Analytics Results - Google Analytics Blog by Mangold Sengers

Google Analytics Site Search: Setup Options

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Thu, 21 May 2009 01:08:00 +0000

There are a number of ways to setup Google Analytics Site Search depending on the way your website functions and the URLs your search function creates.

Site Search: Option 1

Perform a search for 'analytics' on your website and look at the URL.

What do your Site Search URLs look like?

If the resulting URL looks like one of the following:

http://www.example.com/search?q=analytics
http://www.example.com/index.php?id=search&term=analytics
http://www.example.com/search.asp?search_term=analytics&id=ac9024

You can follow our steps to setup Google Analytics Site Search.

Site Search: Option 2

If the resulting URL looks like one of the following:

http://www.example.com/index/search/analytics
http://www.example.com/search.php/keyword/analytics/id946
http://www.example.com/searchterm/analytics

Because Site Search reports are processed before filters are processed you cannot simply create a filter to modify your Site Search URL within Google Analytics. Instead you need to modify the tracking code on the search results page to dynamically pass the search term using a virtual pageview (see 'option 3 below').

If you or your web developer is unable to modify the tracking code on the search results page, then you might want to consider one of the following filters to at least make the Top Content report easier to scan for internal search terms. Remember, that this does not allow you to use the Site Search reports within Google Analytics.

Possible filters:

If your URL looks like http://www.example.com/index/search/analytics you will need to setup the following filter:

Field A -> Extract A: Request URI: ^/index/search/(.*)
Output To -> Constructor: Request URI: /search?q=$A1

If your URL looks like http://www.example.com/search.php/keyword/analytics/id946 you will need to setup the following filter:

Field A -> Extract A: Request URI: ^/search.php/keyword/(.*)/id
Output To -> Constructor: Request URI: /search?q=$A1

If your URL looks like http://www.example.com/searchterm/analytics you will need to setup the following filter:

Field A -> Extract A: Request URI: ^/searchterm/(.*)
Output To -> Constructor: Request URI: /search?q=$A1

These filters will modify your Top Content reports:

But won't allow you to use Site Search reports:

Site Search: Option 3

If the resulting URL does not contain the keyword you searched for then you will either need to modify your search form or modify your Google Analytics Tracking Code to create a virtual pageview.

For example you search for 'analytics' and the URL of your search results page looks like:

http://www.example.com/search
http://www.example.com/index.php?id=search
http://www.example.com/search-results.asp

View the source of a page on your site that contains the search input, if your form looks something like this:

<form name="gs" method="post" action="search.php">

Then try changing the method to 'get'. Your source code should look something like this:

<form name="gs" method="get" action="search.php">

If you now perform a search you should see a URL along the lines of those in 'Option 1'.

If you are unable to modify the form method or the change does not provide the search parameter in the URL then you will need to modify the Google Analytics Tracking Code to dynamically create a URL that is correctly structured for Site Search.

For example:

<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-123456-1");
pageTracker._trackPageview('/search?q=analytics');
} catch(err) {}</script>

The keyword ('analytics' in the example above) will need to be dynamically passed to the tracking code for each term that is searched. Talk to your web developer if you need help achieving this, you can then look at 'Option 1' because you are creating a virtual pageview for http://www.your-site.com/search?q=analytics

Goal Abandonment Rate in Google Analytics Explained

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:40:00 +0000

So what is Goal Abandonment Rate in Google Analytics? And what do those numbers mean anyway?

The Goal Abandonment Rate report allows you to see what percent of people have commenced your defined conversion process, but have failed to convert on the goal. But how are those numbers calculated?

Total Percent of Goal Abandonment

The total percent is calculated as follows (for the currently selected time period):

[ ( Unique Goal Starts - Goal Completions ) / Unique Goal Starts ] X 100 = Total Goal Abandonment Rate

Percent of Goal Abandonment by Day

Starting from the right, the (68.75%) uses the same method of calculation, but each row is calculated by day. For example;

[ ( Day Unique Goal Starts - Day Goal Completions ) / Day Unique Goal Starts ] X 100 = Day Goal Abandonment Rate

Moving to the right, the 97.50% is a comparison of each days abandonment rate to the overall abandonment rate for the selected time period, calculated as follows;

[ Day Goal Abandonment Rate / Total Goal Abandonment Rate ] X 100 = Comparison Goal Abandonment Rate

Inside Successful Seminars

noreply@blogger.com (Georgie Wren) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 03:07:00 +0000

I joined the Mangold Sengers team recently as a Marketing Intern with a specific role in Client Engagement. My involvement in the planning, marketing and organization of our most recent Google Analytics seminar included attending the seminar. Shared learning is part of the environment at Mangold Sengers and was reflected in the way the seminar was conducted. Despite being very new to the role, I had the opportunity to put my marketing skills to good use from day one, communicating to various organizations the significance of using Google Analytics to its full potential - something most organizations either don't seem to know how to utilise or simply don't have the resources.

