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I'm pretty sure the client is ready to run away, I was an odd situation, we did their original website 7 ish years ago, before we offered any real online marketing.  So they were dazzled by the yp sales guys, signed up, then came back to us for a new website - there was much face palming at that point

The latest meeting was interesting, I can argue quite nicely too, I made the google 'expert' tantrum and storm out at the end, complete with door slam. I don't think he appreciated a young female with some fairly indisputable evidence putting him in his place and showing up his lack of knowledge.

On the openness of the actual accounts - they are stalling on giving us access even to the Sensis interface - no way are they going to show me what is actually happening with Yahoo or Google.  Part of the problem is that they send sales guys out to deal with the issue, they have no idea what they are talking about, and are used to dealing with customers who just accept the rubbish answers.  I don't even know if the guys I'm dealing with would understand what I was asking to see (didn't know analytics had a real time feature - it seems I programmed that myself to be tricky - I'm really awesome at programming and I didn't even know it!)

At the moment they have taken 2 days to look into the auto -tagging option???  The whole account management has been a mess from day 1, there are many more problems than just this. It isn't that I don't want them to see the analytics, and  I don't think they would delete stuff etc... purposefully, but it could happen.  There really looks like something has stuffed up and it only takes someone to go ' that shouldn't be here - delete profile' and its gone.  I wouldn't trust them with my account, so that is the same advice I'd give anyone else.

My initial question was mainly due to me being a bit stupid - they told me we'd need to upload extra code via ftp and I just thought - guess they have a different system to what I would do because their account management is different.  Then their email request asked to be linked to a generic sensis email, so mostly me not going back to basics.

Hi Robert,

Sorry mis-label by me - the traffic comes through as search.  we went through clicking on one of the ads to show the yp guys what happens and it appears in analytics as yahoo/search, but they denied that is what happened - in front of them.  They say cpc traffic doesn't appear in analytics AT ALL.  The referral traffic can be accounted for, except for a pile of dodgy looking directory sponsored links from a selection of directories under same ip addresses - yp say they have nothing to do with these and direct traffic can't account for this.  There just isn't enough traffic on the site as a whole to account for the reported clicks - 698 from Yahoo with just 17 showing up in analytics

At the moment I don't need too much info, just want the ad traffic labelled as cpc as the traffic source.  I'm being told that the 700 odd clicks from Yahoo and Adwords cpc are blocked from analytics which is why I can't see the visits, they deny that it shows up as search traffic if not tagged - even though I showed them exactly what happens when you click on an ad in GA real time (the Google 'expert' told me there was no such thing as real time and I made it up!!!)

They haven't even responded to my request to turn on auto-tagging so asking for the accounts to be linked within a time frame is being a bit hopeful - not to mention they can delete the profile and all data justifying the refund within that time (that's the cynic in me as we've had that happen before  -not YP.

Please let me know how the therapy goes

My latest website addition is about to be questions you need to ask your YP sales rep before signing anything.  Then offering to come and sit in on the sales meeting as an outside 'interpreter'.   Just wish my client had come to us first before signing on the dotted line cos this is so much extra work and hassle and surprise, surprise she's seen no new leads in months. But hey, this is what we do

Thanks Nakul and Robert,

Of course having a re-google around this morning I've found exactly what I'm looking for, re auto-tagging.  The moral of the story, don't let others lead you down an un-necessary path when the right answer is staring you in the face

Agree, agree and agree.  These are all exactly the points I have raised with my client, unfortunately she has locked herself into a contract and if she decides try to terminate we need as much corroborating data to justify a breach of contract from their side.

Can you let me know how to link the Adwords for two separate accounts? I've searched around but can't seem to find out how to do it if I am not allowed into the yahoo adcentre or Adwords or they aren't admin of ga.

All the smoke and mirrors is beyond frustrating.  I know I'm right, but for the average business owner its just all too much.

Thanks

I've just heard that doing this could cause problems with analytics, so even though theoretically that should work, I'm just wondering if anyone has done this with no issues.

Based on the quite  aggressive meeting where I was told I had no idea what i was talking about when pointing out the 698 yahoo cpc clicks doesn't appear in analytics, that when i click on one of their ads myself, in their presence, and show them how it appears in  GA real time so that the traffic, even though it isn't labelled as cpc still shows up- their google 'expert' told me there was no such thing as google analytics real time, And that they are making it difficult to log in to the sensis interface, won't let me see the yahoo or Adwords accounts at all to sort out the missing traffic, nope they won't set up an open account.

This is why I'm thinking the only option is 2 accounts, but whether this causes an analytics problem / conflict I don't know

Because it is yellow pages, we have no access to the Adwords account, so that would be the best solution but not possible.  Not a very open situation and one I wouldn't recommend but the client signed up for it before coming to us.

They need to link the Adwords and analytics accounts in Adwords and the only way to do this according to Google is by being an administrator.  As in the example in the link, everywhere I've seen two different tracking codes, they are profiles within the one account and as far as I can see, adding an administrator to one profile automatically adds them to the other.  And I'm still left open for them to delete everything.

Thanks Nakul and Robert,

Of course having a re-google around this morning I've found exactly what I'm looking for, re auto-tagging.  The moral of the story, don't let others lead you down an un-necessary path when the right answer is staring you in the face

Another perspective, if you have the time to apply the stuff you learn here yourself to your websites - think about how much that would cost you for monthly SEO from an outside company. If you want to do it yourself and you do it properly then it is definitely worth it.