{"id":188,"date":"2012-08-07T19:38:06","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T17:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.adwiserhq.com\/blog\/?p=188"},"modified":"2018-08-15T07:49:45","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T05:49:45","slug":"anonymous-adwords-placements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.adwiserhq.com\/blog\/anonymous-adwords-placements\/","title":{"rendered":"Anonymous AdWords placements"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update 2 (august 2018):\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Should you still want to see specific placements that are sending you “anonymous” traffic you’ll need to leave the Google Analytics interface and use Google’s Analytics API. Three easy ways are Google’s Data Studio<\/a>, Google Analytics’ Query Explorer<\/a> and Google Sheets with a Google Analytics add-on.<\/p>\n

Update 1:<\/strong> as of June 2013, Google Analytics no longer “de-anonymizes ” URLs reported as anonymous by Google AdWords (see the comments below). It was fun while it lasted, though.<\/em><\/p>\n

Having a look at a placement performance report a few days ago I was both surprised and annoyed to see that I got the most clicks<\/strong> and incurred the biggest costs<\/strong> for some famous AdSense publishers, by the names of x65tw5263something.anonymous.google<\/em> and such.<\/p>\n

Obviously, those placements only got me clicks and no conversions, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this.<\/p>\n

\"AdWords<\/p>\n

\u00a0According to Google, “Some publishers choose to offer placements anonymously and not disclose their site names to advertisers.”<\/em> (http<\/a>:\/\/<\/a>support<\/a>.<\/a>google<\/a>.<\/a>com<\/a>\/<\/a>adwords<\/a>\/<\/a>bin<\/a>\/<\/a>answer<\/a>.<\/a>py<\/a>?<\/a>hl<\/a>=<\/a>en<\/a>&<\/a>answer<\/a>=2471191<\/a>). Which, to me, reads “you may find yourself spending money without knowing where your ads appear”.<\/p>\n

It’s like going out to dinner, asking for the bill and seeing, next to everything, from hors d’oeuvres to desserts, some items which requested to remain anonymous<\/em>. In spite of representing a significant part of the bill. They just don’t like publicity<\/em>, you know, so they chose to remain anonymous. In the background. Discrete<\/em>. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Luckily, every AdWords account I run is linked to a Google Analytics account, and AdWords related data is in there as well. And – lo and behold – Google Analytics knows no such thing as anonymous placement URLs. Every URL that got me at least a click is there, undisguised. In the foreground, for all to see. Transparent.<\/p>\n

Which means that I can see, per placement domain or URL:<\/p>\n