All of my Adword URLs include the query string
?REF=Google and I use this for my own tracking purposes.
Google Reports that I have 33000 Adclicks for a month.
My Webtrends reports from stripped down Logfiles including only?REF=Google Hits and Conversion Page Hits indicate I have 84000 Visitors hitting my site from Google Adword Clicks.
Obviously 84000+ visits is way more than 33000 clicks.
I'm trying to find where this inconsistency comes into play.
Google straight up tells us they can't track all clicks and conversions because of contractual obligations to some of their partners. They claim this inconsistency is on average 1%. They gave me an equation to use to determine the Cost and # of untrackable clicks. I ran this equation on the numbers they had given me for 3 previous months and found that I had less than one untrackable link for October, less than one for November, and 1.2 for December... Obviously NOT 1% of my clicks...
Could some of you run this equation on your Data and let me know if you get anything close to 1%? Has anyone else noticed a vast gap between googles Click data and your own logfile data?
"This number is reverse-engineered from the cost per conversion (which is also adjusted for untrackable clicks). Basically, this is how you figure it out:
(Total Cost - (Cost Per Conversion x Conversion Count))
That's the total cost of all non-trackable clicks. Divide that by the Average CPC ($0.89) and you've got a close estimate of the total number of untrackable clicks. This is, of course, not a totally exact number, but a close estimate. The number for this account is about 1%, which is about what we would expect across the board."
Anyone want to do this equation on a monthly report and let me know your %?
I ended up with pretty similar results when I analyzed several months of data. Just about 0.
The equation doesn't add up to what they say it does. The logic they are using here just does not work out.
What I think is happening is that Google is not charging for untrackable clicks....
Google has said that every other number in this equation but Total Cost is adjusted... Given that when I run this and when others have run this we come to a result of nearly 0, it only makes sense that google is not charging for untrackable clicks....
When I questioned them about what links are untrackable they replied that they were unable to tell me due to contractual obligations.
What doesn't make sense to me is that it seems they must be paying the source of the untrackable links but not charging the destination for the clickthru...
Holy hole in the bottom line batman.
Of course I could be wrong about all of this.
I was hoping to get more replies and ideas from others but...
