Why does my google analytics show a massive discrepancy from facebook's reported website clicks?

[spencerhjustice]

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.

[Maxime_F]

I have the same thing but at a larger scale.

122k clicks according to facebook, 1450 visits according to Omniture... and no sales. That's the less optimized 2.5k€ I've spent on a campaign

[haghadi]

My Facebook ad manager shows 3668 website clicks whereas in GA it only shows 1310.

[GenovaDiagnostics]

We have exactly the same problem. According to Facebook 274 website clicks, but Google Analytics shows only 50. And this hasn't happened for the first time. Actually, this is the usual discrepancy in our Facebook campaigns. Probably most of the traffic is caused by bots, so a lot of Facebook budget is wasted for nothing....

[spencerhjustice]

Thanks for the response. That was all I could really find on the topic as well. I'm using the newest version of the asynchronous tracking code besides universal analytics. I understand the possibilities for discrepancies, even 50% might be understandable but my visitors in analytics is at 6% percent of recorded clicks at 3 out of 47 which just seems insane.

I guess I'll just have to suggest that we stop running those types of Facebook ads, at least for now.

[SamuelScott]

I did some digging around and found some information:

https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=10153294676310223

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/analytics/pHOQxwrYh_s

http://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/inaccurate-google-analytics-traffic-sources/

Don't shoot the messenger -- I cannot know whether these reasons are true for you. Just to summarize some possible issues from those links:

Ad clicks is not the same think as website visitors
Old Google Analytics code
People blocking cookies or having other setups that interfere with GA tracking

I hope these resources might help!