Google Analytics Blog

Upgrade now to the new Core Reporting API

2012-05-30T15:01:00.000-07:00

Core Reporting API Migration Update
Back in December we launched the Core Reporting API to replace the Data Export API. We also announced that we would be shutting down the old Data Export API and that all applications should migrate to the new version.

The time has come for us to shut down the old version. So this is our last reminder to migrate to the new Core Reporting API.

Starting next week, we’ll begin redirecting a portion of Data Export API requests to the Core Reporting API as we prepare to shut down the Data Export API on July 10th. So you'll begin to see Data Feed requests return a Core Reporting API response, and requests for the Account Feed will produce an error.

If you do not migrate, your application will experience service outages.

For more information, visit:
Reminder: Migrate to the new Core Reporting API
Migration Guide: Moving from v2.3 APIs to v2.4 & v3.0

New Guides To Get You Started Fast
It’s important for the Google Analytics APIs to be open and accessible to all developers. It’s common practice for developers learning a new API to start off with the basics and incrementally build from this foundation.

So with that in mind, we wrote a new Hello Analytics API tutorial to give you that basic foundation. The tutorial includes sample code for Java, PHP, Python, and JavaScript. It also walks you through the basic steps of using the Google Analytics API, including registration, authorizing users, retrieving account and profile information, and querying for a report. Once complete you will have a working example that you can customize.

To make it even easier to build applications, we’ve also updated the developer guides for both the Core Reporting API and Management API. Examples for a variety of programming languages have been included, but more importantly the basic concepts have been highlighted.

So whether you’re just starting, updating, or migrating to the new version, you should check out the Hello Analytics API tutorial and Developer Guides before settling down to write that awesome application.

Posted by Pete Frisella, Nick Mihailovski, and Jeetendra Soneja, Analytics API team

Answers To Your Burning Google Analytics Questions

2012-05-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

Last week we hosted a webinar on Getting Started with Analytics and received so many good questions during the event that we didn’t have time to answer all of them. I’ve sorted through the hundreds of questions and below are answers to the most asked and interesting. If you missed the webinar or want to rewatch, it’s now available on the Google Analytics YouTube channel.

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:
Can I measure if a visitor plays a video, downloads a whitepaper, etc?
Yes, use Event Tracking to learn about visitor actions like video plays, or PDF downloads that don't correspond directly to pageviews. And once you set up an Event it can also be tracked as a Goal. You can assign a value to these Events as a microconversion. Start with a larger objective that has a monetary value, like landing a big client, then map out the smaller steps leading up to that sale. For example, you may discover that for your business, an average of 7 PDF downloads corresponds to 1 sale. The value of a download would then be equal to an average sale divided by 7.

How do I learn if my website drives phone calls & offline conversions?
Many business’ customers start researching online, but then pick up the phone and call to complete the sale. Think about what activities a user may do on your website that would motivate them to call. Do they spend time viewing your portfolio, reading testimonials, or checking out prices? Set up Goals to measure these micro-conversion actions that will help you learn which of your sources are providing quality visitors. You can also add unique phone numbers to the landing page or ad that will enable you to identify when a user calls you what marketing source they came from. The GA App Gallery has call-tracking integrations and here is an example of how Google AdWords enables call forwarding and tracking by pay per click campaigns.

Can I track actions that happen on a 3rd party page like email newsletter sign up or checkout?
Since this action happens outside of your website, Google Analytics will not be able to measure it. If you work with a third party vendor check with them to see if they can share with you any tracking information they may have. Be sure to check out the Google Analytics App Gallery to see if there are 3rd party integrations like payment solutions, reporting or email marketing that could work with you to solve this problem.

How do I get Multi-Channel Funnels Assisted Conversion reports in my account?
Similar to your other Analytics reports, Multi-Channel Funnels (MCF) are driven by the Analytics tracking code you have already placed on your webpages. No additional code is required to access MCF reports but you do need a Goal set up in your Analytics Account. Once you have goals set up, the MCF reports will be automatically filled with data for the visitor interactions that lead up to the completion of that goal. Keep in mind viewing MCF reports on a filtered profile can skew your data, learn more in our help center. We will also have a webinar focused on MCF reports coming soon.

Why do my visits in Analytics not match with AdWords or my website hosting service?
All of the AdWords reports in Google Analytics import data directly from the AdWords system, and they usually match the data in your AdWords account exactly. But there can be circumstances where the data can differ. For example AdWords clicks do not equal visitors, if a user clicks on your ad twice within thirty minutes without closing his or her browser this is registered by Analytics as one visit to your site, but it equals two AdWords clicks. Also your Analytics profile could be filtered to exclude visits from IP’s within your company, but your web hosting service could count those as visits. Here is a great article from our Help Center explaining this in more detail.

What is the best way to tag my marketing campaigns? And can I use a URL shortener?
If you need help creating campaign tags for links in your marketing campaigns (Search Marketing, Display Ads, Email Newsletters) check out the tagging tool in our Help Center. Remember to turn on AdWords Auto-tagging if you are running AdWords campaigns as this will automatically insert the campaign tags for you. Yes, you can use a URL shortener like goo.gl or other services out there to successfully pass your campaign tags through a nice short link.

If you’re interested in learning more about Google Analytics, we have a great webinar on Reaching Your Goals with Google Analytics. For more advanced users check out our Marketing Attribution Insights webinar, and watch the blog for more details about our attribution webinar series.

Posted by Ian Myszenski, Google Analytics team

How Two Nonprofits Improve Their Site Performance With Google Analytics

2012-05-25T07:25:00.000-07:00

At Google, we’re proud that our products are used by nonprofits to help them better achieve their objectives and improve the world. We believe that data holds amazing power for all types of organizations and it’s inspiring to see some forward-thinking nonprofits live at the edge of adoption. Today we’d like to share two brief case studies we’ve published: how the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) are using Google Analytics. Links to the full case studies are included after each summary if you’d like to dive deeper.

By tailoring the features of Google Analytics, LunaMetrics helps PBS increase conversions and visits by 30%

Top Notch Programming, The Public Broadcasting System’s interactive arm, helps individual PBS producers and local PBS stations create and promote each section within PBS.org for programs such as NOVA, American Masters, and Sid the Science Kid. A selection of web analytics tools had been installed, but these proved difficult to maintain and use. PBS wanted to develop a coordinated approach to analysis and reporting that would inform their future strategic decisions.

Led by Web Analytics Director Amy Sample, the team at PBS needed a cohesive system across the entire enterprise, and for this they turned to Google Analytics. In addition to top-level analysis of PBS.org and PBSKids.org, they also hoped to implement a solution that would allow producers of individual programs to see only the data on those pages and microsites that related to their own shows. It was critical to have a solution that gave Amy the over-arching view she needed, and the microcosm view that each producer needed. To meet these requirements, LunaMetrics devised a custom technical solution for PBS that expanded their existing standard implementation.

