Why the data in the Web Analytics tool is inconsistent with the PPC reporting data

If you use a pay-per-click Web site, you can generally get reports from each network. These data are often inconsistent with the data in the Web analytics tool, mainly because of the following reasons:

1. Tracking type URLs: Lost PPC clicks

Tracking type URLs need to be set up in the PPC account to differentiate between natural clicks and paid clicks from search engines, such as Google.com or yahoo.com. For example, a tracking type URL can be obtained by simply modifying the URL of the landing page into a www.mysite.com?source=adwords in the PPC account. Forgetting or setting the error-tracking type URLs may cause the paid-click visitor to erroneously classify as a regular visitor.

2. Click with visitors: Understand the difference between the two

In Google Adwords, the number of clicks is calculated. Most Web analytics tools calculate a visitor who accepts cookies. The two concepts are different from the screen Cookie,js errors that appear in web analytics and the fact that visitors quickly jump off the landing page before the page tag is loaded. Because of this, web analytics tools often underestimate the amount of traffic coming from the PPC network.

3.PPC: Important Account adjustments

Google Adwords and other PPC supplies will automatically detect illegal and malicious clicks, thereby passively altering PPC metrics. For example, a visitor clicks on an ad link more than once in a short period of time. Google AdWords detects these malicious clicks while removing the extra clicks from the account and returning the extra money. However, web analytics tools are unable to access these systems to obtain relevant statistical data. For more information on how GG treats illegal clicks, refer to http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/topic.py? hl=cn&topic=15950

4. Keyword matching: Bidding words and search terms

In PPC advertising results, the bidding terms and the user's search keywords are often different. This can be seen as a "wide match". For example, you might set up an ad group that targets "shoes," and choose "wide matches" to trigger ads in all the keywords that contain "shoes." "Shoes" are bidding keywords, and users search "Blue shoes" this keyword to find and click on ads. Web Analytics Tools Report search terms or bidding words, or two reports together.

5.Google Adwords: Careful implementation

In an AdWords account, you can see updates on the data hourly. This is because the ad group needs the data to control the budget. Google Analytics a daily import of data from Google Adwords. These data are from the first one or two days. So Google Analytics will have a lag of at least 24 hours.

Why is it lagging behind? Because Google AdWords requires a certain amount of time to complete the operation of malicious click Detection, and ultimately determine the number of clicks in the account. Therefore, from the point of view of the report, we recommend that you do not compare the AdWords visitor data for the day. This recommendation is applicable to all web analytics solutions and PPC networks.

6. Third party Advertising final redirect: Weight factor

The use of Third-party advertising tracking systems, such as the Atlas Search,blue streak,double click,efficient Frontier,sem Director, to track the site's clicks means that visitors arrive through a redirected URL. The result is that the original click was captured by a Third-party advertising tracker and then redirected to the site. The two-step goal is to allow the tracking system to independently statistic the visitor information, especially for the payment process. Because this process will have a little delay, may cause a part of the visitors did not reach the site. Therefore, third party statistics and your site statistics will be different. In addition, redirecting URLs can disrupt the parameters of the landing page URL referenced in the Web Analytics solution. For example, the landing page URL is:

http://www.mysite.com/? source=google&medium=ppc&campain=08

When a third party tracking system is used for redirection, this URL becomes:

Http://www.redirect.com? http://www.mysite.com/? source=google&medium=ppc&campain=08

The problem appears on the second question mark in the URL because there is no extra question mark in the URL. Some third-party tracking systems can detect this error and remove everything after the second question mark, which results in loss of data in the Web Analytics solution.

Some systems allow the second question mark to be replaced with # to properly handle the URL. If you are unsure how to handle the system, you can apply the URL code of the landing page to the third party tracking system so that you can avoid the above problems. For more information on how to encode, there are detailed descriptions in the links below:

Http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.asp

In this paper, Brian Clifton's "The Secret of Traffic-google Analytics website Analysis and optimization techniques"