Part of my job at the seminar was to record the questions and collate the participants' feedback. The feedback speaks for itself. Participants of all abilities found the seminar inspiring as well as giving them solid, practical insights into the benefits of Google Analytics for setting and tracking goals, tagging campaigns to measure results and for developing overall website improvement strategies. They also learned the relevance of using Google Analytics to complement Google AdWords and Google Website Optimizer as a means to thoroughly measure, evaluate and improve their marketing initiatives. One participant remarked: "This course opened my eyes to the amazing features of Google Analytics. I believe any company without Google Analytics would be at a loss. It is essential!".

My own learning from the seminar, from marketing to attending, is already proving invaluable as we go into overdrive for our upcoming Google Analytics Seminars for Success in Sydney on the 16 and 17 April and in Melbourne on the 14 and 15 May. We are all working incredibly hard to make Australia's first Google Analytics Seminars for Success a great success! Drawing on experience and feedback from our most recent seminar and suggestions made by participants in past seminars the approach at Mangold Sengers is to make continuous improvements to add extra value and benefits for participants. We are holding the Sydney event in a new venue, the UNSW CBD Campus, which offers great facilities, specially selected for this seminar. I am very much looking forward to working further at Mangold Sengers, already I have been exposed and involved in various aspects of the business and I have been given the opportunity to use my knowledge in a practical context.

Georgie Wren, Client Engagement

New Features Added To Motion Chart

noreply@blogger.com (Daniela Fernandez) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:56:00 +0000

The Google blog (Motion Chart Scavenger Hunt Followup) revealed new motion chart features, comments on the changes have already been posted. Here, there are some of the changes I discovered and their possible benefits.

1. Data Selection

The first new feature easy to find is the select/deselect option. It is possible to select 0, 1 or more items from the list, making easier to know which information is displayed.

2. Bar chart

At the top-right side of the graph you can find a new tab to see the same information shown in the bubble graph but this time as a bar chart. When you move from one type of graph to the other, some information about the new settings is kept such as the elements selected, and opacity, but not the zoom in/out property.

3. Zoom in - Zoom out

Now it is possible to zoom in the information shown in the bubble and bar chart. The steps are explained in the tool in order to Zoom in.

a. Put your mouse in the chart area.
b. Hold down the left mouse button and draw a rectangle over the items you want to zoom in.
c. Release the left mouse button.
d. In the menu that pops up, select 'Zoom in'.

4. Bubble opacity

In my opinion one of the most useful new features is the ability to manage the bubble opacity. At the right side of the graph there is a tool icon[], clicking in there you can find a slider from 0% to 100% to define how opaque do you want the items that are not selected. In the next 2 images you can see the same element with using the opacity in 0% and in 50%.

5. Tools advanced

Finally, there is an option for advanced users that shows a piece of code to be embedded in flash code.

Those who have previously used the motion chart can notice that there was also a change in the way to show the color dimension bar. Before it was placed horizontally, now it is vertical, making easier to see the scale in numbers but taking more space in the page.

Some of the benefits I have discovered so far are:

1. Hide/Show Information: The rule used to manage the opacity is very useful when you don't want to show some information. You can select the items you want to display and set the opacity to 0% or if you want to see all the bubbles without any difference between the selected and unselected, you can setup the opacity to 100% e.g. imagine that you need to record the behaviour of three dot points to show them in a presentation and you want to hide irrelevant information related to the other points. Well, with the new select and opacity option it is possible, you only have to select the dot points you would like to show and set the opacity to 0%. Then, click on the "play" [] button to see the chart in action during the period of time selected.

2. Clean Graph: Also the opacity is useful to clean the screen in order to understand better the graph when you are using the trail option and you want to see only the information of one, two or other specific number of bubbles.

3. Using bubble opacity and zoom in together help to focus on information that you really want to see and avoid distractions.

4. Zoom in small Data: The "zoom in" is really useful for those cases where you have the dimension size setup and some small bubbles or overlapped compared to other data. In the previous version when this happened you had to leave the dimension size set to "same size". However, now it is possible to have different sizes and for those we are interested in just use the zoom in functionality.

5. Quick Data Selection: The selection feature is useful when you want to show information quickly about some specific data. It is easier to select from the list of the 10 first items displayed in the right side rather than check every element in the graph. If we want to reset that, we just need to click in the option "deselect all" which is enabled once we have selected at least one item from the list.

