← DictionaryPaid Traffic
Visits arriving from paid placements.
People who arrived through an ad.
What It Is
In the BWH map, Paid Traffic lives under Measurement — Attribution. What it actually refers to is visits arriving from paid placements.
It is something measured and compared over time, so one reading in isolation tells you almost nothing. Keep it that plain and it will still be true in twelve months.
How It's Used
Most of the time Paid Traffic is used in reporting, analytics reviews and the arguments about what the numbers mean. It is usually discussed together with Paid Media, Traffic Source and Cost Per Click. The practical test is whether it is measured the same way each period, against something.
Why It Matters
Ignoring Paid Traffic rarely fails loudly — it fails slowly. When it is unclear, reporting becomes a matter of opinion. It is worth pinning down before anyone builds on top of it.
It is a number on a dial. The number only means something next to yesterday's number. People who arrived through an ad.
Termshift™
How the meaning shifts depending on who is using it, and where.
Practitioners use Paid Traffic as shorthand and expect no explanation — visits arriving from paid placements.
Outside the industry, most people would just say: people who arrived through an ad.
The Bottom Line
Keep Paid Traffic plain: people who arrived through an ad. That is the version that holds up in a real project.