Blog Analytics broke for two weeks. How do I account for these hits in my monthly report?

[howlusa]

The Analytics on my blog broke for about two weeks before I realized it. I need to come up with some estimated numbers for total pageviews, referrals, direct hits, etc to add to my monthly SEM report. I took the average of the past four 2 week periods to come up with the number of hits.  Should I just add this number to the total hits on my site? Or are these hits being counted twice if they went on to the main site?

http://www.howlatthemoon.com

[kchandler]

You could take some averages of the same time frame over the last few years if you have the data, for instance compare:

8/1/12 through 8/7/12 to 8/1/11 through 8/7/11 and 8/1/10 through 8/7/10

From there take the average increase/trend and forecast it for the missing weeks. Finally for some quality control measure it from the few weeks leading up and the few weeks after to ensure you are still close.

Other than that i would go with the "honesty is the best policy" approach.

[Goulart]

If you plan on using this data for other projects internally, I wouldn't do it. But if your boss just wants a rough idea and the data isn't being used towards anything. I would take the 2 weeks from the previous month. There is no exact size and doing it any way will create an inaccuracy.

If you use another SEM software like Marin, you can find out how much traffic was pushed through by the number of 'clicks' during that time. It should give you a good idea on traffic which will allow you to calculate the an estimate on pageviews and other KPI's.

If you are doing SEM and not running another program to assist you, get on it quickly. It will save you a ton of time and increase ROAS.

Hope that helps.

[howlusa]

No, I'm in house. I told my boss and he wants me to estimate based on the past periods

[Goulart]

If this is for a client website. I'd be honest and come clean to your clients, let them know that your Analytics broke.

Your clients might be using the SEM report for other projects internally and inaccurate estimates might effect other projects they are working on.