These are just some of the benefits of the new features. I'm pretty sure you will find more, specially when you start playing with the tools together e.g. bubble, zoom in, trails and different size dimension together.

I think the motion chart is a utility that allows us to visualize different data in one single graph. There is only one more feature I would like to have to give 10 points to this tool, and it is the option to change the range of date without going back to the normal report located in the menu.

Google Analytics Kicks Microsoft Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 05:43:00 +0000

Almost 1 year ago I wrote a brief article about why Microsoft Analytics sucked and today Microsoft have announced the end of Microsoft Analytics. Competition in the web analytics market place is essential and as feature sets increase, greater competition drives innovation and creative thinking.

Microsoft Analytics has remained clunky and more importantly slow - way, way too slow! So it does not come as a surprise that Microsoft has had to rethink the analytics front.

Microsoft's announcement raises 2 interesting questions:
How closely is search engine marketing tied to web analytics innovation?
Where are web analytics tools, like Google Analytics, heading?
I am not going to dwell on the first question - maybe you have some thoughts you would like to add on that topic. So I will move on to my (current) Google Analytics wish list.

Google Analytics Wish List

Google Analytics Site Overlay

The current site overlay feature is easy to hate, but aside from making it functional, I would love to see each link tracked independently and lets apply custom segments.

Google Analytics Heatmaps

Heatmaps are loveable and useful for evaluating where people think they can click and how people are interacting with your site. It may not be eye tracking, but it is definitely effective. Crazy Egg does it well, Google Analytics will rock it.

Google Analytics Realtime Tracking

Everybody wants their data now! Yahoo can do it, so, fingers crossed Google comes to the party.

Google Analytics Client Information

Who else would love to be able to tag visitors within Google Analytics and import information you have about your clients and leads? I know I would! Imagine being able to segment based on form input fields to see your clients or leads who have registered interest in a particular product or service.

Google Analytics Custom Segments For Sites

How about using the custom segments from within Google Analytics to present particular content to particular visitors on your website. While I am in this dream, why don't we combine Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics and allow us to input the targeted content straight into Google Analytics to present on our website? Oh, and lets keep it really easy to use and make it pretty!

Google Analytics and SEO

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:36:00 +0000

Fixing Campaign Tagged URLs for Improved SEO

While attending the 2008 GAAC Summit at the Googleplex Robbin Steif of Lunametrics raised an interesting point regarding URLs that have Google Analytics campaign tags. Robbin pointed out that campaign tagged URLs can adversely effect SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a result of duplicate content and that the _setAllowAnchor(true) function can be used to alleviate the problem.

Okay, great, but can you repeat that in English?

Basically, Google sees a page on your site and campaigned tagged URL for the same page as actually being two separate pages. Then when we come to SEO, websites and pages can be given lower priority if there is duplicate content.

We have a landing page about being a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant: www.mangoldsengers.com/google-analytics-authorized-consultant

And we have a campaign tagged link to the same page on the Google Analytics partner page that looks like this: www.mangoldsengers.com/google-analytics-authorized-consultant?utm_source=gaac-listing&utm_medium=referal&utm_campaign=google-analytics

Although these are the same page Google sees them as two separate pages, so now the question is how do I fix the problem?

How to Fix Campaign Tagged URLs for SEO

Luckily, Google doesn't index anything after a # in a URL, so basically we need to change this: www.mangoldsengers.com/google-analytics-authorized-consultant?utm_source=gaac-listing&utm_medium=referal&utm_campaign=google-analytics to this: www.mangoldsengers.com/google-analytics-authorized-consultant#utm_source=gaac-listing&utm_medium=referal&utm_campaign=google-analytics

Google does not index anything after a destination anchor (i.e. the #), so now: www.mangoldsengers.com/google-analytics-authorized-consultant and www.mangoldsengers.com/google-analytics-authorized-consultant#utm_source=gaac-listing&utm_medium=referal&utm_campaign=google-analytics will be seen as the same page by Google. No more duplicate content!

Now that you have fixed the URLs, we need to get the campaign variables into Google Analytics. This is simply achieved by using the _setAllowAnchor(true) function that Robbin mentioned at the summit.

Your GATC (Google Analytics Tracking Code) will need to be modified (you will need to replace UA-XXXXXXX-X with your Google Analytics profile ID):

If you have any questions or need help implementing SEO friendly campaign tags for Google Analytics then please get in touch!

Web Analytics Wednesday in Sydney

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:10:00 +0000

Join us for Web Analytics Wednesday on 27 August in Sydney, Australia.

