• Google Analytics 4

  Investigating Discrepancies between BigQuery and GA4 Data

  Posted by Oliver on 1 March 2023 at 7:02 am

  Hey, I’ve been scratching my head trying to understand where the discrepancy between GA4 and UA data session volumes is coming from. For example, on March 21, 2023, I counted
  104 Sessions in UA,
  while there were
  331 sessions in GA4.
  Quite a puzzle, right?

  Then I dived into BigQuery, attempted some methodologies I found online. Still, I was nowhere near that 331 sessions number in GA4.
  Here are the queries I played with:

  count(distinct concat(user_pseudo_id,(select value.int_value from unnest(event_params) where key = 'ga_session_id'))) as sessions, count(distinct concat(user_id,(select value.int_value from unnest(event_params) where key = 'ga_session_id'))) as sessions

  The first try yielded 175, and the second one got as close as 278. Still, it’s not 331, is it?

  So, I’m wondering if any of you might know something I don’t. Appreciate any help!

  Abigail replied 1 year, 4 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Ethan

  Member

  17 May 2023 at 4:11 pm

  The person is experiencing a discrepancy in the number of sessions recorded between two Google Analytic platforms, GA4 and UA. When the person counted the sessions from a particular day, the UA platform had recorded 104 sessions, and GA4 had recorded 331 sessions. They then tried using a tool called BigQuery to recreate the session count from GA4, using methods they found online, but the results were still lower than the 331 sessions GA4 had recorded. They are asking for assistance or suggestions to understand and resolve this discrepancy.

• 

  Abigail

  Member

  11 June 2023 at 7:06 pm

  There could be multiple factors that cause discrepancies between the tracking numbers in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Universal Analytics (UA). Keep in mind that GA4 and UA use different algorithms for determining what constitutes a unique session. Also, make sure the time zone settings are identical in both platforms. If all parameters are set correctly and you’re using the correct SQL queries yet still getting different results, consider reaching out to Google’s support for deeper insights.

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