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Tag: google analytics

  • Watch This Webinar About Remarketing With Google Analytics

    Google recently posted an hour-long webinar about Remarketing with Google Analytics. Google launched the feature earlier this year in beta, to help users create remarketing lists based on specific audiences who visit their sites and show interest in products.

    Google says in the video description:

    This webinar presents in-depth examples on how to use Remarketing with Google Analytics. With this tool, you can tap into valuable Google Analytics insights about your website visitors who show an interest in your products and services — for example, visitors who spend time viewing specific pages or who put items in their shopping cart. Once you’ve identified your audience, you can run ads across the Google Display Network (GDN) that are tailored to that audience. Take advantage of your existing Google Analytics tags and easily create and edit sophisticated lists using Google Analytics segmentation capabilities.

  • Google Tag Manager Gets Built-In Templates For Popular Tags

    In October, Google announced the launch of Tag Manager, a tool for consolidating the various tags you use for your site into one snippet of code, and enabling you to manage them from a single interface.

    Google has now teamed up with a handful of companies to provide its “first wave” of Tag Vendor templates. Companies involved include: comScore (Unified Digital Measurement tag), Turn (Conversion Tracking and Data Collection tags), Media6Degrees (Universal tag), Bizo (Business Data Insight tag), and Neustar AdAdvisor.

    “One of our favorite features of Google Tag Manager is the ability to add new tags to your site using a tag template instead of copying-and-pasting code — and we’ve just made tagging even easier with several new built-in tag templates,” said Google Tag Manager product manager Laura Holmes. “Just add a few key details to the template, and Google Tag Manager will automatically generate the correct code.”

    Google says it will be adding more supported tags to the list, and is actually taking requests, so feel free to let them know what you want to see added.

  • Google Launches Enhanced Link Attribution For In-Page Analytics

    Google announced a new link attribution feature for In-Page Analytics. You’ll be able to access the feature by adding two lines to your tracking snippet and enabling it in the web property settings.

    The feature uses a combination of element IDs and destination URL to provide the ability to distinguish between multiple links to the same destination page, click-through info when redirects are being used, and click-through info for other elements, such as buttons or javascript-triggered navigations.

    “In-Page Analytics provides click-through data in the context of your actual site, and is a highly effective tool to analyze your site pages and come up with actionable information that can be used to optimize your site content,” says Barak Ori of the Google Analytics Team.

    Enhanced Link Attribution

    “Before now, In-Page Analytics was limited to showing clickthrough information by URL and not by the actual link on the page, and was limited to showing information only on links, and not on other elements like buttons,” Ori adds. “The most common complaint about In-Page Analytics is that if a page has two or more links to the same destination page, we show the same statistics for both links, since there was no telling which link the user actually clicked.”

    Google has more details about how to use the feature in this help center article.

    The feature is rolling out over the course of the next several weeks.

  • Google Analytics Gets Cost Data Import Tool

    Google announced that it has launched a Cost Data import tool for Google Analytics, so users can import cost data from any digital source, including paid search providers, affiliates, email, social and organic traffic. The tool is in public beta.

    Users can upload data by using a self-service API or solutions created by independent app providers like NEXT Analytics, AutomateAnalytics.com GA Data Uploader, ShufflePoint In2GA, or Analytics Canvas.

    The imported data can be viewed in a new report called Cost Analysis in Traffic Sources, and in the new Attribution Modeling Tool.

    “These reports show you how all your digital marketing channels are performing compared to each other, so you can make better decisions about your marketing programs,” says product manager Laura Holmes.

    Cost Data Import will roll out over the next month, the company says.

  • Google Opens Mobile App Analytics Up To All

    In June, Google introduced Mobile App Analytics in closed beta. At the time, the company said it would be opening up the beta in waves. I guess the final tidal wave is upon us, as Google announced today that it is now open to everyone in public beta.

    “With ever-expanding mobile application marketplaces (more than 600,000 apps on Google Play at the time of writing) and a shift in focus to mobile (more than 80 percent of marketers are planning to increase emphasis in mobile initiatives in 2013, according to recent research we conducted with ClickZ) measuring mobile is more important now than ever,” JiaJing Wang from the Google Analytics Team says in a blog post.

    Google has also added some new features to the offering. For one, there is a new sign-up flow for all Google Analytics users. Users will see it whenever they set up a new entity on Google Analytics.

    “In just 3 clicks, you’ll be able to set up your app analytics account, download the SDK, and be well on the way to tracking key metrics and finding valuable insights using our features,” says Wang.

    There are new Android and IOS SDKs, which Google says are more powerful, yet “really easy to implement”.

    There is a new App Versions report, which lets you know how quickly users are migrating to the latest version of your app, what the cannibalization effect is among your different versions, and how many users would be affected if you deprecated an early version.

    App Versions report

    There is also a new version of “Custom Variables” called “Custom Dimensions,” which let you create your own dimensions by which to segment hits in each standard or custom Google Analytics report, and leverage your business/customer data as custom dimension values. This feature will actually be rolled out over the next few weeks.

