Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Google Analytics CPC and PPC not Matching
-
Hi
Why do our CPC in Google Analytic not match our PPC in Adword, surely they should be identical? We have Auto-tagging switched on and data in our history is wrong so it is not a timing issue.
Thanks
-
Hey! This is a common issue between AdWords and GA. Analytics is tracking the number of visits, and AdWords is tracking the number of clicks. I'm not completely up to speed on what qualifies as an actual Visit to GA but it's not the same as what you're paying for. Sometimes when people don't stay long enough to count as a GA defined visit, it won't appear when reviewing traffic sources.
And when you see higher numbers in GA than in AdWords, there are a few other things that could be happening as well. AdWords is always about 4-6 hours behind the real up to date time. So as long as you aren't looking at today only, this shouldn't be a factor. Google also will credit you for what they believe to be fraudulent clicks, so they will also lower your numbers in AdWords.
What kind of variance are you seeing?
Also, you may want to look at the Advertising>AdWords>Campaigns section instead of the Traffic Sources section. I don't know when Analytics starts tracking last non-direct touch (if that's only in the goals or if that's throughout). But as soon as you leave the Advertising tab, things start to get wonky.
-
-
I have just noticed one instance where Adwords clicks are higher..thus breaking the theory
-
Hi
Yes they are linked. I think I may have just solved it. In Google under Traffic Sources the "google / cpc" is always a bit higher than the clicks in Adwords for a given period. On looking into the data more I can see that they are reporting the same keywords but on some of the keywords GA is reporting a few more clicks. I am guessing this is due to people revisiting. Is it that GA records the second visit again but adwords only records the original click?
Does this theory sound right? It the only thing I can think of. I suppose another way to ask the same question is "Does GA record revisits but adwords doesn't?"
Thanks
-
Sorry, I'm not sure I understand.
Is data in Advertising -> Adwords in Google Analytics not matching data in Google Adwords?
Are your Google Adwords and Google Analytics accounts linked?
-
Sorry I should have made it clearer. By CPC I mean the traffic source. Paid clicks as opposed to Organic clicks
I would expect that the CPC source in GA to match the PPC clicks in Adwords but they don't
-
Have you got the correct currency set in Google Analytics?
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
-
Top of funnel google ads campaign not hardly converting, why?
Hi, I really hope someone can help me with this. I'm running two search ad campaigns and a google shopping campaign in google ads. The search campaigns are targeting top-of-funnel keywords as the business doesn't have universally known collections which everyone would search for so they are just unique to my business. So the campaigns are driving traffic but really converting whereas google shopping is converting because searchers are looking for particular products so they're lower down the funnel closer to aking a purchase decision. I feel I've optimised the campaign well and for the most part, most keywords have 7/10 quality score. The landing page seems fine. However, our offering wasn't as strong as competitors so we've offered a discount the same as them to compete. Since I started google ads we have nearly doubled our monthly revenue and the product types targeted in campaigns have increased in quantity sold so it seems it's having an effect but the campaigns aren't showing a good performance. Does anyone have any suggestions or input that could help me? I looked at first interaction attribution model and even there it's not performing well which makes this even more difficult to resolve. I'm thinking I should enable USER id feature in Google analytics so i can track signed in users across devices which may then help attribute sales to paid search channel as I saw in search console that the keyword that generates the most traffic to the site is our brand name and we're not a well-known brand so makes me think they may be starting their buyer's journey on a work computer on their mobile and finishing on their computer at home as an example. However, I don't believe this will be the main cause or solution as I would only have data for signed in users which still won't give me the full picture. Also if the campaign is optimised effectively but conversions are minimal could not having many conversions affect quality score? If someone can help or provide me with a different perspective it would be much appreciated. Please let me know if I need to clarify or explain further. I hope I've made myself clear. Thanks, T
Paid Search Marketing | Oct 26, 2020, 11:27 AM | TZ19820 -
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 | Aug 20, 2018, 4:53 AM | Fubra1 -
Can Google Shopping Ads Lower Ranking due to Bounce?
I am noticing Google Shopping Ads are showing up for really irrelevant keywords on some of my products. This quite predictably causes a high bounce rate when a user comes from these ads. There is very little control over what Google Ads seems to decide are relevant keywords from what I can see. Only control is by viewing search terms and setting as negative keywords, but his doesn't help much. Negative keywords are often ignored or they come up with some other really irrelevant new keyword. Seems this high bounce rate could hurt ranking? Any experiences shared with Google Shopping ads appreciated!
Paid Search Marketing | Nov 9, 2017, 7:12 PM | Chris6611 -
Best practice to separate paid from organic conversions in Google Analytics
I have a PPC campaign for a client with standalone landing pages with a form, not reachable from the website (although in the same domain). I've added the AdWords conversion code to the "thank you" page and I also added a Goal in
Paid Search Marketing | May 23, 2014, 7:32 PM | DoMiSoL
Google Analytics whose counter is increased every time the thank you page is reached. This way I can track conversions with both AdWords and Analytics. Is that correct? Should I import back in AdWords the goals from Analytics, as suggested in the AdWords account? I have another landing page with a form in the website, where I send users coming from
organic search, so I set up a second goal in Analytics for the thank you page of this form. Is this the reason why I am supposed to import in AdWords the analytics' goals, so that I could see both kind of conversions in both accounts? But the most important question is: If I send both PPC/organic visitors to the same landing page is there still a way to separate PPC from Organic conversions? Thank you very much for your advice. DoMiSoL Rossini0 -
CPC or CPM for Google Display Network?
HI all I'm setting up my first Remarketing campaign on the display network. I'm targeting those that have visited a specific product page at the moment and therefore there won't be a massive amount of traffic to remarket to - roughly no more than 50 clicks/day. My question is - what is the best bidding option for a campaign like this? Not sure whether to go for CPM or traditional CPC. I have previously found CPM much better for Facebook but obviously thats very different to Google. All help appreciated!
Paid Search Marketing | Oct 22, 2013, 8:46 PM | SamMaley0 -
Paid Search Visits Not Showing Up in Google Analytics
Hey all, Just took over SEM for my company, and noticed a bit of a problem with GA. Whereas Adwords has registered 141 clicks on paid campaigns that go to the site, GA has tracked only 5 vists in that time. Two things of note: The GA account was not linked to the Adwords account until today, and also, auto-tagging was not turned on. I understand these two things are important to having proper GA tracking, but I just want to make sure that there aren't any other things I should check right now to make sure I start to see tracked paid visits again. Is there anything else I should try? Cheers.
Paid Search Marketing | Sep 13, 2013, 2:46 PM | danny.wood0 -
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 | Aug 26, 2013, 3:13 PM | melen0 -
How long does it ramp up a PPC campaign?
I was speaking to a SEO the other day. He is going to be working on an ecommerce site soon. I was suggesting that he might want to augment his SEO efforts with PPC in order to be able to show some results in the near term, as it would most likely take some time for his SEO work to be showing results. His response was that while he hasn't utilized them as much, he's found that it can take 3-6 months to get a PPC campaign to really make money. I'm just curious if you guys feel that this is an accurate statement?
Paid Search Marketing | Aug 20, 2013, 7:19 PM | brettgus0