Google Analytics has been a key facilitator in the transformation of PBS online. The tool enables reporting that is robust, tailored and meaningful, which means that stakeholders are no longer focused on static monthly reports. Instead, they are increasingly able to use analytics to inform critical and timely business decisions on a day-to-day basis. Analysis of search engine trends led to an increase in PBS traffic by 30% during the first year after implementation. PBS also used valuable conversion funnel data to optimize the registration path in PBSKids; this activity increased conversions by one-third. Furthermore, since Google Analytics was set up to allow PBS to evaluate the way users consumed video, the broadcaster created two new portals: PBS Video and PBSKIDS Go!

Read the full PBS case study here.

SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) chooses Google Analytics and masters the art of metrics

In 1995, SFMOMA was one of the first museums to launch an institutional website. SFMOMA.org offers a fluid space of exploration in which visitors can easily navigate an online collection of more than 9,000 artworks and a rich archive of studio and video content. The site also has an online store and a detailed calendar of exhibitions and events.

Their primary goal was to develop rich, dynamic content that engages visitors and keeps them coming back to the website as well as the physical museum. SFMOMA’s website receives nearly four times the number of visits than the physical museum. Providing compelling digital content that visitors want was as critical as hosting popular exhibitions.

Google Analytics Certified Partner E-Nor helped SFMOMA connect key business objectives to a robust web analytics strategy and recommended Google Analytics as the best solution for their needs. As a result of the switch to Google Analytics with a thorough implementation plan, SFMOMA saw a tremendous increase in available insights about their online presence. They realized a 15% gain in traffic accuracy, and so were more willing to make decisions based on the data.

They could clearly see what content users liked best, and made changes and improvements to their website to keep them coming back. Their marketing campaigns were tied to sales and other goal conversions, and so they could optimize accordingly.

All this new data is helping produce valuable insights on how the website is used and what marketing efforts and website designs are delivering results. SFMOMA is now prepared to continue its online leadership thanks to careful planning and strategy coupled with an expert use of the advanced features in Google Analytics.

Read the full SFMOMA case study here.

Posted by the Google Analytics team

Social Reports are now found under 'Traffic Sources'

2012-05-24T14:51:00.001-07:00

We’ve recently consolidated the locations of our social reports. The 3 reports, Social Engagement, Social Actions, & Social Pages were previously listed in the Audience section and have been moved to the Traffic Sources -> Social section. Click through to see the reports in your Analytics Account.

In addition we’ve added new social reports and functionality, as detailed on our recent blog post on the launch of our Social Reports. Users now have access to both onsite behavior, the existing data, and off-site social activities of partners such as Google+, Digg, and Reddit among others. Below is a summary of how to access the data from the old reports in the new ones.

To access onsite activities use the Traffic Sources -> Social -> Social Plugins report. Here you see the social activities broken down by content. Selecting a specific page shows you the social activities by network for that page. Click the “Social Source and action” tab highlighted in the screenshot below to see a breakdown of the itemized activities.

Hope you’ll find this information helpful and learn more about how social channels are delivering value to your website.

Posted by Linus Chou, Google Analytics Team

Join Google Analytics on Google+

2012-05-17T08:40:00.000-07:00

Google Analytics users are part of a passionate community. Many of you go beyond using the product and actively seek a connection with Google team members and other GA users to stay at the edge of what’s next. For example, more than 80,000 readers subscribe to the Google Analytics blog through our RSS feed, our videos on YouTube have been viewed more than 3.5 million times and well over 100,000 people follow us on Twitter.

So it isn’t surprising we’ve received requests from many of you to participate on Google+. We’re excited to fulfill that expectation with a brand new Google+ page for Google Analytics.

Join us on Google+ today

Check out our Google+ page and add us to your analytics, marketing or related circle. We’ll be sharing the latest and greatest about Google Analytics and digital marketing overall to help you become a better practitioner and achieve more with your efforts.

Expect everything from how-to’s/tips, technical advice, interesting stats, plus some fun mixed in for good measure. In addition to useful updates, we’re planning to give you the opportunity to hang out live with some of the team members behind Google Analytics. If there’s anything else you’d like to see, please add a comment to this thread on Google+ and we’ll be happy to consider it.

Posted by Adam Singer, Google Analytics Team

Two new Analytics webinars -- for advanced and beginning users

2012-05-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

Interested in learning how to use Analytics to make better decisions for your business? Here’s your chance; join us next week for two webinars. We’re partnering with the Learn with Google team to present an introductory session on Getting started with Analytics, and a more advanced session covering one of the most requested topics - Digital Attribution & Conversion. Here’s a little more detail on what we’ll cover:

Getting Started with Google Analytics
Level of content: Beginner
Covers the basics you need to get started with Analytics. Highlights the most helpful reports for ecommerce, bloggers/publishers, and lead generation businesses. Learn how to tag your campaigns and set up goals to measure if your marketing is a success.

Presenter: Justin Cutroni, Analytics Advocate
Date: Wednesday May 23rd, 2012
Time: 12 pm PT / 3pm ET / 8pm GMT

Building Blocks of Digital Attribution
Level of content: Intermediate/Advanced
Learn what marketing attribution is and what it can do for your business. This webinar will cover the basics of how attribution works, and we’ll show you how to set up your Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts to enable important attribution tools--Search Funnels and Multi-Channel Funnels.

Presenter: Bill Kee, Product Manager, Google Analytics
Date: Thursday May 24th, 2012
Time: 9am PT / 12pm ET / 5pm GMT

These are free webinars, so be sure to register now and take a look here for more great webinars from other Google teams.

Posted by Ian Myszenski, Google Analytics team

Looking Ahead at Next Generation Measurement

2012-05-14T13:36:00.000-07:00

Marketers today have no shortage of data. In fact, there are more than 40 million online touch points measured every minute by Google Analytics. Technology advancements are helping marketers understand their customers more across channels and devices, and better analysis tools are finally making that massive amount of data accessible and actionable. This is fueling what we see as next generation measurement. Today I spoke at the Federated Media Conversational Marketing Summit about the most important trends that every CMO needs to know. Here's what I told them:

Next generation brand measurement

In many ways, brand measurement thus far has been an article of faith - but it doesn’t have to be. I think that soon you’ll be able to optimize for brand like you do for performance today with concrete results, in real time. This will help brand marketers make smarter decisions while a campaign is still in flight, rather than serving as a static report card given after the fact. To do all of this, we need to bridge the online and offline gap with brand equivalency metrics that translate GRP and TRP into online reach and audience targeting.

Recently we announced our Brand Activate Initiative as a first step, which gives metrics like Active GRP to assess online brand impact using reach and frequency, in the same way marketers are all already measuring GRP for TV. Active GRP is being built into the ad serving tools that our publishers and marketers already use, with the goal of making these metrics immediately actionable. This digital brand equivalency metric for GRP is the first in a series of exciting steps we’re going to see to improve measurement for brand marketers.

