A very frequently faced complain about Google Analytics is the unmatched number of social conversions for an indifferent site, showed by different reports at the same time. If you have noticed the same but ignored without solving the issue, you must have put this behavior to your complain box. Amusingly, after reading this blog, u will not be complaining the developers anymore. Rather, you will be found guilty for not understanding the fact & not making the full swing of the available attributes.
Using GA, you can employ the Social Conversion Report, Multi-Channel Funnel Report, and All Traffic Report to get an insight on social conversions. But, in general, these three distinct reports can portray number of conversions for a site that doesn’t match each other. But why?
Prominently, you must not forget that these three reports have quite a different lookback window and attribution model. By default, the lookback window in the Social Conversion Report & Multi-Channel Funnel Report is thirty days whereas, hundred and eighty days (six months) in the All Traffic Report. Hence, you can’t expect the number of conversions be same in all the reports with the exception of some customization. To change the lookback window period you need to apply the cookie timeout method, or more easily by customizing the session & campaign timeout.
Variation is again evident in case of attribution model. In the Social Conversion Report and Multi-Channel Funnel Report, any click from a social site that resulted in conversion, either it is an assist click or a last click or both, is considered as conversion. In contrast, conversion is only counted by the All Traffic Report if it is an assist click or a last click.
Lastly, the sources, mediums, and goals should be the same for all these reports. This can be easily achieved if you can set customized filters on each report. For the Social Conversion Report and Multi-Channel Funnel report you can use Source/Medium as the Secondary Dimension to bring good results. Select single goal from the Conversion menu of these two reports. As shown in the figure, bring some similar changes to the All Traffic Report also and you will find conversion reports that are more or less alike.