Why do my email clicks show up as direct?

Usually because the email link reached your site without UTM tags, or lost them in a redirect. GA4 also had no earlier campaign stored for that browser, so it filed the visit as Direct. When GA4 does know the browser, it credits that shopper's last campaign instead, and email loses either way.

What one store's data shows

The usual answer is one line long: add UTM tags. It is right, and it skips the question of where untagged email clicks end up. One store's export shows why that question matters.

One store's anonymised GA4 export, 1 January 2024 to 21 August 2026. It holds shares of revenue only: no ad spend, no order counts.

On the Channels sheet, Direct holds 57.7% of revenue in all three views. If any of this store's email clicks arrived bare from a browser GA4 did not know, they sit in that row. They sit next to typed addresses and bookmarks, and nothing in the export tells them apart.

On the Journeys sheet, journeys with 1 touch hold 79.5% of revenue, with 0.5 days to buy. A subscriber who clicks and buys on the same day leaves exactly one touch. If that click lost its tags, the whole sale reads as Direct, and no attribution model can hand it back.

The Journeys sheet's 2 to 3 touch row holds 12.2% of revenue, at 12.5 days to buy. If you send reminder emails, journeys of that length are where they land. There, an untagged email click does not even keep its credit as Direct. Google's help says GA4's attribution models give direct visits no credit unless the whole path to the key event is direct. So the credit slides to whatever touch came before the email.

What the export cannot show is how many email clicks it holds, tagged or bare. It has no sends, no opens and no order counts. It shows where unlabelled clicks could hide, not how many did.

Why doesn't adding UTM tags settle it?

Because a missing tag is one of four leaks, and Direct is only one of three places the clicks end up. The other two are Unassigned and your other campaigns. Google's help says a session counts as direct when no information about the referral source is available. Each leak below removes that information, or sends the click somewhere else.

First, the tag has to say email. GA4's Email channel needs email, e-mail, e_mail or e mail as the source or the medium. A medium such as campaign, flow or newsletter matches no rule, so the visit lands in Unassigned. Klaviyo changed its default medium from campaign and flow to Message type on 2 June 2025. Accounts that saved custom settings before then keep the old values, and How do I tag email links for GA4? covers that fix.

Second, tags fall off on the way in. Google's help says redirects can strip UTM parameters from the URL, and so can a hop from https to http. An email link that bounces through an old address can arrive bare.

Third, GA4 may already know the browser. Its help puts it plainly: a session that begins with a direct entrance takes the UTM values already stored for that user. So a bare click from a known shopper gets filed under their last campaign: a Meta ad, a Google search, an affiliate. Direct only gets the rest, meaning browsers with no campaign inside the lookback window you set in GA4.

Fourth, people switch devices. Shopify's help describes a shopper who taps an Instagram ad on a phone, then opens the store's email on a laptop and buys. GA4 identifies users through the reporting identity you choose and their browser or device settings. A bare email click on a laptop GA4 has never seen lands in Direct.

So tags fix the label on future clicks, and nothing more. Expect one side effect: once email carries its own tags, other rows shrink. That is the fix working, not a channel falling apart.

What can GA4's Email row not tell you?

It cannot see opens. Klaviyo's help says Google Analytics will not record a conversion when a subscriber reads an email, does not click, and later visits the store. Those readers come back by typing your address or searching your name, so GA4 credits a typed visit, a search or an older campaign. No tag can fix a click that never happened.

It cannot match your email tool. Klaviyo counts conversions from your store's data inside its own attribution windows, while GA4 needs a click it can read. The two will disagree every week, each one honest by its own rules.

It cannot tell you what an email caused. A loyal buyer who would have ordered anyway still clicks the Friday newsletter, and the click takes the credit. Only a holdout settles that: send to most of the list, hold a random slice back, and compare what each group buys. How do I test if email is incremental? covers the test.

What to do this week

1. Compare a send day with a quiet day. In GA4, go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition and keep the report's default dimension, Session default channel grouping. Read Direct on your last send day, then on the same weekday a week earlier. Pass: Direct barely moves while Email rises. Fail: Direct jumps on the send day, so some clicks arrive bare.
2. Read the medium your email visits carry. In the same report, switch the dimension to Session source / medium and type email into the search bar above the table. Pass: your email tool shows with a medium of email. Fail: you find campaign, flow or no email rows at all, so fix the medium or switch tagging on.
3. Tap your next email on a phone before it goes out. Open the test send on a phone, then tap the main button and one product image. Pass: each page loads with utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign still in its address. Fail: the tags are gone or the address changed, so a redirect or an untagged block ate them.

Check the homework. Your GA4 Attribution paths export already holds the evidence. Causality Engine reads that one file and shows what each channel caused next to what last-click gave it, in 1 to 2 minutes, for €99 once (excluding VAT), refundable within 30 days. Check the homework

Sources, 1 October 2026: Understand (direct) / (none) traffic (Google); Campaigns and traffic sources (Google); Scopes of traffic-source dimensions (Google); Get started with attribution (Google); Select attribution settings (Google); Default channel group (Google); Traffic acquisition report (Google); Understanding UTM tracking in Klaviyo (Klaviyo); Measuring marketing performance (Shopify); Marketing reports (Shopify)

Related answers

• All Direct traffic questions
• How to stop email clicks showing as direct in GA4
• How do I tag email links for GA4?
• How do I test if email is incremental?
• UTM parameters, defined