Adwords vs Analytics conversion discrepancies

[MrWumpus]

Is it typical for Analytics to report far more eCommerce conversions for a given campaign than Adwords?

If so, how does one explain it?

I was asked to re-pull past PPC numbers and discovered that for a seven day period, Analytics reported 53% more conversions than Adwords did for the same campaign. The CPA differences are massive.

I understand that Adwords has a 30-day cookie and credits a conversion to the date of the click. I also understand that Analyics has a 6-month+ cookie and credits the conversion to the day of the conversion.

I'm new to this so perhaps this is the norm, but it seems odd that so many people would convert so many days after their initial click. Not to mention, I thought that Analytics credited the conversion to the last source (direct traffic, organic, etc) rather than the original source (PPC in this case).

Thoughts?

[minnapple]

From the group of websites I track, Adwords conversions are about 75% of what Analytics reports. Analytics is unable to categorize 18% of all conversions placing them in direct/none.

[RhinoFish]

if direct / not set is last in Analytics, and another identified touch precedes that, it'll attribute the sale to that preceding touch.

normally, Analytics would attribute fewer sales than an AdWords script, but there are many factors that can change that.

you need an expert to dig into your details.

[MrWumpus]

Thanks. I always make the mistake assuming answers are easy to find when dealing with genius engineers at a place like Google, but the closer I look the more blurry it gets.

It sure would be helpful if Analytics could inform us when the initial click took place so we easily understand how to credit the conversions.

[RhinoFish]

Conversions -> Multi Channel Funnels

But it isn't easy to do.