Is Google Analytics inflating my session count?

If you notice some sessions with 100% bounce rate / 0 page hits / 0:00 session duration, you might be wondering if the integration is inflating your session count. 

Here’s what you need to know:

This is a byproduct of how Google Analytics works. Google Analytics attributes additional converting sessions to existing users rather than adding additional conversions to existing sessions. Unfortunately, this is not something we can change.

Calls to Session Trackers

Since we can identify the session that led to the call, we can pull in the Client ID that Google Analytics assigns to a website visitor. We include that Client ID when we send the event to Google Analytics so that the phone call event is associated with the user. However, Google Analytics will still generate an additional session tied to the event with no other web activity or page hits.

Calls to a Source tracker

We have no way of getting the Client ID from Google Analytics for these types of calls, so we send a user ID we generate. This creates an additional user and session with no page hits.

As a workaround, you can set up a new view that filters out the events that we post and use that view for session and user data. You’ll also want to set up an additional unfiltered view that will allow you to continue to view CallRail event data. Then you can use both views to report separately on session metrics and event metrics.