11 Replies Latest reply on Jan 23, 2018 8:37 AM by Sanford Whiteman

Google Analytics location issue

Katie DenHollander Jan 22, 2018 2:13 PM

I'm not entirely sure if this is a Marketo issue, but I have a hunch it is and wondering if anyone else has this issue, and how to solve for it.

We have a disproportionate number of website visitors showing up with Portland, OR as their location - about 1/3 of our total site visitors. I know our account contacts have always been based out of Portland and we use Munchkin tracking on our website, so I'm thinking there is a connection, I just don't know what that is, or how to fix our GA reports from being impacted.

Any ideas?

Re: Google Analytics location issue

Sanford Whiteman Jan 22, 2018 2:30 PM (in response to Katie DenHollander)

Munchkin doesn't impact the location reported by GA in any way. They're 2 different analytics paths (with different events and session logic) and unless you're tying them together deliberately, they don't share data.

When you call these "disproportionate" what is this based on? Are you sure you don't just have 1/3 of your visits from internal users and need to exempt them? Is the IP address in Portland, OR the IP of your office there?
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- Re: Google Analytics location issue
  
  Katie DenHollander Jan 22, 2018 2:42 PM (in response to Sanford Whiteman)
  
  Hi Sanford,
  
  In the past week, we have had just over 3000 visitors to our website, and 1,338 came from Portland, OR. The next two highest cities are 500 and 250, both of which we have offices nearby, and a large population of clients.
  
  The closest office we have to Portland, OR is in Wyoming, and we don't have a large number of clients there, so there is nothing I can think of as to why we would have 1/3 of our visitors coming from there. It's also a 99% bounce rate, which is fishy.
  
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  - Re: Google Analytics location issue
    
    Sanford Whiteman Jan 22, 2018 2:45 PM (in response to Katie DenHollander)
    
    The closest office we have to Portland, OR is in Wyoming
    OK, then "our account contacts have always been based out of Portland" doesn't really have any bearing, does it?
    
    I can tell you this isn't Munchkin telling GA where the visits are coming from.
    
    What's an example IP address? Sure this isn't a spider or mail scanner?
    
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    - Re: Google Analytics location issue
      
      Katie DenHollander Jan 22, 2018 3:03 PM (in response to Sanford Whiteman)
      
      Sorry, what I meant by Account contacts is the people at Marketo that we work with have always been based out of Portland, not our personal contacts in our database.
      
      I'm not sure how to access the IP addresses in GA, sorry, not a regular user of that system, I was just brought in because of this weird issue, so I'll need to get back to you on that.
      
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      - Re: Google Analytics location issue
        
        Sanford Whiteman Jan 22, 2018 3:10 PM (in response to Katie DenHollander)
        
        Are the entry pages for these visitors all URLs that appeared in emails this week? If so, it's a mail scanner (which operates as a headless browser).
        
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        Re: Google Analytics location issue
        
        Katie DenHollander Jan 22, 2018 3:18 PM (in response to Sanford Whiteman)
        
        It looks like the entry pages are articles we've shared on LinkedIn...
        
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        Re: Google Analytics location issue
        
        Sanford Whiteman Jan 22, 2018 3:21 PM (in response to Katie DenHollander)
        
        And the IP(s)?
        
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        Re: Google Analytics location issue
        
        Katie DenHollander Jan 23, 2018 5:47 AM (in response to Sanford Whiteman)
        
        I'm being told we can't get IP addresses out of GA due to privacy. Is that your experience? Sorry if this is basic knowledge, I don't know anything about google analytics.
        
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        Re: Google Analytics location issue
        
        Katie DenHollander Jan 23, 2018 5:58 AM (in response to Sanford Whiteman)
        
        Hi Sanford,
        
        Thank you for all your troubleshooting, but I've figured it out this morning. I cross referenced the Portland Users by "Browser" and it showed all users using the browser "Smarshbot". Smarsh is the compliance software we use to track emails and our website. It crawls our website every day looking for changes, which must be causing this issue.
        
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        Re: Google Analytics location issue
        
        Sanford Whiteman Jan 23, 2018 7:24 AM (in response to Katie DenHollander)
        
        Makes sense, search crawler or security scanner fits the behavior.
        
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        Re: Google Analytics location issue
        
        Sanford Whiteman Jan 23, 2018 8:37 AM (in response to Katie DenHollander)
        
        P.S. They should have a way to exclude analytics libs from crawling (it's strange for them to not exclude GA by default, Munchkin I can understand).
        
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