We will be meeting at Industrie from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. The event will begin with a brief panel discussion titled 'Getting Management Involved in Web Analytics' followed by networking. Light snacks will be provided and the first 20 people to arrive will receive a complementary drink, everybody attending will be in the draw for a web analytics door prize.

Industry panelists will be announced soon.

Web Analytics Wednesday is a free event, open to anyone interested in web analytics and online marketing, including professionals and vendors. Come along to discuss web analytics and network at Sydney's Web Analytics Wednesday.

Event Details

When: Wednesday 27 August 2008
Time: 6pm to 8pm
Venue: Industrie Bar and Restaurant
Where: 107 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW 2000

Please RSVP by emailing events@mangoldsengers.com or on the Web Analytics Wednesday in Sydney page.

Free Webinar by Google

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:43:00 +0000

The Google Trifecta: Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Website Optimizer

DATE: Tuesday, July 8, 2008
TIME: 9:00 - 10:00 am PT (Pacific Time)
JOIN US: Register to attend

Tom Leung, Senior Google Product Manager and Google Website Optimizer Guru has asked us to mention the upcoming Google Trifecta webinar.

I encourage all of our US and Canadian readers to attend and for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, I will post an update if a recording becomes available after the event.

For more details visit the Google Website Optimizer blog.

How to analyze results in Google Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:12:00 +0000

Google Analytics gives us so many pretty graphs, but value is only gained when that data is used to drive action to improve your site. So how do we begin to analyze results in Google Analytics?

Firstly, you need to understand what your website is about and what it actually does for your business. This may seem like a obvious place to start, but you would be surprised at how many people I meet that cannot answer this question.

What is the purpose of your website?

To generate leads? To sell products? To register subscribers? To sell services? To provide support?

Once you can identify the purpose of your website you can begin to identify ways to improve your site. Generally your initial focus will either be content or a specific process you want to optimize.

3 ways to improve your website content by analyzing Google Analytics reports:

1. Analyze the Keywords report

Review the Keywords report, do the keywords align with the purpose of your site or business?

If you identify an organic keyword that is important to your business, but has a high bounce rate, then develop content that specifically targets visitors using that keyword.

2. Analyze the Site Search report

Setup Site Search to identify gaps in content. Are people searching for something that your site already answers? If so, you should look at your navigation system, can they get there easily?

If Site Search contains search terms that you know won't bring up relevant content on your site, you need to ask yourself why? Do these search terms identify opportunities to generate new content or fill the desires of your website visitors?

3. Analyze the Top Content report

When you look at top content report are there any pages that have a low average time on page or a high bounce rate? This generally indicates that a page isn't giving visitors what they are seeking. Review the pages that have the lowest time on page and highest bounce rate.

You can begin to see how to analyze results in Google Analytics based on the purpose of your website. Once you understand how your site works as a business tool, you can use Google Analytics to inform your process.

Google AdWords Scam

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Watch out for all the Google AdWords phishing emails circulating at the moment.

Those of you who are new to Google AdWords are probably already familiar with the simple text-only emails that Google sends out for confirming your account details. But you should look out for any emails that request you to update your account and payment details.

Always login directly by typing www.google.com/adwords messages will be displayed directly on the Campaign Summary or Account Snapshot page.

If you receive any suspicious emails forward them directly to phishing@google.com

Google Analytics vs. Microsoft Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Mon, 19 May 2008 23:48:00 +0000

Why Microsoft adCenter Analytics suck!

I use Google products every day, there are a lot of things I like about Google products and some things that drive me insane but on the whole Google does the right thing - it keeps things fast and simple. This is exactly why Microsoft Analytics suck, Microsoft Analytics is what Google Analytics might be like if it had a hangover the day after its 75th birthday. I can almost hear it grumble each time a report loads.

There are a couple of things that don't suck about Microsoft Analytics when compared to Google Analytics but my dislikes push me over the edge. Each task seems to take more clicks in Microsoft Analytics and the touted gender, occupation and age segments leave a lot to be desired.

Stick with the snappy, responsive and friendly Google Analytics!

Dislikes:

Slow loading time
Not optimized for viewing on normal size screens
Dynamic images rather than flash lead to a lot of loading and reloading
Breaks web browser back button
Times out quickly and forces you to log in over and over again

Likes:

Simple media and downloads tracking (via modified tracking code)
Simple outbound link tracking (via modified tracking code)
Unrestricted number of goals and funnels

The great thing about Microsoft Analytics (and Yahoo! Analytics just around the corner) is that we all know the team at Google is going to be pushing even harder to make Google Analytics the best analytics solution on the market. Go you good thing!

