PPC sessions being counted as organic in GA
-
I am coming across a very frustrating phenomenon in one of my PPC campaign reporting.
In short: I believe that GA is counting some of my PPC sessions as organic (not provided). Has anybody come across this before?
I believe they are being counted as organic because of the following:
-
the website is brand new and does not rank for anything but their branded terms
-
the few keywords showing up in GA are the terms we target our PPC towards
-
the amount of sessions of Paid Search (in channels) and AdWords sessions don't match up (The number of actual PPC clicks is substantially higher than the Paid Search sessions)
-
PPC clicks and sessions don't even match up in the AdWords part of GA
-
GWT shows 0% CTR for any non branded terms
Tell me I am crazy, but I really don't think I am. I just don't have the hard evidence to back it up. Any help is greatly appreciated.
-
-
There are several reasons why AdWords & GA data won't match up, and this is one of them, but don't ever expect them to be the same.
I know we keep harping that things need to be linked appropriately and I'm glad you've gotten it handled, Anna, but it's the most common reason for any real mis-attribution. And by most common I mean nearly everyone gets it wrong Glad you're on the right track here.
There is also an attribution modeling between GA & AdWords. AdWords is a first touch attribution interface while generally GA is last touch. Though your site is relatively new, if you have any return visitors at all from brand then they will appear as Organic and not PPC.
Knowing that GWT says you don't have any non-brand traffic and you are sure you don't rank for anything, where is the traffic going? What are the landing pages you are using for PPC? Are they different than the pages organic traffic is getting traffic on? (side note: please tell me that you aren't sending PPC traffic to the home page )
-
Hi Anna,
I have read your query & all of replies very carefully & now I m replying you point by point.
"In short: I believe that GA is counting some of my PPC sessions as organic (not provided). Has anybody come across this before? "
My comment - Not provided keyword is a keyword without keyword referral data.
****There are two types of keywords referral data: organic keywords referral data and paid keywords referral data. ******
The organic keywords referral data tells you which search term was used by a person to visit your website after he/she clicked on an organic search engine listing on Google.
The paid keywords referral data tells you which search term was used by a person to visit your website after he/she clicked on a paid search engine listing on Google. These paid search engine listing are the PPC ads you see on Google.
But since Google doesn’t hide the paid keyword referral data, your web analytics tools like Google Analytics will continue to report the keywords which generated traffic, sales and conversions on your website through Adwords reports.
So IMO your assumption is wrong"I believe they are being counted as organic because of the following:- the website is brand new and does not rank for anything but their branded terms
- the few keywords showing up in GA are the terms we target our PPC towards"
My Comment - I believe you are doing guess work. This is not possible."- the amount of sessions of Paid Search (in channels) and AdWords sessions don't match up (The number of actual PPC clicks is substantially higher than the Paid Search sessions)"My comments - Please visit below URL you will know hwy there is discrepancy in session datahttps://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1257084?hl=enNow here is some methods to resolve the issue.I presume auto tagging or manual tagging you are using either one. I hope you are not using both. 1>Install tag assistant to check whether tracking is correct or not2>Hit & trail methodRemove auto tagging or manual tagging whichever you are using for some time after that search any keyword and click on your adWords Ad .After landing on your webpage append this (?utm_source=Anna&utm_medium=paid at the end of url and click enter . Please repeat this search for 3-4 times and you can check after 24 hour whether this data going in organic or paid.*I am running Adwords & Bing campaign since last six years I haven't face this scenario ever.sorry for the long answer it was just to explain you.I hope it helps you.Thanks
-
The only way to know for sure is, after having linked your GA to Adwords, is to look at server logs and look for the following (in bold)
www.yourdomain.com/somepage?gclid=XXXXXXXXXXXX
This is how Adwords passes the session on to GA. If you click on your own ads you should see this show up when you finally arrive at your site (if not check configs).
the amount of sessions of Paid Search (in channels) and AdWords sessions don't match up (The number of actual PPC clicks is substantially higher than the Paid Search sessions)
This is normal. Because GA relies on JS code there will always be missed sessions. Some people have JS turned off, while others have plugins that block GA from loading and sending data back. Server logs are the only real way to know true traffic.
-
If its not alot of traffic your best to just ignore it
-
Thanks Hutch, I had checked everything mentioned there. But I'm still convinced that a large amount of sessions are being classed as Organic.
I don't believe that the volume of sessions could be on branded keywords. But yet again I don't have any hard data to back that up. Just a hunch.
-
Also, your Google traffic and your Adwords will never line up perfectly due to the difference of how each is tracked.
Google has gone into the differences here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1034383?hl=en
-
I have looked at both David, but the ones I mention above are just organic.
-
Are you looking at over all keywords or just organic?
-
Yes GA and AdWords are linked. Not using bing.
-
Is your adwords account linked? Are you tagging bing ppc urls?
-
Did you link your GA and Adwords accounts or are you just tagging? Organic (not provided) is how GA shows all search traffic from users who connect to Google securely (signed into a Google account) so this could be branded traffic but there is no way of knowing in GA.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
PPC: how to get rid of an ad appearing on a keyword we don't want?
