> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://ghost.org/help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Member sources
- URL: https://ghost.org/help/member-sources/
- Published: 2025-08-04T01:11:25.000Z
- Updated: 2025-08-04T01:11:25.000Z
- Description: Ghost automatically records the source of a member at the time of sign-up or paid conversion, helping you understand where your audience is coming from — whether it’s search, social media, referrals, or something else.
- Author: Ghost
- Tags: Growth & Analytics, Manual

Ghost automatically records the source of a member at the time of sign-up or paid conversion, helping you understand where your audience is coming from — whether it’s search, social media, referrals, or something else.

### Creating custom sources

You can also set custom sources manually, which is especially useful for marketing campaigns. For example, if you’re running a paid promotion in another newsletter or partnering with an influencer, you can track exactly how many signups came from that campaign.

To create a custom source, add one of the following query parameters to the URL that links to your site: `ref`, `source`, or `utm_source`.

For example, each of the following would result in a source of `xyz`:

- `example.com?ref=xyz`
- `example.com?source=xyz`
- `example.com?utm_source=xyz`

That’s it — Ghost will automatically track all new members who sign up from those URLs and attribute them to that custom source.

Member sources must be enabled from **Setting*s → **Analytics* for Ghost to collect source information.

### Outbound link tagging

In addition to tracking where your visitors and new members come from, Ghost can also tag links in your content that point to external sites — so those sites can see how much traffic you're sending their way.

When this setting is enabled, outbound links will automatically include a query parameter showing your site as the referrer. For example: `?ref=example.com`

You can toggle this feature on or off in **Settings → Analytics**.