The impessions of a DFP campaign are equal to the unique page views counted by Google Analytics. One would expect that the impressions would be equal to the page views and not the unique pageviews since the banner is rendered in every page of the website. What am I missing?
If you see significant discrepancies (>10%) between the reports in your DoubleClick for Publishers account and those in Google Analytics, please keep in mind these important points:
Analytics tracks page views while DoubleClick for Publishers counts ad impressions. Be sure you are comparing reports that match the appropriate pages in Analytics with the proper slots in the DoubleClick for Publishers reports.
Use the inventory reports in DoubleClick for Publishers and segment by ad slots for the most precise comparison.
Enable the Unfilled impressions column to see if there are a significant amount of blank ads being served.
Verify that DoubleClick for Publishers and Analytics code are both on the same page and in the proper locations within the HTML.
Try using the new Analytics asynchronous code for optimal performance.
Even if your code is set up properly, statistics may still differ between DoubleClick for Publishers and Analytics. Learn more about differences between DFP and Google Analytics
There are a number of possible explanations.
I. Reasons why an ad impression in DoubleClick for Publishers may not equal a pageview in Google Analytics:
Separate JavaScript code: DoubleClick for Publishers counts an ad impression when the DoubleClick for Publishers ad code is executed by a user's browser. Similarly, Analytics counts a pageview only when the Google Analytics tracking code is executed by a user's browser. Because they are located in different parts of your page, it is possible that one of these JavaScript snippets will load and the other will not. For example, because Analytics recommends placing the tracking code at the bottom of your HTML, in very rare cases a user will enter and then exit a page before the page completely loads and before the tracking code is executed. In this case, DoubleClick for Publishers might count an ad impression, but Analytics won't count the pageview. This would result in a higher impression count in DoubleClick for Publishers than pageview count in Analytics. (see above link for new Analytics tags)
Iframes: Some publishers have placed DoubleClick for Publishers tags in an iframe to serve ads. Browsers that don't support the <iframe> tag will not report an impression. This can result in Analytics counting more pageviews than DoubleClick for Publishers counts impressions.
For browsers that do support iframe tags, putting the DoubleClick for Publishers tags within an iframe can result in an extra round trip between the browser and server. This additional latency can cause some users to leave the page before the browser has enough time to make the calls to both Analytics and DoubleClick for Publishers.
Security (blocking) Software: Your DoubleClick for Publishers impressions might also be decreased by personal firewall software or ad blocking software which can cause Google ads to not display on your site, or may obscure portions of the ad. Ad blocking features of your users' internet security software must be disabled in order to view Google ads.
Timezone: If your Analytics timezone doesn't match your DoubleClick for Publishers timezone, then the two sets of reports will be aggregating different time periods for the same displayed date. Learn how to set the time zone for your Google Analytics reports.
Analytics profiles: Analytics allows you to create different profiles that can be used to filter data. If you are viewing a profile that filters out some data, then the DoubleClick for Publishers data meant to correspond to the filtered-out data will not be shown. Browse through other articles about creating filters and controlling your report data through them.
II. Things to keep in mind when comparing ad impressions to pageviews:
Frames: If the Analytics tracking code is present with a framed page as well as the framing page, Analytics will likely register two pageviews for that visit. This can result in inflated pageviews in Analytics. Learn more about framed sites.
_trackPageview function: If you're using the _trackPageview function, your pageviews may be slightly inflated within Google Analytics. _trackPageview works by creating virtual pageviews for specific events such as PDF downloads that won't be tracked in your DoubleClick for Publishers account. Learn more about using virtual pageviews through Special Case Goals and Funnels.
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I have a website where we're working on migrating from analytics.js to GTM, so we've created a new temporary property for verifying that GTM is working as per expectations. The existing analytics.js code sends data to an older property.
I see a lot of cases where many users simply don't appear in the GTM tracking data, and we've also done multiple pageview audits to confirm if all pages are tagged properly. There's always a gap of 10-15% in the user comparison, and 20-25% in the pageview comparison.
Has anyone worked on any similar situation where GTM tracking shows lesser data than normal analytics.js tracking?
Many of the conversions that my Firebase web app reports to my Google Analytics 4 property aren't showing up in Google Ads.
I have a single-page web app that uses the Firebase Analytics JS API to report custom events for a Google Analytics 4 property, including two events that have been marked as conversions in the Google Analytics "Conversions" page. All of the events reported by the app appear as expected in Google Analytics.
The GA4 property is linked with a Google Ads account that has auto-tagging enabled. I've imported the conversion events using the Ads site with a Count setting of "Every" (rather than "One"), but less than half of new ad-derived conversions are shown in Ads. For example, Analytics reports 55 occurrences of a conversion event two days ago, but Ads reports only 20 occurrences of the event for the same day.
I've used the Google Analytics Debugger extension to confirm that events contain a tid parameter with the GA4 property ID and a dl parameter that preserves the URL's gclid query parameter (using this approach). I've also used BigQuery to view the underlying Analytics events, and I can see that their page_location parameters preserve the gclid parameter and that they have correct value and currency parameters (e.g. 0.5 and "USD").
