[UA] Social conversions differ between reports [Legacy]

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You may find that the number of conversions reported for one social site can be different in the Source/Medium, Social Conversions, and Multi-Channel Funnel reports for web properties. This article describes how conversions are incremented in each of these reports to help you understand any discrepancies you might find.

To compare data from a single social network across these reports:

  1. Add the secondary dimension Source/Medium to the Social Conversions or Multi-Channel Funnel report. This dimension should appear in the Source/Medium report by default.
  2. In each report, use the advanced filter (found at the top of the data table) to restrict the data to one source or medium.
  3. Confirm that you’re looking at the same transaction metric across these three reports. Use the Conversion dropdown menu at the top of a report change the metric.

When comparing data in these reports, keep the following in mind:

  • The lookback window and attribution model differs across these three reports.
  • The Social Conversions reports aggregate all social referrals into a single report and uses friendly names to aggregate traffic from various social networks. Data might appear with different names in the other reports.
  • In the Source/Medium report, traffic from social sites will show up as a referral, unless you’ve used manual campaign tracking parameters.
  Source/Medium Report Social Conversions Report Multi-Channel Funnel Report
Lookback Window

6 months by default. Change the session settings* to adjust.

30 days

30 days by default. Use the report slider to adjust from 1 to 90 days.

Attribution Model Includes only conversions where the traffic from a social network was the last click before the conversion, or conversions for direct traffic.

Includes all conversions where the traffic from a social network was involved in the conversion path as an assist click and/or last click.

The sum of the assisted conversions and last interaction conversions may be greater than the total number of conversions because if the same channel was both an assist and a last click for the same conversion, only one total conversion is incremented.

Includes all conversions where the traffic from a social network was involved in the conversion path as an assist click and/or last click.

The sum of the assisted conversions and last interaction conversions may be greater than the total number of conversions because if the same channel was both an assist and a last click for the same conversion, only one total conversion is incremented.

This Universal Analytics feature is only available for websites using gtag.js or analytics.js. Using ga.js (Classic Analytics) will stop Referral Exclusions from working.

*If you're using Classic Analytics, use the _setCampaignCookieTimeout method.

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