High difference between sessions and clicks in Display

[#1]

I note in my Display Campaigns a high difference between Sessions (As recorded in Analytics) and clicks (Adwords) that dosen't exist in my search campaigns.

I know clicks and sessions are measured in different ways, and the numbers in Search are also discrepant. However, in Display the difference is to high, up to the point where only 50% of the clicks are recorded as sessions in analytics.

Have you ever heard of something like this?

Thanks!

Regards,

Leo Frattesi

[#2]

Hey,

In Google Analytics, have you tried analyzing that traffic source in isolation by segmenting and running a custom report? Maybe that might give you some clearer insights into the problem.

[#3]

Hi Leonel F,

please read this link:https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1257084?hl=en

P.S. Have you linked AdWords and Analytics accounts? In the Aquisition / AdWords report should the number of clicks be identical.

[#4]

I also experienced this problems on one of my Display Ads campaign. After, report the problem to Google, someone from Google Indonesia called and discuss the issue. I noticed I had 100% bounce rate for the majority of my keywords. At the end I realized there is an issue with a redirection script in the homepage. Most of the click generated for my Display Ads campaign coming from mobile so the redirection script detect this and redirect to our mobile version of the website. However, since there is a time delay most of the visitors cancel their visit. But Google said I should still pay for the click as it was a legitimate click. It was very hard lesson for me. Tips: when you already linked Adwords with Analytics you can shown the Analytics metrics in the Adwords to see the bounce rate, page/visits, etc

[#5]

Thanks for your answer Mvarga. The accounts are linked and the Clicks reported in Analytics are identical to AdWords. The discrepancy only appears in the number of Sessions.

With regard to the shared link, I've read it and I could not find the explanation to my problem.

Thanks!

Regards,

[#6]

Thanks for the answer Trevor. It was a good suggestion, but I found no clue analyzing the segment that way.

[#7]

Thanks for sharing your experience Trisna. We have our page load time a little high, but if that were the reason for the problem, we should see something similar in search, not only in display.
On the other hand, our campaign does not target mobile devices.

[#8]

Hi Leonel,

Are you able to see the increase in direct traffic because of this? There is a possibility that some of your visits are counted as direct traffic in Google Analytics. In case of clicks are coming from pages that are having https and are coming to your landing pages that are having http then the referrer data will not be passed in Google Analytics and visitors will be considered as direct traffic.

Source: http://www.optimizesmart.com/geek-guide-direct-traffic-analysis/

What you can do is tag all the landing pages of your display campaigns using URL builder https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en-GB after this you will be able to see correct data in Google Analytics.

Hope that helps,

Thanks,

Nouman

[#9]

Thanks for your reply Nouman. However, we always use UTM parameters in our campaings, and we are not receiving sessions with these parameters.

[#10]

Hi Leonel, I've come across this post by chance, so it might have already been solved. Otherwise,
I've seen paid traffic turn into referral traffic if the landing page redirects. Can you check the destination URLs to ensure they are sending traffic to pages that return a 200 status code?