Google Analytics is lying to you about your website.
But before you start venting about Google on your social media you should know that it isn’t Google’s fault.
You see, your Google Analytics data is almost certainly wrong. But in a good way.
An increasing number of Internet users are using technologies that block trackers and ads – including Google Analytics. The percentage of US users blocking Google Analytics could be as low as 15% – or as high as 40%*. You may even be one of those users.
Ad blocking extensions, privacy focused browsers, new privacy measures in mainstream browsers, security focused VPNs, and other technologies are all being used to block Google Analytics scripts from calling Google’s servers and recording those website visits.
This means your web traffic could be higher than you realize but not trackable using your current methods.
This has led to a game of cat and mouse between privacy advocates and advertisers.
There are methods websites can use to bypass most Google Analytics blocking attempts but few websites are using those methods.
One of the easier ways to resume tracking all of your web traffic and send that data to Google Analytics is to patch Google Analytics’ code so it calls a JavaScript file on your server (not Google’s) and then use server side code to route this data back to Google. Methods vary in their effectiveness and difficulty but once you have found something that works for your configuration you will often begin seeing a 10%+ increase in the amount of data you’re tracking in Google Analytics (and the number of web visitors you can quantify in your marketing efforts).
Alternatively, your business can supplement (or replace) Google Analytics with a locally hosted analytics solution. There are a few great tools available on the market that allow you to track, store, and view your analytics data all on your own domain. This usually avoids all tracking blocking tools (as your domain isn’t blacklisted) while also somewhat protecting the privacy of your visitors (most visitors don’t mind that you know they visited – they don’t want Google knowing what they’re doing). This is a great solution if you yourself are a privacy advocate, want your business to live those values, and still need to quantify your web traffic for marketing purposes.
Think your Google Analytics account may be lying to you? Contact us about analytics optimization. We’ll help you better quantify your traffic for your company’s marketing efforts.
