Okay, should of asked this a long time ago. We use both Google Analytics and Adwords Conversion tracker code at the same time. That is the code for both of these are installed on our page. a few months back made the code for GA automatic in the cart, the Adwords conversion code is on the checkout page.

My question is, are these two compatible? Is it okay to use both of them at the same time? Reason I ask is neither one of them seem to catch all of the conversions. Sometimes, one gets a conversion, the other shows nothing, or it flip flops, or neither one of them show a conversion when there was a sell. Of course, neither one of them will record a transaction when Google Checkout is the method of checkout.

You may be wondering why use both, it is a lot easier to see conversions in Adwords in the adwords manager or the desktop application for Adwords than it is to always have to go into Google Analytics and find the conversion.

I use Google Analytics and it never matchs any of my other stat reports. I have always thought the differances was due to bots just clicking the ads. Do you run any other statistical software besides what is provided by MC?

Nope we just use GA, hadn't looked at urchin in a year.

Does anyone know if there is a conflict with having both the adwords code installed and the google analytics?

I can tell you that there isn't any conflict running both.

Thanks Sabres,

Why would it be that not every conversion is accounted for in Google Analytics? I think I know the answer to why every conversion is not accounted for in Google Adwords, but if you could give me an answer on that one as well.

We do have goals set up in GA, and probably 90 percent of the conversions register in the Goals, but even if a checkout goal is achieved the transaction info doesn't always show up in the eccomerce stats.

To be honest I'm not sure about that one. My guess would be to look and see if you can identify a trend of the people that are not showing in GA. For example are they all using a particular payment method, buy a certain product, etc.

If there isn't a trend, I'm not sure what would be causing it. Perhaps the snippet of code isn't loading or Google's servers are too busy for the request... or anything else I can't think of

This is purely speculation... but if the customer clicks off the thank you page before the tracking code can load at the bottom of the page that could be a reason why it's not registering as a sale.

Could it be that the tracking for Adwords conversion is cookie based and the GA script is JavaScript? If a user has cookies enabled but JavaScript disabled...

You are probably right, but from the looks of it, it is more like the user has javascript disabled and cookies disabled. At least more users than we would like. The Google Checkout issue is ridiculous seeing that Google owns all three, they should have built both Adwords and Analytics tracking into Google Checkout.

Using Metrics is tricky, seeing the orders or products ship is a good metric, but not knowing where they came from is frustrating? For example, if I knew that conversions were coming from SEO pages or generated SEO catalog, I would be more inclined to spend $$ with marketing. But not seeing all the conversions really makes you wonder where to invest your marketing efforts.

I agree with metrics being tricky, and I know some people that are serious about metrics and measuring ROI actually run 2 or even possibly 3 stats softwares.

Yep, tricky all right, I get calls probably 1 month from two different vendors who want me to pay for there software to measure the metrics. I know it probably is good, but just can't justify it at this point.

Google had to come out with something free (sarcasim).