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There is a thread at WebmasterWorld and several in the Google Analytics Help forum with complaints that Google Analytics is no longer tracking Google AdWords data properly.
The WebmasterWorld thread has this complaint:
In two of my analytics accounts for sites which I use adwords to drive traffic all of the data is being recorded as direct and not google(cpc)...and it not reporting any traffic from adwords (which my wallet tells my otherwise!)It is only for the past two days including today. Is anyone else seeing this? Is it a glitch?
The simple answer is that in February, Google notified us that we need to link our analytics account to our AdWords accounts to pass this information. So if you have not done so, and your Analytics data is looking a bit empty, go ahead and link up those accounts. Brad has a good post explaining how to link up your accounts.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Analytics Help.
Comments:
Justin Braithwaite
04/03/2009 08:21 am
I had this problem, and got this reply back from google: I found that you had not applied the cost data for this profile. This is one of the reasons your CPC data is being reported as direct. Please keep in mind that this option needs to be enabled in the profile settings for each profile within your AdWords account's Analytics tab (not within the standalone Google Analytics interface). a. From within your AdWords account, click the Analytics tab b. In the Website Profiles list, find the profile for which you wish to import cost data c. Click that profile's 'Edit' link in the 'Settings' column d. In the 'Main Website Profile Information' box, click 'Edit' e. Select the 'Apply cost data' checkbox and click 'Save Changes' to finish. Read up more on cost data at http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/topic.py?topic=20430&ctx=search&query=cost%20data ALSO, i had to update the tracking code on all of my pages.. fixed the problem instantly. Hope this helps you.