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Event organizers can see where their event traffic comes from in the Sources section of the Event Analytics tab. This document describes how referrer attribution works end-to-end.

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Overview

The system tracks where users were immediately before viewing an event page and aggregates those views into three sources:
SourceMeaning
Org PageUser came from an org profile (/org/...) or club dashboard
ExploreUser came from the events dashboard / explore page
DirectEmpty referrer, external URL, or unrecognized path
This helps organizers understand discovery channels: e.g. whether people find events via org pages, the explore feed, or direct links (shared URLs, search, etc.).

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Why SPA Referrer Tracking?

document.referrer does not update on client-side navigation. When a user navigates from /events-dashboard to /event/123, the browser’s referrer still points to the previous external page (or is empty). The app therefore tracks the previous pathname on every route change and injects it into context.referrer for all analytics events.

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Frontend: Referrer Context

File: Meridian/frontend/src/utils/referrerContext.js

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Flow

  1. Layout calls updateReferrerOnNavigation(pathname) on every route change (via React Router).
  2. The previous pathname is stored in session storage as the “referrer” for the next page.
  3. The analytics SDK uses getReferrerPath() || document.referrer when building events, so context.referrer reflects where the user came from.

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Overlay Override

When content is shown in an overlay (e.g. org profile over /events-dashboard), the URL does not change. Clicks from the overlay would otherwise get the wrong referrer. To fix this:
  • On overlay mount: Call setReferrerOverride('/org/OrgName') so the next navigation uses that path as the referrer.
  • On overlay close (without navigation): Call clearReferrerOverride() so the override is not reused incorrectly.
Example: OrgDisplay.jsx sets the override when the org profile overlay opens and clears it when the user clicks Back.

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Backend: Source Aggregation

File: Meridian/backend/routes/eventAnalyticsRoutes.js The event analytics endpoint (GET /event-analytics/event/:eventId) aggregates event_view events by derived source:
  1. If properties.source is explicitly set and valid (org_page, explore, direct), use it.
  2. Otherwise, derive from context.referrer:
    • Contains org/ or club-dashboard → org_page
    • Contains events-dashboard → explore
    • Else → direct
The result is returned as platform.referrerSources: 
{
  "referrerSources": {
    "org_page": 45,
    "explore": 120,
    "direct": 30
  }
}

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UI: Sources Section

The Event Analytics tab displays the Sources breakdown in a ProportionalBarList component: each source (Direct, Explore, Org Page) is shown with a count and a proportional grey bar. Only sources with count > 0 are shown; rows are sorted by count descending.

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Adding New Sources

To add a new source:
  1. Backend: Extend the $switch branches in the referrer aggregation (eventAnalyticsRoutes.js) with a new path-matching condition.
  2. Frontend: Add the new source key to the sourceItems array in EventAnalyticsDetail.jsx with an appropriate label and icon.
  3. Documentation: Update this page and Analytics Collected Events.