How to pinpoint traffic source?

[stuartc1]

I was hoping for a few pointers on how to identify high value traffic sources.

Some background:
I run a website which has very sporadic sales (it's been like that for 2-3 years!), on average it'll sell say 20 items per week. Usually most of the sales are clustered together in a short period of time.

For example, last week it received 8 sales in 3 hours... nothing for 3 days before, and nothing for 2 days after.

It could be that adwords advertisers ran out of credit for a space of time, and my site appeared at the number one spot getting the good traffic (it's my only guess for now).

I have analytics and webmaster tools - but I cannot see anything different during these clustered sales times. Traffic numbers are like clockwork each day - I see no peeks during the good sales times.

Can anyone suggest anything I can do to help identify this?

[Receptional]

You need to really find a way to track sales all the way back to referring URL. Can your analytics package do this?

[wa desert rat]

I don't know if we're supposed to mention other tools for analyzing your website's data but you can Google for "website analysis tools" and see what you come up with. I found and installed an analysis tool on my web site to try to find "phantom" users that Analytics was labeling as "active" while my web site's "who is on line" links were not showing at all. The one I found does offer more detailed data about who is on the site (including which page that user is looking at and for how long, their IP address, the city indicated by that IP address - in real time as well as in a log). By the time I got it installed the "phantom" users had disappeared but I found the application useful anyway. Your problem is somewhat different but there is probably something out there that will work.

[edited by: wa_desert_rat at 5:05 pm (utc) on Mar 18, 2013]

[LifeinAsia]

It could be that adwords advertisers ran out of credit for a space of time, and my site appeared at the number one spot getting the good traffic...

...but I cannot see anything different during these clustered sales times.

These statements seem to contradict each other.
I agree with Receptional- looking at the data related to the specific sales will probably tell you a lot more than overall analytics.
Do you have Goals setup in Analytics? Look in the Conversions section of Analytics.