Hi, Our ad on Google Ads is appearing for a search we don't want. it isn't in our search keywords and when i try and ad it to our negative ones, we get the error " You cannot exclude keywords that are targeted " which i assume means that google thinks we are bidding on it? We have a selection of broad phrase matches so i can only think that this is where it's coming from? Do you have any tips on tracking down which keyword is generating this ad and how we can turn it off? (we don't want to pay for clicks on this search if possible!) Btw - i have turned off each keyword in turn to test it = nothing. have then paused the whole campaign = gets rid of the ad (but this is our most successful campaign so i can't just turn it off). Any advice super super welcome. thank you!
Paid Search Marketing | | Fubra1 -
Finding Average Session Duration for AdWords Campaigns
Happy Holidays Mozzers! Does anyone know how to view 'Average Session Duration' for AdWords campaigns? I can't seem to be able to add it within the AdWords platform and when i try and view it on Analytics, the #/visits isn't matching the #/visits I see when I try and review the campaign via AdWords. Any help on this issue would be great! Thanks for reading!
Paid Search Marketing | | maxcarnage0 -
Seeking Critique on PPC Campaign Gameplan
Background: We're a home service business with potential for recurring clients. In the past, I've run PPC campaigns for a much larger company, and was profitable, but the business model was vastly different. The campaign also took place during their busy season, allowing flexibility I won't receive here. Campaign Details: AdWords only SERPs only (not partner network) Desktop users only Data Available: Lots of past data was incomplete, prompting my best estimates and judgment calls. For past leads data, I'm using Google as lead source (organic + local pack rankings), generated specifically from our quote form. Since our quote form doesn't render on Mobile/Tablet, I omitted those visits from our Analytics data, and only target Desktop in the campaign. I wound up with the following statistics: Organic (any web search), Desktop visitors who viewed our quote form page: Number of overall pageviews Number of overall leads generated from our quote form Number of overall leads which converted to sales And for our sales/numbers end of things: % our clients choose targeted package Revenue of initial sale on that package Profit generated from sale on that package Using these numbers, I calculated the % of clickers likely to bounce, complete the form, convert to clients, etc. Using our sales records, I calculated revenue/profit expected from each. And with that, I calculated the highest CPC to break even (unacceptable, obviously), as well as the projected ROI from lower, more reasonable CPCs. Notes: We're a home service business. Not all homes are created equal. Through data, I found our clients average home size and the average estimate for that home. Due to incomplete records, I can't know which Google _clients _are specific to our quote form. Some likely called through the local pack or manually dialed and said "Google" if our staff asked. To combat this, I found the % of Google _leads _who completed the quote form vs. phone call, email and applied it to clients for a reliable estimate (our system removes the quote form identifier upon lead to client conversion). I'm not factoring in the % of clients who become recurring customers as I don't have this data. Given that it's much higher than 0%, I think this allows a LOT of breathing room on my estimates. Many of our clients have stayed with us for years. If only a small number convert to long-term status, the current ROI shoots WAY up. Similar to above, I'm also not factoring in the % of clients who don't choose the initial package, but instead choose a lesser package. Again, I think this provides breathing room. Any PPC campaign will have a plethora of variables, especially intangible issues (damages, refunds, etc). I feel I have the important things down, but I'm far from an expert. I'd love to receive any advice or things I'm overlooking. Thanks.
Paid Search Marketing | | kirmeliux1 -
Using the same landing page for seo and ppc
When does it make sense to create one landing page for both seo and ppc?
Paid Search Marketing | | melen0 -
Advantage in PPC for megaspenders like VistaPrint and Office Depot?
I sell niche printing and office supplies. Our site goes after certain specific keywords, and we use PPC where we compete against small companies such as ourselves, and the mega companies like VistaPrint and Office Depot. I know about how quality score affects our PPC costs, I was wondering if these huge companies have any other advantage against us in the PPC world. Does their name recognition give them a quality score of 10 on every keyword they buy? Is there a way to find out what your competition is paying on PPC keywords? Do they have other advantages in PPC that I may not know about? Thank you so much.
Paid Search Marketing | | Ryan_B0 -
Will a javascript rewrite of city names on a home page from PPC traffic affect SEO negatively?
We have a client that was originally based out of Orlando and the entire website is SEO'ed for Orlando. In the long term we will start SEO'ing for Tampa. But In the short term, we want to drive traffic from Tampa to the website but we want that traffic to know the business specializes in Tampa service (he has local teams there). We are already using a ?_vsrefdom=changemynumber to change the phone number dynamically to a tampa area code for tracking purposes. We want to dynamically change all iterations of 'Orlando' with 'Tampa' using the same javascript. Does this cause any SEO problems or trip any alarms with Google?
Paid Search Marketing | | Highforge0 -
PPC for a music shop - advice
Hi, I'm pretty new to this but I'm doing my best, so I've created a few campaigns such as 'Guitars' and 'Drums' and started to add keywords to each one such as 'buy guitars online' etc would it also be wise to add brands to this campaign? or should I create a completely different campaign focusing solely on brands? What would you recommend? Thanks, Dan
Paid Search Marketing | | Sparkstone0 -
Your site is in organic results for adwords keyword - improved quality score?
Let's say I am targeting a keyword "Blue Widgets Cityname" with an AdWords campaign. My SEO landing page is coming up in position #6 in the organic results for this keyword. Because I have my website in the organic search results, does my quality score automatically improve? Conversely, my quality score could go up because the organic search results facilitate a higher CTR for both the ads and the organic results. However, I am wondering if there is a quality score algorithmic component that automatically makes my quality score go up simply because the same domain I am targeting is in the organic results.
Paid Search Marketing | | qlkasdjfw0