I thought I found a way using the social tracking feature of Google Analytics to combine Google Website Optimizer experiment information with AdSense data without touching the Google Analytics code.

Turns out I was wrong.

The goal was to change the AdSense code on a website and add Website Optimizer code to it. As these tools are not intended to work together I have to use Google Analytics manually to track which variation of my experiment resulted in which AdSense CTR.

In the tests I ran everything looked good but on a real website the picture was different altogether.

Here you see that the pages I test actually produce some AdSense data.

And on the next screenshot you can see that the social tracking for these sites works well.

You can see the experiment ID and the combination running. The number of visits adds up with the number of page impressions of the previous screenshot.

But turning to the AdSense tab for this view produces something unexpected.

Not all the experiment combinations are listed and the AdSense data is always clear.

My guess is that there must be a runtime conflict or separate data pools used or both.

So I guess it’s back to custom variables.

AdSense · Google Analytics

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