Let’s review the newest features of the Google Analytics Product that were announced today as “Powerful. Flexible. Intelligent.”:

1. Expanded Goals - Expanded Goals now allow administrators the ability to add up to 20 Goals per profile, a 500% increase on the previous number of four goals per profile!

2. Site Engagement Goals - Site Engagement Goals now allow you to more robustly measure user-engagement and branding efforts off of your web site. Instead of only being able to define URLs as goals, you can now define the time on site or the number of page views as a goal in Google Analytics.

3. Expanded Mobile Tracking - Google Analytics will now have the ability to track mobile applications built for the iPhone and for the Android platforms. Mobile site owners will be able to install specified tracking code on their mobile site, which will allow them to analyze what actions are taken with a mobile application and what features are used.

4. Advanced Table Filtering - This will be enabled in all standard Google Analytics report tables and will allow users to filter rows based on metric conditions and combinations, just like a user can when creating an Advanced Segment.

5. Unique Visitors – This is a new metric in Google Analytics that will be available when creating a Custom Report. This makes it possible to see how many actual visitors  make up any user-defined segment in a Custom Report.

6. Multiple Custom Variables - This is a highly flexible feature that allows multiple labels to be assigned to each unique visitor. In the past, users could only specify one label via a user-defined segment using the _setVar JavaScript function. Now, users will have the ability to create multiple variables for one unique visitor. These multiple custom variables can now be collected at the page, session, and visitor-level concurrently.

7. Advanced Segment and Custom Report Sharing - Even though this was already announced, this option allows users to share Custom Reports and Advanced Segments with each other via a permanent URL that can be forwarded or emailed to another user.

8. Intelligence Reports - Intelligence Reports will be part of a brand new report section which will feature pre-defined alerts for your Google Analytics account data. This is designed to alert a Google Analytics user to a significant change in data patterns over daily, weekly and monthly periods. This is just a part of the initial release of an algorithmic driven intelligence engine.

9. Custom Alerts - Need to set-up your own alerts with your own parameters? Now you can do just that within the Intelligence Report section of Google Analytics. Define your own set of rules and make your own determinations as to what is significant for your and your web site, and even let Google Analytics email you when an alert happens!

These features are very exciting, but they are only the beginning of greater things to come in 2010. These features are also being pushed out to users over the next few weeks, so check your Google Analytics account frequently (which you do already) and be the first person on your block to use them!

This is an important topic because there are lots of online storefronts, blogs, microsites, and other web site sections that are hosted on a sub-domain or a completely separate domain that are often forgotten about when it comes time for installing Google Analytics. When tagging isn’t present on a portion of your web site, not only does your bounce rate increase, you also start collecting “dirty data”, including self-referrals in your Traffic Sources section, along with a high than normal amount of direct traffic.

So, how do you implement Google Analytics across sub-domains or across multiple domains? It’s actually quite simple to do, as long as you follow the exact instructions outlined below. Let’s start first with the easy one, sub-domains. We’ll then work our way into the more complex one, multiple domains.

Tracking Google Analytics Across Sub-Domains
Let’s say that your web site’s URL is www.site.com. Let’s also say that your site’s blog is hosted on blog.site.com. Because of the way that the Google Analytics Tracking Code works, installing the code as is from your Google Analytics account will produce a lot of referrals from www.site.com or blog.site.com in your All Traffic Sources report. This means that the visitor’s original referring information (Google, Yahoo, Bing.com, etc…) will be lost if the visitor goes from your main site to your sub-domain site, or vice-versa.

To avoid this headache, simply update your Google Analytics Tracking Code to include the call to _setDomainName, as shown in bold below:

<script type=”text/javascript”>
var gaJsHost = ((”https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(”%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(”UA-XXXXXX-X”);
pageTracker._setDomainName(”.site.com”);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}</script>

This modified version of the Google Analytics Tracking Code will need to be installed on both your main site and the sub-domain site. If you have multiple sub-domain sites, then all of those will also need to have this exact modified version as well. Finally, be sure to change “site.com” within the Tracking Code to your site’s domain.