The Microsoft Analytics visitors report is overly complex:

In comparison, the Google Analytics visitors report is a minimalists dream:

Benchmarking reports in Google Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:37:00 +0000

The Google Analytics benchmarking reports are now available for those of us who have opted in to anonymously share our data. The reports are available within the Visitors report section.

The benchmarking reports include:

Visits
Pageviews
Average pages per visitor
Bounce rate
Average time on site
Percent of new visitors

These reports allow you to compare your site's performance to that of sites within your industry. The feature only compares your site to "site of similar size" which ensures that small sites (e.g. a local business) are not being compared to goliath sites (e.g. a multi-national). Ensuring that you can only compare your site to a "site of similar size" also ensures a level of democracy for the reports, large organizations will be prevented from creating a tiny site to try and get access to competitive data.

An example of an site under-performing in comparison to the benchmark:

An example of a site that is better than the benchmark:

By default the initial benchmarking reports compare your site to "all sites of a similar size". To get the juicy reports and really see how you are performing you need to select "Open category list" and select a category that is the closest match to your industry. It is also a good idea to take a look at your data in comparison to other industries, for example, a winery could check their data against Food & Drink > Alcoholic Beverages > Wine and Travel > Attractions & Activities.

The available categories are expanding rapidly, so even if you do not currently see your industry, check the report in the couple of days and you might be pleasantly surprised.

Benchmarking category selection tool:

Tracking Google Docs with Google Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 02:53:00 +0000

Google Blogoscoped has just posted an article about tracking Google Docs using Google Analytics. You are now able to input a Google Analytics Tracking Code on your Google Docs settings page.

Unfortunately it appears that we can only track published documents with the new tracking feature. Hopefully Google Docs will soon allow us to track published forms and shared documents.

Industry benchmarking comes to Google Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:24:00 +0000

Google has released the new benchmarking feature which allows you to compare your site to data provided from similar sites. We are now able to not only see internal site context (i.e. how different pages or areas of your site are performing), but how a site is performing within industry context (i.e. how the site compares to similar sites).

The new benchmarking report allows you to better understand overall site performance.

In order to take advantage of the new benchmarking feature you will need to opt-in on your Account Settings page, Google will then anonymously share your data within your industry vertical to generate reports. If you do not wish to share your data, then simply select "Do not share my Google Analytics data".

Along with industry benchmarking, Google Analytics now allows you to opt-in to share your Google Analytics data with other Google products, this will allow for integrations with AdWords, AdSense and other Google products.

If you have any questions about sharing your data or the new benchmarking feature you can email me at analytics@mangoldsengers.com

Resources:

5 tips for getting the most out of Google Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:38:00 +0000

I have been writing a '101 tips for using Google Analytics' article since late last year and it keeps getting pushed to the bottom of my priority list. Rather than letting them go stale in Google Docs I have decided to share a couple of tips with you - let's put them to work!

If you have a tip you would like to share or have a pressing Google Analytics question that might become a tip, then send an email to analytics@mangoldsengers.com

Setup website goals. A website goal is a high value action that you would like your website visitors to perform. On a content or lead generation site, this could include subscribing to an email newsletter or completing a contact form. On a e-commerce site this could be the completion of a checkout process. You can access goal data across numerous reports within Google Analytics, plus you will have access to goal specific reports under the 'Goals' tab.

Setup e-commerce tracking. If you have an e-commerce website make sure you enable e-commerce tracking within your Google Analytics website profile and add appropriate e-commerce tags to your website. If you don't have an e-commerce website you can still use e-commerce reports to associate a dollar value to particular website visitors.

Link your Google AdWords account to your Google Analytics account. Once your accounts are linked you will have access to AdWords visitor data within Google Analytics.

Track your marketing campaigns. Campaign tracking is a crucial element in understanding how your marketing campaigns are performing. By tagging online and offline campaigns you can begin to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives. Tag everything!

Manually tag your CPC (Cost Per Click) campaigns. If you use a CPC system other than Google AdWords, you will need to manually tag your campaign URLs. CPC campaigns that are not tagged will be logged as "organic" (or unpaid) searches within Google Analytics.

Google Analytics vs. Urchin 6 vs. Urchin 5

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 05:04:00 +0000

Over the last few weeks I have been consulting with large companies on using Google Analytics for enterprise. I have been asked about the differences between Google Analytics and Urchin on a couple of occasions during these workshops, so this post is all about the differences. I have decided to include Urchin 5 in this comparison because a lot of people use Urchin 5 because it is provided by their hosting companies.

Brett Crosby on Urchin

"Urchin Software is a downloadable software product which makes it appealing to organizations with restrictive data policies or those wishing to analyze firewall-protected content, such as an internal company network.

