# Google/cpc sessions in direct channel

**URL:** <https://community.piwik.pro/t/google-cpc-sessions-in-direct-channel/3025>\
**Category:** Reports and working with data\
**Created:** [October 12, 2023, 8:34am UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/google-cpc-sessions-in-direct-channel/3025 "2023-10-12T08:34:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![muttley90](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7cd45c/32.png) [@muttley90](https://community.piwik.pro/u/muttley90)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2023, 8:34am UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/google-cpc-sessions-in-direct-channel/3025/1 "2023-10-12T08:34:11Z")

</div>

Hello,  
in a new custom report I found some strange relation between channels and source/medium.  
For example there are some google/cpc sessions in direct channel and some microsoft/cpc sessions in social channel.  
It’s the same in the standard channel report, adding source/medium as a second dimension.  
They are small numbers, but I can’t understand how can it happen.

 ![Screenshot 2023-10-12 102940](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/uploads/piwikpro/original/2X/2/27afe2c513c3c57ecea4b66ccc90e65a38c2f8be.jpeg)

Can anybody help me?  
Thank you.  
Marco

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anthonybartczak](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/community.piwik.pro/anthonybartczak/32/2430_2.png) [@anthonybartczak](https://community.piwik.pro/u/anthonybartczak)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2023, 8:35am UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/google-cpc-sessions-in-direct-channel/3025/2 "2023-10-12T08:35:32Z")

</div>

Hi @muttley90!

Could you send me the URL of this custom report? You can do it either here or in a private message.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anthonybartczak](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/community.piwik.pro/anthonybartczak/32/2430_2.png) [@anthonybartczak](https://community.piwik.pro/u/anthonybartczak)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2023, 11:48am UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/google-cpc-sessions-in-direct-channel/3025/3 "2023-10-12T11:48:33Z")

</div>

It seems that e.g. `google / cpc` is missing the campaign name and that’s why it was assigned to the `Direct entry` channel (covered some entries that you didn’t mention in your screenshot) :

 ![obraz](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/uploads/piwikpro/original/2X/b/b04391258c76492bcb0b95c7aedc0e475fa776cd.png)

More information on the channel recognition can be found here:

> **[About default channels | Piwik PRO help center](https://help.piwik.pro/support/reports/about-default-channels/)**
>
> Piwik PRO automatically assigns your incoming traffic to five different channels based on data available in the page URL and referer HTTP header. These are the default channels, which you can easily group into custom channels. In this article, we’ll...

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![muttley90](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7cd45c/32.png) [@muttley90](https://community.piwik.pro/u/muttley90)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2023, 12:11pm UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/google-cpc-sessions-in-direct-channel/3025/4 "2023-10-12T12:11:12Z")

</div>

Thank you Anthony.

The page you linked says Direct Entry is only when source=direct and medium=direct and that’s not the case. May I assume that the Direct Entry channel acts like the (Others) channel in Google Analytics, meaning that it receives all the traffic that can’t be assigned to other channels?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![muttley90](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7cd45c/32.png) [@muttley90](https://community.piwik.pro/u/muttley90)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2023, 12:12pm UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/google-cpc-sessions-in-direct-channel/3025/5 "2023-10-12T12:12:56Z")

</div>

Sorry, I didn’t read it well enough.  
It clearly says " If Piwik PRO goes through all the steps and still cannot assign a channel, it will default to categorizing it as `Direct entry` ."