PPC sessions being counted as organic in GA

[Rebecca.Holloway]

I am coming across a very frustrating phenomenon in one of my PPC campaign reporting.

In short: I believe that GA is counting some of my PPC sessions as organic (not provided). Has anybody come across this before?

I believe they are being counted as organic because of the following:

• the website is brand new and does not rank for anything but their branded terms

• the few keywords showing up in GA are the terms we target our PPC towards

• the amount of sessions of Paid Search (in channels) and  AdWords sessions don't match up (The number of actual PPC clicks is substantially higher than the Paid Search sessions)

• PPC clicks and sessions don't even match up in the AdWords part of GA

• GWT shows 0% CTR for any non branded terms

Tell me I am crazy, but I really don't think I am. I just don't have the hard evidence to back it up. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[JasmineA]

There are several reasons why AdWords & GA data won't match up, and this is one of them, but don't ever expect them to be the same.

I know we keep harping that things need to be linked appropriately and I'm glad you've gotten it handled, Anna, but it's the most common reason for any real mis-attribution. And by most common I mean nearly everyone gets it wrong Glad you're on the right track here.

There is also an attribution modeling between GA & AdWords. AdWords is a first touch attribution interface while generally GA is last touch. Though your site is relatively new, if you have any return visitors at all from brand then they will appear as Organic and not PPC.

Knowing that GWT says you don't have any non-brand traffic and you are sure you don't rank for anything, where is the traffic going? What are the landing pages you are using for PPC? Are they different than the pages organic traffic is getting traffic on? (side note: please tell me that you aren't sending PPC traffic to the home page )

[Alick300]

Hi Anna,

I have read your query & all of replies very carefully & now I m replying you point by point.

"In short: I believe that GA is counting some of my PPC sessions as organic (not provided). Has anybody come across this before? "

My comment - Not provided keyword is a keyword without keyword referral data.

****There are two types of keywords referral data: organic keywords referral data and paid keywords referral data. ******

The organic keywords referral data tells you which search term was used by a person to visit your website after he/she clicked on an organic search engine listing on Google.

The paid keywords referral data tells you which search term was used by a person to visit your website after he/she clicked on a paid search engine listing on Google. These paid search engine listing are the PPC ads you see on Google.

But since Google doesn’t hide the paid keyword referral data, your web analytics tools like Google Analytics will continue to report the keywords which generated traffic, sales and conversions on your website through Adwords reports.
So IMO your assumption is wrong"I believe they are being counted as organic because of the following:

• the website is brand new and does not rank for anything but their branded terms
• the few keywords showing up in GA are the terms we target our PPC towards"

My Comment - I believe you are doing guess work. This is not possible."- the amount of sessions of Paid Search (in channels) and  AdWords sessions don't match up (The number of actual PPC clicks is substantially higher than the Paid Search sessions)"My comments - Please visit below URL you will know hwy there is discrepancy in session datahttps://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1257084?hl=enNow here is some methods to resolve the issue.I presume auto tagging or manual tagging you are using either one. I hope you are not using both. 1>Install tag assistant to check whether tracking is correct or not2>Hit & trail methodRemove auto tagging or manual tagging whichever you are using for some time after that search any keyword and click on your adWords Ad .After landing on your webpage append this (?utm_source=Anna&utm_medium=paid at the end of url and click enter . Please repeat this search for 3-4 times and you can check after 24 hour whether this data going in organic or paid.*I am running Adwords & Bing campaign since last six years I haven't face this scenario ever.sorry for the long answer it was just to explain you.I hope it helps you.Thanks

[Highland]

The only way to know for sure is, after having linked your GA to Adwords, is to look at server logs and look for the following (in bold)

www.yourdomain.com/somepage?gclid=XXXXXXXXXXXX

This is how Adwords passes the session on to GA. If you click on your own ads you should see this show up when you finally arrive at your site (if not check configs).

the amount of sessions of Paid Search (in channels) and  AdWords sessions don't match up (The number of actual PPC clicks is substantially higher than the Paid Search sessions)

This is normal. Because GA relies on JS code there will always be missed sessions. Some people have JS turned off, while others have plugins that block GA from loading and sending data back. Server logs are the only real way to know true traffic.

[DavidKonigsberg]

If its not alot of traffic your best to just ignore it

[Rebecca.Holloway]

Thanks Hutch, I had checked everything mentioned there. But I'm still convinced that a large amount of sessions are being classed as Organic.

I don't believe that the volume of sessions could be on branded keywords. But yet again I don't have any hard data to back that up. Just a hunch.

[Hutch42]

Also, your Google traffic and your Adwords will never line up perfectly due to the difference of how each is tracked.

Google has gone into the differences here:  https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1034383?hl=en

[Rebecca.Holloway]

I have looked at both David, but the ones I mention above are just organic.

[DavidKonigsberg]

Are you looking at over all keywords or just organic?

[Rebecca.Holloway]

Yes GA and AdWords are linked. Not using bing.

[DavidKonigsberg]

Is your adwords account linked? Are you tagging bing ppc urls?

[Hutch42]

Did you link your GA and Adwords accounts or are you just tagging?  Organic (not provided) is how GA shows all search traffic from users who connect to Google securely (signed into a Google account) so this could be branded traffic but there is no way of knowing in GA.