Why SkyGlue’s visitor count is different from Google Analytics visitor count

SkyGlue stores visitor IDs in a custom dimension in GA. The visitor count in SkyGlue visitor report is based on the total number of visitor IDs stored in the custom dimension. If a web page is loaded and a SkyGlue event is triggered (e.g. SkyGlue automatic pageview event), there should be a unique visitor Id stored in GA.

It is normal for the visitor sessions reported by SkyGlue to be a little different from Google Analytics’s total count due to the following reasons:

  • One common difference is the immediately bounced traffic. If a visitor visits the site and then immediately leaves, GA may report the visit and SkyGlue may not since SkyGlue JavaScript code fires AFTER the web page is completely loaded. The detailed explanation is here.
  • Also, SkyGlue doesn’t fire events in SkyGlue Setup mode, but GA does. That could cause some minor difference in your setup sessions.
  • If the website’s traffic is large, GA may sample data when retrieving visitor ID data. See details about GA sampling.

If the difference is very large, please check if the SkyGlue code is installed on all pages that have GA code.

Verification approach:

  1. Create an advanced segment that contains sessions with SkyGlue visitor IDs. The condition is “” “match regex” “.*”.  (Sample advanced segment link).
    SegmentWithSkyGlueId
    Optionally, you can create an advanced segment that excludes sessions with SkyGlue visitor IDs for comparison. (Sample advanced segment link)
    SegmentWithoutSkyGlueId
    2. In Google analytics, you can compare this segment with the “All Sessions” segment and see if there is any major difference in the session count for each URL in your website using GA’s page report.CompareSegments_censored