Clicks or entries?

by Katrin Nebermann

Clicks or entries? This is the question in campaign measurement

In connection with the measurement of clicks, one could also say that clicks are not always the same as clicks. This refers to the sometimes differing reported campaign or ad clicks between the advertising platforms such as Google Ads and the web analytics solution such as etracker Analytics.

This is usually not due to errors in the systems or the setup, but simply to the different measurement method:

• In the advertising platform, the click on an ad element, e.g. measured directly on the search results page (regardless of whether the user actually reaches the target page).
• In the web analysis solution, the target page is usually only recorded with the associated campaign parameters when it is called up (after the content of the target page and thus also the tracking code, which enables the actual counting, has been loaded asynchronously).

In most cases, there are only a few milliseconds between the click on an ad and the execution of the tracking code. But even this is enough for users who may have only clicked by mistake to have already left the page again. Unintentional clicks can be triggered, especially when ads are displayed with a delay and move other content.

There are also effects such as tracking blocking or different bot detection mechanisms that can lead to deviations. The key question is whether consent-free session tracking is used or only measured after consent has been given. In the latter case, the deviations would be very high.

There are also system-related effects that lead to more clicks being shown in the web analysis. This means that reloading the page with the campaign parameters can trigger a web analysis click. The same applies to bookmarks with campaign parameters or the forwarding of links including the parameters.

This is why many marketers prefer to use the key figure of clicks in web analytics as a comparison to the reported clicks in the marketing platforms.

In total, marketers are spoiled for choice between four key figures in etracker Analytics, all of which provide information about the traffic volume from marketing campaigns in slightly different forms: Visits, visitors, clicks and entries.

Illustration: Excerpt from the campaign reporting in etracker analytics

Visits: Indicates the number of sessions in which the appropriate campaign parameters were recorded. Reloads within the session have no effect. However, sessions may have been initiated via other channels before a specific ad was clicked on. Because a new visit only begins after a 30-minute break.

Visitors: Indicates the number of unique users over several visits. However, the ability to recognize visitors is limited to the respective day without cookie activation. Therefore, there are the additional key figures Share of visitors with cookies and Frequency of visits (based only on visitors with cookies).

Clicks: This includes all visits to the page with the campaign parameters, whether as the starting point of a visit, via bookmark or reload.

Entries: Includes all visits or sessions in which the very first page view with the respective campaign parameters took place.

All four of these key figures have their justification and different messages. At the end of the day, however, what matters most is what conversions and, if applicable, sales are generated.