Next generation attribution

Over the last few years, we’ve made great leaps in the art of single channel measurement - identifying the right metrics in isolation for channels like TV, display, search and mobile. It’s time now to bring the channels together and figure out how they impact each other. In other words, we have to move from silo to portfolio.

At Google Analytics, we’re finding that on average, customers interact with a brand 4.3 times over a two day period before they finally make a purchase. We’re also seeing channels like mobile grow tremendously. For instance, mobile is now 8% of all conversions that we’re seeing in Google Analytics, and mobile conversions have grown by about 180% in just the last year. So you can’t afford not to know what paths customers are taking before they ultimately buy from you.

But in a recent study, more than 40% of marketers said that their main struggle with attribution is choosing the right model to even get started. We hear these struggles every day, and provide tools like Multi-Channel Funnels and Attribution Modeling to help marketers get started. Though there isn’t a one size fits all model, what we’ll begin to see in the industry is empirically-derived attribution models customized by industry and marketing objectives, which marketers can use as a base for experimentation.

It’s an exciting time in measurement, where data and marketing are finally getting married. I’m genuinely excited about what’s in front of us, and I hope you are too!

Posted by Amy Chang, Global Head of Product, Google Analytics

How Nissan Uses Ecommerce Tracking Without Directly Selling Online

2012-05-11T09:04:00.000-07:00

This post originally appeared on the Google Analytics Japan blog.

Google Analytics’ e-commerce tracking allows online merchants to measure items sold and tie those results back to their digital marketing activities. But did you know that it can also be used to track non e-commerce activity?

Nissan Motor Company does just this. Nissan operates in the automobile industry, and owns a network of websites designed to help consumers around the world decide which Nissan vehicle they would like to purchase.

Nissan uses e-commerce tracking whenever a visitor submits a request for a test drive or a brochure. They treat each request as if a car were sold, and record details such as the model, colour, transmission type, and location of the vehicles people inquire after. A traditional Google Analytics implementation for a non e-commerce site would simply use goals to measure conversions. So why did Nissan opt to use e-commerce tracking instead?

They wanted to be able to measure more information about each inquiry within their Google Analytics reports. By implementing e-commerce tracking they are now able to pass additional information to their Google Analytics account, such as the category, colour, and model of car the visitor was interested in. Nissan's Global Marketing Strategy Division then analyses this information to understand which vehicles are in hot demand in each market; it then feeds those insights to their manufacturing plants across the globe to ensure that there is enough supply to satisfy demand.

One of the benefits of Google Analytics is that you can decide who should have access to your suite of reports. Nissan’s Global Division uses this feature to decentralise access to their different market operations, allowing each country manager to log into Google Analytics and quickly assess the popularity of different models for their market. Nissan employed a Google Analytics Certified Partner in Japan, Ayudante, to help set up their account profiles and custom reports that could then be accessed by each of the country managers.

Nissan’s Global Marketing Strategy division says there are 3 key benefits they gain from Google Analytics as a whole:

It is easy to assess product popularity globally and by market. The user experience is seamless and there was no complex setup necessary.
Custom reports allow you to easily view complex information in one view. It dramatically reduces the time to summarize multiple reports, document it, and share it within the organisation.
Google Analytics gives them access to timely information, which allows for better decision making.

Even if you are a non e-commerce site, you should explore e-commerce tracking as a means of measuring more information about the products or services your visitors are inquiring about. Then share that information with your wider marketing and product teams so that they can make effective decisions to maximise sales.

Posted by Noriyuki Ouchi, Google Analytics Solutions Consultant, Google Japan and Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Senior Conversion Specialist, Google Southeast Asia

Reminder: Migrate to the new Core Reporting API

2012-05-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

At the end of 2011 we announced the Google Analytics Core Reporting API as a replacement for the Data Export API. We also announced a 6 month deprecation period for the Data Export API version 2.3, after which all v2.3 queries will return a v2.4 response. Well, it's almost been 6 months since the announcement was made. If you haven't already moved to our shiny new APIs, and we know there are quite a few of you out there who haven't, we urge you to get movin' or risk your application not working come June.

The good news is that we published a new, easy to follow migration guide to help you make the transition and ensure your application continues to work after we shut down the Data Export API sometime in June.

If you are building a new application, we highly recommend using the Core Reporting API v3.0. For existing applications, we also recommend moving to v3.0 but it may be easier for you to migrate to v2.4 as an intermediary step, since it is backwards compatible with the Data Export API v2.3.

The great news is that if you make the move to v3.0, you'll be able to take advantage of any new features, and the compact JSON format that reduces response size by 10x!

To get started, check out the Migration Guide: Moving from v2.3 APIs to v2.4 & v3.0.

Additional details and support:

Core Reporting API Forum - for any questions you may have
Core Reporting API Changelog - for details on the change

Posted by Pete Frisella, Google Analytics API team

New Google Analytics Easy Dashboard Library

2012-05-09T10:19:00.000-07:00

Many developers save time by using the Google Analytics API to automate Analytics reporting tasks. For example, you can use the API to create a dashboard to report data across multiple profiles. The Google Analytics App Gallery includes many 3rd party solutions that do this.

What if you want to build something quickly that’s custom-tailored to your business? You would typically have to spend time learning the API, figuring out how to handle authorization, then deciding how to integrate this data with a visualization library. You could build a custom solution, but it took a lot of effort – until now, thanks to the Google Analytics Easy Dashboard Library.

Four months ago we started a project with a team of University of California Irvine students to simplify all of these steps. As part of this project, together we built the Google Analytics Easy Dashboard Library. This library makes it easy to use the Google Analytics API by distilling the process into three easy steps:

1. Register with Google APIs Console.
2. Copy and paste the JavaScript code.
3. Configure this code to query your data and choose a chart type to visualize it.

So now you can create custom Google Analytics dashboards very quickly, with minimal code.

Here’s a quick example. Say you want to create a line chart plotting visitors and visits for the last 30 days. Besides including the library, the only code required is:

<div id=”chart1”></div>
<script>
var chart1 = new gadash.Chart({
  'type': 'LineChart',
  'divContainer': 'chart1',
  'last-n-days':30,
  'query': {
    'ids': TABLE_ID,
    'metrics': 'ga:visitors,ga:visits,ga:pageviews',
    'dimensions': 'ga:date',
    'sort': 'ga:date'
  },
  'chartOptions': {
    hAxis: {title:'Date'},
    vAxis: {title:'Visits'},
  }
}).render();
</script>

Using the code above will create this chart.

It’s that easy! To find out more about using the Easy Dashboard Library, read our Getting Started guide.

While the current library is very useful, we think we can add more features and make it even easier to use. To reach this goal, we’ve started working with another group of UC Irvine students, this time for three academic quarters. This new project’s main goal will be to further simplify the library. We want the students we’re working with to engage with you and implement your feature requests, if possible. If you use this library, we'd love to hear how you think it can be improved. Feel free to send any feedback to through our new GA-easy-dash-feedback google group.

