Data Discrepancy Between Hivewyre and Google Analytics
- chad little
wyreIf you are seeing a significant discrepancy, the first thing you should do is make sure that your Google Analytics tracking is working properly.
Check to make sure you have Google Analytics javascript on all of your landing pages and that the Google Analytics code is firing.
Check each of your ad destination URLs to make sure they have properly created UTM tracking codes that will specify the traffic source as Hivewyre in Google Analytics.
Make sure that your destinations URLs do not prompt redirects. Redirects are often setup in a way that strip campaign tracking codes which are necessary for Google Analytics to attribute the traffic to the marketing source, in this case, Hivewyre. Make sure that you do not have filters setup for your Google Analytics reports which are removing data or editing campaign tracking.
Clicks vs Visits
Hivewyre tracks advertising clicks, however Google Analytics tracks visits associated with your advertising. Google Analytics visits can be as short as one pageview or last many hours and contain multiple pageviews, events and transactions. Visits expire after 30 minutes of inactivity, and any subsequent activity would be tracked as a separate visit.
Clicks associated with your ads may be bigger than visits for the following reasons:
A single visitor may click your ads multiple times. When a visitor clicks multiple times within the same visit, Hivewyre records multiple clicks while Google Analytics records the multiple pageviews as only one visit.
A visitor may click on your advertisement, but then stop the page from fully loading by navigating to another address or page or by pressing the browser’s Stop button. In this scenario, the Google Analytics tracking code will not execute and will not send tracking data to Google. However, Hivewyre still registers the click.
Server latency may contribute to tracking problems and visitors may navigate away before the Google Analytics tracking code executes.
Visitors may have set their preferences to opt out of being tracking by Google Analytics but still be targeted and measured by Hivewyre.
Visits associated with your ads may be bigger than clicks for the following reasons:
A user may click on an ad, and then later, during a different session, return directly to the site through a bookmark or by typing the address into the browser’s location bar. In this case, the marketing attribution from the first visit is preserved, so the initial click results in more than one visit.
Conversion tracking discrepancies
Hivewyre and Google Analytics use different attribution and tracking methods to associate conversions with your advertising. Hivewyre attributes a conversion to the last Hivewyre advertisement click or view. For most reports within Google Analytics, Google Analytics attributes success to the last marketing visit regardless of the marketing source. For example, if a visitor clicks an Hivewyre ad and then subsequently returns to your site via organic search and converts, Hivewyre will attribute the conversion to the Hivewyre campaign while Google Analytics will attribute the conversion to organic search.
For most reports, Google Analytics preserves campaign attribution for up to 6 months. Hivewyre defaults to a 30 day conversion attribution window.
Hivewyre also tracks view through conversions whereas Google Analytics only tracks conversions that occur after a click which subsequently starts at Google Analytics visit.
Assisted Conversions vs Last interaction Conversions
In most Google Analytics reports, all marketing activity is credited to last interaction conversions. With the multi-channel funnel feature of Google Analytics, you can see assisted conversions in addition to last interaction.
Navigate to Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Assisted Conversions.
By adding assisted and last interaction conversions, you can see all conversions which Google Analytics is crediting to your traffic source.
Date/Time Discrepancy
Google Analytics dates and times are localized to the time zone which you set in Google Analytics. Dates within Hivewyre are in GMT/UTC.