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How to fix discrepancies in Google Analytics data

Scope of this guide

This guide applies only to Universal Analytics, not Google Analytics 4. To solve discrepancy issues in Google Analytics 4, see this article.

If you’re seeing discrepancies between your Google Analytics data and the data you see in your Supermetrics reports, follow this guide to solve the issue.


In most cases, there are 2 reasons for a discrepancy between Supermetrics and Google Analytics: data sampling, or delays in communication between Google Analytics and the Google API (API latency).


Data sampling

Google Analytics can sample the results it delivers to Supermetrics. This can cause differences — usually in the range of 1% to 4% — between the values displayed by Supermetrics and Google Analytics. 


Sampling is most common in queries with advanced segments, very large data sets, large amounts of session data, or data that’s split by multiple dimensions. Learn more about this in Google’s documentation.


Check for and avoid sampling

Check for sampling using the instructions below before taking any other steps.

Google Sheets
  1. Open the ‘SupermetricsQueries’ tab. (This tab is hidden by default — click Extensions → Supermetrics → Manage queries to open it.)
  2. Navigate to the “Results contain sampled data” row.
  3. If that row contains the value TRUE, the query in that row has sampled data.


Avoid sampling

To reduce the likelihood of sampling, open the Supermetrics sidebar and select Try to avoid Google’s data sampling in the Options section.


Complex queries will still be sampled even if this option is enabled, and they might slow down or fail if they're too large. Try simplifying your queries to reduce the chance of sampling, and using the Combine new results with old feature to reduce the amount of data you need to pull with each query.


If the discrepancies still appear after the option is enabled and your queries are streamlined, there's no further action that you can take to reduce the discrepancy.


Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) and data warehouses

Add the "isSampled" dimension to any query to check for sampling.

In your results, you'll see TRUE or FALSE as a value (TRUE means the data has been sampled, while FALSE means it hasn't been). Learn more in our technical documentation.


Avoid sampling

Select the Google Analytics data source in the Supermetrics sidebar, and then click the edit icon next to its name. This'll open the connector's settings panel — click EDIT CONNECTION in its top left.

Scroll down and enable the Try to avoid Google's data sampling and Allow "Try to avoid Google's data sampling" to be modified in reports settings.

If your queries are large or complex, avoiding sampling might slow them down or cause them to fail. Optimize your queries to reduce the risk of this happening.

Excel
  1. Open the ‘SupermetricsQueries’ tab. (This tab is hidden by default — click Extensions → Supermetrics → Manage queries to open it.)
  2. Navigate to the “Results contain sampled data” row.
  3. If that row contains the value TRUE, the query in that row has sampled data.


Avoid sampling

To reduce the likelihood of sampling, open the Supermetrics sidebar and select Try to avoid Google’s data sampling in the Options section.


Complex queries will still be sampled even if this option is enabled, and if they're too large, they might slow down or fail. Try simplifying your queries — by shortening the date range, for example, or including fewer metrics and dimensions in each query — to reduce that data load and bring down the chance of sampling.


If the discrepancies still appear after the option is enabled and your queries are streamlined, there's no further action that you can take to reduce the discrepancy.


API latency

The Google Analytics API and the Google Analytics web interface are not always totally in sync. Supermetrics communicates with the Google Analytics API, which may in some cases deliver figures that differ from the ones shown in Google Analytics. 


If you suspect something like this may be affecting your reports, there are a few places where you can investigate the issue:



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