Data discrepancies: Factors and troubleshooting

For subtitles in your language, turn on YouTube captions. Select the settings icon Image of YouTube settings icon at the bottom of the video player, then select "Subtitles/CC" and choose your language.


Large data discrepancies can happen between Google Ads reporting, other platforms or your internal reporting. These discrepancies can be caused by a variety of factors.

If you notice data discrepancies in your reports or if your data doesn’t match those in Google Analytics or a third-party source, you can try to address these issues yourself.

This occurs if your data does not align with Google Analytics or a third-party source. Learn how to Fix missing data and discrepancies.


Possible factors that could cause data discrepancies

Conversion delay

Google Ads reports conversions on the ad impression date. Other reporting tools attribute them to the conversion date. This is called a conversion delay. You can learn more about conversion delays in the article About conversion delay estimates.

Learn more About conversion lag reporting to understand conversion delay information on key metrics.

Next step:

You can find your conversion lag reporting data in the Campaigns table or in your bid strategy report.

Tag setup

Set up a conversion tracking tag.

You can verify your conversion tracking status manually. Learn more about Conversion Tracking: Troubleshooting conversion tracking status or download and follow the instructions shared in Google Tag Assistant.

Customer Conversion Time

Conversions can be reported up to 90 days after the click.

Next step: View a report that shows the conversion delay history for your account. You can also Find out how long it takes for your customers to convert who view and click your ad.

Lookback windows

The "Lookback window" control is used to adjust an attribution report's lookback window to 30, 60, or 90 days. Most reports show a 30-day lookback window when you open them.

Note: The "Lookback window" control is different from the "Conversion window" setting.

A lookback window in the attribution reports determines how far back in time from a conversion ad interactions are eligible for attribution credit. For example, a 30-day lookback window considers ad interactions that occurred from December 31 to January 30 when allocating credit for a conversion that happens on January 30.

A conversion window is the period of time after an ad interaction during which a conversion is recorded in Google Ads. Learn more About conversion windows.

The "Model comparison" report has one more lookback window option than the other reports. The "Default" option sets the report's lookback window to the same number of days you selected as the conversion window for each conversion action within Tools > Measurement > Conversions.

Count settings

Count settings can give you a better sense of your campaign performance. They also help you refine your bids. You can count every conversion or only 1 conversion after an interaction.

Next step: Learn more About conversion counting options.

Action optimization settings

If you see conversions in your Goals summary but not in your campaign dashboard, or if your conversion values seem inflated, verify the action optimization settings of your conversion actions.

  • Primary: Conversion actions set as Primary are used for bidding optimization and appear in your main reporting columns. Ensure the conversion actions you want to track are set to Primary and included in your campaign's "Marketing Objective".
  • Secondary: Conversion actions set as Secondary are for observation only. They don't affect bidding and may not appear in default reports unless you add the "All conversions" column.

If your conversion values look too high, ensure non-purchase actions such as "Page view" or "Add to cart" aren't set as Primary with assigned values. Switch them to Secondary or remove their value to prevent double-counting.

Learn more About primary and secondary conversion actions.

Cross-device conversions

Cross-device conversions are modeled to account for users who start their journey on one device with an ad interaction, and complete the conversion on another.

Next step: Learn more to Understand your conversion tracking data.

View-through conversions

View-through conversions column tells you when customers see, but don’t interact with your ad, and then later complete a conversion on your site. When Google Ads doesn’t include view-through conversions in the Conversions column by default so you may see discrepancies.

Next step: Add the view-through conversions in the Conversions column. Learn more About view-through conversions.

Invalid traffic

Some invalid conversions are removed if Google detects they may be from spam or invalid traffic, or have been invalid for longer than 13 months. This can happen after the conversions were initially reported in your account, so it may appear as if there was a small “drop” in your conversion reporting over time.

Next step: If you're concerned about activity that seems suspicious, you can troubleshoot invalid clicks to find information on click behavior, filtering, and reporting. Learn more about Managing invalid traffic.

Attribution settings

Switching between attribution models can affect your conversion data.

Next step: Learn How to find and set an attribution model for your conversions.

Note: Google Ads only reports conversions if there are Google Ads interactions (for example, clicks) from the same Google Ads account. If you use a tool other than Google Ads, it may be reporting conversions from all Google Ads clicks across your accounts, or attributing those conversions to other platforms.

Was this helpful?

How can we improve it?
Search
Clear search
Close search
Google apps
Main menu
4688808639970613314
true
Search Help Center
true
true
true
true
true
true
73067
false
false
true
true
false