Google Adwords Clicks v.s. Google Analytics Visits
-
Hi Guys,
This question has been asked several times before but after doing some research, I haven't really found the right solution and/or explanation.
I'm currently seeing a 30-50% discrepancy in Adwords Clicks and Analytics Visits, where there are more clicks than visits in most situations.
E.g. 74,127 clicks v.s. 46,845 visits (34 add-to-carts, 67 initiated orders, and a revenue of $12,000).
Can anybody in the forum help explain this?
Thank you,
Jurgen
P.S.
I've also looked at all the tracking codes and everything seems to be alright, I've checked if any internal redirects are stripping off parameters but to no avail. Lastly, I'm not sure if this is a behavioral issue here in SEA--will first click (Adwords) and last click attribution (Analytics) be the only explanation?
P.S.S.
I'm seeing the same discrepancies with Facebook ads and Analytics.
-
This question is kind of old, but I have been researching because I had the same problem. Turns out GA doens't track visitors with javascript and cookies disabled. This could also account for a part of the non registered visits by GA.
I suggest you check the server logs. You'll probably find the data match there
More resources here:
http://cse-sea.blogspot.com/2009/09/troubleshooting-discrepancies-between.html
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/analytics/cotsK2GNh_w
Hope this helps someone else with the same problem.
-
Hi Justin,
I appreciate your comments. I understand that this is the case--how Adwords and Analytics logs in data. We're still investigating.
Jurgen
-
Hey Jurgen, AdWords reports the number of times your ad has been clicked. Analytics visits are not clicks, but unique visitors. If the same person clicks on your ad 11 times within a certain somewhat short period of time, AdWords will show 11 clicks and Analytics will show 1 visit. If you inspect your server logs, you should find a record of the 11 clicks along with the ip address, date and time of the click.
I'm not sure if this results in the large discrepancy you are seeing but it could be responsible for some of it. Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.
Justin
-
These are just coming from the visits metric from GA.
-
The discrepancies are the same with Facebook surprisingly.
-
Are those visits or unique visits? Where are you getting the visits metric from?
-
Interesting problem. Its possible that a user will click your ad multiple times, I'm sure you have already considered this.
What's the level of discrepancies with FB?
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
-
Looking at google shopping results from other country
Hi, I run shops in several languages out of London. One of our key revenue drivers is google shopping. It is important for me to look the the shopping search results for example in germany. Recently Google changed something so when I want to look at the german shopping results from here, eg. http://www.google.de/shopping it always shows me the english ones with prices in pounds. Is there a trick to still get the foreign results? Thanks in advance Dieter
Paid Search Marketing | | Storesco1 -
Best Apps for Tracking Google Analytics, Facebook Pages, and More?
Hi! I'm looking for an iPhone app that I can set up for a client so that he can view data from Google Analytics and Facebook (new "likes," "shares", etc). Is there any such thing? I'm not a big Apple user, but he is, and I'd like to find something that would work well for him. Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | ScottImageWorks0 -
Will Google penalize a text ad if the display URL goes nowhere?
Today I had a colleague ask me if Google Adwords will penalize text ads that have display URLs that land on 404 pages. I fully understand the policy that the domains in display URLs and destination URLs have to match up or Google will disapprove the text ad. However if the display url contains the proper domain (and a target keyword phrase for a file folder) will Google penalize the text ad quality score if the display URL lands on a 404? I had trouble finding specific evidence for this.
Paid Search Marketing | | VanguardCommunications0 -
OK to have a modal pop-up on an AdWords landing page?
We're about to launch an AdWords campaign targeting users who are searching for hand-crafted furniture. The website we're sending users to has a large inventory of furniture, and all if it is hand-crafted. But there currently is no page on the site specifically communicating that all the furniture on the site is hand-crafted. So, rather than dump the user right into browsing the inventory, we want to put an intermediate step in place to say, in essence, "Hey, welcome, yes, we have lots of handcrafted furniture. In fact, all of it is hand-crafted. Here, have a look around." The art director on the project is suggesting that a modal pop-up would be perfect for this scenario. It would greet the user, who could then dismiss the pop-up and move into the site. I have two concerns about using a modal, though: Does a modal violate Google's policy against pop-ups that open new windows? Assuming we trigger the modal using Javascript, will AdsBot have any trouble crawling the content of the modal, such that it could hurt the landing page component of our quality score?
Paid Search Marketing | | ydop0 -
Adwords & Bingads? How to link?
Hi all! I am new to MOZ and i am trying ot set up my first client: bingadsm, adwords, social and google analytics. Only problem i am having is to link bingads and Adwords, anyone has an idea on how to solve this? Thanks in advance! Sandra
Paid Search Marketing | | EyeonResponse0 -
Email Address for Google Ireland?
Doe anyone have an email address I can use to contact Google Ireland? One of my competitors posts ads in Australia and I want to see if they would let us also (I work in one of those industries where Google doesn't normally allow PPC) Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | theLotter0 -
Redirecting AdWords Display URLs
I feel it's a best practice (from a user experience POV) to create a 301redirect when using a fictitious display URL in your PPC ads. And according to the AdWords help page (http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175906&rd=2) Google doesn't have an issue using a redirect. "Redirects used for tracking purposes are fine as long as the final landing page has the same domain as the display URL." I'm curious if there is ad score penalty if one does not ionclude a redirect - i.e. the user types in your display URL and gets a 404. Has anyone seen an evidence of this?
Paid Search Marketing | | legalseo0 -
Proportion of traffic from adwords vs organic search
Hi People, I wanted to know if anyone knows what typical click through rates of paid vs organic search results are. We seem to be experiencing a very low click through rate with our organic search results versus our adwords and it seems to be getting worse. For example our website www.natureshop.co.uk ranks 4th for the search phrase "icebreaker" in google.co.uk (and we are the first online retailer). We are the first adwords listing as well. For the past 3 months we have had 867 clicks through our organic listing and yet with adwords we had 14,000 clicks. This seems pretty strange to me. Both have conversion rates of around 5%. Do you think these sorts of stats are becoming the norm for brand based searches? (icebreaker is a merino wool clothing brand). Adwords also says that there were around 125,000 impressions of this phrase in the search network for this period. Which means with a ranking of 4th our click through rate is less than 1%? If anyone else can share their experience or provide some commentary on this it would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance Conrad Cranfield
Paid Search Marketing | | ConradC0