"Urchin is also useful for those who want to perform ad-hoc historical log processing, who want to store their web analytics on local servers, hosting providers wishing to provide a value-added analytics service, and those requiring third-part audits." Brett Crosby, Google Analytics Group Product Marketing Manager

Compare, compare, compare

Here are the key features compared...

Feature	Google Analytics	Urchin 6	Urchin 5
Install and manage on your own server
Hosted and maintained by Google
Reprocess historical data (from logfiles)
Track content behind firewall
Track search engine robots/spiders
Goal tracking			Add-on
Campaign tracking			Add-on
Automatic Google AdWords tracking
E-commerce reports			Add-on

Break the firewall

One of the key differences between Google Analytics and Urchin, is that Urchin is installed on your own server, which allows you to track content that cannot be tracked by Google Analytics, for example a company intranet.

Google Analytics rocks Google AdWords

When it comes to tracking your Google AdWords campaigns, Google Analytics is your answer!

Google Analytics is a critical tool if you are running Google AdWords campaigns, once you have linked your accounts you have access to reports that are not available within Urchin. These reports provide incredible insights into the success of your campaigns and where improvements can be achieved.

Auto-tagging makes tracking easy (apologies to Avinash)
See if your Ads are actually making you money
Compare the success of Ad variations
Compare other campaigns to Google AdWords
See your best Ad positions on Google.com
Understand the engagement of your paid visitors
Segment and compare your data to site goals and e-commerce reports

Urchin 6 Public Beta Available

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:24:00 +0000

Google has officially launched the Urchin 6 public beta.

Urchin allows you to access Google Analytics style reports on your own servers. The new version of Urchin is aimed at enterprise customers and allows for both website and intranet user tracking.

Key Urchin 6 benefits:

Easy to use and understand
No subscription fees
Maintain control over log files
Can be installed behind a firewall
Compatible with Google Analytics
Track non-human site visitors
Automatically track error pages
Audit Google Analytics figures

Urchin 6 will cost $2,995 USD once it is out of beta.

Download your own 90 day demo version of the Urchin 6 beta

We provide professional installation and customization services. Contact us for details.

Urchin 6 resources:

Updated Google Analytics tracking code (ga.js)

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 03:30:00 +0000

Google has updated the ga.js tracking code due to a number of problems Google Analytics users were experiencing. The initial release of the new Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC) prevented websites from validating, did not publish correctly within Blogger templates and the new code did not work with ASP websites. The updated tracking code solves these problems.

Updated version of the ga.js tracking code:

<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">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXX-XX");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

This updated tracking code does not validate for XHTML Strict websites, however adding CDATA tags solves this problem.

XHTML compliant version of the updated ga.js tracking code:

<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
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">
//<!--[CDATA[
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXX-XX");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
//]]-->
</script>

Here is a copy of the tracking code before the update for those of you who are interested.

Previous version of the tracking code:

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write("\
\<\/script>" );
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXX-XX");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

Thank you to Justin Cutroni who posted about the updated ga.js tracking code and Jason Green who provided the XHTML Strict solution.

New Google Analytics Tracking Code (ga.js) released

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:48:00 +0000

The new Google Analytics Tracking Code (ga.js) is now live. The new tracking code will give you access to new features as they are released, the first new feature will be Event Tracking.

Key features:

Smaller tracking code = faster loading speed
Easier to use
Automatic detection of HTTPS
Required for new features

You will have to replace the legacy tracking code (urchin.js) with the new tracking code on your website. Google has stated that the legacy tracking code will continue to function for at least 12 months from the release of the new tracking code.

The following steps show you how to find the new Google Analytics Tracking Code:

Step 1

Click 'Edit' next to the desired profile.

Step 2

Click 'Check Status' on the Profile Settings page.

Step 3

Replace the tracking code on your website with the new ga.js tracking code.

Violating the Google Analytics Terms of Service

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:28:00 +0000

I received a email newsletter from a popular email marketing company and was surprised that they violated the Google Analytics Terms of Service.

The Terms of Service clearly state "You will not (and will not allow any third party to) use the Service to track or collect personally identifiable information of Internet users". This includes things like names, email addresses and phone numbers.

You can clearly see my email address is being logged in the utm_content element of the campaign tag within the email newsletter below.

Thoughts from an analytical breakfast

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:26:00 +0000

This morning I attended 'An Industry in Transition - Web Analytics to Marketing Optimization' in Vancouver, Canada which was the first breakfast series put on by the Web Analytics Association (WAA) and eMetrics.

John Hossack of VKI Studios, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant, who I previously met at Google's Headquarters in Mountain View, California presented a case study around the use of Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer. It was great to see John's presentation and how they are using Google's products within the Canadian market place.

