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Analyzing Discrepancy: Elevated Engagement Rate in BigQuery compared to GA4
Hey all, I’m tinkering around in BigQuery, trying to get a scorecard report together. It has 10 scorecard values and you can check them out here: Results. Everything is coming up roses, except for this pesky engagement rate. It’s higher than it normally is, and I can’t quite figure out why. Here’s the query I’m using: Query. Would any of you bright minds have an idea on what’s going wrong or perhaps a way to fix it?
Just to clarify, the second FROM clause is the raw table, which I’ve whited out for privacy sake.
And if you’re wondering, yes I’ve tried pulling this data and saving the results as a table, and then calculating the engagement rate from there too. But alas! The result was the same.
The engagement rate should be somewhere in the 40-70% range, but it’s landing at a sky-high 80+%. If you have any mend-it tricks up your sleeve or theories on why the BQ engagement rate is soaring higher than the GA4, lay ’em on me!
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2 Replies
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While the query seems to be working generally, the higher engagement rate suggests that there might be an overcount of the engaged sessions. This could be due to any number of reasons, such as duplicate session data in the raw table, incorrect filtration on the query, or even a miscalculation of the engaged sessions. Checking for these issues may help. Incorrect schema or data manipulation can also affect the results. Additionally, if the engagement goals or parameters are set differently in BigQuery compared to GA4, it could account for the discrepancy in numbers. Without further information and troubleshooting, it’s hard to say for certain why the results are off. You may want to consult with a BigQuery expert or hire a data analyst who could dig deeper into the data and potentially figure out what’s causing the anomaly.
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Unfortunately, as the query and data table are blurred out for privacy reasons, it’s challenging to provide an exact solution without knowing the structure of the tables and how you’re calculating each metric. However, I can suggest a few potential reasons and strategies you may want to explore to identify the source of discrepancy.
Firstly, you may want to ensure that your engagement rate formula in BigQuery is equivalent to how GA4 calculates this metric. Some systems consider only unique users in the calculation, while others may include every interaction, possibly leading to an artificial inflation of your results.
Secondly, consider whether all the underlying data is included in your GA4 result and in your BigQuery results. For instance, any data filtering, selective inclusion, or exclusion you’re unintentionally doing either in GA4 or in your BigQuery query could result in differences.
Lastly, examine the timing of your queries. If your query is not in real-time, you might be factoring in more recent data in BigQuery that hasn’t been accounted for in GA4, hence resulting in the difference.
Hope these points guide you towards fixing the discrepancy!
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