We hope this library saves you time and helps you get more out of Google Analytics.

Posted by,
Jeetendra Soneja and Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team

Mark your calendar to ‘Hangout on Air’ and learn how to build a mobile site in minutes

2012-05-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

Did you know that 40% of mobile web users reported that they’ve turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience1? With about half of all Americans now owning a smartphone2, it’s time for businesses to meet user expectations by delivering a mobile experience as good as the desktop experience. In short, it’s time to step up to the plate and build a site optimized for the mobile web.

Google can help. We recently teamed up with DudaMobile to release a free mobile site builder. In three easy steps you’re able to get started with mobile: (1) enter your site’s URL, (2) customize your site and (3) redirect mobile users automatically to the new mobile-friendly version. It’s free and takes just a few minutes to complete!

Join us on Thursday, May 10th at 1pm EST/10am PST and watch as Google showcases how two businesses, Top Mast Resort in Massachusetts and Sava’s Restaurant in Michigan, go mobile and build mobile-friendly sites--live on air.

You’ll see how Top Mast is preparing to take advantage of mobile travel purchase intent - which is five times higher than online travel purchase intent, according to InsightExpress. You’ll also see Sava’s move ahead of 95% of restaurants that do not have mobile-friendly sites, according to a study by Restaurant Science.

Finally, you’ll hear from the CMO of Dudamobile, Dennis Mink; he’ll talk about best practices when using the mobile site builder and walk through important questions to ask yourself when building a mobile-friendly site.

Details on how to tune in
1. Sign into Google+ on Thursday, May 10th at 1pm EST/10am PST
2. Go to the Think with Google Google+ page
3. Look for the stream post and click to enter the live stream

Be sure to set a reminder in your calendar! If you have questions before or during the Hangout, post them with the hashtag #GoMoSite as a comment on the Google+ page.

Posted by Suzanne Mumford, Google Mobile Ads Marketing
Source: (1) Gomez 2011 (2) Nielsen February 2012

Expanding Google Analytics Social Reports: Tracking Links To Your Site Content

2012-05-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered which other pages on the web link to your own? Wouldn’t it be nice to know which sites are talking about your content, and in which context? Well, a problem no more: now you can see all the backlink URL’s, post titles, and more right within the new Social reports.

The concept of trackbacks, a protocol by which different sites could notify each other of referencing links, first emerged back in 2002. Since then, the blogosphere has grown in leaps and bounds, but the requirement for each site to explicitly implement this protocol has always stood in the way of adoption. If only you could crawl the web and build an accurate link graph. The good news is we already do that at Google, and are now providing this insight to Google Analytics users.

If you’re not familiar with Trackbacks, then think of it as automated Google Alerts for all of your pages: you publish new content, we scour the web for pages that link to it and build automated reports for you right within Google Analytics - simple as that.

These reports provide another layer of social insight showing which of your content attracts links, and enables you to keep track of conversations across other sites that link to your content. Most website and blog owners had no easy mechanism to do this in the past, but we see it as another important feature for holistic social media reports. When you know what your most linked content is, it is then also much easier to replicate the success and ensure that you are building relationships with those users who actively link to you the most.

To learn more about the new Social and ROI reporting, take a look at our announcement last month, and also take a look at in-depth example of how to use these new reports to measure your user’s engagement in Google+.

Posted by Ilya Grigorik, Google Analytics team

Marketing Attribution: Questions and Answers

2012-05-02T16:12:00.000-07:00

Last week, we hosted a webinar on marketing attribution. We had a lively discussion about our recent attribution whitepaper, and we looked at Google’s solutions for attribution -- including Search Funnels in AdWords and Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics, and the Attribution Modeling Tool in Google Analytics Premium. During the webinar, many of you wrote in with great questions, and we’ve provided answers below to some of the top questions.

If you weren’t able to join us last week, you can view a recording of the webinar here.

Questions & Answers:
Q: How can I learn more about getting started with attribution using Google’s tools?
A:This webinar was the first in a series on attribution -- please watch the blog for updates and registration information for our next webinar, “Building Blocks of Digital Attribution.” In the meantime, read on for some more tips.

Q: Where can I learn more about setting up conversions?
A: Setting up conversion tracking in Google Analytics is one of the most valuable things you can do to make your reports actionable and meaningful, and getting these set up properly will allow you to use Google’s attribution solutions. There are resources available in the help center to help you set up goals and ecommerce tracking. You can also view the recording of our recent “Reaching your goals with Google Analytics” webinar.

Q: When should I use AdWords Search Funnels compared to Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels?
A: Both tools can give you insight into how your customers ultimately end up converting on your site. If you are using AdWords Conversion Tracking today, Search Funnels is available without any additional configuration. You can see the interactions your customers have with your search ads leading up to conversion, including both clicks and impressions. However, you can only see these interactions for paid search on Google AdWords.

Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics allows you to analyze traffic sources beyond search, including display, social, email, referrals, affiliates and more - putting your conversion path data in a broader context. Using these reports requires installing Google Analytics tracking code on your site, and setting up goals and/or ecommerce tracking (see links above) -- once these are set up, Multi-Channel Funnels reports work automatically. Note that you are not able to analyze search ad impressions in Multi-Channel Funnels.

Watch this blog for updates on future webinars in our attribution series that will provide more details on Search Funnels and Multi-Channel Funnels.

Q: How much of an impact does the use of multiple devices have in skewing the numbers we see in these reports?
A: Mobile and other devices are becoming increasingly important. Multi-Channel Funnels will report on conversion paths that take place on a single device, but not across devices. For example, if a user visited your site on a mobile phone, and then completed a purchase in a desktop browser, those interactions would not be included in the same conversion path.

Q: Can I report on both AdWords Keyword and Matched Search Queries in Google Analytics?
A: You have the option to view either the AdWords Keyword or the Matched Search Query by choosing these dimensions in the data table. Multi-Channel Funnels and Attribution Modeling support a wide range of AdWords and non-AdWords dimensions for reporting and creating attribution modeling rules.

Q: Can you add your own models to the Attribution Modeling Tool or they are all built in?
A: You can create and save custom models in the Attribution Modeling Tool in Google Analytics Premium. Custom models allow you to create rules that adjust credit based on attributes like the traffic source (e.g. search vs. direct), position (first, middle, last) the level of engagement driven (time on site and page depth), and timing (how much time prior to conversion).

Q: How do advertisers take action on attribution data?
A: Attribution data can help advertisers identify marketing efforts that may be undervalued or overvalued under models such as the last click, so they can adjust their marketing programs. For example, a general keyword like “shoes” may show fewer conversions compared to a more specific, branded term for a type of shoe on a last click basis. However, applying a model that gives some credit for searches prior to the last click may show that “shoes” is credited with more conversion value. When making optimization decisions around which keywords to invest in or cut, advertisers can look at multiple models, and then experiment with investing in keywords that show higher value under alternative models. Similar methods apply to channels like display, social, email, and affiliates. This can help identify areas of opportunity that are missed when using only the last click.