This is relatively easy for you or your webmaster to do.

Tracking Google Analytics Across Multiple Domains
Setting up Google Analytics Tracking Code on multiple domains is a bit tougher than setting GA up on sub-domains, but it’s definitely doable. The following instructions are what you’ll need to follow if you have multiple domains, for example, www.site.com and www.somethingelse.com.

There are a couple of different ways that you can pull this off in documentation online. However, this is our preferred way. First, you’ll need to use calls to _setAllowLinker and _setAllowHash in your Google Analytics Tracking Code on each multiple domain site, like the bolded calls below:

<script type=”text/javascript”>
var gaJsHost = ((”https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(”%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(”UA-XXXXXX-X”);
pageTracker._setAllowLinker(”true”);
pageTracker._setAllowHash(false);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}</script>

This is normally done without too much of a problem. The problems come about with this next item, which absolutely must be installed in order for multiple domain tracking to function. On every link to and from each domain, _link must be used, and on every form that takes a user to and from each domain, _linkByPost must be used.

For text links or image links, use _link as a JavaScript onClick event:

onclick=”pageTracker._link(’http://www.site.com/page.html’); return false;”

You’ll need to update “http://www.site.com/page.html” in the above _link function with the full path that a visitor will be taken to on your own web site.

For submit buttons or “add to cart” buttons, use _linkByPost as a JavaScript onSubmit event:

onsubmit=”pageTracker._linkByPost(this)”

It bears repeating that either _link or _linkByPost MUST be used on links to and from each domain. A user may click on a text link that uses _link going from one domain to the next and not affect their tracking, but if they click on a link on the next domain that takes the same user back to the original domain, _link must be present on that link as well, or referring information gets lost and self-referrals start to occur in your Traffic Sources report.

Work closely with your webmaster or IT guru to make sure that _link and _linkByPost are used on every link or form on every domain. It may be tedious, but it’s critical for proper cross-domain tracking with Google Analytics.

We hope that helps you tag your sub-domains and multiple domains properly with Google Analytics. It’s a bit of extra work, but data that is as squeaky clean as possible is a fantastic reward for your efforts!

Most AdWords marketers also have a Google Analytics account at their disposal, but a very high percentage of marketers today do not have their Google Analytics account synced with their Google AdWords account. When your AdWords and Analytics accounts are not synced, you could be:

1. Missing out on valuable AdWords data.
2. Seeing a lot of (not set) keywords.
3. Experiencing a very high distortion between your visits and your clicks.
4. Not taking advantage of the “Clicks” tab within the AdWords section of reports with the Traffic Sources section.
5. Mixed or garbled information in your Campaigns, Keywords, or Ad Content reports.

Today, we are going to show you how to sync your Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts together, so that you can join the party and collect valuable AdWords data within your Google Analytics account.

Step 1: Take charge and become an administrator!
In order for you to sync AdWords and Analytics, the email address that you use to log-in to your AdWords account must also be an administrator of the Google Analytics account. If it is not already an administrator, please get a hold of the person that is the Administrator of your Google Analytics account, and ask them to make you an Administrator. You really shouldn’t do anything else before this happens.

Step 2: Log-In to AdWords and sync your accounts!
After you’ve become a Google Analytics Administrator, it’s time to sync your accounts together.

First, click on the Reporting tab and click on the Google Analytics link, found on the top navigation menu of your AdWords Account:

Once you do that, you should see a screen that looks like the one below, which gives you two options. You can choose to create a new Google Analytics account (no!), or, you can select the second option to link your existing Google Analytics account to your Google AdWords account (yes!). Click on Continue to move on to the next step.

After clicking on Continue, you will reach the final step in the AdWords to Analytics syncing process. Your Google Analytics account’s name should appear in the drop-down menu in the middle of the screen-shot below (if you’re not an Administrator, it won’t appear). Leave “Destination URL Auto-Tagging” checked on, and click on Link my account towards the bottom of the screen.

Congratulations! You’ve just synced your Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts together. That was fairly easy, was it not?

