Steam traffic report and UTM links: what each number means

Steamworks has two store traffic reports. The traffic breakdown counts impressions, each time the game is shown, and visits, unique store page loads, by place on Steam. UTM analytics counts visits from your own tagged links, plus the wishlists, purchases and activations within 72 hours of a click; conversions are final four days after the visit.

Last reviewed · SteamStats team

Definitions

  • Impression: the game's capsule or brand shown on screen to a player somewhere on Steam.
  • Visit: a unique load of the game's store page.
  • Click-through rate: the share of impressions that led to a visit.
  • UTM link: a store link with tags added, such as utm_source=youtube. Steam reads utm_source, utm_campaign, utm_medium, utm_content and utm_term.
  • Total visits: visits to the store page through a UTM link. Trusted visits: the same without bots and search crawlers. Tracked visits: visits by people logged in to Steam.
  • Conversion: a wishlist, purchase or activation by the visitor within 72 hours of the click, even if they looked at other pages first.

What Steamworks says

Conversions are finalized 4 days after the visit.
Steamworks: UTM analytics
  • The traffic breakdown is a tab in the Marketing & Visibility section of the game in Steamworks. It shows where the game appeared, how often it was shown and how many of those views led to the store page, without identifying anyone.
  • Traffic data goes back to 23 September 2014; direct navigation is counted from 17 April 2019. Since 23 March 2021, impressions and visits exclude users who opted out of the relevant cookies.
  • A UTM link has to point to the game's page or a sale page and include utm_source or utm_campaign.
  • Visit counts on the UTM dashboard update hourly. Only tracked visits, from logged-in users, can carry a conversion, and some visitors are never tracked because of their browser or cookie settings.
  • Parameter combinations with too few visits are hidden from the breakdown, and Steam IDs or other personal information are never shown.
  • Access needs the View Marketing Traffic Data permission for the game.

Worked example: Pebblewick's trailer link

Illustrative inputs for Pebblewick, the fictional demo game by Hollow Fern Games. The studio posts a trailer with the link https://store.steampowered.com/app/<app id>/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=autumn_trailer and reads the UTM dashboard a week later.

Pebblewick: one UTM link, three denominators
MeasureCountWishlists per visit
Total visits5,2007.92%
Trusted visits4,9408.34%
Tracked visits3,45811.91%
Wishlists412Numerator

The same 412 wishlists give a rate from 7.92% to 11.91%, depending on the denominator. Tracked visits are the fair base, because only tracked visits can convert. A comparison between two campaigns stays fair as long as both use the same base.

The click-through rate is the traffic breakdown's own quality signal: it says how often a placement's view turned into a visit. What visitors do next is a different question. Valve states that the share of store visitors who buy is not a factor in visibility, so a page with a low purchase rate is not pushed down for it, while its sales still are what moves it up.

Timing matters too. Read the day after the trailer, the dashboard showed 377 wishlists; the final count after four days was 412, so the early read was 8.50% short. In the traffic breakdown for the same week, 180,000 impressions and 5,940 visits give a click-through rate of 3.30% across all places on Steam.

Because Steam hides parameter combinations with too few visits, a scheme that splits traffic too finely can make a small campaign disappear from the breakdown. A short, consistent naming scheme keeps each line large enough to show.

A naming scheme for Steam UTM links
ParameterHoldsExample values
utm_sourceWhere the link was postedyoutube, tiktok, newsletter, reddit
utm_mediumThe kind of placementvideo, post, email, ad
utm_campaignThe campaign, with a date if it repeatsautumn_trailer, nextfest_feb27
utm_contentA variant inside the campaign, only when it matterscut_a, cut_b
utm_termA keyword or audience for paid adscozy_puzzle
  • Lower case and one spelling per value: YouTube and youtube become two sources.
  • One link per placement. A creator's video and the same creator's post get different links if their results are to be compared.
  • Every link carries utm_source or utm_campaign, which Steam requires, and points to the game's page or a sale page.

Why traffic and campaign numbers differ

  • Two reports, two scopes. The traffic breakdown covers every place on Steam that showed the game; the UTM report covers only visits through tagged links.
  • Bots and logins. Total visits include bots and crawlers; trusted visits do not. Visitors who are not logged in to Steam are never tracked, so UTM conversions are a lower bound.
  • Privacy settings. Since March 2021 the traffic report leaves out users who opted out of cookies, and some UTM visitors are not tracked for the same reason.
  • Windows. Steam counts a conversion within 72 hours of the click. An ad platform's dashboard counts clicks with its own rules and has no view of Steam wishlists.
  • Finalisation. A UTM report read before four days have passed still grows; numbers from two days ago are not yet comparable with numbers from last week.

Where to see this in your own data

The Traffic & campaigns view reads both reports daily on Indie, Studio, and Publisher: the funnel from impressions to visits, wishlists and purchases, visits and click-through by Steam traffic source, wishlists per visit for each UTM link, and for each campaign the wishlists it most likely added, as a range, with the cost per wishlist when a budget is set. Traffic reports need a separate connection from the financial key, through the browser extension or a service account.

The Traffic & campaigns feature page and the connection guide linked below show how.

Sources