Happy Analyzing!

Posted by Bill Kee, Product Manager for Attribution, Google Analytics team

European Google Analytics User Conference in Belgium, Sweden and Spain

2012-04-27T07:47:00.000-07:00

We’re excited to announce 3 upcoming Google Analytics User Conferences in Europe. The first will be in Brussels on May 3rd, the second will be in Stockholm on May 8th and the third will be in Barcelona on May 10th.

You can find further information, such as the agenda and speakers, on the links below. In our experience these events quickly sell out. So act fast if you want to take part, otherwise it is possible that you have to wait another year for the next event!

Key benefits of attending a Google Analytics User Conference:

Meet members of the Google Analytics team, experts, and other users like you
Learn through tangible examples how to measurably impact your business
Find out how others solve the challenges you are facing today
Have your business questions addressed by Google and Google Analytics Certified Partners

Brussels:

View the full agenda and register at www.gabc.be.

This is the first Belgian User Conference! You will get to hear from some of our local Belgian Partners as well as Google speakers. Topics will range from learning how to take action using diverse data sets, creating tailor made dashboards, how to optimize your ROI with advanced campaign tracking, to measuring the value of social analytics.

Stockholm:

View the full agenda and register at www.analyticsconference.se

This is the second Google Analytics User Conference in Sweden. You’ll learn from national and international Google Analytics specialists to use the tool for maximum impact. You will meet speakers from Google as well as speakers from Google Analytics Certified Partners such as inUse Insights, Klikki, iProspect, Guava, and Relevant Traffic.

Barcelona:

View the full agenda and register at www.googleanalyticsconference.es

Building on the successful User Conference last year in Madrid, some of our Spanish partners have decided to do the same in Barcelona! Meet and share your experiences with other users of the tool, experts in the field of Analytics, and of course meet the Google speakers. Make sure not to miss the hands-on workshops that are being offered!

User Conferences are part of a global series of events hosted by Google Analytics Certified Partners. This series brings together Partners from each region to present content that is relevant to local Google Analytics users.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Posted by Jon Day, Google Analytics team

More ways to measure your website's performance with User Timings

2012-04-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

As part of our mission to make the web faster, Google Analytics provides Site Speed reports to analyze your site’s page load times. To help you measure and diagnose the speed of your pages in a finer grain, we’re happy to extend the collection of Site Speed reports in Google Analytics with User Timings.

With User Timings, you can track and visualize user defined custom timings about websites. The report shows the execution speed or load time of any discrete hit, event, or user interaction that you want to track. This can include measuring how quickly specific images and/or resources load, how long it takes for your site to respond to specific button clicks, timings for AJAX actions before and after onLoad event, etc. User timings will not alter your pageview count, hence, makes it the preferred method for tracking a variety of timings for actions in your site.

To collect User Timings data, you'll need to add JavaScript timing code to the interactions you want to track using the new _trackTiming API included in ga.js (version 5.2.6+) for reporting custom timings. This API allows you to track timings of visitor actions that don't correspond directly to pageviews (like Event Tracking). User timings are defined using a set of Categories, Variables, and optional Labels for better organization. You can create various categories and track several timings for each of these categories. Please refer to the developers guide for more details about the _trackTiming API.

Here are some sample use cases for User Timings

To track timings for AJAX actions before and after onLoad event.
A site can have their own definition of “User Perceived Load Time”, which can be recorded and tracked with user timings. As an example, news websites can record time for showing the above fold content as their main metric instead of onLoad time.
Detailed performance measurement and optimization of sub components on a page, such as time to load all images, CSS or Javascript, download PDF files and time it takes to upload a file.

Want to check out User Timings Report in your account?
Go to the content section and click the User Timings report under Content section. There are three tabs within the User Timings report for you to review: Explorer, Performance, & Map Overlay. Each provides a slightly different view of user timings reported.

The Explorer tab on the User Timings report shows the following metrics by Timing Category, Timing Variable, or Timing Label (all of which you define in your timing code).

Avg. User Timing—the average amount of time (in seconds) it takes for the timed code to execute
User Timing Sample—the number of samples taken

The Explorer tab also provides controls that you can use to change the tabular data. For example, you can choose a secondary dimension—such as browser— to get an idea of how speed changes by browser.

To learn more about which timings are most common for user timings, switch to the Performance tab. This tab shows timing buckets, providing you with more insight into how speed can vary for user reported timings for selected category, variable and label combinations. You may switch to Performance tab at any point of navigation in the Explorer tab, such as after drilling down on a specific category and variable, to visualize distribution of user reported timings. The bucket boundaries for histograms in Performance Tab are chosen to be flexible so that users can analyze data at low values ranging from 10 milliseconds granularity to 1 minute granularity with addition of sub-bucketing for further analysis.

The Map Overlay tab provides a view of your site speed experienced by users in different geographical regions (cities, countries, continents).

- Satish Kambala & Mustafa M. Tikir, Google Analytics team

Using Google Analytics Social Reports To Measure Your Website Content And Engagement in Google+

2012-04-23T07:28:00.000-07:00

The following is a guest post contributed by Daniel Waisberg, Owner of Conversion Journey, a Google Analytics Certified Partner, and Founder of Online Behavior, a Marketing Measurement and Optimization portal.

Google Analytics has recently launched a new set of reports called Social reports, which can be used to analyze on-site and off-site interactions with social networks in reference to your own website content. The reports’ ultimate goal is to enable brands to measure the return on investment for social media activities and make more accurate, data-driven decisions about social.

The most significant change that it brings to the game is we are now able to better tie social activities (on and off-site) to online behavior and revenue. This is especially accentuated for the Social Data Hub Partners, a group of networks that use the platform provided by Google Analytics; for all these networks we can learn deep information about off-site behavior.

I have recently written a guide to Google+ Analytics, where I discussed how to use Google Analytics in order to understand Google+ on-site interactions (e.g. +1 button clicks) and off-site interactions (e.g. comments, posts, shares that happened on Google+). In this post I will recap the main points of that guide and add actionable tips that will help marketers and analysts use these reports effectively.

Setting Up Goals - First Step to Social Media Measurement

Before using the Social reports, it is essential to configure your website goals on Google Analytics, otherwise the reports won't be as useful (here is a step-by-step guide). Thomas Carlyle wrote: "A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder." The same is true for Google Analytics accounts: if a goal is not configured, the stats will not help improving the performance of websites, no matter how good the reports are.

Google+ Social Referral Traffic - Quantity and Quality

According to Google Analytics, the Social Sources report, the first in the list of Social reports, is described as follows:

The Sources report shows engagement metrics (Pageviews, Avg. Time on Site, Pages/Visit) for traffic from each social network. This report is also enhanced with off-site data for Social Data Hub partner networks. Click on a partner network to see the URLs that were shared on that site, how they were shared (for example, via a "+1" or "reshare" action), and the public conversations that took place about your content.

