The number of PPC clicks doesn't match the number of web site entries

Fraud or bug in the software?

[Michael Howard]

I have a campaing in Google AdWords and noticed an interesting thing.

Google AdWords states that, for example, there were 60 clicks. But my tracking software (a Free package) displays that there were 45 visits from the ad campaign. Why? Is it a fraud? Does Google increase the numbed of clicks to get more money? Or is it a problem of the Stats? Did anyone experience the same problem with other tracking programs?

[edited by: Receptional at 4:34 pm (utc) on Feb. 10, 2006]
[edit reason] took out the specific stats package you mentioned [/edit]

[Receptional]

Pandora's box ;)

Before blaming fraud (but yes... it could easily be fraud) you should consider the two different ways in which the system are tracking.

Google can track every "click", because the user has to go through the link before they get to your site. However, your site may not collect every click. Here are some reasons:

1) If your site goes offline, Google send the user to a dead page.
2) check to see if your stats package is recording "clicks" or "Users". It makes more sense for a stats package to track (say) daily unique users than just clicks.
3) If your stats package is a low cost one or free and is not on hosted your server, the package may not be online when the page loads, hence not tracking the click
4) You may not have the tracking code properly on every page of your site (assuming it is code driven)
5) If you put your code at the bottom of the page and the page is slow to load (especially on dial up) then some users may have moved on before the tracking code loads.
6) If the code is javascript, then only javascript enabled browers will trigger the "click" on your software.

So many pitfalls eh? I LOVE this area of the internet! (how sad am I - thank goodness it's Friday)

Dixon.

[Michael Howard]

It is a free tracking package, but it is hosted on my server. Anyway, it appears as I've found the problem. A couple of visitors was referred by different AdWords ads within the same session. I guess it is because my ads have very different text and when a visitor makes several searches for different keywords he doesn't assume that it will be the same site he visited already.

[gamb]

Michael - google will charge you for the same visitor clicking on the same ad. A lot of users will use the back button and go back to their previous search and click the originally link and you get charged twice.

One of the many dirty secrets google has.