What are organic subscribers?
Organic subscribers refer to people who sign up for an email list after arriving on that company’s website by any avenue other than by paid ads, traffic, or partnerships.
Organic subscribers come from several different traffic sources. Here are a few examples…
- Search engine traffic — People who arrive on a website after typing a phrase into a search engine (usually Google) and clicking on that website’s result qualify as organic traffic. If they then opt-in to that website’s email list, they qualify as an organic subscriber.
- Direct traffic — Lots of different actions qualify as direct traffic (so much so that some online experts refer to the largest portion of direct traffic as “dark traffic”). Ultimately, direct traffic happens when a person goes straight to a website. Sometimes, they click a direct link sent in an email from a friend, and sometimes they are familiar with the website already (from advertisements they’ve seen perhaps, or maybe from following the company’s Facebook page) and type that URL straight into their website browser. If the visitor then subscribes to the website’s email list, they qualify as an organic subscriber.
- Backlink traffic — Backlink traffic happens when a person visits a website by clicking on a link from somewhere else, usually from social media or another website. In analytics, this traffic will usually register as direct traffic.
- Shared traffic — Shared traffic happens when a person shares a link to the company’s website privately with a friend (via email, text, or another messaging platform) and that friend then clicks that link. Again, this will register as direct traffic in most analytic providers.
- Organic social traffic — Organic social traffic refers to when someone clicks from a social media site (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit), usually on a piece of content, that directs them to your website or landing page, where they then sign up for your email list. Since social traffic can be both paid or organic, it’s important to understand that organic social traffic does not include traffic from ads posted on social media sites.Â