In this report we will see the number of visitors that came through Google+, the number of pageviews that they saw, time on site and number of pages per visit. Nothing surprising. However, since Google+ is part of the Social Data Hub, we can click through to get more detailed data on what kinds of interactions happened off-site, i.e. on plus.google.com.

As you will see, when clicking through to the Google+ row (see screenshot above) we will have two reports on the Social Referral tab: Google+ Shared URL and Google+ Social Network and Action (the tabs can be found above the graph, and the reports below the graph).

Google+ Shared URL

The Google+ Shared URL report shows which URLs were shared in Google+ and what traffic they drove. It will also provide a Data Hub Activities metric, which tells how many interactions they drove on Google+ including: +1, post, comment and reshare.

Actionable Tip: use this report to find out which content drives the most social activity on Google+. Based on that, you might consider increasing the exposure of this content on prominent website real estate.

Google+ Social Network and Action

If you click on the link to Social Network and Action (see arrow above), you will be able to see all interactions performed on Google+, segmented by action type.

Google+ Conversations - Activity Stream

Moving over to real interactions with real people, Activity Streams allow us to see the conversations as they happened inside Google+ (for activities that have occurred publicly). The conversations are organized starting from the newest and we can do the following actions for each conversation:

Page Analytics: leads to more information regarding traffic that was resulted from the post.
View Ripple: leads to the post Ripple, an interactive visualization of the public shares of the post
View Page: leads to the website page that was shared
View Activity: leads to the actual publicly-shared post on Google+

Actionable Tip: use this report to discover people that are evangelizing your brand on Google+ and interact with them. Once you find those people, create a circle with them (call it "Evangelists") and start interacting with them in an ongoing basis.

Google+ Conversion Rates - Assisted vs. Last Interaction Analysis

This report uses the same functionality as the Multi-Channel Funnels reports. It provides both the last touch interaction value (i.e. conversions that happened in a visit attributed to Google+) and also the assisted value (i.e. conversions that happened in a visit following the visit from Google+). Above is a screenshot of how it looks and the explanation given by Google about the metrics in the chart.

Assisted Conversions and Assisted Conversion Value: This is the number (and monetary value) of sales and conversions the social network assisted. An assist occurs when someone visits your site, leaves without converting, but returns later to convert during a subsequent visit. The higher these numbers, the more important the assist role of the social network.

Last Interaction Conversions and Last Interaction Conversion Value: This is the number (and monetary value) of last click sales and conversions. When someone visits your site and converts, the visit is considered a last click. The higher these numbers, the more important the social network’s role in driving completion of sales and conversions.

Assisted/Last Interaction Conversions: This ratio summarizes the social network’s overall role. A value close to 0 indicates that the social network functioned primarily in a last click capacity. A value close to 1 indicates that the social network functioned equally in an assist and a last click capacity. The more this value exceeds 1, the more the social network functioned in an assist capacity.

Actionable Tip: use this report to understand where in the buying cycle is your Social Media traffic. This may help you understand which kind of offers will be most effective on Social Networks.

Google+ Social Plugin - On-site Interactions

The Social Plugins report provides an account of the social actions that happened inside the website and in which pages they occur. +1 buttons spread in the website content will be available in this report automagically (for other social buttons, coding is required).

Actionable Tip: use this report to understand which content is being +1'ed in-site. This will help you optimize the position of +1 buttons to increase exposure through Google+.

Google+ Visitors Flow

This report uses the same functionality used in the flow visualization report released by Google in 2011. Basically, it provides the path through which visitors experienced the website. In this report we will be able to segment just by visits originating from Google+. You can find the report at http://onbe.co/GXYQMN

Actionable Tip: use this report to understand how well optimized your site is for social traffic. If you find a page that is receiving large amounts of social traffic and is not persuading visitors to click-through (i.e. high drop rate), you might consider testing that page.

Concluding Thoughts

As seen above, Google Analytics has created robust tracking and analysis abilities for Google+, which puts Google+ in an excellent position when it comes to other Social Networks. In general, many other social sites don’t provide detailed metrics into what happens inside their walls, which makes investments less measurable. If marketers can easily measure how well each social networks perform, more resources might be devoted to them.

Posted by Daniel Waisberg, Conversion Journey

Webinar: Marketing Attribution: Insights from Google Analytics and Econsultancy

2012-04-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

Please join us next Thursday for a webinar on marketing attribution featuring Bill Kee, our Product Manager for Attribution, and Stefan Tornquist, VP for Research at Econsultancy.

Stefan will talk about insights from the recent Attribution whitepaper by Econsultancy and Google Analytics, and Bill will discuss Google’s approach to attribution and some of the tools we offer, including Search Funnels in AdWords and Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics. Plus, he’ll demo the Attribution Modeling Tool in Google Analytics Premium.

We'll also provide a few tips for how to get started with attribution. This webinar will be the first in a series on attribution -- so please stay tuned for future installments!

Date: Thursday, April 26
Time: 10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET
Click here to register

We hope you’ll be able to join the live webinar, but for those who can’t make it, we’ll be sharing a recording after the event.

Posted by Sara Jablon Moked, Product Marketing Manager, Conversion and Attribution

Global Site Speed Overview: How Fast Are Websites Around The World?

2012-04-19T07:42:00.000-07:00

At Google, we are passionate about speed and making the web faster, and from first hand experience, we are glad to see that many website owners share the same goal. A faster web is better for both users and businesses - faster pages lead to better user experience and improved conversions.

The first step in optimizing any process is to establish and obtain an accurate set of measurement data. In the context of optimizing the user experience on the web, it means that we need to measure the speed of a page as seen by your real users: users network, device type and speed, geographic location, cache sizes, and a dozen other factors all come into play.

Luckily, the Site Speed reports in Google Analytics provide most of this data to us already. The new Web Timing standard, which is already implemented by most modern browsers, allows Google Analytics to gather detailed latency data for a sample of requests across a dozen different dimensions. To see this data for your site, navigate to your Google Analytics account and look for the new “Site Speed” reports under the “Content” section - there is no additional instrumentation required on your behalf. This article describes the details about the speed metrics.

A frequently asked question we hear is: how do I know if my site is fast enough? The answer, of course, depends on the nature of the site, the content, and the type of interactions your users perform on the site. However, to help us establish a baseline, let us take a look at some aggregate speed data for the web as seen by Google Analytics and shared by opted-in web publishers:

Mobile internet is growing at an incredible rate and as we can see from the data above, mobile experience is about 1.5x slower than desktop experience. That’s a very big difference, and that is even taking into account that many popular sites are already optimizing for the mobile visitor: fewer resources, smaller resources, and smarter caching strategies.

Let’s take a closer look at web performance for a few specific countries:

The following interactive world map presents the page load times for desktop in seconds for the complete list of countries with enough samples for accurate measurement:

The following map presents the corresponding data for mobile.

