the startups.com platform about startups.comCheck out the new Startups.com - A Comprehensive Startup University
Education
Planning
Mentors
Funding
Customers
Assistants
Clarity
Categories
Business
Sales & Marketing
Funding
Product & Design
Technology
Skills & Management
Industries
Other
Business
Career Advice
Branding
Financial Consulting
Customer Engagement
Strategy
Sectors
Getting Started
Human Resources
Business Development
Legal
Other
Sales & Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Search Engine Optimization
Public Relations
Branding
Publishing
Inbound Marketing
Email Marketing
Copywriting
Growth Strategy
Search Engine Marketing
Sales & Lead Generation
Advertising
Other
Funding
Crowdfunding
Kickstarter
Venture Capital
Finance
Bootstrapping
Nonprofit
Other
Product & Design
Identity
User Experience
Lean Startup
Product Management
Metrics & Analytics
Other
Technology
WordPress
Software Development
Mobile
Ruby
CRM
Innovation
Cloud
Other
Skills & Management
Productivity
Entrepreneurship
Public Speaking
Leadership
Coaching
Other
Industries
SaaS
E-commerce
Education
Real Estate
Restaurant & Retail
Marketplaces
Nonprofit
Other
Dashboard
Browse Search
Answers
Calls
Inbox
Sign Up Log In

Loading...

Share Answer

Menu
Customer Acquisition: How can I accurately calculate my customer CPA when relying on UTM parameters to track different advertising channels?
MY
MY
Mike York, Start-up, Corporate and everything in between. answered:

Hi,

It really is necessary to take a look at your current system to get to the bottom of it, but one possible issue is duped conversion data. An example of this would be tracking Facebook ads, Google Adwords and organic conversions, tracking these out of the platforms themselves you may have them all reporting a conversion at the platform side. If you compare this to a de-duped view either through attribution modelling out of GA or another view, then you would get a different picture of CPA.

It becomes more difficult as you start to use display and remarketing advertising as well, so these may be factors at play.

The other option is just the way the tracking is fired, GA will have variance to Adwords, to DoubleClick etc. even though they are all Google platforms, it's just the way it is.

As with all things tracking, it's about understanding there will be variance, but putting in place measures to reduce it, we call it "being less wrong". At the moment you have +/- 100% which is obviously not acceptable, but a few measures in place to get one source of truth with +/- 10% would probably be completely acceptable.

Happy to schedule a call if you'd like to discuss this in more details.

Cheers,
Mike

Talk to Mike Upvote • Share
•••
Share Report

Answer URL

Share Question

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Google+
  • Share by email
About
  • How it Works
  • Success Stories
Experts
  • Become an Expert
  • Find an Expert
Answers
  • Ask a Question
  • Recent Answers
Support
  • Help
  • Terms of Service
Follow

the startups.com platform

Startups Education
Startup Planning
Access Mentors
Secure Funding
Reach Customers
Virtual Assistants

Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.