The most common data discrepancies in digital marketing analytics platforms come from the inability of tracking scripts to run consistently on dealership websites.
What most, if not all, marketing analytics platforms have in common is that data is collected through a tracking script installed on the dealership website. When a new page is loaded on a dealership site all scripts installed on the page are run to enable their features/functions. So when a tracking script is run data is collected and all tracking functions are enabled.
Most Common Reasons These Data Discrepancies Occur
- Orbee Tracker Script Implementation & Placement
- Orbee Metrics vs Other Platforms
- GDRP & Data Privacy
Orbee Tracker Script Implementation & Placement
For the Orbee tracking script to properly record your websites' performance it must be correctly implemented on the dealership website. Below you will find common mistakes that are made when implementing the Orbee tracking script.
- The script must be installed on ALL pages of the website.
- The script must be installed on ALL versions of the website(mobile, desktop, etc.).
- Multiple tracking scripts should not be installed on one page.
- The script should be installed as high as possible on the page.
Orbee Metrics vs Other Platform's Metrics
Unfortunately every analytics platform measure traffic in their own defined metrics. Orbee uses metrics such as Visits & Visitor to record a dealership's traffic in the most unbiased way possible. A visitor is made up of many visits to the website. Orbee's visits & visitors are therefore not going to be one-to-one with metrics such as "Sessions" in Google Analytics. Please contact your Account Manager if you would like any additional information on Orbee's Platform metrics.
GDPR & Data Privacy
What GDPR & increasing data privacy activism has introduced are measures to protect user data from being collected by third parties. Browsers such as Safari and Firefox come with increased security settings that for example default with "Enable JavaScript" disabled. Settings such as these prevent tracking scripts such as ours from running.
You might be wondering, what does this have to do with the discrepancies?
An example of where Orbee has seen dependencies is with traffic sources that generate large numbers of Apple iPhone users. Below you will find an image of the measure Apple has taken to protect your shoppers. When settings that enable JavaScript disables the Orbee script, it will not run. What we have learned though is that this setting by default is disabled and unfortunately most people will not go into this setting to enable this feature.
This has been a common issue with traffic being generated by the Facebook Advertising platform. We found on many dealership websites ~50% of users who are served an Ad on Facebook & Instagram are Apple mobile device users. When comparing numbers to Google Analytics & Facebook's Analytics we found that on the Orbee tracker we saw the least traffic from Apple mobile users.
We learned that platforms such as Google Analytics & Facebook Analytics were most likely allowed to fire their tracking scripts and as a result, we saw larger numbers of traffic being tracked in their platforms for certain Source/Mediums.
Last Updated: Jan 27, 2020 10:22 AM