Included in this Article:
Overview
Occasionally you may find differences in comparing RTP analytics and Google Analytics (GA). Some discrepancies may be caused by setup issues with either the RTP or GA platform. However, many small discrepancies are simply due to differences in how RTP and GA handle data, and are unavoidable. Differences of both kinds are highlighted below.
Setup Issues
No RTP Tag or GA Integration
You will need to have the RTP tag turned on in RTP and installed onto any page you wish to track in RTP. You will also need to have GA integrated and turned on in your RTP settings.
To learn how to do so, follow these two articles:
Deploy the RTP JavaScript - Marketo Docs - Product Docs
Integrate RTP with Google Analytics - Marketo Docs - Product Docs
Excluded IPs
If you have any IPs being excluded by RTP, this data will not be displayed in RTP or used in reporting, but may still be present in GA. To check this:
Go to your Account Settings
Scroll down and check if you have any IPs being excluded in the Exclude IPs field
Differing Filters
Some filters exist in GA that don't exist in RTP which can potentially exclude users from their data being reported. If a filter like this is employed in GA, then certain users will be excluded from being tracked in GA, whereas they will be tracked in RTP.
Log in to your GA account and navigate to Admin > Filters to check if any exclusive filters have been applied
Differences between RTP and GA
Web Bots
RTP and GA both attempt to detect activity from bots, which are computer programs written to run tasks over the Internet. However, RTP and GA treat the identification of bots or "fake" users differently. For example, when RTP identifies a bot, it may not even send the data on to GA. You can't change that bot activity might be recorded differently, but it should also not affect your data too significantly.
Visit Duration
A visit from one user automatically ends after a certain period of time in both RTP and GA, but those settings may be different between the two. To learn more, or learn how to change these settings, see How Visit Duration is calculated in RTP.
Sampling
GA often will actually use a sample of your web traffic data, rather than the entire set of data, to report trends. This will produce very similar results, but most likely will not be 100% accurate. RTP does not make use of sampling, and instead provides summaries using all of the present data.
To learn more about sampling in GA, read this article: How sampling works - Analytics Help
Bounce Rates
Generally, about 50-85% of the traffic to your website actually gets recorded in RTP and GA. This is because both the RTP tag and the GA tag will need to load on the page before they can send data back to RTP or GA. If visitors leave your page before the RTP or GA tags load, then data will not be sent back to the RTP or GA analytics platforms. We recommend that the RTP and GA tags be placed higher in the web page's code in order to give them more time to load, leaving a smaller window for the visitor to leave without data being sent back.
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