Forget all the fancy new report capabilities…the real reason why Google Analytics launched multi-channel funnels is because they got tired of having to explain why Google Analytics showed fewer conversions than Google Adwords reporting. OK I made that up, but in my years of doing web analytics this is probably THE number one question I get and I am glad I can now point folks to this post.
Despite the fact that Google Analytics and Adwords use different tracking approaches and attribution models I guess it feels “wrong” to many people that Google Analytics would show different/fewer conversions than Adwords. But instead of me trying to explain why this is the case I can just show you by way of a simple example.
I picked a week and looked at Adwords reporting
Then I looked at the same date range in Google Analytics.
Look familiar? Fewer conversions attributed to Adwords – there must be something wrong! Maybe bad tagging?
Enter MCF.
We know that Adwords takes credit for a conversion within 30 days of the initial click. Doesn’t matter if it was first touch, assist or last touch. To simulate this behavior I created a conversion segment where ANY interaction is paid search.
Now look at the data in the Assisted Conversions section.
Drumroll…..tada!
The Paid Advertising/Adwords channel actually shows fewer Last Interaction Conversions than Google Analytics – 204 vs 219, but we know from the Google Analytics attribution model that Direct visits do not overwrite a campaign cookie. Add Paid Advertising and Direct channels and you basically get the same number: 218 vs 219. Voila – that explains the Google Analytics data.
Now, add up all channels and you get 273 conversions vs 276 from Adwords reporting. I will take that margin of error any time.
Aren’t you just itching to delve into understanding the relationship between Paid and Organic channels? But even before we attempt that, we can now reconcile Adwords and Google Analytics reporting. That’s pretty sweet…
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Interesting…. assisted conversions. Very valuable report to better understand the true value of ppc. How much credit do you think one should award to ppc for an assisted conversion?
Great question Brian. I don’t actually have a recommendation at this point that would be applicable to everyone. In my example I see a symbiotic relationship between ppc and organic, but I am not sure I can answer the question as to whether the sale would have happened if it weren’t for those assists. As a starting point I would give extra weight to first interactions because you have to be in front of that potential customer at the right time and make a good enough first impression for those subsequent assists and conversions to take place…
Thanks Michael, for another great article.
Most of the Top Conversion Paths I see are consisting of the same channel (e.g. 5 times referrer or 4 times PPC).
What does this tell me? Are (quite) some visitors using another site or AdWords each time they’re coming to my site, or has this rather to do with the way the cookie is recording these visits. E.g. a user’s first touch to my site is via AdWords, he bookmarks the site and uses this bookmark for his further visits. I understand that user will remain an AdWords user.
What’s your take on this?
Regards Jeanette
Hi Jeanette,
Thanks for commenting! Even if the channel stays the same, eg Paid Advertising > Paid Advertising you’ll want to check if these are the same campaigns. Maybe a particular ad initiated the first visit, but the conversion came from your brand term ad. If everything stays the same, eg same channel, same keyword then you would not learn much in terms of attribution per se. You would however learn a little more about your users’ behavior; in your example you learn that users do in fact click on the same ad multiple times across visits. Remember that many people use Google for navigation – they know they want to visit your site, but will use Google as a starting point to get to your site.
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