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Noah
Noah
Jan 19, 2025, 10:14 AM
Forwarded from another channel:
Forwarded thread from another channel:
Grace
Grace
Dec 16, 2024, 11:25 AM
I am stuck on why I'm getting 2 different numbers in Looker for GA with calculated field and filters.
it's only a 190 delta but I don't even know how to answer clients question about why it's being calculated differently, other than one is a filter and the other a calculated field.
Here's my setup, I have a scorecard using 2 filters, one for organic, one for LPs that start with /news.
Then in a table I created a calculated field to group the URLs with CASE SQL
Both using same date range, dimensions and metrics.
What do I NOT know about calculated fields and casing vs filter?? SQL is overreporting a bit. Is the higher number more accurate?
Michael Kupfer
Michael Kupfer
Dec 16, 2024, 11:40 AM
Do your filter definitions exactly match what you're 'casing' for? For example, are you defining Organic as session channel group = 'organic search' in both? Is your 'news' definition using the same slash (escaped if in regex) and lowercase in both?
Grace
Grace
Dec 16, 2024, 11:45 AM
the filter I'm using is the same for scorecard and table which is session medium equals organic.
My filter for scorecard is regex match /news.* and my case statement is this
Michael Kupfer
Michael Kupfer
Dec 16, 2024, 11:50 AM
Is there a valid URL that just ends at /news? The .* in your regex requires there is at least one more character in the URL after the word news, so it would exclude just /news itself, I believe.
Grace
Grace
Dec 16, 2024, 11:51 AM
ok yes, there is valid news URL
Michael Kupfer
Michael Kupfer
Dec 16, 2024, 11:52 AM
Try updating that line in your case statement to just say Landing page + query string, "/news"
Michael Kupfer
Michael Kupfer
Dec 16, 2024, 11:52 AM
Or to be more extra careful "/news.*|/news$"
Grace
Grace
Dec 16, 2024, 11:55 AM
ugh doesn't change the numbers ????
Michael Kupfer
Michael Kupfer
Dec 16, 2024, 11:59 AM
Is the filter on the scorecard also a regex or just a "starts with"? Maybe try making that a regex too if it's not already.... at least it'll show you if the issue is related to that.
Grace
Grace
Dec 16, 2024, 12:00 PM
It was using start with then changed to same regex you suggested to catch the news LP and its children...gave me same number. this site has millions of pages so I'm blaming it on that
Michael Kupfer
Michael Kupfer
Dec 16, 2024, 12:02 PM
Maybe someone else can weigh in :face_exhaling:
Michael Kupfer
Michael Kupfer
Dec 16, 2024, 12:02 PM
I know the pain of these minor but unexplained issues
Grace
Grace
Dec 16, 2024, 12:02 PM
and to make this worse. I just realized my GEO bucket is even worse. scorecard showing 400K while table showing 158K....ugh
Nico Brooks
Nico Brooks
Dec 16, 2024, 12:47 PM
This is just a theory, but your comment "this site has millions of pages" makes me think might be involved. Here's the theoretical part: for the case statement in your calculated field to work, the query that gets run by the GA4 connector returns rows with LP as a dimension, and because of cardinality, you only get unique values for the first 500 LPs based on volume of users. For your scorecard, the filter gets applied to the query that goes to GA4, in which case I believe cardinality won't apply, because it is not returning a dimension that is affected by cardinality.
To test this, you could try applying your filter in the GA4 Reporting UX Landing page report - if I'm right, the total number of users should be close to 158k. Then try running the same report as an Exploration - Explorations aren't affected by cardinality, so you should get a number closer to 400k.
Grace
Grace
Dec 16, 2024, 12:54 PM
Great! Thank you. I'll take a look and definitely report back
Nico Brooks
Nico Brooks
Dec 16, 2024, 12:59 PM
One thing I'm not sure about is whether the summary metrics at the top of the LP report will be affected by cardinality - the rows returned will, so you could try exporting and summing users, but that will double count users who landed on more than one page over the course of multiple sessions. :face_with_rolling_eyes:
Nico Brooks
Nico Brooks
Dec 16, 2024, 1:02 PM
Regarding how to explain it to the client, how about ?
Nico Brooks
Nico Brooks
Dec 16, 2024, 1:09 PM
Also, I think my comment "you only get unique values for the first 500 LPs" is wrong - the way cardinality affects dimensions .

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