Are there other factors that affect whether GA4 events are correctly displayed in Google Ads? I'm confused by the way that some, but not all, events are showing up in Ads. I had a call with Google Ads support this morning but they aren't trained in diagnosing conversion-reporting issues.
Are the conversion events not showing up at all, or just not showing up after a couple of days? If it's the former, it's possible that there is a delay before the conversion reporting makes it to Google Ads and gets reported to the console.
As for inspecting the BigQuery conversion events for the correct tracking data, make sure to use the events_ table rather than the events_intraday tables as the summary tables more accurately reflect the count for events logged that day.
Beyond that it looks like your setup is correct since some conversion events are already being reported, but just in case here is a link to the Google Ads help center on all the steps required to make sure the Google Analytics 4 property used by Firebase is correctly linked to Google Ads.
I am tracking analytics through a Google Analytics - Universal Analytics tag implemented through GTM.
I've noticed recently that there may have been an issue with the setup of this which has resulted in a large amount of data missing (a few months worth) - specifically there is a lack of data in the site content > all pages report. Some data was recorded in June 2018 before recording appears to have stopped, however it appears this data is incorrect with very high page readings that are not reflected by the timeline in the audience overview report.
What's strange is that goals have still been recorded, including form submission and calls (these were also set up through GTM), also the audience overview has recorded data for the last six months.
I have added the analytics tag again making sure to have the correct property ID and have verified that it is firing via preview mode and via the real-time report in Analytics.
I'm confused how sessions and goals have been recorded if analytics may have been incorrectly installed and what may have occurred for there to be a black hole in the data?
If there is a lack of data in the site content report it means that on some pages from your site, either GTM is not firing (thus not firing GA) or there are some filters in your GA trigger in GTM which do not load the tag on all pages.
If you can provide some URL's which you think should be in the site content report, but are missing, we can check how GA is installed.
I use an I-Frame where there are 3 steps to complete an order. On the last step the conversion is recorded. The adword will link to the page which includes the I-Frame, from there the users has to go through the 3 steps in the I-Frame.
In the I-Frame the following functions are used: Multiple GA accounts (main website and I-Frame website), Google Enhanced E-Commerce, Adwords conversion on last page.
As you can see on the images below the conversions of Adwords doesn't show up in Google Analytics, in Google Adwords is everything OK.
Does anyone know where I have to look for to get the conversions of Adwords in Google Analytics?
Image 1:
Image 2:
What type of goal do you have this setup as in Analytics?
You can use the drop down filter to display different goals in your table view as shown here
You can also use the Explorer tabs above the chart to have your table display only goal 1, goal 2, or ecommerce related data.
Does that help?
It seems that you do not properly share the Google Analytics client ID between your main site and the iFrame (which I suppose is being served from a different host / domain). As a result of this, the conversions within the iFrame are being attributed to a referral coming from your main web site instead of Paid Search.
In order to provide the correct client ID to Google Analytics inside your iFrame, you need to pass it from the main web site. Have a look at the documentation for an idea on how to do this.
One of the basics is that conversions measured by adWords script is going to calculate the conversions with its own attribution model, which is going to be different from conversions being measured by analytics (defaut or custom model): https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2679221?hl=en
You can measure data on GA by setting up either a google analytics conversion or a goal tag on the last page.
Details here: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1722054?hl=en
Previously, we had implemented Traditional e-commerce analytics (_gaq) using _trackTrans, _addItem, etc. We had several years of data in GA that correlated conversions with our Ad campaigns, based on UTM source, campaign, medium.
When switching over to Google Tag Manager, we did the following things:
• Removed the _gaq code related to e-commerce (transactions & addItem)
• Kept the rest of the GA code related to page tracking, events, and custom variables
• Implemented the Google Tag Manager javascript + a GTM data layer that included our new E-commerce information (Google Tag Manager data layer)
• Configured a "Tag" in GTM for "Order Completed" for Google Analytics, set to Universal Analytics (Configured with our UA- property identifier, etc.). Tag type= Universal Analytics; Tracking ID= our GA environment, Track Type = "Page View" , Enable enhanced e-commerce feature = true, Use data layer = True; Fire on "Order completed"
Upon switching over, we indeed see E-commerce numbers come through, but there's something off about the recording of these conversions correctly back to the campaigns. It appears that while some are attributed back, not all conversions are counted correctly as being from the ad campaign they originated from.
What went wrong here? After thorough reading of the GTM documentation, we were led to believe that it would "just work" but it appears that GTM and GA don't know how to communicate with each other regarding UTM information, and as a result GA tracks conversions but fails to attribute them to right session (that is, ITS session information that contains the correct UTM for that user).
We found a very scant amount of information about this on the internet-- but some people suggest setting all the UTMs are "Variables" in GTM, and then passing them as fields in the Tag firing back to GA. Is that necessary? It seems like these two technologies should work together with less friction.
Please advise.