Note that there are many factors that play a role in overall speed of web pages as experienced by users. The browser, the network connection, the client hardware (processing power), the content of the web page, and the hosting location of the web site relative to the user all impact the speed of an individual page load. As a result, the country aggregates listed above depend on all those factors as well.

Finally, let’s take a look at relative page speeds across some of the popular verticals:

How does your site stack up?

Posted by Arvind Jain, Mustafa M. Tikir and Ilya Grigorik, Google Analytics team

Learn at the Google Analytics User Conference in Mexico City

2012-04-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

Buenos dias analistas!

Mexico City is hosting its first Google Analytics User Conference next week on Wednesday, April 25th. This event will be a full day of valuable sessions by leaders in the Latin American web analytics market and members of the Google Analytics product team. You can view the full agenda and register at www.gauc.mx.

Our readers can get 10% off with the discount code: GAUC_GABLOG. The first two people to use that code will get a free ticket, so act fast!

Attendees will find helpful content regardless of their skill level. Beginners and experts alike will benefit from hearing about the many new and amazing features recently released in Google Analytics. You can also choose the track that is most relevant to your role. From fundamental concepts for making analytics produce better results for your business, to tips on how to use features like Custom Variables or Campaign Tracking more effectively, there's something for everyone at this event.

Topics will include:

What's New & Fantastic in Google Analytics
Web Analytics Measurement Planning
Tag Management for Google Analytics
Separate Tracks for Business & Strategy, Analysis & Optimization, and Technical Aspects
Panels, Q&A sessions, and Help Desk breaks

This User Conference is part of a global series of events hosted by Google Analytics Certified Partners. This series brings together Partners from each region to present content that is relevant to local Google Analytics users. This event is being hosted by Certified Partners in Mexico (Códice), Colombia (MarketView), and Argentina (Intellignos). Sessions will be presented in a mix of English & Spanish.

Tickets are still on sale and don’t forget to use the discount code GAUC_GABLOG to receive a 10% discount. We hope to see you there.

Posted by Jesse Nichols, Google Analytics team

Get A Free Mobile Site With GoMo ...And Measure It With Google Analytics

2012-04-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

According to a survey from Limelight Networks, 80% of customers abandon a mobile site if they have a bad user experience. You might be seeing this yourself if you look at your mobile reports within Google Analytics and notice a high bounce rate from visitors using mobile devices. Here at Google, we’re very conscious of the shift to mobile and want to make it easy for you to provide a great mobile experience to customers, and of course measure the results.

That’s why we’re pleased to announce that GoMo (a Google-led initiative dedicated to helping businesses “Go Mobile”) and DudaMobile have joined forces to make it easy for small businesses to create a mobile-friendly website at howtogomo.com. This do-it-yourself site builder, customized specifically for GoMo users, easily converts regular websites into mobile-friendly sites in five simple steps. And it allows you to add features like a click-to-call button, mobile maps and Google AdSense. Sites that are created with the GoMo-DudaMobile tool will be hosted free for one year.

And of course, your mobile site traffic will be measured for you to analyze in Google Analytics. If you sign up for the DudaMobile service offered on the GoMo site, you can easily add your existing GA tracking code via "site settings” option.

Please note that DudaMobile’s technology is best for converting simple sites. If your site uses a lot of Flash content, framesets or e-commerce, we suggest that you Go Mobile by talking to your agency or working with one of the developers here.

Many people think mobile is the future of computing. It’s actually the present. We live in a multi-platform, multi-device world and continue to be trending to an “always on” society where users expect to be able to access information, websites and apps wherever they go. Ready to get started? Find out more by visiting the GoMo website.

Posted by Adam Singer, Google Analytics team

Better results, (still) early adoption: Marketing attribution in a complex digital landscape

2012-04-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

Today, we’re sharing some research on marketing attribution that we conducted in partnership with Econsultancy, a leading digital market research firm. The insights -- Marketing Attribution: Valuing the Customer Journey -- provide a snapshot of how marketers and agencies are conducting attribution, the impact it has, and the barriers holding them back.

If you’re not familiar with digital attribution, it’s about distributing credit to all of the elements of your digital marketing program, so you can gauge the impact of customer marketing interactions on your sales results and make more accurate investment decisions. Here are a few snippets from the report that we found interesting:

It’s still a new craft, but early results show positive impact
Although digital attribution is still relatively new -- 83% of practitioners we surveyed have been using it for less than 2 years -- it clearly has a positive impact on businesses that employ it. 72% agree that it leads to better budget allocations, 63% gained a better understanding of how digital channels work together, and 58% had clearer insights into their audience:

Attribution leads to improved ROI, better budgeting

Last click attribution dominates; agencies are leading the way in experimentation
Most digital marketers run multiple campaigns, each with different strategies and objectives. For instance, display campaigns that are designed to generate awareness will have a different impact on sales than paid search campaigns designed to bring in buyers. Yet most marketers today still use attribution models that do not account for these differences in strategy. Although only 14% of respondents consider “last click” attribution to be “very effective,” it remains common; most likely because marketers haven't yet found or mastered the right attribution tools. Digital marketing agencies have done more with sophisticated attribution methods and technologies:

Robust attribution leads to confident digital decisions
For organizations that use attribution, it often leads to greater confidence in marketing choices: if you know the impact of your programs, it’s easier to budget for them. As one online retailer commented, “Attribution was the missing piece to our campaign analysis. Now we don’t run a campaign without learning something about how our marketing affects the buying cycle, and then testing to see whether it applies in the long run.”

Performing marketing attribution with Google
Here at Google we spend our time building intuitive tools to make measurement easier, so that you can really use your data to make smarter decisions. That’s why we provide several important tools for marketing attribution, including Search Funnels in AdWords and Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics. And check out our Attribution Modeling tool in Google Analytics Premium, which includes five standard attribution models plus a custom model builder, so you can create and customize attribution models in minutes, and see data instantly. Learn more in our Attribution Playbook.

Join us for an Attribution Hangout
If you’re available this Friday, April 6, at 9:00am PDT, please join Bill Kee, Product Manager for Attribution, and Justin Cutroni, Analytics Advocate, for a Google+ Hangout. Bill will talk about the research and give a demo of the Attribution tool in Google Analytics Premium, as well as discussing Multi-Channel Funnels and AdWords Search Funnels, two complementary features.

To watch the Hangout on Air, tune into Justin’s Google+ Page on Friday. If you have a question that you would like us to discuss, please enter it in this this form -- and we’ll invite five of you to join the Hangout live to ask your questions.

We look forward to seeing you at the Hangout on Friday!

Posted by Sara Jablon Moked, Product Marketing Manager, Conversion and Attribution

Share reports by email and export to PDF: now live in the new Google Analytics

2012-04-02T13:14:00.001-07:00

The new Google Analytics has come a long way since it was first unveiled last March. Between multi-channel funnels, real time, flow visualization, premium, and a whole host of other incredible features, it is hard to believe that only a year has gone by.

