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.
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.
-
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
-
My Facebook ad manager shows 3668 website clicks whereas in GA it only shows 1310.
-
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....
-
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.
-
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 trackingI hope these resources might help!
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
-
"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 -
How much website would be worth for SEO?
I have a website that I'm considering selling. It gives no profit, but I think it has decent SEO value. Link explorer report: domain authority = 69, linking domains: 9.8k, inbound links: 44.2m, ranking keywords: 294. Is that any good? Website is about web design, so keywords are also related to it. Would it be useful for SEO links building for other people? I did sell similar website once, but it was about 7-8 years ago and I've sold it for very high 5 digit amount. However things have changed since then in SEO world, so I don't know if today similar website would be worth much. There is so much information out there that contradicts each other, so I think I'd rather ask professionals here.
Paid Search Marketing | | CyberAlien70 -
How to track in Google Analytics 2 different subdomains (one for website, the other for PPC landing pages)
Hello Mozers! I have a website with organic visits/goals on www.site.com and a few AdWords Campaign landing pages on lp.site.com whose goals are tracked with both adwords conversion monitoring AND analytics (not imported from analytics into Adword). The landing pages of the campaign have nothing to do with the web site (different cms, they don't link each other, totally isolated) and viceversa. Given that, what would it be the best practice to configure Google Analytics to track the website (www.site.com) AND a PPC campagin (lp.site.com)? I have been told to set up different views of the same property, but do I really need that? Please let me know what are you thinking. Thank you very much. DoMiSoL Rossini
Paid Search Marketing | | DoMiSoL0 -
Hire Products on Google Shopping
Has anyone got any experience with advertising products for hire rather than for sale on Google Shopping? Is it allowed? How does it perform?
Paid Search Marketing | | ese0 -
PPC for Luxury Goods Website
Hi Mozzers, I am starting a PPC campaign for a website that sells high-end products. The search volume for the generics is very high but I think the conversion rate on those will be quite low given the price of the products. Does anyone have any experience in doing PPC for high-end retailers and what type of keyword I should be bidding on? Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | KarlBantleman0 -
Paid Search Visits Not Showing Up in Google Analytics
Hey all, Just took over SEM for my company, and noticed a bit of a problem with GA. Whereas Adwords has registered 141 clicks on paid campaigns that go to the site, GA has tracked only 5 vists in that time. Two things of note: The GA account was not linked to the Adwords account until today, and also, auto-tagging was not turned on. I understand these two things are important to having proper GA tracking, but I just want to make sure that there aren't any other things I should check right now to make sure I start to see tracked paid visits again. Is there anything else I should try? Cheers.
Paid Search Marketing | | danny.wood0 -
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
Paid Search Marketing | | Studio330 -
Cost per click on PPC
What is the best way to get a good cpc estimate other than actually running the campaign? I have had several people asking for budgets and wasn't sure how to answer. Any suggestions?
Paid Search Marketing | | ClickIt0