Differences between paid clicks and visits in Analytics, why?
Almost every website owner today uses Google Analytics to monitor the behavior of users who visit his website. The reason that Analytics is so popular is not just that the tool is free, but also because it has a flawless image – good technology, speed, huge amount of data. Namely, it convinces advertisers to trust this tool and use it to analyze visits to their sites.
But imagine a situation that you’ve started an ad campaign, and Google Analytics shows the difference between what you’ve paid for a particular ad platform or website and what’s shown in your meter. In that case, who would you believe? When you first detected the difference between the number of clicks your ad has recorded and the number of visits to Analytics, you probably felt robbed. But, better stay calm and read this text to the end, to understand the logic of paid advertising on the Internet and the proper measurement of each user. We promise that you will then more easily and more accurately analyze the data in your Google Analytics
To make it simpler, take into account the situation in which you, as an advertiser, have a paid campaign with exactly 10 000 clicks and that is the amount recorded on the advertising platform (EasyPlatform, Facebook or Adwords, no matter). The way in which each platform records clicks is the principle of redirection (referring to a user). The click is currently counting down because it happened. Of course, the various protection mechanisms on each platform are able to filter clicks that are made by bots, double click with the mouse and other “invalid” clicks, and they are not automatically calculated and not charged. However, if you record the difference between those 10 000 clicks and visits to Analytics, the reason will not be in the platform protection mechanism, but in another – namely, Google Analytics does not calculate any forwarded user, “session”. It is therefore very important to define that Click and Session are two different things!
To record a session (a minimum stay on the site) Analytics needs technological time because it still works through a single javascript code that should be started and function correctly on your site. Sometimes that time is milliseconds, but sometimes it’s even a few seconds. Any delay in GA’s work increases the technological time required to load the user session and reduces the chance that the user will be logged. Span> p>
Now, in our exemplary situation – imagine that 10,000 people clicked on a link or an advertisement that relates to your site, but 2000 of them closed the site for 1-2 seconds after coming to it. The reason for this may be their unwanted clicking, the inaccurate description in the ad (they expect to see one, they are shown another, they have a slow Internet and the site is not loaded, etc., etc.). The logical reaction of these users is to quickly get back. With today’s web browsers, getting back is very much easier. On a mobile phone it can happen by clicking the “back” button or clicking on X (closing) and returning to Facebook for example. Here is the point to remember that Facebook has its own web browser and opens all external links in that web browser, whose X key for closing is comfortable in the upper left corner. This X button is a real ax for sessions, as many users press it as soon as they realize that something is taking them outside the normal environment of which they are accustomed.
How important is the speed of loading?
Here is a moment to give details about the delay in Analytics and the variants to improve its recording speed at sessions. You’ll be surprised that the problem is mostly on your website, not in Google Analytics. The most detailed information on this subject is submitted by Google in this text: Delay and why it affects AdWords clicks and Google Analytics sessions.
The next quote from the article gives the most accurate explanation of the cause of the differences in the number of clicks due to the so-called. “Short-Term Clicks”: span> p>
“short-term clicking occurs when a user clicks on an ad, and then the return button or closes the web browser before loading the Google Traping Code Analytics: In those cases, the platform (Adwords, Facebook, EasyPLatform) counts the clickthrough, but no session for that user is recorded in Google Analytics. “ Span> p>
In other words, the slower the site is triggering and the higher the number of claims before the code line of Google Analytics, the more likely you are to encounter problems with a large percentage of “short-term clicks” and insufficient sessions data. span> p>
You can think of short-term clicks and how to get out (filtered) from the Bounces website, which means that if you do not follow these sessions, then Bounce The rate is likely to be unnaturally reduced, and this, on the other hand, affects the adoption of solutions to the way you work and analyze your site
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As a general rule, mobile devices run on slower network infrastructure (3G networks), compared to most PC connectivity (WIFI, LAN). Therefore, if you direct your ads to mobile devices, the quick activation and loading of the site is of even greater importance for reducing short-term clicks. Span> p>
Double code span> p>
Another very commonly encountered problem is duplication of the GA code in the site. In that case, the code sends several requests for one and the same thing, and this is the cause of serious problems – in some cases, double data is recorded, and in others, a large percentage of visits due to contradictions are lost. P>
Are you also seeing the difference between the number of clicks and the recorded sessions in Google Analytics? span> p>