Google Analytics is an important tool to help you understand your website traffic and online sales. Connecting your Google Analytics account with your FareHarbor Lightframe allows you to track conversions from your website and understand where your customers are coming from. This gives you further insight into which marketing channels are working well, which ones to focus on, and more. However, we often hear from clients that their Google Analytics and FareHarbor data don’t match. This guide will offer a few reasons for this discrepancy and how to fix it. 

Sort Your FareHarbor Reports by Original Booking Date and Booking Source

Google Analytics logs the date when the original booking was created, and it only tracks bookings that are made from your website. This means that if the customer makes changes to their booking, the date will be updated on your FareHarbor Dashboard but not on Google Analytics. Additionally, any bookings made on the backend of your Dashboard will not show up in Google Analytics.

If you need to compare bookings between FareHarbor and Google Analytics, make sure that you select “Original Booking Date” on your FareHarbor report and that you are only including online sales. With these filters, the data between the two platforms should line up. 

Consider Adjustments to Bookings That Aren’t Tracked by Google Analytics

Once an online booking enters your FareHarbor Dashboard and that data is passed into your Analytics account, no further changes can be made to the data on Google Analytics. This means that if there is an adjustment made to the booking (for example, the booking is canceled, refunded, or an additional customer is added), the new data is not transferred to Google Analytics. Keep this in mind when comparing data between platforms. You can review the changes made on your FH Dashboard to help you understand any discrepancies with Google Analytics. 

Check That Google Analytics Tracking Is Enabled on Your Website

We often hear from clients that transactions are reported on their FareHarbor Dashboard but are missing from their Google Analytics account. This can happen for a variety of reasons, but one of the most common is that the analytics tracking was disabled in some way, whether by opt-out, browser add-ons, or some other type of filtering at the connection level.

To solve this issue, make sure that you have the correct Google Analytics tracking code on all the pages on your website. You can find the code by going to Property > Tracking Info > Tracking Code.

Remember Some Users Block All Cookies 

If none of the tips above are helping you reconcile your Google Analytics and FareHarbor reports, this could be because some users are automatically blocking cookies on all the websites they visit. If this is the case, Google Analytics wouldn’t be able to track their session or purchase on your website. These users and their purchases would appear on your FareHarbor Dashboard but not on Google Analytics, so this could cause the numbers to be off between reports. Your FareHarbor Dashboard will have the most reliable data on online purchases at the end of the day. 

Cross-referencing your Google Analytics and FareHarbor data gives you a fuller picture of where your customers are coming from and which marketing channels are the most effective. However, it can be confusing when the data isn’t lining up correctly. Go through the tips above to figure out what is causing the discrepancies, and check out our guide to the top GA mistakes along with their solutions and GA checklist to make the most of your data.