Jim Sterne was the keynote speaker at the event, Jim is heavily involved within the analytics industry and is currently the Chairman of the WAA. I was surprised by his presentation's content due to the lack of insights and depth. The event was described as "sharing insight into the level of expertise among practitioners today; challenges faced; opportunities available; and the role we play as companies adopt the continuous improvement method of marketing optimization", so I am quite disappointed.

Jim's presentation did provide a engaging walk through of the historical development of web analytics, but it seemed to be aimed at organizations that are just beginning to realize the potential of analytics as a business and marketing tool. This got me thinking about the maturity of the analytics industry in Australia and how it is still very new to a lot of Australian companies.

I created the following graphic by overlaying two graphs from Google Trends. It presents the search volume for the phrase "Google Analytics" within Australia compared to the global search volume. I believe this is a fairly accurate reflection of how much Australian companies need to catch up, it is fair to say Australia is 18 months behind in the adoption of analytics.

Search volume for "Google Analytics"
(The spike on the left reflect the initial release of Google Analytics.)

Questions from our live Google Analytics webinar

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:44:00 +0000

We ran Australia's first live Google Analytics webinar on Tuesday 6 November 2007 and a second live webinar on Tuesday 20 November 2007. We have had participants from the UK, US, Canada and Australia, including executives from insurance and finance companies, advertising agencies, PR companies, business consultancies, interactive companies, universities, and marketing managers and web managers.

The quality of the questions in the webinar Q&A was great. I've typed up my responses and included more information and links so everyone who has taken part in our live online Google Analytics webinars can see all the questions and answers together.

Our job as a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant is to help you use Google Analytics website visitor data to improve your websites and measure the results so you can keep on improving your website and online sales and marketing initiatives to get the results and Return On Investment (ROI) you want.

We provide Google Analytics consulting services and training courses to help you achieve the results in the way and time-frame you decide is best for you.

Can you analyse a group of websites using Google Analytics?

Yes, you can separately track multiple websites within Google Analytics.

You can also track sub-domains within one Google Analytics profile.

Are there any privacy issues involved in tracking online user activity?

Google Analytics does not allow you to track personally identifiable information, for example; names, email addresses and IP addresses. Google takes privacy seriously with all their products, the Google Analytics Terms of Service (TOS) and the Google Analytics Privacy Policy cover Google Analytics.

All websites using Google Analytics are obliged under the Terms of Service to post a privacy policy.

Can you analyse previous web traffic using Google Analytics? (i.e. before you have Google Analytics setup)

No, you cannot use Google Analytics to reprocess historical traffic data.

We can help you setup Google's Urchin software to reprocess logfiles and analyse your historical visitor data.

Can you use Google Analytics with Flash websites?

Yes, a Flash website can be setup with specific tags to track interactions.

We can assist you so that your Flash website can be tracked by Google Analytics.

Is it better to use Google Analytics or Google AdWords tracking?

Google Analytics provides you with more sophisticated ways to analyse and interact with conversion data. You also get a wide variety of complimentary reports that can help you understand your website visitors.

You can also run Google Analytics parallel to Google AdWords conversion tracking.

We can advise you on the best practices for linking your Google AdWords accounts to you Google Analytics accounts.

What is the difference between Google Analytics and other analytics tools like ClickTracks and Hitwise?

Google Analytics is used by businesses of all sizes, from corporations such as Roche and Nestle to small businesses. Google Analytics is free, so once you get it set up you don’t have fees, you can spend the money on improving your website to get the results you want instead of on expensive analytics solutions.

Google Analytics will probably meet all your needs but if you are using a fee based analytics service why not setup Google Analytics and see if it meets your needs?

Does Google Analytics generate reports automatically?

Yes, Google Analytics automatically collects the data and generates all the reports.

Our Google Analytics Online Introductory Courses will show you how to export reports in PDF and CSV formats and how to setup automatic email scheduling.

Can Google Analytics be used for email campaign tracking?

Yes, you can track any type of campaign by tagging links.

We can show you how to correctly tag links and develop best practices for campaign tagging.

Can we conduct a survey using Google Analytics?

No, Google Analytics not generate surveys, but you can setup Google Analytics to track the success of your web-based survey.

Can we use Google Analytics for a one-off web event?

Yes and you can also setup Funnel Goals for specific events to track conversion rates.

How much does Google Analytics cost?

Google Analytics is a free product offered by Google.

The advantage of Google Analytics is that you can redirect budget into improving your website, rather than paying for an expensive analytics solution.

Can you use Google Analytics if you sponsor a website but you are not the actual owner?

If they install the Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC) on all the pages of the website.

