How to Track Line Traffic in Google Analytics (GA4)

In the world of digital marketing, data is your eyes. Understanding where your traffic comes from is the first step in optimizing your marketing strategy.

Line is one of the most popular messaging apps in Asia, making it a crucial battleground for brands to interact with customers. However, many marketers have encountered a headache:

"I sent many links on Line, but why is the Line traffic in GA (Google Analytics) so low, or even classified as Direct traffic?"

This article will take you deep into the reasons behind this and teach you how to use UTM parameters and redirect services to accurately capture every precious visit from Line.

Why Does Line Traffic Become "Direct"?

When we see Direct / None in GA reports, it usually means GA "doesn't know where this person came from."

In the context of Line, there are two main culprits:

In-App Browser: Line uses its own browser to open links, which often does not pass Referrer information to the target website.
Privacy Policy: To protect user privacy, many apps deliberately hide source information.

The result is that the traffic from your hard-managed Line official account becomes a group of mysterious visitors who "typed the URL directly" in GA's eyes, making it impossible for you to evaluate marketing effectiveness.

Solution 1: Add UTM Parameters (The Basics)

To let GA recognize this traffic, the simplest way is to hand over a business card proactively — that is, adding UTM parameters to the end of the URL.

What is UTM?

UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) is a small tail attached to the URL used to tell GA three important things:

Source: Who sent it? (e.g., line)
Medium: How was it sent? (e.g., social, push)
Campaign: For what activity? (e.g., summer_sale)

Practical Example

Suppose your campaign page is:

https://www.example.com/promotion

You can change the link to:

https://www.example.com/promotion?utm_source=line&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=friend_link

Tool Recommendation: You can use the Google Campaign URL Builder to quickly generate standard UTM links.

Solution 2: Use a Redirect Service (Advanced Technique)

Although UTM can solve the tagging problem, there is a devil in the details that is often overlooked:

The Line App environment and your official website are two completely separate worlds.

This leads to two serious problems:

Unable to Track the Click Moment: You can only track people who "successfully arrived" at your website. If the user's internet is slightly slow and they close the window before your website's GA code loads, this data vanishes into thin air.
Cross-Domain Tracking Difficulties: Behavior within the Line App cannot be connected with behavior in external browsers.

Why You Need TrackHelps

This is where short URL/redirect services like TrackHelps prove their value. Through TrackHelps, we build a solid data bridge:

Original Process (Easy to Miss):

User Clicks ➡️ Load Your Website (⏳ Waiting...) ➡️ GA Triggers (✅ Record Success)

(If the user exits during the wait, GA knows nothing about it)

Process with TrackHelps (Watertight):

User Clicks ➡️ TrackHelps Server Receives (⚡️ Instant Click Record) ➡️ 301 Redirect ➡️ Load Your Website ➡️ GA Triggers

Through this mechanism, you can gain more complete insights:

No Missed Click Data: Even if the website fails to load, TrackHelps still records the "click".
Drop-off Rate Analysis: By comparing "TrackHelps Clicks" with "GA Sessions", you can accurately calculate how many people are lost during the loading process, thereby optimizing website speed.

Viewing Results in GA4

After setting up, you can verify the results in GA4 through the following steps:

Enter the GA4 backend and click "Reports" on the left.
Select "Acquisition" > "Traffic acquisition".
Above the table, switch the primary dimension to "Session source/medium".
Enter line in the search box.

🎉 Congratulations! You should now clearly see the traffic data from Line, no longer a fog of Direct traffic!

💡 Expert Tips

Shorten URLs: URLs with UTMs are usually long and scary. It is strongly recommended to use TrackHelps Short URLs to package them, making the links look cleaner and more professional, and increasing the click-through rate.
Maintain Consistency: The team must unify the naming rules for UTM (e.g., lowercase line vs Line) to avoid data being scattered in different fields, causing analysis difficulties.