😎 ☀️🏖

Have a great day!

[BrotherTadpole]

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@Wendy_S wrote: TellDunkin

Well, just coming back from 3 weeks Italy I could clearly notice summer break starting in Italy which usually is 1 week before Ferragosto and 1 week after (current week). It was noticeably more busy than the weeks before 😁

I know France does not celebrate Ferragosto but if all your metrics took a dip it's likely most of your customers are taking a dip too 😎 ☀️🏖

Have a great day!

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Thanks for the clarification

[Kerri]

Just following up on this as it got to be a very interesting situation. 

I mentioned that the drop seemed quick but also that it coincided with what could be seasonality. That seemed plausible. 

But we wanted to keep an eye on it and dig deeper still, as our other metrics seemed to begin increasing in the following weeks. It turned out that the decrease was mostly driven by a drop in page views for one specific thread (our most popular by far). Now, almost 8wks later, our metrics have jumped back up and that threads page views are also back. 

So, we're chocking this one up to some Google trickery. A very bizarre occurrence, but lesson learned, make sure to dig in deep when things look funny!