We can liaise with your web developer to ensure the Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC) is correctly installed and that Google Analytics is properly setup.

What are the advantages of using Google Analytics e-commerce tracking compared to Google AdWords conversion tracking?

Google Analytics gives you access to the following e-commerce reports:

Total revenue
Conversion rate
Average order value
Product SKUs
Product Categories
Transactions
Visits to purchase
Time to purchase

Once you have Google Analytics e-commerce tracking setup you can also access e-commerce related data throughout Google Analytics and segment reports according to e-commerce values.

We can setup Google Analytics e-commerce tracking for your website.

How do you track PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns that are not Google AdWords campaigns?

You will need to tag the links in your 'non-AdWords' PPC campaigns.

Google AdWords campaigns are automatically tagged for Google Analytics.

How do I get started using Google Analytics?

You can set it up yourself but you won't automatically get the type or quality of data you need and without training you won't understand how to make best use of its features to maximise the value and benefits you get from it for your organisation.

Google Analytics is bit like learning French, a few words might be enough for you to get by if you are taking a quick trip but if you need it for your career it may be essential for you to speak it fluently or it's purely business you are interested in you may need an bi-lingual consultant to guide you.

As a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant we can provide you with consulting services and training courses at exactly the level you need to achieve your website and online sales and marketing objectives and measure the results using Google Analytics.

Google Analytics Site Search: Usage Report

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:07:00 +0000

Understanding how your visitors use your website's internal search function has become easier with the new Site Search reports within Google Analytics.

In this post I will specifically look at how the Site Search Usage report can be used to evaluate how your internal search function may, or may not be performing to your organization's needs.

The Usage Report

The Usage report allows you to see the percent of website visitors using your internal search function and those who are not. If you know your search function is in need of an upgrade, and there area a high percent of visitors engaging with the internal search function, then you should consider upgrading your internal search function to better meet their needs.

If your website is already running a enterprise level search solution, like the Google Search Appliance, then this report will allow you to begin measuring the ROI (Return On Investment) of your search solution.

The Goal Conversion tab within the Usage report allows you to dive further into how your website's internal search is performing. Allowing you to see if visitors using your internal search are more likely to convert or not.

The following questions will make you think critically about your internal search:

Can visitors find the information they require in order to convert without using the internal search?
Where is the search box located on your website?
Is the search box consistently located across your entire site?
Are visitors getting the search results they expect?
Does your internal search cope with spelling mistakes?
Do visitors using search spend more time or view more pages on your website?

Once you have a good understanding of how your internal search is setup and used you will be able to improve its performance. The Site Search Usage report will then allow you to gauge the effectiveness of your improvements.

Setting up Google Analytics Site Search

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Mangold) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 01:50:00 +0000

Step 1

Perform a search on your website and look at the URL.

In this example a search for 'analytics' has been performed.

This example shows a search for 'analytics', the resulting URL is http://www.example.com/search?q=analytics. Note that the Query Parameter is 'q'.

(Please note that your website's internal search may return a much longer URL, for example http://www.example.com/search.asp?site=example&area=products&term=analytics. Note that the Query Parameter is 'term'.)

Step 2

Log into Google Analytics and click 'Edit' on next to the website profile.

Step 3

Click 'Edit' for your Main Website Profile Information.

Step 4

Select 'Do Track Site Search'.

Step 5

Enter the Query Parameter from your internal search.

Selecting 'Yes, strip query parameters out of URL' will prevent your search from showing up in your Content reports, for example:

Selecting 'No, do not strip query parameters out of URL' will include your search results in your Content reports, for example:

Site Search also allows you to setup categories. This can be used if your internal search has the ability to segment results across different areas of your website. To setup categories you will need to know the parameter that returns results for the different areas of your website. For example if you are using a Google Mini or Google Search Appliance the Category Parameter would be 'site' on a default configuration.

If your search does not have categories do not enter a Category Parameter.

How accurate are website counts?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Mangold) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:44:00 +0000

The New York Times article How Many Site Hits? Depends Who's Counting by Louise Story looks at the accuracy of website visitor tracking for online publications of Vogue and W magazines (Style.com).

The problem is anomalies between internal monthly visitor counts e.g. September 2007 by publisher Condé Nast (1.8 million) compared to those of external agencies such as ComScore (421,000) and Neilsen/Net Ratings (497,000) whose counts have so much influence on advertisers and advertising rates.

As a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant we use Google Analytics to report and analyze website visitor tracking data directly from the websites of a wide range of organizations to allow them to measure results for lead generation, online and offline marketing campaigns, online and offline advertising, membership campaigns, online ordering and online sales.