Discrepancy between google analytics referrals and 3rd party stats

[xposurecreative]

I have a client who pays to be listed in a industry directory. It is now time for renewal and the directory has come to my client with their statistics, which they claim has sent over 400 visits to my clients site. Having looked in to google analytics, over the same period of time, google analytics has registered 2 visits.

Could the directory's stats be true? Or is google analytics 100% correct?

Any help or advice in this area would be useful, as my client is concerned if they don't renew they will lose some traffic and leads.

Cheers.

[OlegKorneitchouk]

Analytics can be inaccurate but not by that much (unless tracking is somehow messed up).

I would tell the company that according to your analytics, you only received 2 visitors (and show them). Set up another tracker and ask for 1 month more for free to see if their stats are valid. If you get no visitors or they don't agree to a free month, they are probably bullshiting you.

[S_Curtis]

This often happens if there is a redirect inbetween the sites and so the referrer gets lost which would account for that difference. It could also happen if you have a 404 or slow page so no GA visit is recorded but that would lead to less of a difference.

I would suggest adding active tagging to the link and as above reply, ask for a free extension. By active tracking you just need to add the following 3 query parameters with meaningful values such as: ?utm_source=DirectoryZ&utm_medium=PaidLinks&utm_campaign=FooterLinks

The traffic would then be tracked accurately and you can see it in the campaigns report.