ReferenceTracking error
Unassigned
Analytics labels a session Unassigned when it cannot be placed in a default channel group. That happens when no default rule matches the source or medium, or when the session or user identity is missing. Fix identity first: load the tag early, keep one cookie prefix, and leave the client and session IDs alone. Then check the custom source and medium values.
At a glance
- Where it shows
- The channel column of an Analytics traffic report, as the value Unassigned.
- What stops
- Nothing stops. The sessions count in totals, but they are not placed in a channel.
- How serious
- No penalty. Channel comparisons are wrong until the sessions are placed.
What it means
Analytics sorts each session into a channel group using default rules over the source, the medium and the campaign. Unassigned means the session reached Analytics but no rule claimed it, so channel reports cannot say where the visit came from.
Two causes sit behind it. One is a custom source or medium that the default rules do not recognize. The other is a broken session, where the identity Analytics uses to link events is missing or split.
What actually triggers it
A custom medium that no default rule recognizes
A campaign link that uses a medium the default channel rules do not list lands in Unassigned, even when the visit came from a real campaign.
Events fired before the config command or the Google tag
Custom events or other tags that run before the config command can disrupt user and session identity, and the sessions that follow are split or lost.
A late cross-domain linker
A config command that runs late changes the user's identity in the middle of a session, which leads to short sessions that are discarded.
Server-side and client-side tracking for one property
Measurements that bypass the server container, or run both ways for the same property, break the session continuity Analytics needs.
Fix it in this order
- Open the page source and confirm the Google tag or config command loads before any custom event tag.
- If you run server-side tagging, send all measurements for that property through the server container, so the IDs stay consistent.
- Use one cookie prefix across the whole site, so the sessions are not split between two cookies.
- Remove any manually set client_id or session_id. For custom identity, use user_id instead.
- Check the custom source and medium values in campaign links against the default channel rules, and correct any link that does not match.
Give the report a few days of traffic before judging it again, since the sessions from before the fix stay where they were placed.
Often confused with
The value is missing from the report. Unassigned means the value exists and no channel rule matches it.
Direct
Direct means Analytics found no source at all. A visit that came from a link but shows as Direct lost its source on the way, which is a tagging gap rather than a real direct visit.