Step 3: Enjoy The Results!
Now that your Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts are synced, you can enjoy Campaign, Ad Group, and Keyword data from your AdWords marketing efforts found within the Traffic Sources section of reports. After a couple of days, you’ll also be able to see data populating within the Clicks tab within your AdWords Campaigns report. ROI, Revenue Per Click, and Margin are three new metrics that will appear across the top score-card to give some additional meaning and performance evaluation for your AdWords Campaigns.

You’ll also be able to take advantage of the Keyword Positions report, which will show you keyword click and performance metrics based on the position of each one of your ads, as they appear in a search result.  Also, if you participate in Google TV Ads, you’ll be able to see impression data for your TV Ads, including cost and CPM metrics.

So what are you waiting for? Log-in to your Google AdWords account and sync it to your Google Analytics account today!

How to Sign Up:
You’ll need a valid domain name (the URL of your site), an email address, a password, and an invitation code. Visit PercentMobile’s Log-In page and click on the “Request One Here” E-Mail link to receive an invitation code. Once you’re signed-up, you can view all kinds of neat mobile data.

You will also have to install a very small snippet of code your site’s mobile pages. If you don’t have a specific mobile version of your site, install it on your regular site pages, preferably toward the top of the source code (mobile phones are a lot slower than your laptop or a desktop computer, so the code should be as high up as possible for a better chance of collecting visitor data).

What you get:
In short, you get everything you ever wanted to know and were afraid to ask about the mobile visitors to your web site.

For starters, you get to see a nice visual of each type of phone that has brought a visitor to your site, including the percentage of visitors from that phone model and technical specifics of each phone when you mouse-over any image. Here’s an example from one of PercentMobile’s display reports from Gothamist LLC:

Below this neat visual display, you’ll find a complete breakdown of Brands, Screens, Providers, and Country / Territory locations. Here is an example of a list of mobile service providers:

Aside from these awesome stats for your own web site, PercentMobile’s homepage is a fun-fact haven for all things mobile. For example, did you know that:

53% of US Mobile Traffic comes from Apple Devices?
17% are Blackberry Devices?
71% of Apple Devices run on OS3.x?
80% of South African Phones have a Number Pad?
5% of Devices weigh between 150g and 200g?
2% of Devices are 2-Way-Sliders?
12% of Phones have a FM Radio?
55% of Devices have a Touchscreen?
80% of Devices are Candybar shaped?
70% of Devices in Iran are from SonyEricsson?

If mobile analytics is something that you’re considering, or something that happens to be important for your web site, I strongly recommend creating a free PercentMobile account. The cool visual display showing a picture of every phone model alone is worth the time and effort of creating the free account and installing the very small code snippet on your site’s pages.

Tucked away quietly in the middle of the Content section of your Google Analytics profile, the Top Landing Pages report won’t dazzle you with an AJAX-based, “do-it-yourself” module like the Custom Advanced Segments area or fancy click-data on top of your web site like the Site Overlay report. In fact, the Top Landing Pages report has only three quantitative columns – most reports start out with at least five or six.

The report even has an evil twin – the Top Exit Pages report, which for the few folks who discover Top Landing Pages, can confound the two reports and even go as far as thinking that one is the continuation of the other (ouch!).

So what is it about Top Landing Pages that is so valuable, and such a hidden gem? Two words: Bounce Rate. The sole purpose of the Top Landing Pages report is  to compare Bounce Rates against the entry pages that your visitors used to reach your web site. And, as we all know, Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-page visits to your web site. High bounce rates are bad, because they suggest that your Landing Pages are either broken, unattractive, or did not meet visitor expectations. Low bounce rates are very good, because they suggest that your Landing Page content was interesting and persuasive enough to entice a visitor to go to another one of your site pages.

When you bring up the Top Landing Pages report, you’ll immediately see your top 10 Landing Pages (or, entry points) of your web site, and three metrics for each Landing Page: Entrances, Bounces, and Bounce Rate. You can use the “Rows” drop-down at the bottom-right of your report table to see more Landing Pages if you choose, and the “Filter” tool on the bottom-left of your report table to include or exclude certain pages from the report.

