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Why do I see different results between analytics tracking platforms?

Please note: You must be using OptimizePress version 2.5.7 or above for PlusPack features to function correctly.

The OptimizePress Experiments plugin is a great addition to your marketing arsenal. Our experiments plugin allows you to create A/B tests for pages created using our LiveEditor. Data collection is turned on automatically as you activate the plugin and all collected data remains in your database.

Statistics and data from experiments that you conduct, provide you with very valuable information that will assist you in optimising your web pages for your specific conversion goals.

Sometimes analysing data from split tests can cause some confusion if you are looking at results from multiple methods for tracking conversions, such as Google Analytics(GA), a paid split testing subscription service or an analytics plugin.

You may notice that the various services provide different data results from the same sample test period.

This is largely due to the way that various  services collect and record the data for visits and conversions.

The key point to remember is that you are not comparing the data between the various methods of generation but the test data collected by one solution.

Whether that is Google Analytics or our OptimizePress Experiments plugin.

All stats and analytics solutions exclude bot traffic (robots, crawlers, and spiders) either when collecting data or when generating reports. Specialised services (like Google Analytics) do not make their bot lists publicly available and therefore it is almost impossible to determine  total valid traffic as bots can account for up to 80% of traffic into a site in certain cases. This is the most significant reason why numbers rarely match from one solution to another (as we don’t have as extensive a bot list as GA does).

Further reasons why analytics data can differ between services is different cookie policies and algorithms for calculating unique visitors. Our OptimizePress Experiments solution is a combination of server-side processing (PHP) and client-side (JavaScript) for collecting of optin conversions.

As the data collection and processing is done on your server on every page visit, this solution offers a good variation between accuracy and speed. This helps to minimise the amount of data collected (as all of it is stored in your database where WordPress is installed).

We recommend you make sure to exclude collection of stats generated by your visits (or any other logged in admin users) by unchecking the box “Collect stats for admin users” in the OptimizePress > Dashboard > Global Settings > Statistics (if similar exclusion pattern is used in other stats collecting plugins).

The key fact to remember when running an experiment is that you are NOT comparing data between various analytics platforms. You are comparing data and results generated from one source (i.e. the OptimizePress Experiments plugin).

When you are running an A/B test created through the OptimizePress Experiments plugin the only thing that should matter is differences between your variations and the conversion rates tracked within our solution.

You can find a general guide to running a successful A/B experiment here.

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