A marketing manager observes that the number of conversions attributed to Paid Search in their Advertising workspace reports is higher than the number attributed to Paid Search in the standard Traffic Acquisition Report. What’s the reason for this discrepancy?
- The Traffic Acquisition Report is sampled, while the Advertising Report is not.
- The reports use different attribution models based on their scope.
- Thresholding is hiding data from the Traffic Acquisition Report.
- The Advertising workspace reports on users, while the Acquisition Report tracks sessions.
Explanation
Advertising reports use attribution rules for assigning credit to key events across touchpoints in the user journey. The standard Traffic acquisition report is session-scoped and reports traffic based on session acquisition dimensions. Because these reporting areas use different scopes and attribution logic, the same channel can receive different credited totals. A higher Paid Search total in attribution reporting can occur when Paid Search contributed to the path even if it was not the session source shown in acquisition reporting.
Why the other options are incorrect
Sampling is incorrect because the difference is caused by attribution and reporting scope, not sampled versus unsampled data.
User reporting is incorrect because the core difference is not that one report counts users while the other counts sessions.
Thresholding is incorrect because thresholding hides limited data to protect privacy, not reassigns conversion credit.
Source for verification
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10596866
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10597962