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
-
Unsolved Google Ads Subdomain in sitelinks & Composition Change for Strategy Status
I have a basic query but could not find a definite answer on the internet. I am currently running a campaign for the main website of a big education brand and they also have a secondary learning website on subdomain, and I want to add sitelinks of subdomain to the campaign, but I am not sure whether it is allowed or not. The brand I am running ads for is https://www.rauias.com/ and the secondary website is https://compass.rauias.com/ branded slightly different in a subdomain, so should I add the sitelinks of Compass to the main campaign? Also one more silly question My Max Conversion search campaign gave me this status today. "Learning (composition change): Campaigns have been added to or removed from the bid strategy. Google Ads is now adjusting to optimize bids. 5 days left for learning" What does this mean exactly? And Why does it reenter the learning phase whenever I make a small change?
Paid Search Marketing | | rauoff0 -
"Duplicate without user-selected canonical” - impact to Google Ads costs
Hello, we are facing some issues on our project and we would like to get some advice. Scenario
Paid Search Marketing | | Alex_Pisa
We run several websites (www.brandName.com, www.brandName.be, www.brandName.ch, etc..) all in French language . All sites have nearly the same content & structure, only minor text (some headings and phone numbers due to different countries are different). There are many good quality pages, but again they are the same over all domains. Current solution
Currently we don’t use canonicals, instead we use rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default": <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-BE" href="https://www.brandName.be/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-CA" href="https://www.brandName.ca/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-CH" href="https://www.brandName.ch/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-FR" href="https://www.brandName.fr/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-LU" href="https://www.brandName.lu/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://www.brandName.com/" /> Naturally this si reflected in ""Duplicate without user-selected canonical” . Issue
We create the same ad in Google Ads for 2 domains. So the content is mostly identical, ads are identical, target URLs differ only in domain. Yet Google Ads “Quality score” is different (10/10 vs. 6/10) and “Landing page experience” is very different (Above average vs. Average). Some members of our team think lower “Landing page experience” increases the Google Ads costs, which I personally don't believe, but I want to double check. Question: Can “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” issue decrease the “Landing page experience” rating and as result can it cause higher Google ads costs? Any suggestions/ideas appreciated, thanks. Regards.0 -
Top of funnel google ads campaign not hardly converting, why?
Hi, I really hope someone can help me with this. I'm running two search ad campaigns and a google shopping campaign in google ads. The search campaigns are targeting top-of-funnel keywords as the business doesn't have universally known collections which everyone would search for so they are just unique to my business. So the campaigns are driving traffic but really converting whereas google shopping is converting because searchers are looking for particular products so they're lower down the funnel closer to aking a purchase decision. I feel I've optimised the campaign well and for the most part, most keywords have 7/10 quality score. The landing page seems fine. However, our offering wasn't as strong as competitors so we've offered a discount the same as them to compete. Since I started google ads we have nearly doubled our monthly revenue and the product types targeted in campaigns have increased in quantity sold so it seems it's having an effect but the campaigns aren't showing a good performance. Does anyone have any suggestions or input that could help me? I looked at first interaction attribution model and even there it's not performing well which makes this even more difficult to resolve. I'm thinking I should enable USER id feature in Google analytics so i can track signed in users across devices which may then help attribute sales to paid search channel as I saw in search console that the keyword that generates the most traffic to the site is our brand name and we're not a well-known brand so makes me think they may be starting their buyer's journey on a work computer on their mobile and finishing on their computer at home as an example. However, I don't believe this will be the main cause or solution as I would only have data for signed in users which still won't give me the full picture. Also if the campaign is optimised effectively but conversions are minimal could not having many conversions affect quality score? If someone can help or provide me with a different perspective it would be much appreciated. Please let me know if I need to clarify or explain further. I hope I've made myself clear. Thanks, T
Paid Search Marketing | | TZ19820 -
Are there free tools that would tell me the cpc for my keywords?
If not what tools do you recommend to use to get an accurate cpc $ for estimating budget?
Paid Search Marketing | | lina_digital0 -
Adwords Duplicate Keywords with Different Match Types - Good or Bad?
If you have the following keywords in an Ad Group advertising for a product, let's for example call it "target" product [target product] "target product" +target +product I've found that the exact match keyword has the highest conversion rate in almost all circumstances. So it would make sense to have a higher max bid on the exact match then phrase or broad batch. Even with lots of negative search terms to maximize conversion on the broader matches, if the bid is the same as exact match, the cost per conversion will be much higher (too high.) However in chatting with an Adwords Support Rep (on a different matter) they stated after looking through my account at the end of the chat: " duplicate keywords will impact on quality score. your all keywords will compete with each other" However many of the ad groups in question these duplicate keywords have quality score of 9 and 10. So obviously if there is an effect it seems it may be minimal. I thought it was pretty common for people to bid higher on more exact match and lower on more broad match. What's the real story here? Was this support rep not seeing the big picture?
Paid Search Marketing | | JCCMoz1 -
Google Analytics showing my Adwords campaign bounce rate at 0%
I am relatively new to Adwords, and I can't figure out why the Adwords section of Analytics is showing all my site visitors at 0% bounce rate. Does that mean the account connection is not done right? Obviously Google ads are not a 0% bounce rate. If I can't get that to work, does anyone know how Google ads appear in Traffic? Is it Direct or Referral? I'm sure there's some simple answer I'm just not aware of, I would appreciate anyone's help. Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | Crystalline_150 -
Google URL Builder / Campaign Tracking on two Different Domain using the Same Analytics Code
Hey Everyone, I think I know the answer to this but I'd like to get some confirmation. I currently have a landing page at "www.xyz.com", it's a separate domain in which only the landing page exists and not a vanity URL which redirects. However, the navigation and all the links on "www.xyz.com" actually link out to "www.abc.com". The domain / landing page "xyz" has the same analytics tracking code as domain "www.abc.com". My question is this, if I use Google URL builder to create custom URL's to track for each ad that I'm running in Adwords, will this data show up in the analytics of "abc" even though it's a separate domain because it has the same analytics code? In other words, does campaign data show only if the domain and the google analytics code line up, or does the domain not matter and as long as you have the same analytics code (despite two separate domains) that campaign data (built through Google URL builder) will show? My hunch and best guess it that as long as the analytics code is the same (regardless of a separate domain) that the data in campaign will show with the custom URL's I build. I'm aware that I can test this and I will but I'd like to get an idea from the community first to make things easier. Anybody have experience with this? Answers greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | EvansHunt0 -
Keyword Domains for PPC
I have a client who wants to buy a lot of long domains with keywords in them, for example, thesandiegopetstore.com (this is fictional) and then set up a PPC landing page for each. They think that when someone types in "san diego pet store" that their domain will be listed high and then they will get a lot of traffic. My concern is that they will own a lot of domains for their company and I thought Google is getting pretty adamant about companies not having a lot of domains, and I thought that keyword domains are not as effective as they used to be -- that branding is more important now. Also, I think the domains they've picked target very competitive keywords and that perhaps they will get a lot unqualified traffic and will still have to pay for the clicks. What do you think? What is the best way to set up PPC landing pages?
Paid Search Marketing | | klkirby0