We are excited to announce that Analytics reports can now be automatically sent to yourself or other members of your team from within the new Google Analytics. These reports can be set up to email at a variety of regularly scheduled times, including daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly. Reports can also be exported to PDF allowing you to save or share the insights you’ve found using Google Analytics.

Where to find Email and PDF export
Look in the newly-redesigned Utility Bar located at the top of your favorite reports for Email and PDF Export options:

In order to provide maximum flexibility, this functionality is available on standard reports, custom reports, and dashboards. Clicking on the "Email" button on a dashboard pulls up the same email scheduling dialog as in standard reports and offers the same feature set:

Why "beta"?
For those who have used the email scheduler in the old interface, this new emailer system operates independently and has enhancements in reliability and ease of use. We are putting the finishing touches on the look and feel of exported reports, and anticipate that these will be finalized soon.

Part of the transition to the new emailing system is an opportunity to "reset" your scheduled emails. Consider which scheduled emails have been most helpful and be sure to recreate those in the new interface. The new Google Analytics has some reporting differences and additional metrics that you may want to take advantage of when drafting new scheduled emails. We will provide ample notice before scheduled emails from the old Google Analytics are sunset later this year.

We would love to hear how the release of these features helps you to be efficient and derive valuable insights. Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Happy exporting!

- Chris Anderson, Google Analytics team

Interplanetary Reporting Comes To Google Analytics

2012-04-01T06:08:00.000-07:00

At Google we like to create solutions for the future. And we imagine a future where web use won’t be restricted simply to Earth. Rather, people will want to visit their favorite sites while cruising around the rings of Saturn with friends or relaxing at the (inevitable) Mercury tanning facility.

When the galaxy is our playground, marketers, analysts and webmasters will want to understand location use beyond Earth. For example, if you had a chain of taco stands and noticed many users visiting your website from the Mars outpost, well, that might help you make a business case to begin expanding your business to serve Mars colonists.

That’s why today we’re announcing a sneak preview of our new Interplanetary Reports. While currently you only get a partial picture of website visitor location, we want to expand beyond Earth to help you understand visitor activities from neighboring stars and planets. You’ll also be able to drill down on each planet to see greater detail. For example, which colony or outpost your visitors came from similar to the city drill down available for Earth today.

In order to help you improve slow interplanetary site speed we’re also adding an average page load time to this report to help you understand latency issues caused by distances between planets.

When you slice and dice the data from these new reports, you might discover some interesting things. For example, we noticed a direct correlation between gravity and site bounce rate. Visitors coming from the moon bounced 6 times higher than those from earth.

We figured you might have questions. So, following is a quick FAQ for current Google Analytics users:

When will the new reports be released?

The new reports are scheduled to be released to all users starting in the year 2030, when we anticipate local space travel becomes widespread.

How far across space will the new reports track?

We’ll start by tracking location from as far away as the Andromeda Galaxy, however as light speed travel becomes more widespread we’ll be integrating new (patent-pending) technologies to track visitors from greater locations.

Does Google Analytics plan to also segment traffic by species?

Non-human traffic is something we’ve been thinking about. As we work together with our space-faring friends, we’ll be introducing a new section within demographics to take into account any new species discovered.

We hope you’re as excited as we are to explore the galaxy and also keep connected to the web. After all, updating your space logs (slogs) should be a social activity that users from across the galaxy can comment on, share, and of course measure.

- The Google Analytics team

photo courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

...and yes, this is our April Fools' Day joke.

Measuring app engagement across device & platforms

2012-03-29T15:02:00.001-07:00

There are more ways now to consume your favorite television shows, movies, and on demand content than ever before. People are turning to their smartphones, tablets, and Internet connected TV’s to watch what they want, when they want it. For broadcasters, agencies, and advertisers the question is how are users engaging with this media and how can it be monetized?

This measurement opportunity is what drove TV App Agency to be founded in 2011. The London-based software company designed a software application that works across a variety of viewing devices to help deliver on-demand media. They turned to Google Analytics as the platform to help them measure and analyze their data.

Why turn to Google Analytics?
TV App Agency opted to use Google Analytics’ server side APIs, which were more easily compatible with the on-demand media environment than JavaScript APIs. They were able to use their own in-house knowledge from previous mobile development to come up with a tagging strategy that highlighted exactly the data that mattered most to their business model. Learn more by reading the full case study.

“We are now able to track which adverts are being played and get an idea of which functions in apps are being used. Plus, the real-time reports show when people are actually using these apps.”
Bruno Pereira, co-founder of TV App Agency

Future Analytics goals

TV App Agency is working on expanding their Analytics to track more events, and understand more about viewer engagement from Analytics robust reports. By integrating Google Analytics they are able to offer richer data and analysis than other connected TV app developers, which gives them an incredible advantage in this exciting new space.

- The Google Analytics team

Sharing Personalized Dashboards using the Analytics API

2012-03-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

Web agencies often rely on Excel and Word to create analytics reports for clients. It’s a manual process that involves a lot of copy and pasting. Yet an agency’s main value-add isn’t report creation, but analyzing data and providing key findings and recommendations to clients. And while Google Analytics provides the tools to slice and dice the data, many web agencies also want to present clients with personalized reports, complete with the agency’s logo. And they want to be able to deliver and share reports without requiring users to log in, especially in large organizations where report distribution can become an onerous administrative process.

DashThis addresses these challenges with dashboards that combine simple automatic reporting with accessibility. Agencies spend less time creating reports and more time analyzing. Using the Google Analytics API, DashThis imports the client’s data and updates a set of dashboards with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for a specific job function or industry. The agency can also request a set of custom dashboards that meet exact specifications and requirements.

Alerts and warnings can be set to notify managers of changes in KPIs via email. All this is accomplished securely and without requiring the user to log in. There is also a white-label option for additional branding requirements demanded by agencies.

According to Kari Harju, CEO of SalesLion, an SEO and conversion agency in Helsinki, Finland. “Customers do not always understand how to read the results from web analytics products and see a tangible return on their investments. It's hard to show them without time consuming meetings. SalesLion opted for a custom dashboard to meet the needs of their clients. As a result of using DashThis, our clients now have a simple and easy way to understand what’s going on with their web properties as it relates to their KPIs”. SalesLion eliminated most of the reporting work, leaving more time to analyze, highlight key findings, and make actionable recommendations to clients.

DashThis was built by Trimali Technologies and uses the Google Analytics API. Stéphane Guérin, CEO describes DashThis’ experience with the Google Analytics API and the response from customers, “The API is really simple to use but extremely powerful. It allows developers to add even more value on a great tool such as Google Analytics. We’ve been able to develop strong business relationships with agencies and we’re proud to have made a tool that is useful for professionals. By opening the platform, Google Analytics allows smaller companies like ours to flourish in a rich eco-system.”

DashThis can be found in the Google Analytics App Gallery and on the DashThis website.
If you’re interested in developing solutions for the Google Analytics platform, visit Google Analytics Developers.

Posted by Pete Frisella, Google Analytics API Team