Yes, there are always massive discrepancies in analytics between platforms. It’s because each system measures things in different ways.

Ever wondered what what the difference was between ad servers, log analyzers & javascript based analytics tools like Google Analytics? And which one you should be using? Here is a brief primer to help you understand.

Ad Servers
An ad server reports clicks that result in a redirect to a web page. There’s no guarantee the visitor made it to the page or wasn’t further redirected.

These stats can be affected by hijacking (toolbars that redirect traffic), bots, the end user, and in some cases, performance of the ad server (I clicked and it timed out!).

Bottom Line: Ad servers accurately measure ad displays and clicks. They are not so accurate at telling you how many people visited a website.

Log Analyzers
A log analyzer report on pages served by a web server. It does not see pages served from caching proxies used by ISPs and does not see pages served from a browser’s cache.

Bottom Line: Log analyzers accurately report server activity and nothing else.

Javascript Based Metrics
All java based metrics (like Google Analytics) will report web site activity accurately if the end user has javascript and no software that blocks your tracker (7-15% of your visitor’s computers have this depending on who’s metrics you are using).

Bottom Line: Javascript based metrics tell you within 7-15% what pages have been viewed.

So, since the best we can do is within 7-15% accuracy anyway it’s best to measure actual ROI with javascript based metrics. In other words, measure the success of each campaign by the number of sales made vs. the amount of money spent to get the traffic to that particular campaign.

Do this and you are sure to get your metrics right.

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