Click count ?? Google Vs Clicktracks

I have a pretty huge difference between what google says are my clicks and what clicktracks says. I just started my first campaign last week. Here are my strange results:

Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - Monday, September 06, 2004

Google: 297
Clictracks: 211

That is a huge difference?? Any reason why??

I realize differences in their time and my log time are 4 hours.
I also realize some clicks might not make it to my site but 86
is huge? This is at a cost of at least $32.

Here is a one day example:

Google: 58
Clictracks: 44

Can't be right??

Thanks everyone

PLEASE?

I think it's more no one has come up with an answer yet. Some questions are not easily answered unless someone else has had a similar experience.

I have never tried them but my girlfriend had the same complain about them.

I would take it up with Google and see what happens. Let us know how that turns out if you do.

One possible reason is that Google shows your ads on sites other than Google. Clicktracks might not be counting some of the non-Google clicks if the referring URL doesn't provide the necessary tracking info. I've found this to be the case for us (we use ClickTracks also).

I've often heard it said (even by the tracking software companies) that you should use their numbers for relative progress, not for their absolute accuracy (I know that's not very comforting). My gut is that the Google numbers are more likely to be correct than the ClickTracks #s.

I had an online demo with ClickTracks the other day and they acknowledged this problem. They said that their number is the number of people who actually make it to the landing page. The number that Google displays are the number of people that clicked on the word. Possible reasons for the difference in the numbers, someone quickly clicking the back button after clicking, dns error, etc. Ask them, they would give you the reasons.

Never ever ever ever take what a log analyser (Webtrends, regular Clicktracks) or ASP (Hitbox.com, Clicktracks ASP) as 100% accurate. most are about 96% accurate or so but logs have their limits and so do ASP. Trust Adwords! Also a log analyser or ASP DONT know if a click is fraudulent or not.

are there any perfect/free log analyzers?

Nope! compare products and just use one that you like.

Make sure clicktracks is only counting the paid google saerches, and not all google searches.