Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Google Analytics CPC and PPC not Matching
-
Hi
Why do our CPC in Google Analytic not match our PPC in Adword, surely they should be identical? We have Auto-tagging switched on and data in our history is wrong so it is not a timing issue.
Thanks
-
Hey! This is a common issue between AdWords and GA. Analytics is tracking the number of visits, and AdWords is tracking the number of clicks. I'm not completely up to speed on what qualifies as an actual Visit to GA but it's not the same as what you're paying for. Sometimes when people don't stay long enough to count as a GA defined visit, it won't appear when reviewing traffic sources.
And when you see higher numbers in GA than in AdWords, there are a few other things that could be happening as well. AdWords is always about 4-6 hours behind the real up to date time. So as long as you aren't looking at today only, this shouldn't be a factor. Google also will credit you for what they believe to be fraudulent clicks, so they will also lower your numbers in AdWords.
What kind of variance are you seeing?
Also, you may want to look at the Advertising>AdWords>Campaigns section instead of the Traffic Sources section. I don't know when Analytics starts tracking last non-direct touch (if that's only in the goals or if that's throughout). But as soon as you leave the Advertising tab, things start to get wonky.
-
-
I have just noticed one instance where Adwords clicks are higher..thus breaking the theory
-
Hi
Yes they are linked. I think I may have just solved it. In Google under Traffic Sources the "google / cpc" is always a bit higher than the clicks in Adwords for a given period. On looking into the data more I can see that they are reporting the same keywords but on some of the keywords GA is reporting a few more clicks. I am guessing this is due to people revisiting. Is it that GA records the second visit again but adwords only records the original click?
Does this theory sound right? It the only thing I can think of. I suppose another way to ask the same question is "Does GA record revisits but adwords doesn't?"
Thanks
-
Sorry, I'm not sure I understand.
Is data in Advertising -> Adwords in Google Analytics not matching data in Google Adwords?
Are your Google Adwords and Google Analytics accounts linked?
-
Sorry I should have made it clearer. By CPC I mean the traffic source. Paid clicks as opposed to Organic clicks
I would expect that the CPC source in GA to match the PPC clicks in Adwords but they don't
-
Have you got the correct currency set in Google Analytics?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Will pausing my AdWords PPC campaigns impact my organic rankings?
Over 95% of my revenue comes from organic search; less than 5% comes from AdWords PPC (all other sources account for about 1-2%). My ROI on AdWords is roughly zero. It's negative if you include opportunity costs. My question is: if I pause all of my AdWords campaigns, is there ANY chance that my organic rankings (and organic click-through rates) will suffer? This is really two questions. First, could Google retaliate to my reduced ad spending by dropping my rankings? Second, will searchers think differently about my organic link if they don't also see the accompanying paid link on the SERP?
Paid Search Marketing | | ahirai2 -
Why does my google analytics show a massive discrepancy from facebook's reported website clicks?
We're running a Facebook news feed ad that is pointing at our homepage. Facebook says that for yesterday there were 47 website clicks. Google analytics shows 15 total visitors from facebook with 3 of them landing on the homepage. I understand that there is likely going to be some discrepancy with users accidentally clicking and clicking back before the page loads, but this seems a little insane. I tested the ad using a page that pulls the Analytics cookie data using php and it is working properly so I don't understand what's happening. The url isn't tagged with utm parameters, which is going to be fixed. Anyone experience this or have any insight as to what could be this issue? Is this click fraud? Edit: For more clarification I was checking on my completely unfiltered google analytics profile/view.
Paid Search Marketing | | spencerhjustice0 -
CPC or CPM for Google Display Network?
HI all I'm setting up my first Remarketing campaign on the display network. I'm targeting those that have visited a specific product page at the moment and therefore there won't be a massive amount of traffic to remarket to - roughly no more than 50 clicks/day. My question is - what is the best bidding option for a campaign like this? Not sure whether to go for CPM or traditional CPC. I have previously found CPM much better for Facebook but obviously thats very different to Google. All help appreciated!
Paid Search Marketing | | SamMaley0 -
What to do against competitor PPC sabotage?
This morning a competitor of ours decided to go on a PPC rampage against us. Basically our budgeting money was spent within the first hour of going live on bing. Its pretty obvious whats going on as we had a tremendous amount of clicks all from the exact same keyword within a short period of time. Obviously first step was to contact bing and they are going to refund me a credit once they go through their process, but they didnt really give me confidence about the future. It seems they may not be able to prevent this from continually happening.. ? The attacker used some sort of IP spoofing as the clicks were all from different IP's which is probably why it snuck pasted Bing. Wondering what have you guys done in the past to prevent this or combat it? Thankfully it didnt happen on google
Paid Search Marketing | | DemiGR0 -
How Can I Target Certain Countries in Google AdWords without Excluding Other Countries?
So, here is the situation: Our company works with merchants worldwide (with the exception of those who live in excluded high-risk countries--mostly in Africa), but most of our Google AdWords leads come from Indian merchants. My CEO wants our campaigns to convert leads from other countries (i.e., the UK, Germany, US, Canada, Australia, etc.), but I have no idea how to do that without excluding India. However, my CEO does not want to exclude India from our AdWords campaigns as the leads are profitable. We simply want more diversity with out leads in terms of geographic location. I am sure there are resources on the Web about how to do this, but I am not an Adwords expert and am unsure of what phrases to search to find the answers. Direct advice or helpful links are much appreciated. Regards,
Paid Search Marketing | | Instabill
Meghan0 -
Increasing Google Ad spend - is it worth it
Hi We are currently spending approx £500 pcm on google ad words however if I increased this spend to £4000 pcm what kind of results would this achieve? For example would it just be more visits per day as the budget is larger? Also what is the best way to track the success of an adwords campaign - the ultimate goal of the campaign would be to generate a lead whether this be a phone call, email or using our book an appointment form. Our service covers a geographical area (Scotland) and for organic search we are doing well 1st pages listings for searches such as pvc doors edinburgh etc so I am unsure whether it's worth increasing my PPC spend or put more resource into SEO, or even Facebook ads?
Paid Search Marketing | | ocelot0 -
What is a good CTR for a Google AdWords Remarketing banner campaign?
Hello there, given that in the banners we offer a promotion with "some bonus if you sign up", what is from your experience a good CTR for a Google AdWords Remarketing banner campaign? Many thanks to everyone that answers. YESdesign
Paid Search Marketing | | YESdesign0 -
SEO for PPC landing pages
After completing several months of on-page SEO for my site (one keyphrase per URL) and getting an "A" from SEOmoz on each page, now I'm venturing into PPC AdWords for the first time. From what I've read you pretty much want one landing page per keyword/ad. So if I want to target 100 PPC keywords I need 100 landing pages. And each landing page needs to be SEO'd as if you were doing it for organic search purposes so that your ad has a chance at a high Quality Score (8 to 10). I realize that an ad's QS is 2/3rds driven by its CTR but in the beginning when the ad is new the initial QS assigned seems to be driven more by landing page relevancy and some historical attributes of the AdWords account in which the ad or Campaign is located. My question is: What, if anything, do you do different on a page designed to be a PPC landing page as compared to a regular page you would SEO for organic search benefits? Also, should you do any of the off-page things (external links with relevant anchor text) for PPC landing pages? I'm envisioning landing pages that only exist to receive PPC ad clicks and that will not be linked to from my site directly. Each landing page talks a bit about the keyword the user was searching on and then directs them to the most relevant page(s) within my site. Maybe that's flawed? Thanks for any tips...
Paid Search Marketing | | scanlin0