I mentioned two paragraphs ago that a high bounce rate is bad, and a low bounce rate is good. However, I won’t give you a percentage and say whether or not that figure is good or bad. A Bounce Rate of 35% may be very high for your web site, or it may be very low, which depends on several factors, such as visitor demographics and your web site’s industry vertical. Comparing your Bounce Rate against a static number will not give you an accurate measure of performance. However, Comparing your Bounce Rate against your site’s average will allow you to provide a backdrop of context for each individual Landing Page, as shown in the following image, with the Comparison to Site Average view enabled:

After you’ve used Top Landing Pages for your own web site, determine which pages are in need of some optimization work. Is a Landing Page that you’re using for your pay per click campaigns suffering from a really high bounce rate? Now would be the time to possibly re-write that page’s content, make it more conversion-oriented, or fix any technical errors that may be present. Is one of your category-level pages a rock-star with a minuscule bounce rate? You may want to give Kudos to your SEO team, as their copywriting and keyword-matching optimization work is paying off.

Now that the best-kept Google Analytics secret has been exposed, add this report to your dashboard, or set-up a scheduled email report so that you can stay ahead of the curve and begin lowering those Bounce Rates!

What are Secondary Dimensions?
Secondary Dimensions allow you to add in a layer of data to any report table within the Google Analytics interface. With secondary dimensions, you can save time and effort, while simultaneously obtaining valuable insights within your report data. All you have to do is visit any report – Keywords, All Traffic Sources, or your Top Content report – and look for a new drop-down menu directly underneath the scorecard, shown in this image:

Then, you can start diving deep. For example, segment your Traffic Sources report by “keyword“, and you’ll get this:

You can also do fancier analysis, like segmenting your Traffic Sources report by City, while using the Comparison to Site Average view to evaluate the percentage of New Visits from each location, which can help you evaluate your geo-targeted marketing efforts:

With the power of Secondary Dimensions, you will be able to take your analysis efforts to the next level. Because every standard dimension is available in secondary dimensions, you have virtually limitless possibilities. Try segmenting your Keywords report by Landing Page, your Top Content report by Visitor Type, or your Map Overlay report table by Source for some fun (and useful) information! Secondary Dimensions are addictive, so consider this your only warning!

Next time we will talk about another new Google Analytics Feature, Pivot Tables (or Pivoting), and show you how to use Pivoting in conjunction with Secondary Dimensions for even greater reporting power!

While it’s great that so many folks are diving head-first into the ocean of analytics, it’s very important to understand that one individual cannot do it alone. Everyone – even one man / one woman shows – needs a village…a community of individuals that can support, educate, and collaborate with one another to install, upload, and subsequently measure and take meaningful, useful insights from their analytics data.

Each person needs to rely upon any one (if not all) of the following types of people to truly achieve Web Analytics success:

1. The Web Analytics “Champion”
Each organization needs that one person who stands proud and champions the cause to their colleagues. This person takes command and learns everything possible about Web Analytics, and can eat and drink metrics and reports for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This person can calculate search campaign ROI and Average Order Value figures in their sleep. He / She is the quarterback / point guard / captain of the team.

2. A Colleague who Shares the Vision
Forging a relationship with a co-worker who can get as excited and enthusiastic about Web Analytics as the “Web Analytics Champion” is key to promoting a culture of data insights throughout your organization. It becomes contagious to the rest of the company when they see that others are being positively influenced by Web Analytics, and they’ll want to be a part of it.

3. A Friend in Need is a Friend in IT
No matter what type of Web Analytics program you choose to run with, a technical / IT person is going to be necessary at one point or another. IT folks can help you upload any necessary scripts, code your website’s pages, manage APIs, parse server log-files, fix and repair bugs, and anything else needed for Web Analytics success. Making friend(s) in the IT department is a crucial, often overlooked step.

4. Don’t Forget the Marketers
At the end of the day, the purpose of Web Analytics is to understand the behavior and actions of your website’s visitors. Marketing / advertisement is what drives traffic to a website, be it a pay-per-click ad or a couple of months of hard-nosed SEO optimization work. The marketing department is going to need reports and statistics from Web Analytics to be able to refine their efforts, and evaluate which are working and profitable, which ones are wastes of money, and which ones have potential.

5. Sell, Sell, Sell!
Sometimes, the concepts and the philosophy of Web Analytics are hard to explain throughout an organization – anyone who has ever heard “Why Should I Spend Any Time with This?” will understand. This is a great opportunity to get a sales rep, or even the VP of Sales on board with Web Analytics. They can probably share with you some persuasive techniques that can be used to attract interest.

6. Who’s The Boss?
Not Tony Danza – unless he IS your boss. The Senior VP, Chief Technical Officer, Executive Vice-President, or perhaps the CEO themselves should be on board the Web Analytics gravy train. This is, understandably, a vital part in the ultimate success of building a culture of Web Analytics within your company – important colleagues or co-workers who were on the fence before may be strongly persuaded to jump on the bandwagon if a supervisor, partner, or even the owner supports the efforts.

In a lot of situations, people do not have the ability to take the reigns and create this prosperous culture of finding actionable insights. They work alone, in a small group, or in large companies where teams are spread across several offices, making building a community near impossible. Fortunately for us, MoreVisibility is that culture of Web Analytics. We are a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant, a Google AdWords Qualified Company, and have an entire organization of colleagues who champion the cause for Web Analytics.

At MoreVisibility, we see a lot of websites out there using Google Analytics that are not tracking their PDF Files as either pageviews or events – both of which are possible to do. The best part about it is that it’s very easy to configure, which is good news for any person on your IT / technical team.

To track any PDF file on your website, simply follow the quick steps below and you’ll be well on your way. It gets a bit technical from here on out, so roll up your sleeves and put your hard hats on.

1. Find a page that links to one of your PDF files.

2. Find where the PDF file is on the page – look for the anchor (<a>) tag. It should look something like this:

<a href="files/quarterly-earnings.pdf" target="_blank">Quarterly Earnings Report</a>

3. Insert the following “onClick” event within this anchor tag. It should look like this:

<a href="files/quarterly-earnings.pdf" target="_blank" onClick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/files/quarterly-earnings.pdf');">Quarterly Earnings Report</a>

4. Upload the page and enjoy the results! You should see the number of times that your PDF file was accessed within the Content >> Top Content section of your Google Analytics profile.

Tracking a PDF Download as an Event (vs. as a Pageview)
To track your PDF Downloads as Events, simply use the _trackEvent function instead of the _trackPageview function, like so:

<a href="files/quarterly-earnings.pdf" target="_blank" onClick="pageTracker._trackEvent("PDF Files", "Downloads", "Quarterly Earnings Report", "500");">Quarterly Earnings Report</a>

(Learn all about Event Tracking with my latest blog post from last week)

The activity that occurred on your PDF Files will be within the Event Tracking section, which is a sub-section of the Content section of reports, instead of in the Top Content report.

Is there a difference between tracking PDF files as Pageviews or as Events?
Other than the obvious fact that one way will count them as a pageview, while the other way will count them as an event, the biggest difference between the two is the ability to track Goals. As of today, Google Analytics does not have the ability to track Events as Goals, so if you were planning to track all PDF downloads as Goals, you will need to track them as Pageviews, and not as Events. Advanced Segments are now available for Events, but they are not the same as Goals.

So what are you waiting for? Grab your webmaster and start tracking your PDF files with Google Analytics!

For starters, the new Event Tracking section of reports will be located within the main Content section, right underneath the Site Search report sub-section. Once there, you’ll be introduced to four new metrics: Categories, Actions, Labels, and Values. These metrics are also the building blocks of setting up Event Tracking on your flash applet or video player, as we’ll talk about in a little bit. First, let’s cover the metrics / reports that make up this section.

1. Categories
Categories are the highest level of organizational structure that you can have with Event Tracking. Think of it like the “root” level of a directory. You would use labels like “Videos” or “Downloads” for your Categories, and they would most likely be used multiple times throughout the main elements that you wish to track with Event Tracking.

