Channels

Marketers often want to define their acquisition channels based on UTM and referrer data. Amplitude's channels let you create new properties retroactively, based on functions and operators you can apply across multiple existing properties. These don't affect your raw data and Amplitude computes them on the fly.

For example, you may want to understand the distribution of organic traffic to your site. Define a version of your channels that includes the known social and search domains at that time. When a new social or search channel becomes prevalent, you can update your organic search definition and your existing charts update retroactively to reflect the new definition.

Amplitude Default Channels

Every new Amplitude org and project gets a pre-built classifier called [Amplitude] Default Channels automatically. You don't need to configure anything to get started.

Amplitude creates it when you first open Data > Properties > Channels. It maps UTM parameters and referrer data into 29 GA4-aligned marketing channels, including:

• Paid Search and Organic Search
• Paid Social and Organic Social
• Paid Video and Organic Video
• Partner and External Referral
• LLM Search and Paid LLM Search (AI-assisted referrals from tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity).
• Email, Display, Affiliates, and Referral
• Audio, SMS, and Mobile Push
• Direct
• Other (traffic that doesn't match any rule).

This gives Marketing Hub and the Global Agent useful channel breakdowns from day one, without requiring you to build a classifier from scratch.

The classifier is fully editable and deletable. You can rename it, modify rules, change conditions, or remove it entirely.

Upgrade to GA4-aligned defaults in an existing org

If your org was created before Amplitude introduced the GA4-aligned [Amplitude] Default Channels, you'll receive an upgrade prompt when you open Data > Properties > Channels. Click Build with the new logic to open the classifier builder pre-filled with the updated GA4-aligned rule set. Review the rules, rename the classifier if you like, and click Save to add it alongside your existing classifiers.

Amplitude never overwrites your existing classifiers. Your current channel definitions remain unchanged until you modify or delete them yourself.

You can also add the default classifier at any time without the upgrade prompt:

1. Navigate to Data > Properties > Channels.
2. Click + Add Channel Classifier.
3. The [Amplitude] Default Channels template opens automatically. Rename it if you like.
4. Customize the rules or click Save to add it as-is.

Amplitude adds the new classifier without changing any of your existing ones.

Create a channel

You must be an Admin or Manager to create a channel.

To create a channel, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Properties section of Amplitude Data and open the Channels tab.

2. Click + Add Channel Classifier. A pre-built, default channel definition screen opens. Optionally, click the default channel title (Channel) to edit the name. You can also add a description below it.

3. To begin creating the definition of the channel, start from the default template or click Clear Table to clear the table's contents. The default template uses the same GA4-aligned rule set as [Amplitude] Default Channels, covering 27 channels including LLM Search, Paid LLM Search, Audio, SMS, and Mobile Push.

   You can add multiple properties to a row to create a more complex classifier.

   Tip

   Amplitude recommends using user properties rather than event properties for channels because Amplitude applies user properties to future events that a user triggers. For more information, go to About user properties and event properties.

4. Add one row for each channel you'd like to define. For example, you can add rows labeled Paid, Organic, Referral, and Direct to create a high-level channel definition.

5. Fill in the values for each row. Each cell must evaluate to True for an event to classify to that channel.

   If you can define a channel as row A OR row B, add one row for A and one for B, then set the channel name to the same value for both rows.

6. Click Save. Amplitude labels channels in property dropdowns under the Channels category.

Compare metrics between channels with Data Tables

Amplitude's Data Tables let you define metrics critical to your bottom line, such as CPA, AOV, and ROAS. Evaluate how these metrics perform between different channels by grouping by your channel on the left-hand column. Add other core dimensions like campaigns to break down these channels further.

Amplitude attributes metrics in different ways if a user has multiple touch points with different channels before converting. Amplitude has built attribution modeling into data tables to enable defining user attribution in your channels.

Use cases

• Blended views: Create top-level blended views of all paid and all organic traffic to review how efficiency and performance have changed over time.
• High-level channels: Break down your core metrics using the channel definitions you already use in Google Analytics and Adobe.
• Channels with campaigns: Add a property denoting a campaign as a column in your channel definitions to break down metrics by campaign channel.
• Attribution: Use channels with attribution models in data tables to evaluate the breakdown of a metric by first touch, last touch, or a custom attribution definition.

Special values

Amplitude evaluates these special values on events: