One of the most common misconceptions with any software that collects form submission data is that the information you see within it will match the goal data in Google Analytics or the conversion data in Google Ads.
Simply put, for websites with a high volume of conversion data, this is almost never the case. Above that, though it seems like a simple question “why does this data not match up” it can take hours to actually pinpoint the reason. The funny part with this is that often with these discrepancies, it doesn’t mean one software or another is wrong – it could just be things like how they’re collecting and attributing data.
Comparing two software like analytics data vs LeadManagerFX data is like comparing apples to oranges. A similar use case would be like asking SEMrush why their data is different than your Google Analytics. Their response would be something like “well it’s collected in very different ways”.
There are a few reasons for discrepancies in MarketingCloudFX compared to other software like Google Analytics or Google Ads. In short, those are:
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- MarketingCloudFX tracks data in very different ways than Analytics/Ads
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- The “Triggers” to fire data to Google Analytics and Google Ads can be VERY different than the triggers that fire data to MarketingCloudFX
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- MarketingCloudFX and Google Analytics/Ads have very customizable settings that may not apply to the two platforms you’re comparing
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- Google Ads may have data we don’t on your contacts
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- Cookie settings can vary
Below I’ll explain the points above in more detail!
1. MarketingCloudFX tracks data in very different ways than Analytics/Ads
At its core, MarketingCloudFX collects data totally differently than ads and analytics. These are not compatible software in the data in 1 that’s true may not be true in another.
For example, what if your website’s main goal is a form submission? That form submission may arrive to both databases in the following ways:
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- it may arrive to MarketingCloudFX via our javascript being on the site and the form being mapped
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- it may arrive to Google Analytics or Ads by an event firing to those platforms upon a thank you page view
In the example above, you’re tracking pageviews in analytics and ads and you’re tracking form submission attempts in MarketingCloudFX. These are tracking in two totally different ways and at a large scale the numbers you view would almost never match up with 100% accuracy!
2. The “Triggers” to fire data to Google Analytics and Google Ads can be VERY different than the triggers that fire data to MarketingCloudFX
This is explained a bit in #1, but we also have to consider other factors. To get a bit technical, MarketingCloudFX listens for submission attempts. For most forms and clients, when the submit button on your form is clicked, data is coming into MarketingCloudFX’s database.
That isn’t at all how most forms track in analytics or ads. Normally the forms fire on pageview triggers or on event triggers. If someone views your thank you page – that does not fire the “Submit” attempt to our database and the event still goes to the analytics or ads account. This would be true if someone refreshed a thank you page a number of times.
If your trigger is firing on submission events, GTM offers customizable ways to “validate” the submission was successful. MarketingCloudFX does not – so a submission missing required fields may arrive to MarketingCloudFX but not fire the event to Google Analytics or Google Ads.
The closest thing LeadManagerFX does to form validation is when you enable the setting that forms must have an email address. But if you have other fields that are required, such as company name, you would still see forms in LeadManagerFX even if the company name field doesn’t exist.
One common scenario this validation comes into play is if your client’s form requires company emails vs emails from Gmail, yahoo, etc. The submission attempts with the personal emails would pull to LeadManagerFX despite the form blocking the user from successfully submitting it.
3. MarketingCloudFX has customizable settings as does Google Analytics & Google Ads
There are several settings that MarketingCloudFX has that can impact data discrepancies such as:
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- A 15-minute deduplication window is standard but can be customized. So if you fill out the same form twice within that time frame, the second submission overwrites the first.
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- You can choose to disable international traffic for capturing or choose to mark it as spam which hides it in the LeadManagerFX default view.
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- We have spam filters (and customizable ones) to hide leads that hit one of these filters. For example, if you had a spam filter for “SEO services” a lead that says “I sell guaranteed SEO services” would not show in LeadManagerFX, but would likely still fire to Google Analytics and Google Ads.
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- We have IP filters that can block tracking for certain IPs.
Within Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Ads, a few features that can cause discrepancies to include:
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- Tag manager has settings to fire events 1x per page, 1x per event, and unlimited – all of which can impact your conversion and goal data.
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- Google Ads allows you to choose to only count 1 or to count every conversion. So if you have this set to “Count one”, a person who fills out three forms could potentially only show as one conversion.
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- Google Ads offers different attribution models. For example, you could use first click attribution model in Google ads, and MarketingCloudFX uses last non-direct click, so the data could be very different
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- Google Analytics and Ads may track all forms or groups of forms different than MarketingCloudFX. For example, if you have 1 conversion for all form submissions, then map all of these forms separate in LeadmanagerFX, the data will be different. If you choose to only count one conversion for this Google Ads conversion, it could count 1 conversion for someone who fills out three forms (eg. a newsletter opt-in, gated content download, and quote request form).
4. Google Ads may have data we don’t on your contacts
Due to third-party cookies, Google Ads may have more data than we do on your form submitters. If we pair this with different attribution models, this is a recipe for things not aligning.
For example, if you use data-driven attribution, and run youtube ads, Google Ads may count a conversion based on someone watching your youtube ad a few weeks prior to submitting a form via organic. MarketingCloudFX would have no information or data to know that the user who submitted a form originally watched a youtube ad. So our data would give full credit to organic, whereas Google Ads will give some credit to the youtube ad campaign.
5. Cookie settings can vary
All of these platforms use cookies. And all of them use different cookies. That alone can be troublesome for the data when you’re comparing leadmanagerFX to your analytics or ads account. A few things that can cause discrepancies here are:
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- Cookie Length. What if Google Ads cookies or Google Analytics cookies last longer than ours? For example, if I visit a site today from a ppc ad click, then revisit a month later via direct, the channel that gets credit may change. One platform’s cookies may still be persisting while others have expired. So using last non-direct click attribution like analytics and leadmangerFX both do, analytics could say PPC for that lead and MarketingCloudFX may say direct due to the expiration of a cookie that held the original visit data that says the user was from PPC.
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- Cookie blocking. It’s growing in popularity to use cookie blockers. Certain cookie blockers may block our script and the cookies we set, but not block Google Analytics or Google Ads. That could also be true the other way around.
What To Do About Data Discrepancies Between Platforms
The best thing you can do here is EDUCATE your client! As I mentioned above both platforms can be correct even if the data doesn’t align 1:1. It’s just the nature of different attribution models and different ways of collecting data, because at the end of the day MarketingCloudFX is designed to collect totally different data than Google Analytics or Ads. We designed the platform to collect personally identifiable information, unlike Google Analyitcs, which collects anonymous events only.
With proper education upfront, it’ll keep our clients from thinking our data is incorrect. It rarely is. It can just be a mix of all of the factors mentioned above!