2. Actions
Actions are exactly what they sound like – the actual interactions with your object. If you’re setting up Event Tracking for a video on your site, you could track a user pressing Play, Stop, Rewind, Fast-Forward, or adjusting the volume as an Action.

3. Labels
Labels are an optional value with Event Tracking, which allow you to provide additional information about the Action that just happened. Labels can be used for naming a movie (the title of the Movie), or the URL of a downloaded file, or some other name that you’d like to use for the subsequent Action.

4. Values
Values are also optional elements in Event Tracking that allow you to assign a numerical value to any action. These can help you quantify all of your actions, and Google Analytics will even throw in an Average Value figure for you to get an idea of how popular your Actions are.

Putting it all together
Because of the updated Google Analytics Tracking Code’s (ga.js) object-oriented modeling, newer features like Event Tracking are highly customizable, and can be programmed onto your movie or applet in a variety of different ways. However, the “standard” coding for Event Tracking looks like this:

pageTracker._trackEvent("Videos", "Stop", "G.I. Joe Trailer", "150");

Notice in my code example that you can see the four metrics in order from left to right after the call to _trackEvent- Category (”Videos”), Action (”Stop”), Label (”G.I. Joe Trailer”), and Value (”150″). This format must be followed, no matter where or how you decide to use Event Tracking.

A few general notes regarding Event Tracking

1.  You must use the newer ga.js tracking script on your website’s pages in order to be able to utilize Event Tracking – it will not work using urchin.js.

2. There is a maximum of 500 Events allowed in a single user session (visit). Because of this, you should avoid setting up tracking for excessive mouse movements, tracking every second a video is played for, or every time someone right-clicks their mouse while playing your newest shoot-’em-up flash game.

3. Event Tracking – previously considered an interaction hit – is no longer counted as such by Google Analytics. This means that your Bounce Rate or your Average Time on Site metrics won’t be affected. Check out my blog post from back in January about Event Tracking interaction hits.

For deep technical schematics on Event Tracking, check out the Google Analytics Event Tracking Guide.

Happy Event Tracking!

Websites like bit.ly, SnipURL, Tiny.cc, and several others have become mega-popular over the last few years, as they have become vital in allowing people to share links via Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I’ve even started to see them appear in some newsletters and promotional emails as well.

While bit.ly type websites are great, they actually present an analytics tracking challenge. These sites typically redirect users from their website to your destination website, which causes Google Analytics to treat any visitor clicking on one of these links as “direct”, even though they really originated from your Facebook page, your monthly newsletter, or a press release (So technically, not tagging these URLs will also pollute your direct traffic segment, which was our blog post from earlier in the week).

So, what can you do to properly track your shortened URLs in Google Analytics? Take the following 4 steps for short URL tracking success:

1. Grab Your Destination URL - Copy the URL of the page that you ultimately want your visitors to land on.

Example: http://www.website.com/page.html

2.  Run it through the Google Analytics Tool: URL Builder – The URL Builder Tool will append the necessary query parameters to the end of your destination URL. This is the same page that is used when marketers want to track their non-AdWords cost-per-click traffic in GA.

Example: http://www.website.com/page.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social-media&utm_content=status-update&utm_campaign=social-media-traffic

3. Run your new URL through bit.ly (or your favorite URL shortener) – Copy your newly created URL and paste it into the URL shortening tool – you should now have a very short, but analytics-trackable URL.

Example: http://bit.ly/MrOle

4. Test your short link – Click on your short URL and make sure the long string of query parameters that you copied from step 2 appears in the address bar of your favorite browser. If the query parameters are there – and your destination page has the Google Analytics Tracking Code correctly installed – you should begin to see visits from your short URL in your All Traffic Sources report, within the Traffic Sources section.

It’s a bit of a manual process – especially if you have a lot of short URLs everywhere – but it’s completely worth the time that it takes to run them through the URL Builder and appropriately track the visits off of these links in Google Analytics. The hard part will be figuring out what to use for the Source, Medium, and Campaign dimensions, because that is what is going to control how the data appears. My advice: use a short, common-sense naming convention, and you really can’t go wrong.