Definition
Acquisition analysis examines the sources that bring people to a website or app—such as paid search, organic search, social, email, referrals, or partner campaigns—and connects those sources to what happens after arrival. Typical questions include which channel brings the most new users, which campaign attracts engaged visitors, and which landing pages turn visits into conversions.
A useful analysis looks beyond traffic volume. It compares measures such as sessions, bounce rate, time engaged, conversion rate, and conversion value so teams can distinguish a high-volume source from a high-quality source. The right comparison depends on the business goal: a retailer may prioritize revenue per user, while a subscription business may focus on qualified sign-ups or first-session conversion.
Acquisition analysis is related to attribution, but the terms are not interchangeable. Attribution is the rule used to assign credit to a source or touchpoint; acquisition analysis is the broader practice of evaluating source performance alongside onsite behavior and outcomes. In Contentsquare’s Acquisition Analysis, available breakdowns are last-touch properties, and the default Marketing channel combines referrer, UTM Source, and UTM Medium data for the session.
What does that mean
Imagine a shopkeeper asking each visitor, “How did you hear about us?” Acquisition analysis does that with data, then checks whether visitors looked around, found what they needed, and completed an important action.
Why this matters
Acquisition analysis helps teams spend time and budget on sources that create meaningful business outcomes, not vanity metrics. Marketing can refine channel and campaign investment; Data can improve tagging and measurement consistency; and Product, UX, and Ecommerce teams can see whether the experience after the click supports conversion.
Use cases
Compare channel quality, not just traffic
A paid or social channel is generating plenty of visits, but the team does not know whether those visitors are engaged or likely to convert. Group users by marketing channel, source, or campaign and compare new users, sessions, bounce rate, engagement, conversion rate, and value. Reviewing both absolute volume and per-user or per-session outcomes helps Marketing and Data teams identify high-quality sources, adjust budget or creative, and avoid treating low-cost traffic as successful when it produces little downstream value.
Improve the match between campaigns and landing pages
A campaign sends traffic to several landing pages, but conversion rates vary and the team cannot tell whether the problem is the audience, the message, or the page experience. Compare landing pages within the same acquisition source, or compare sources landing on the same page, then use engagement and conversion differences to prioritize copy, call-to-action, layout, or targeting changes. This gives Marketing and UX teams a clearer basis for improvement because they can separate a weak campaign from a weak post-click experience.
Find cross-device paths to high-value outcomes
People discover a product on mobile but complete the purchase on desktop or in an app, making source-level performance look incomplete when sessions are reviewed in isolation. Combine acquisition-source comparisons with journey and audience analysis to see how users move across devices, which actions precede conversion, and whether a channel brings visitors who return later. Ecommerce and Product teams can then improve the handoff between devices, invest in the experiences that support conversion, and evaluate acquisition based on the broader customer journey.
See it in practice
Alo uses Heap by Contentsquare and Shopify to connect customer acquisition data with onsite browsing and purchase. Alo describes how earlier tools showed UTM source and medium and the landing page, but did not reveal the full journey through checkout. With a connected view, the team identified mobile checkout friction, launched a mobile app, and reports a 3x increase in its mobile conversion rate.
How Contentsquare helps
Web Analytics helps teams assess marketing channels by engagement, conversion, landing-page performance, and revenue-related metrics so they can see which sources are driving valuable outcomes.
Journeys reveals how visitors progress from entry to exit, compares journeys from different traffic sources, and highlights paths associated with conversion or drop-off.
User Segmentation lets teams create cohorts from behaviors, characteristics, and other data, then compare how acquisition groups navigate, engage, and convert.
Impact Quantification connects behaviors and experience issues to conversion and revenue impact, helping teams prioritize the acquisition or post-click improvements most likely to matter.
FAQs on acquisition analysis
It measures how people arrive at a digital experience and what happens after they arrive. Common dimensions include marketing channel, referrer, landing page, UTM parameters, device type, and country. Common outcomes include users, sessions, engagement, conversions, and conversion value.