During the phase of tracking we recognised a mismatch related to some data between GA4 and Google ADS. To be more clear the problem is related to the number of conversions recorded in GA4 and Google ADS because for the same event we have two different values and it's clearly wrong. Can someone help me to fix this ?
Google Ads only reports on conversions it was involved in, and it reports them on the date the user clicked on the ad and not the date the conversion happened.
Google Analytics attributes conversions on a last-click basis. So even if Google Ads was involved in a conversion, it might attribute it to a different source that was involved later.
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Does the time get stored with the date OOTB with the Google Analytics 4 (GA4) on eCommerce events?
On my company’s implementation when I look at the data stored to e-commerce events, like the purchase dimension, everything is showing as occurring at 12am. Do you know why this is? Is it a config issue or the way I am connecting?
I’ve seen posts where people create JavaScript variables to track time in GA4 and save to a dimension but this makes no sense given the high cardinality of time. I would have thought it would be more efficient to store as a datetime data type and track as part of the GA4 application.
Does anyone here see the time an event occurred on GA4 eCommerce events?
I've just set up a tool on a client site that users can use to request a quote from our client. To do this the user lands on a form page, fills in their details, submits and then lands on a thank-you page. Pretty basic.
I set this process up as a goal in Google Analytics, using the destination type goal: "begins with /thank-you" and shared that goal as a conversion in Google AdWords.
I decided to run a few Google AdWords ads to promote the tool. I also wanted to double-check the conversion data that AdWords gives you so I set the destination URL in Adwords to www.example.com/form-page?adsrc=adwords1 (2, 3, 4 etc. for each ad) and I configured the DB so that there was a column that tracked which URL the user was on when filling in the form (this would be the column I counted to get the number of conversions that came from AdWords so I could compare)
Further to this, I made sure that the initial URL parameters that the user landed on were stored in the session so that if the user browsed to other pages and came back to fill in the form later, it would still attribute the conversion to AdWords.
I tested this thoroughly on a staging and production environment and everything was working correctly.
I ran the campaign for a week and when I checked, the conversion results in the Data Base vs the ones coming from AdWords are wildly different. The DB tells me I've had 5 conversions while AdWords gives me 21.
Is there anything in the way Google uses its gclid that may be causing this issue? Or is there a problem with the way I've set up the measurement structure?
This can be caused by few things, but I think this is the GA/AdWords issue, more than your DB/session set-up.
Gclid shouldn't influence your goal, since it is used only for AdWords/Analytics interactions, Goals should not be affected in your set-up.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2938246?hl=en
Probable cause: If your goal set-up only contains "begins with /thank-you", isn't it possible, that you are counting all the sessions which reach thanks-you page? Not just AdWords?
Solution: if you need to count conversions in AdWords (for performance improvements), use AdWords conversion code at the same page, this counts only those users, who clicks an ad and reach your thank-you page in x (default 30) days. Be sure to count only unique conversions (users by cookie).
Differences between GA/AdWords conversion count:
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2679221?hl=en
Google attributes conversions to the last marketing channel, where direct visits do not count as a marketing channel (if you look at their attribution flow visualization you see that the penultimate step is to check for existing campaign information for the user). So GA might overcount Adwords visits (or other campaigns) and conversely shows fewer conversions for direct visits.
On contrast your database probably records the last traffic channel without an elaborate attribution model, so it will show less campaign traffic.
Also IIRC the adwords interface records the conversion for the time of the ad click, not the actual goal conversion, so the timeframes for the conversions differ.
I wonder if you can help.
We have an ecommerce site. We integrate with both PayPal and WorldPay for our payments, and have added both secure.worldpay.com and paypal.com into the list of referral exclusions in Analytics. We have also added Adwords conversion tracking to the receipt page of our checkout process.
The problem we are experiencing is that the conversions being shown in adwords, is not the same as what Analytics is telling us. If I take this Monday for example. We had 14 orders. Adwords tells us it converted 13 of those orders, yet Analytics attributes 7 to CPC and 7 to organic.
