Google Analytics Confusing Sources?

Hi Everyone,

I have an SEO client who is also doing a paid Google Ads campaign on his own. After optimizing the client's site we saw a huge rise in organic search traffic, especially from Google, going from 700-800 organic users/mo to 7,000 organic users/mo. His Google Ads traffic was 15k-36k/mo.

In December, the client paused his Google Ads campaign for 3 days. Not only did his paid traffic drop to almost nothing (as expected), but so did every other source, including organic search. Google Organic search dropped from about 250/day to 30/day. Even Bing organic traffic dropped from about 80/day to less than 10/day. Referral and direct traffic data also dropped.

Three days later, when the client restarted his Google Ads campaign, all the traffic data went back up to their levels before the pause.

One additional piece of information is that the number of clicks Google Ads indicates is roughly the same as the number of clicks Google Analytics indicates in the Acquisition => Google Ads => Campaigns report (35,800 clicks). However, the number of users (23,250) and sessions (27,411) indicated in the Acquisition => Google Ads => Campaigns report is about 40% and 30% less than the number of clicks.

Does anyone have any idea as to what would cause this?

Is Google Analytics confusing traffic that is actually from Google Ads and mis-reporting it as organic search (and referral, direct traffic, etc.)?

Your help is greatly appreciated.
Kurt

 

Hi Kurt,
Check this ideas:
- Check landing pages in ads. Maybe there are some redirects or incorrect link markup (if you use url parameters), in this case Google may put Google cpc traffic to other sources
- Check linking Google Ads & Google Analytics
- Divide your organic traffic by landing page (maybe most of your organic traffic is brand traffic, and it increase when you run ads)

I hope my ideas will help you.
Also you can write me a personal message, i will try to help you

 

Hi. Can you help how to increase organic trafic for my website? I'm selling smartwatches and other smart products. Thx