FB Ad clicks are WAY higher than Google Analytics visitors?

I'm having a hard time determining why Facebook and Google Analytics are reporting such different results for my Facebook ad clicks.

I have some ads in a Facebook Ad Campaign - every ad includes has the URL formatted like this:

www.website.com/index.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=CAMPAIGN_NAME

That is how Google Analytics says you should configure URLs in non-Google advertising systems (like Facebook).

In Google Analytics I see some visits from CAMPAIGN_NAME, but they are many fewer than what Facebook reports. For example, Facebook says the campaign had a total of 1,000 clicks, but Google says there were only 120 visitors.

Here are some possible causes, and why I don't think they are correct:

* "timing" issue - sufficient time has elapsed for all visits to appear in the Google Analytics report.

* Multiple ad clicks by same visitors - if each visitor in Facebook clicked on the ads about 8 times, that would cause the above data - but that seems highly unlikely!

* Under-counting by GA due to page loads - if the visitor coming from Facebook doesn't wait for the destination page to finish loading, then FB would record the click, but GA wouldn't. While this probably happens occasionally, it seems highly unlikely that it'd be happening over 80% of the time!

 

Nice find but Google analytics is good for tracking i am satisfied by its service till now.

 

dont fall for those numbers. see which one is converting better.

 

Use Prosper or Tracking202. I've found FB's stats to be highly accurate, actually I've found that if a user DOES click an ad twice, on accident or for whatever reason, FB will still only count it (and charge you) as if it were one click.

Something goofy is going on with your Analytics.

 

Yeh try checking awstats. This is usually a lot more reliable as it tracks things on your server but analytics tracks things via java. If users have java disabled or something then GA will not know about those visitors.

 

Facebook advertising is best used inside facebook, instead of pointing ads to your website point them to a page that advertises your website, you will do better and benefit from the viral growth of Facebook pages.

 

There is absolutely no truth to this.

If you're smart, you will utilize Facebook's viral channels ON a site OUTSIDE of Facebook.

Hint Hint

 

I don't know if this is your case or not, but I have two tracking codes on my site since one has a counter. Google analytics doesn't seem to like that as I get a super low count from google that simply can't be true judging from the adsense clicks

Rick