Data Discrepancies in Google Analytics, Google Ads & Facebook Ads

have you ever wondered why the numbers in google analytics and the numbers on your ads platform like google ads or facebook ads are often different from conversions to goals clicks to sessions why doesn't google analytics google ads and facebook ads data line up in this video we are going to provide an overview of how google analytics google ads and facebook ads report their data discuss the common discrepancies you may see in each platform briefly discuss attribution as it relates to conversions and goal tracking and provide some guidance on which data you should use for your click and conversion tracking after this video you should have a much better understanding of how your digital marketing campaigns are really performing so let's begin with an example this shows revenue data for a facebook ads campaign to google analytics now according to google analytics facebook ads sent 658 sessions and generated 703 dollars in revenue however during that same time frame if you look in facebook ads they delivered 567 clicks and 4 335 dollars in revenue what the heck is going on here that's a huge difference shouldn't clicks and sessions be the same thing same with revenue and purchase conversion value to sort all this out let's start with google analytics data when discussing various data discrepancies it first helps understand how google analytics collects and reports on your data and in particular universal analytics not the new google analytics 4. google analytics is session based meaning that when someone comes to your website google analytics tracks what you're doing until one of the following happens after 30 minutes of inactivity at midnight a user arrives via one campaign leaves and then comes back via a different campaign the important thing to note is that conversions or goals in google analytics use the last interaction model what is the last interaction model in google analytics it means 100 of the credit goes to that last touch point to the website so if someone clicks your facebook ad and doesn't convert but then comes back later and converts organically by googling your brand organic will get the credit for the conversion not facebook ads since organic was the last touch point that led to a conversion facebook essentially loses credit for making the sale according to google analytics this is a huge reason why your ppc reporting and google analytics may differ if your ppc platform isn't using last click attribution then it most likely has different values than what google analytics reports and even if it uses last click attribution the numbers still might be different than google analytics why well let's dive into that now and discuss google analytics and google ads discrepancies there can be many data discrepancies between google ads and google analytics but a few of the more common are click sessions discrepancies conversion goal discrepancies and conversion value revenue discrepancies let's start first with conversion discrepancies between google analytics and google ads by setting up a conversion goal on google ads a conversion goal would be something like a contact form submission a phone call or an online transaction in retail here you can see by default it's set to 30 days to click through conversion one day view through conversion so what does that mean this means after someone clicks your ad google ads will track that click for 30 days to see if you convert or a purchase and this example this means the person clicked on your google ad could visit your site then within 30 days come to the site again via another marketing channel and make a purchase and google ads would count it as a conversion if they click multiple ads you can even assign which ad gets the credit by default last click attribution means that the last ad that they click gets 100 of the credit but you can also assign that as first click where the first click gets all the credit linear which is equal credit to all clicks time decay where more credit is given toward the end of the purchase and position base which is what we use which splits up the credit to the first and the last ad that they click if you've ever wondered why sometimes you'll see a fraction of a conversion in google ads it's because one of the last three attribution models were set here's an example of where google ads and google analytics are both set to last click attribution and why their numbers may not line up let's say a person clicks your google ad for your company's new cat skateboard product let's call it catwheels and they don't purchase at the time but then google your product name cat wheels and click on the organic non-paid search result and then purchase in this example google ads would still report a conversion but google analytics would give the credit to organic so even though we have set the google ads conversion to last click attribution just like google analytics the numbers may not line up because of the way google ads and google analytics track the sale google ads gives credit within the 30-day window if the person clicked on the ad and purchased during that time google analytics is giving credit to the organic since that was the last touch point to purchase what about the one-day view-through conversion what does that mean this only applies if you're running display ads so we'll skip this for now but we'll come back to it when we discuss facebook ads essentially it means google ads will take credit for the sale if a person sees your ad and then purchases within a 24-hour period after that 24-hour period that sale will not show up in your google ads report even if they did purchase 48 hours later now let's talk google ads and google analytics click and revenue discrepancies take a look at this google ads account here google ads shows 3128 clicks and eleven thousand nine hundred seventy seven dollars in conversion value which is revenue in google ads google analytics shows three thousand three hundred twenty seven sessions and nine thousand nine hundred thirty two dollars in revenue as you see in this image the clicks in google ads and sessions and google analytics as well as conversion value do not match why is the data discrepancy happening here with conversion value and ga revenue let's start with revenue the reason google ads revenue is higher is because google ads is tracking you for a specified time period default which we said is 30 days where google analytics again is only attributing the sale to the last interaction even if you clicked a google ad first so people that click a google ad then come back later via an organic search facebook ad etc will get counted as a sale for google ads but google analytics will not show a sale as coming from google ads google analytics will give the credit to the other mediums so that explains the conversion differences but what about the click discrepancies we saw between google ads and google analytics if someone clicks an ad from google ads why doesn't that line up with google analytics sessions surely 100 clicks from a google ad