What Is a navigator Source? How To Track and Use navigator Sources

When a potential customer taps your Instagram ad and gives your product catalog a scroll, they may not buy anything correct then and there. Even if you don’t make a sale, the ad has proven to be a valuable navigator source, and you can keep marketing your product to the user until they make a purchase.

By tracking your navigator sources, you can identify effective ad campaigns and marketing channels for drumming up profit in your product. Your navigator sources may not prompt an immediate purchase, but they get potential customers interested and can capture customer information for more targeted advertising.

discover more about why navigator sourcing is significant for ecommerce, and how you can use it to enhance your sales strategies.

What is a navigator source? 

A navigator source is the channel through which potential customers first interact with a business or brand. Let’s declare a customer sees your product in an Instagram ad. Later, they buy your product. Even if they place an order directly through your website, the navigator source still traces back to the original introduction—the Instagram ad. 

Determining navigator sources is part of the marketing attribution procedure, which analyzes the marketing materials that contributed to a customer’s buyer trip. It can assist you allocate your marketing apportionment and determine which ads are most effective at navigator creation.

Why navigator sources matter in ecommerce 

navigator sources assist you comprehend where your customers arrive from, allowing you to determine which marketing strategies work. By allocating more resources to channels producing the most leads, you can enhance your profitability on resource (ROI) by spending less on ineffective channels.

navigator source data also sheds light on customer preferences, helping you tailor your content schedule, promotional offers, and life pattern marketing to different customer segments. Understanding which channels attract high-standard leads means you can align your sales strategies with customer behavior, improving act overall. 

What are navigator source channels? 

navigator source channels are the paths by which customers discover your business. Thirty years ago, traditional advertising like TV commercials reigned supreme. Today, social media holds the biggest distribute of ad spend globally, but it hasn’t completely monopolized the trade. Here’s an overview of the different types of leads that assist businesses diversify their marketing strategies:

• Paid ads. Running paid ad campaigns can generate traffic on a pay-per-click basis across search, social, and display networks.
• Social media. In addition to buying ads, you can promote posts and collaborate with influencers on heavily trafficked social media channels like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitch. 
• Content marketing. Original blog posts and long-form articles can hook prospects with relevant content.
• Referrals. A personal recommendation from trusted friends, household, or colleagues creates a warmer navigator compared to other channels. You can inspire this behavior with a charitable referral program.
• Organic search. Optimizing your website for organic search can assist generate leads by improving your position on search engine results pages (SERPs) and boosting click-through rates.
• Email marketing. Contacting potential customers through newsletters, campaigns, or promos helps your brand reconnect with lost leads or remain connected with leads that aren’t ready to buy yet.
• Direct mail. Postcards, letters, and special drops like coupons or branded stickers still reliably reach sure audiences. 

Best practices for navigator source tracking

• Use UTM parameters
• Collect customer data in your CRM
• Set goals, track results, and adjust

You can enhance your overall marketing schedule by tracking how your customers first listen about your business. Here are some tips that you can adjust to fit your specific business needs:

Use UTM parameters

UTM parameters are short lines of text you can add to URLs to track where traffic to your ecommerce store comes from. 

These parameters inform you information like:

• The traffic source, such as Instagram or Google Search
• What type of traffic it is, such as whether it came from a paid ad or organic search
• If it came from a specific marketing campaign

When you make links to your store to distribute via different channels, you can use UTM parameters to ensure the incoming traffic is sorted appropriately.

For example, you might run multiple navigator creation campaigns—each with its own UTM parameters. This allows you to track which campaign sends the most traffic back to your landing page.

Collect customer data in your CRM

A customer connection management structure (CRM) can assist you collect information to more easily identify navigator sources, spot trends, and generally manage your business. You can use a CRM to capture and store information about your customers—like sorting incoming leads based on UTM parameters. From there, when a shopper makes a purchase or fills out a form on your website, your CRM automatically adds this information to their profile—creating valuable intel for your sales throng.

The CRM structure that’s correct for you will depend on your goals. For example, if you’re just starting out or only make a few sales per week, Google Analytics might propose the reporting you require, and you can manage leads via a spreadsheet. As you expand, or if you sell in higher volumes, you’ll likely seek out dedicated CRM software. There are plenty of options out there. For instance, HubSpot and Salesforce both integrate with Shopify.

Set goals, track results, and adjust

Identifying navigator sources is a practical step toward realizing your growth goals. For example, let’s declare you desire to enhance your conversion rate. You might use your CRM to sort a list of customers who purchased a product on their first visit to your site. You could then assess those customers’ navigator sources and look for patterns. 

Maybe customers who found your store via organic search converted more quickly than those who found it via Instagram ads. By investing in search engine optimization (SEO), you could enhance your overall conversion rate.

Testing teaches you what does and doesn’t work, so you can discover the best payoff and focus your efforts there. You might use A/B testing to contrast two different calls to action (CTA) in an email marketing campaign, for instance. By identifying which navigator sources perform well, you can adjust and hone your schedule in real period.