Google Analytics vs Ad Server Clicks
1 like2,464 views
Google Analytics (GA) provides insights into website visitor data, but accuracy can vary when linked with Google Ads and other products. Discrepancies arise between GA metrics and those from AdWords or DFP, influenced by tracking methods and visitor behavior, such as redirects or disabled JavaScript. Consequently, while GA helps analyze traffic, it may not precisely identify all sources of visits.
Google Analytics vs Ad Server Clicks
- 2. GA IS A STANDALONE PRODUCT GOOGLE SAYS “Google Analytics is a standalone Google product that shows you data about your visitors – how many visitors are coming to your website, where they’re coming from, what pages they're seeing, how long they're staying, and where they go when they leave. With advanced features, you can even see what paths people are taking to get from certain pages to other pages.” http://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2404031&topic=1714059&path=1713967&ctx=leftnav
- 3. EVEN ADWORDS NEED TO BE LINKED TO GA GOOGLE’S TWO DIFFERENT PRODUCTS ADWORDS AND GOOGLE ANALYTICS NEED TO LINKED BEFORE THE CLICKS CAN BE TRACKED PROPERLY. GOOGLE SAYS “Linking a Google Analytics account to your AdWords account can help you analyze where people who click on your ads go once they reach your website. This information can help you improve your ads and your website to try and make more money per click.”
- 4. GOOGLE SAYS ADWORDS MATRICS DON’T MATCH GA AdWords increments Goals the same way regardless of whether you are using the 'native' AdWords conversion tracking code or are importing a Goal from Google Analytics as an AdWords conversion action. In either case, we do not expect the number of google/cpc Goals or Transactions in Google Analytics to exactly match up with the number of Goals or Transactions reported in the AdWords interface http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2679221
- 5. DFP DOES NOT MATCH GA EVEN DFP MAY NOT MATCH GA WHEREAS A PUBLISHER WHOSE SITE SERVES CERTAIN # OF ADS ON A PARTICULAR PAGE THE PAGE VIEWS EVEN DON’T MATCH THE GA PAGE VIEWS http://support.google.com/dfp_premium/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=177405
- 6. STANDARD NOTE Auto-tagging appends a unique ID to the end of the destination URL. This unique ID allows Analytics to report the details of the click: which AdWords keywords brought a visitor to your site, which campaign that keyword was from, and how much that click cost. If there is a redirect on a link, this will cause the unique ID parameter to be removed and Analytics wont know where the visits came from, so due to this the analytics data is less.
- 7. OTHER REASONS If a visitor clicks on your ad and then gets redirected to another page, the auto-tagged parameter that identifies a visit as coming from NETWORK gets removed from the URL. A visitor may click your ad multiple times. When one person clicks on one advertisement multiple times in the same session, NETWORK will record multiple clicks while Analytics recognizes the separate pageviews as one visit. A visitor may click on your advertisement, but prevent the page from fully loading by navigating to another page or by pressing their browser’s Stop button. In this case, the Analytics tracking code is unable to execute and send tracking data to the Google servers. However, network will still register a click. If a visitor who clicks on your ad has either JavaScript or cookies disabled, this visitor won’t be recorded in Analytics, but the network will still register a click.
- 8. CONCLUSION CLICKS RECORDED IN GA UNDER VDOPIA DOMAIN MAY NOT BE THE ONLY CLICKS WE SEND OUR CLICKS MAY GET RECORDED UNDER OTHER NAMES OR THROUGH WEDSITE URLs OUR CLICKS CAN ALSO BE RECORDED UNDER UNIDENTIFIED REF URLs (the urls from were traffic comes to your site) GA can tell you your traffic but can never exactly tell where it came from. If there is a redirect on a link, this will cause the unique ID parameter to be removed and Analytics wont know where the visits came from, so due to this the analytics data is less.