Why is there a difference between your reporting and my analytics software?

All platforms use different methodologies for analyzing traffic so you should never expect them both to match exactly. Having said that, platforms should follow a similar trend. If you see any large differences, please do not hesitate to let us know.

For those using Google Analytics, make sure that you are using campaigns to effectively segment your referral traffic from other sources. Depending solely on the “referral” information that analytics provide isn’t reliable. Google provides a tool for building special URLs that track more accurately: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en

Technical Issues

It is possible, based on your audience and other technical factors, that traffic simply will not register in analytic reporting. Here are a few use cases:

1. If the user has visited your site within the last 30 days, they may bundle that user’s visit into an existing group, thus reducing the effective “click”/session/pageview count.
2. If the user clicks an advertisement but backs out (on mobile, it is common for users to back out if the site they are visiting is loading slow or broken).
3. Even if the user makes it to your site, if that user navigates to another part of the site before your analytics can register the visit, it is possible to lose the referral (even with campaign tracking).
4. If your site causes the user to redirect, the initiating referrer or campaign tags could be lost. You should not point your ad campaigns to referral links.
5. Many analytic providers also provide opt-out support (or recognize the do not track option of the user), which may prevent visits from counting.
6. Finally, the analytics software may have not loaded fast enough (similar to point 3) and the traffic isn’t registered.

If for any reason you suspect fraud or inaccurate reporting, please let us know as soon as possible.

Fraud Detection

All websites included in the Marine Ad Network  go through a series of internal fraud checks both in real-time and post click/impression. Additionally, we also partner with one of the most trusted and well known fraud vendors in the ad technology space, ClickMeter, to ensure protection against bot nets and other automated sources of traffic.