should equal 100 sessions and google analytics right not always you see with google and facebook ads for that matter it's a pretty straightforward method for counting clicks as soon as someone clicks the ad it gets sent back to their platform and it's counted however with google analytics several things need to happen before a session is counted and if you want to know all the details google has a support document detailing all of this the bottom line is after they click the ad they need to stay on your website long enough for the google analytics tracking code to load and be accepted by the client's browser so if your website is temporarily down or the user clicks away from the site too fast or perhaps they have some kind of script blocking tool it won't get counted in google analytics but it will get counted as a click in google or facebook ads so that covers clicks and session differences now let's come back to what we handed out earlier which is view through conversions this is a big one especially on facebook have you ever looked at your reports and seen spectacular results on facebook but then when you look in google analytics it tells a far different story a likely reason for that is what is called view through conversions and again it goes back to how facebook attributes conversions and how that differs from google analytics by default in facebook they use 20 to click one day view attribution 28-day clicks should be fairly straightforward someone clicks the ad and then facebook waits 28 days to see if they become a conversion facebook uses their own facebook pixel that you place on your website to track your conversion so facebook knows for sure if you saw or clicked on an ad and then converted on the website and if you're signed into facebook on your desktop and mobile device they can easily track if you click on an ad on one device and purchase from another now again google analytics is only going to count a conversion coming from facebook if they purchase immediately during that website session after they click the ad google analytics doesn't have the benefit of having data from the facebook pixel so it relies on just the immediate click from facebook ads to track conversions during just that session so that alone may show a lot of difference between facebook and google analytics reporting but facebook also counts a conversion with one day view otherwise known as view through conversion what this means is if someone doesn't even click on the ad they just happen to see the ad as they're scrolling through facebook would count that as a conversion if that person purchased within 24 hours this comes into play more often with remarketing campaigns someone may be planning on buying your product today they check facebook or instagram and call answer your ad but don't click it later on that day they come to your site and purchase in this case facebook is saying because they glanced your ad even though they didn't even click it this view influenced you to purchase and count it as a conversion within facebook's reporting platform you can separate columns out easily to show how many of your conversions came from people actually clicking and how many people only view the ad as you can see the numbers can often be quite startling where you'll notice a lot of your conversions that facebook reports came from view through conversions so they didn't even click on the ads which brings us back to google analytics they're definitely not going to give any credits to someone that just viewed an ad on facebook they have no way of seeing that only facebook has that kind of information because of the facebook pixel that you place on your website so why does facebook ads report more conversions than google analytic to summarize what we just said one facebook tracks you for 28 days after you click to see if you've made a purchase where google analytics only gives credit if they buy immediately after that facebook ad click number two facebook by default counts view through conversion which can make up for a surprising amount while google analytics gives zero credit to an ad view because they can't see that information one quick caveat in order for facebook traffic to even show up correctly in google analytics you need to append the code to the finding url called utm codes which helps google analytics know where that traffic is coming from otherwise google analytics won't show anything coming from facebook you don't have to worry about this with google ads because they create these utm codes for you automatically next let's discuss tracking setup and user error in conversion tracking one last factor that has to be mentioned when it comes to conversion discrepancies is tracking setup and user error to set up conversion tracking you have to do them separately in google and facebook this is a huge potential reason why conversions may be different it's common to see that whoever set up conversion tracking may have done it differently across platforms either because they simply forgot or there were some other technical hurdles involved for example someone may have set up a lead on google as someone reaching the thank you page but on facebook they set up a lead as a click on the contact us button the bottom line is if your conversion tracking isn't set up identically across each platform then that could be another reason for data discrepancies between facebook ads google ads and google analytics so which data to use for conversions and clicks one of the most common at two wheels marketing we rely on each ppc platform's reporting with some caveats on google ads we mostly set our attribution to position based because we feel it's the most fair way to give credit for a purchase this means if you remember that the credit for the conversion is more equally distributed between campaigns or platforms that expose a person to your brand initially and those that do so later to close the deal unlike google analytics only giving credit to that last non-direct medium that closes the deal just doesn't seem fair to google ads as for view through conversions like with facebook we do feel there's some value in someone seeing an ad and it reminding them to make a purchase later that day even if they aren't immediately clicking the ad after all people are often busy so it makes sense that they may not be ready to buy right at the moment they are served up an ad we like to keep track of view through conversions but separate them out of reports so clients get a full picture of the results that they're getting so that wraps things up hopefully this has shed a little more light onto the data's discrepancies between google ads facebook ads and google analytics if you have any questions i know this is a difficult subject and unsure in any way how your data is reported be sure to leave a comment below we're more than happy to help

Channel: Two Wheels Marketing

Views: 1,532

Keywords: ppc, google analytics, facebook ads, google ads, data discrepancies, SEM

Id: xRbMo_yDKJw

Length: 15min 44sec (944 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2020