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The case for not using Google Analytics to track hotel clicks and bookings

January 31, 2012 | Hotel Marketing

Since Google is a search engine company first, it also factors out a lot of clicks in Google Analytics that it might perceive as coming from robots when, in reality, it is more likely that a human was behind most of those clicks.

According to Google, its GA methodology only counts certain types of clicks. If a user has not enabled cookies, flash, images or JavaScript in their browser, it is possible for their clicks to simply be tossed out. If a traveler happened to click your link two times within 30 minutes, it is possible that GA would only show one click instead of two. Since Google is a search engine company first, it also factors out a lot of clicks that it might perceive as coming from robots when, in reality, it is more likely that a human was behind most of those clicks.

Instead of algorithms and filter-based calculations, most other paid click-tracking tools we mentioned above simply tally up the actual number of clicks recorded, which is much more accurate. So, since GA cannot properly record all the clicks to your site, you end up missing a lot of bookings in your GA reports.

And speaking of bookings, it is of course much harder to track a booking than a click. Most paid tracking tools monitor the travelers that click your banner ad, text link or email but then do not book right away. Those travelers might check with their significant other before booking and then bypass your tracking link and book directly on your website days later. But with advanced tracking and reporting you would still be able to properly record all of those bookings and give credit to the websites that referred those folks that booked even 15 days after they clicked your link.

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