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.
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
-
Gap in Google PPC Ads & Organic search results - New test by Google?
Hi All, Just noticed an unusual gap in PPC ads and organic search results in google NZ. while searched the same term in Google AU, it wasn't the same. Did anyone here see something similar? Is this a new test by Google to get more clicks on PPC ads and pushing down organic results? Looking forward to hear from the community. Cheers, Rattan wcB6DL1.jpg
Paid Search Marketing | | FRL0 -
Seeing lots of 0 seconds session duration from AdWords clicks
Does anyone have more information on one why this might be? Thanks in advance! GyuYc5F.png
Paid Search Marketing | | Whittie0 -
PPC strategies in a competitive ecommerce market
Hello, What's the top 5 things to keep in mind when doing PPC in a competitive ecommerce market? Our competitors are buying PPC leads based on gathering long term customers that only have to get bought once and then they are repeat customers with no more cost. Thus, PPC cost is through the roof in this niche. Anyways, what's the top 5 pieces of advice you would give and you're also welcome to reference any good or harder to find references for me to read or watch. Thank you, Bob
Paid Search Marketing | | BobGW0 -
Custom Filter: Organic Traffic Growth VS Paid Traffic Growth
Hi guys, I need some assistance. We recently removed and disavowed links to our site and I believe it has been about 3 months but I can't see much of a change. Can anyone help me with a filter for GA to be able to measure my organic traffic growth and my Paid search traffic growth. I was also wondering, because organic traffic is determined by variables like fresh, relavant and key phrase rich content constantly being posted, good seo practices etc is there any good way of measuring organic traffic growth vs paid? Please help out where you can.
Paid Search Marketing | | iBags0 -
PPC seems to have had a seriously negative impact on organic rankings?!?
We've been targeting a keyword on behalf of a client for the last few months. The page had good content and had been steadily climbing the rankings. It reached a position of #12 and then suddenly dropped off. Within 2 weeks it was out of the top 50 and is now around the 10th or 11th page (useless). This drop off matched exactly with the cleint switching on a low level PPC campaign, driving traffic from this specific keyword. The stats on this have shown a really high bounce rate (so we'll need to ask some other questions about content) - but could this be the reason that organic stats have taken a hammering? If Google associated people landing n that page from that keyword (even though its paid) as not finding relevant content, I'm assuming this could have a negative impact on the organic rank? Any Thoughts Welcome....!!!
Paid Search Marketing | | Purestone0 -
Is there a PPC basics guide?
something like: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769 and, of course: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo but for ppc? :]
Paid Search Marketing | | Mozzin0 -
PPC/Adwords in China
I am trying to understand the challenges of running PPC in China. If anyone has any experience with adwords/Baidu/Alibaba I would really appreciate them sharing. I was having a hard time locating the specific polices in Adwords help. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | JerrodDavid0 -
PPC Billing
I'd like to add PPC as a service for my company. However I'm at a loss as to how to charge for it. I've received cold calls from those "SEO guys" charging $200 for PPC services. But I doubt that they're very profitable or even ethical. For you PPC guys, are you billing hourly on top of the campaign, and how are you outlining this for your customers? Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | WilliamBay0