Forum Discussion
Data from Google Analytics Doesn't Match!
I'm trying to figure out why there are such large discrepancies in data between Google Analytics and Power BI. I know sampling can be an issue but that be the cause of such large differences? Here's part of a table from GA and the same data in PBI. Some values are close (e.g. facebook/remarketing) but others are completely off. Any ideas? I have a deadline to meet that won't be possible if I can't figure this out :smileysad: TIA!
I've got response from the product team.
This is expected behavior. The API we're using for Google Analytics is the one available to free users, and that API is known to return less accurate values for high volume sites due to the way it samples data. Unfortunately, the API for Google Analytics Premium customers is significantly different than that for the free users, so we'd need to implement a new connector specifically for Premium in order to get the more accurate values. This is not currently on our roadmap. Customers who would like to see this feature should request it or upvote it (if already there) at ideas.powerbi.com.
Best Regards,
Herbert
15 Replies
I've got response from the product team.
This is expected behavior. The API we're using for Google Analytics is the one available to free users, and that API is known to return less accurate values for high volume sites due to the way it samples data. Unfortunately, the API for Google Analytics Premium customers is significantly different than that for the free users, so we'd need to implement a new connector specifically for Premium in order to get the more accurate values. This is not currently on our roadmap. Customers who would like to see this feature should request it or upvote it (if already there) at ideas.powerbi.com.
Best Regards,
Herbert
Thank you v-haibl-msft, this makes sense. We'll have to figure out a plan B for our report.
PaulDBrown v-haibl-msft cowork16 @
I have spent a lot of time working with GA from the API side.
High volume, in this context, would be a site that when queried via the API, allways/very often hits the sampling threshold of 500K visits within the time range queried.
I represent a company that solves this challenge with the standard API. Please come try us out.
Any help on this?
It seems like a data retrieval delay in build-in Google Analytic Connector, you may try some other open-sourced GA connectors, like PQGoogleAnalytics
Regards,
Thanks for the reply v-sihou-msft :) I set up the connector that you mentioned in your reply and I'm getting the exact same numbers as with the built-in connector. But when I queried directly with PQGoogleAnalytics, the numbers in the Query Editor matched with the GA numbers. So I don't know why, when I put the fields in a report, the numbers are so off.
You need access to non sampled raw/hit data and do the aggregations yourself. This is generally a very good idea working with Power BI - since it's aggregated nature. When applying aggregates to an aggregation tool, bad things can easily happen. Users (even pro analysts - yes I have seen it :) will be "seduced" to sum, avg, etc. already distinctly counted metrics or averages, max's, min's etc.
You need to sort of data governance and stay in the taxonomy of Google Analytics (or consciously move out of it), you need either to purchase the pricy GA 360 or use Scitylana's Google Analytics services.
With these 2 options you can move the raw data to a BigQuery table and to a combination of DirectQuery and In-memory import. This works really great!
