Why does the Website Prospector report a different number of pageviews than Google Analytics?

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Different Tools For Different Purposes

You may find that Act-On’s website reporting does not always match your data in Google Analytics (or another web analytics platform). Act-On and Google Analytics calculate pageviews differently because they are designed for different purposes. Companies often use another web analytics tool alongside Google Analytics to audit their web analytics reports for accuracy. The Act-On Website Prospector can be used with Google Analytics to fulfill a similar purpose, and goes an extra step further to provide you with detailed information about visitor behavior on your website.

How Are Pageviews Calculated?

 

Act-On Website Prospector

Google Analytics
Landing Pages

Act-On measures the number of views a web page receives as a load by the server.

Act-On's report will typically be higher than the number reported by Google Analytics per time period because of bots or email spam appliances. 

You can reduce the number of bot views by adding IP addresses or blocks of IP addresses by navigating to Settings > Other Settings > Internal IP Addresses.

 Google Analytics measures this as a load of a web page by the browser using JavaScript.
Websites The Act-On Website Prospector and Google Analytics both measure this metric as a load of a web page by the browser using JavaScript. The number of views reported should be similar if not the same.
Emails

Act-On measures email click-through rates as a load of a web page by the server. Will likely be higher than comparable Google Analytics reports per time period because of bots and email spam appliances.

You can reduce the number of bot views by adding IP addresses or blocks of IP addresses by navigating to Settings > Other Settings > Internal IP Addresses.

 Google Analytics measures the load of a web page by the browser using JavaScript.

 

 

Google Analytics vs. Act-On's Website Prospector

Google Analytics provides a single overview of the activity taking place on a web page and works best when integrated across the entire website. When visitors view pages on your website, their browser will use JavaScript to send visitor data back to Google. Google interprets that data using algorithms that make assumptions to fill in any incomplete data. 

Act-On's Website Prospector shows you how your website activity relates to your marketing automation campaigns.

  • Act-On’s Beacon Tracker works best when integrated only with the pages that directly relate to your marketing activities in Act-On - see the installation guide for details.
  • Like Google Analytics, Act-On’s Beacon Tracker uses Javascript to collect visit data from your visitors’ browsers.
  • The Beacon Tracker connects website visit data to your other Act-On tools, such as Lead Scoring and Marketing Segmentation, to give you additional insights for digital marketing.
  • To ensure that these insights are accurate and useful, Website Prospector reports will not attempt to fill in gaps in website data – doing so requires making assumptions that may falsely associate web activity with your contacts.

Note: Act-On’s landing pages use web server log file analysis to track page hits – this is a different method of collecting data, so it may show differences from both Google Analytics and the Website Prospector.

How to Use the Data

Statistics from both systems may not match completely, but this does not mean that the data is inaccurate or not useful. Google Analytics will provide you with the full picture of your website’s usage and activity over time, while Act-On will provide you with the most accurate view of how your Act-On campaigns and content are performing.

 

 

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