Last Touch Channel Data Discrepancy in Local and Global Reporting Suites

[#1]

I am using last touch channel report to see the form conversions (event) from social networks. If I use last touch channel dimension against Event which is used to capture form fills then it shows different data in local reporting suite and Global reporting suites.

Why does Global and Local reporting suite data doesn't match when we are sending image requests to both local and global reporting suites. Moreover, data shown for conversions is less in Global but is more in local reporting suite which seems odd.

Can anyone help understand the discrepancy in both reporting suites

Regards,

Kamal Gir

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Dear Kamal,

Consider you have two domains abc.com and xyz.com : Both have local report suites ABC and XYZ with global report suite GBL.

Consider customer enters your abc.com site via Facebook, navigated two pages in abc.com and moved to xyz.com to submit Lead Event after 3 pages.

In ABC Report Suite, Social Network (Last Touch Channel : Because the referrer is Facebook) will have two pageviews but not Lead Event.

In XYZ Report Suite, Internal Traffic (Last Touch Channel, if you have set up internal traffic properly : Because the referrer is abc.com) will have 3 Page Views and Lead Event. Referrer facebook will not be passed from ABC report suite to XYZ report suite since they are local.

In GBL Report Suite, Social Network will have 5 Page Views(2 in abc.com and 3 in xyz.com) and Lead Count. Since it is global report suite, referrer will persist.

So, it it clear that Last Touch Channel in Local Suites will not have same contirbution as Global Suites. Kindly dont compare the same!

Thank You!

Arun

[#3]

Dear Kamal,

Question 1 : As a best practice should we setup internal URL filters in the Global RS as well?

Answer 1 : I dont recommend to set internal filters for Global Report Suite. If you add your local domains in your internal filter, during the navigation from one local domain to another local domain, marketing channel will match the internal filter rules to bucket it under "Internal" rather than the source referrer.

But i stongly recommend to have second opinion from other experts to decide.

Question 2 : Will it impact other reporting requirements like if we want to see the flow from one site to other site in the Global. Can we still see if we setup internal URL filters in Global.

Answer 2 : It is always best to capture your domain in s.server variable so that you can see the domain to domain navigation. If you suites are not related to domain, I strongly recommend you to capture the grids in a Prop so that you can leverage pathing reports.

Thank You!

Arun

[#4]

Arun's spot-on here; the global report suite with all of the sites is going to have much different attribution if visitors are going to multiple domains.

Report suites are in essence silos; it can't know what happens on other sites. Global report suites are basically bigger silos that includes data from your smaller silos. When you have visitors traverse your various sites, there's going to be cross-site data that can only be seen in the global report suite. Browsing behavior across these sites can absolutely cause a discrepancy on which marketing channel someone is bucketed in based on a global or non-global report suite.

[#5]

Dear Kamal,

Might be bucketed into some other Channel rather than Social Network based on the Marketing Rule logic for Local and Global Report Suite. Can you check the same?

If you dont even find the Lead Count in Global Report Suite, then it is problem with implementation & setup for the event. If you find, but not in proper Marketing Channel, then it is about Marketing Channel Setup.

Thank You!

Arun

[#6]

Thanks Gigazelle​ and PratheepArunRaj​ for your answers. Well, I can see that data is in the Global but most of these conversions are attributed to referring domains instead of the specific domain/channel from which the traffic was originated.

Marketing processing rules are setup same for both Global and Local reporting suites. One possible reason for different bucketing is that internal URL filters as local RS has been setup to consider the self domains as internal to itself but for Global there is no internal filter setup.

I have one question here, as a best practice should we setup internal URL filters in the Global RS as well.. Here internal URL filters will be all the domains sending data to it. Will it impact other reporting requirements like if we want to see the flow from one site to other site in the Global. Can we still see if we setup internal URL filters in Global.

Regards,

Kamal

[#7]

Thanks for the detailed response Arun and explaining it.

"In GBL Report Suite, Social Network will have 5 Page Views(2 in abc.com and 3 in xyz.com) and Lead Count. Since it is global report suite, referrer will persist."

As you also mentioned that Global will have 5 pageviews and one lead count. In my reports, I see only page views but none or less lead count. If there are 5 lead events from Social in local reporting suite then Global should at least show 5 lead events but it shows only one for the selected time period.