Google Analytics Content Experiments - Experiment Conversions and Goal Figures Don't Match

[UNIT4]

Hi,

I set up a new content experiment 6 days ago, the experiment says there have been 2 conversions but the goal associated with it says 5.

The experiment is set to target 100% of traffic, distributed evenly among the variations, the goal is a destination URL goal. I've doubled checked the goal set up and everything seems fine.  How can the content experiment report a different figure to the goal associated with it?

Has anyone else noticed the same problem? Is this a bug? Is there a workaround available? Or is there a setting I need to be aware of when creating content experiments to prevent this from happening?  I need to know I can trust the results the content experiments provide.

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Vicky, thanks for the update. I'll leave this question open for a while longer in case you do figure out what the issue was or it crops up again. Glad to hear things are working for you now, though!

Christy

[UNIT4]

Hi Christy,

No I wasn't able to get to the bottom of this, I copied the experiment, stopped the original and started again with all the same settings and haven't been able to recreate the problem.

The copied experiment has now found a winner and there were no discrepancies between the number of conversions in the experiment and the goal associated with it.  I'm hoping it was just a bug with Analytics, there seem to be a few popping up lately for example I had one earlier today which wouldn't let me select the last couple of months in the calendar drop down.

Vicky

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Vicky, were you able to figure this out? Please give us an update, thanks!

Christy

[UNIT4]

Thanks for the tip, I'll double check the goal for conversions outside of the experiment.

[iSTORM-New-Media]

You say the goal is a destination URL - is your content experiment for landing pages? Perhaps the 3 missing goals came from a landing page outside your content experiment and still hit the goal you set up. (recording a goal conversion, but not a conversion in your experiment)

Unless I'm misunderstanding your setup, it would entirely be possible to record a goal outside of your experiment. You may want to use a different goal or set up a funneled goal (where the have to follow a path for it to be recorded as a goal conversion).

[UNIT4]

3 variations plus the original page, 1 conversion for the original and one for one of the variations at the time of posting the question.

A new conversion has recorded for another variation today BUT I have stopped the experiment now and restarted it...just trying to see if it happens again with the new experiment (a copy of original) more than anything.

[iSTORM-New-Media]

How many variations have you set up in your experiment and how many conversions are associated with both the original page and the variation pages?