We find ourselves in this really awkward position where we dont know which Google product to trust! Do we spend more on adwords believing that it converts almost all of our orders, or do we spend less considering it only accounts for 50% of the conversions!
We have one final weird issue, whereby every so often the ecommerce data will not be sent to Analytics. Is there anyway of getting ecommerce tracking data back from the call to check if there was an error?
Many thanks in advance
dotdev
Google Adwords and Google Analytics measure conversions in different ways.
Google Adwords tracks clicks on ads, and when coupled to Google Analytics attributes conversions in a 30-day window to the ad (default setting). Read as: if someone makes a purchase within 30 days after clicking on an ad, it's because they have seen the ad.
Google Analytics mostly attributes conversions using last-click attribution, which means that the medium/source of the last click is given to the conversion.
If a user clicks on an ad for great headphones and ends up on a product detail page of headphones on website X. Then decides to leave website X to compare the headphones with offerings of other vendors: website Y and Z. Finally the user decides to return to the first website X by typing in "headphones website x" in a popular search engine (not clicking any ads).
Google Adwords will contribute the conversion to it's doing ("See that user clicked my ad and bought headphones within 30 days"). However Google Analytics will attribute that conversion to the organic channel ("That user that bought those headphones, the last time I saw him he came from a search engine, that's organic").
Another difference between Google Adwords and Google Analytics is that Adwords dates it's conversion on the time of the click on the ad, Google Analytics dates it's conversion on the date it takes place. So if the ad is clicked on Wednesday and the conversion takes place on friday, Adwords will date the conversion on wednesday and Google Analytics will date the conversion on Thursday.
See this article: Why do conversions reported by AdWords, Google Analytics, Digital Analytics, and Floodlight not match? https://support.google.com/ds/answer/2791195?hl=en
I am getting “not set” in keyword report section of Google analytics data. May I know any method to retrieve the search terms/ keywords from the not set data?
May I know what are the factors that can result in showing the “not set” result in Google analytics?
any help
You can't Unlock it:
(not set) is a placeholder name that Analytics uses when it hasn't received any information for the dimension you have selected. Occasionally, information related to a click can be lost even if auto-tagging is enabled. As a result, you may see some (not set) entries instead of keyword, ad-content, or campaign information that could not be collected.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2820717?hl=en
Which report exactly are you having a problem with?
If you mean that you want to see what users are Searching the Google website on to come to your website. You are going to have a problem Google has stopped sending this information, they want to make things more secure for users. http://googleblog.blogspot.dk/2011/10/making-search-more-secure.html
I have come across quite a peculiar issue. In one of my Google Analytics accounts, I have it linked together with two different Adwords account. All good so far.
The issue is that one of the Adwords accounts is in dollars (which cannot be changed), and the other one in my local currency. Looking at my Google Analytics reports, I am currently seeing the Adwords cost as my local currency for both, which is totally wrong.
Let me give an example:
$1 is, let's say, roughly worth 10 in my local currency.
So, given that I spend $150 in my Adwords account, it would show up as 150SEK in my GA-reports (SEK being my local currency). It should in fact be 1500 since the Adwords spend is in dollars, and there is no conversion done between the two systems with a mismatching currency.
Does anyone know how I can see the correct spend inside my Google Analytics account, seeing as the two Adwords accounts are using different currencies; SEK and dollars?
As far as I know, it imports the value only and will show the currency selected in Analytics. The 150 comes from AdWords, SEK is the currency in Analytics, so it'd show 150SEK.
Not many references in other help forums (I was trying to find some discussion that would help confirm my guess :) but I found this little snippet which mentions that the currency and timezone must match.
GA supports multi-currency however it is only for e-commerce metrics. You could upload data using the Cost Data Upload but "This feature is intended for non-Google paid campaigns. To import Google AdWords data, link your Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts." All in all you cannot have cost data for two currencies in one view, however you could link the one account to a separate view (with the correct currency setting)