    “Other improvements include: more accurate & up-to-date mobile device library, armv7s ( iOS6) support, support for social interaction tracking, a more accurate Google Play conversion report and more,” says Wang.

    From the sound of it, Google has plenty more features up its sleeve for launch in the near future.

  • Google Real Time Analytics Gets Profile Support

    Google is rolling out Real Time support for profiles in Google Analytics. Data from the Real Time Analytics feature (launched last year in beta), will be profile specific and obey the filtering that you have set up on your own profile. Any user with access to a profile can view the associated real time reports.

    “When viewing your real time reports keep in mind these changes,” notes Linus Chou from the Google Analytics team. “If the numbers are lower than you are used to, check your filters to see what traffic is being excluded. And if you use real time for debugging, be sure to use an unfiltered report for that purpose.”

    “Real Time has always been great for rapid testing and debugging of your tracking code and now with profile support you can do the same when creating profile filters,” add Chou. “When you change the filters in your profile, you should see the effects in the real time reports within a couple of hours. We are working to make this even quicker going forward.”

    Profile support will be available for both web pages and App profiles, so users can see mobile SDK traffic in real time. The feature will be rolling out over the next couple weeks.

    On a related note, Google says it is seeing seven years worth of engagement with the Real Time Analytics feature every day.

  • Google Adds Google Analytics Data To AdWords

    You’ve long been able to connect your Google Analytics and AdWords account, but Google has now announced that it is making it possible to use Google Analytics data from right within AdWords. This includes bounce rate, pages per visit, and average visit duration.

    Each of these can be enabled as columns from the Campaigns and Ad Groups tab.

    “With more performance data available right where you’re managing your campaigns, you can make better informed decisions and improve your AdWords ROI,” says product manager Dan Friedman.

    Selected Google Analytics data is available at the campaign, ad group, keyword and ad levels.

    “By viewing these Google Analytics site engagement stats alongside your AdWords performance stats, you get a first-hand glimpse of what people do once they reach your Destination URL after clicking your ad,” Google says. “This post-click insight gives you another view of the effectiveness of your campaigns and ad groups, which can help you make decisions about budgets, bids, landing pages and ad copy.”

    Obviously, you’ll need to take the steps required to get your Google Analytics data connected to your AdWords account. Luckily, Google provides step-by-step instructions here.

  • Safari Makes Google Searches Encrypted, Distorts Analytics

    Safari Makes Google Searches Encrypted, Distorts Analytics

    Mobile Google searches are more secure from Safari on iOS 6 than they were in previous versions of iOS or from other mobile browsers. Apple is reportedly routing Google searches through the SSL version of Google, which Google made the default experience for signed in users from the desktop last year.

    This makes searching more secure, and ncreases privacy. At the same time, it distorts analytics data. When Google turned it on for the desktop, it turned keyword data in Google Analytics to “not provided”. With Apple’s version, it’s just making search traffic count as “direct”. In other words, if someone gets to your site by searching Google from the search box in Apple’s latest version of Safari, it will look like they just went to your site directly instead of finding it through a search. Your search traffic may seem down, and your direct visitors may seem up.

    Danny Sullivan explains the situation in great detail at Search Engine Land, where he shares a statement from Google, who says:

    If you go to google.com on most mobile web browsers today, you don’t get SSL. Currently there’s significantly more latency for SSL connections on mobile devices that we believe creates a poor user experience, so we’re looking into the best way to make HTTPS connections faster on mobile devices. That’s why we don’t yet show personal results on mobile, either.

    For now, SSL Search on desktop continues to be a leader for offering more secure searches, which other major search engines don’t offer in any form.

    For the web browser on iOS 6 with SSL on by default, our web servers don’t yet take that fact into account. We’re investigating different options to address this issue.

    It will be interesting to see what Google’s solution is. Will the company find a way around Apple’s increased privacy? Would they want to do something involving Safari that somehow decreases user privacy after being handed the largest fine for a single company in FTC history over Safari-related privacy issues?

    Also, Google seems to consider “poor user experience” the problem with doing SSL search on mobile itself. If this is the case, where are all of the complaints about the “poor user experience” from the Safari search box? I can’t say I’ve heard any.

  • Google Tag Manager Lets You Consolidate Site Tags Into One Snippet Of Code

    Google has announced the launch of Google Tag Manager, a new tool to consolidate the various tags you may use for your site into one snippet of code, and to manage from a single web interface.

    Users can add and update their own tags anytime. It’s not limited to Google-specific tags. It includes asynchronous tag loading, so “tags can fire faster without getting in each other’s way,” as Google puts it. It comes with tag templates for marketers to quickly add tags with Google’s interface, and supports custom tags. It also has error prevention tools like Preview Mode, a Debug Console, and Version History “to ensure new tags won’t break your site.”

    There are user permissions and multi-account functionality, and Google says it will be adding more features over the coming months.

    Google Tag Manager is launching globally in English, but it will come to other languages soon.

    Google has also announced the Tag Vendor Program, which enables tag providers to get templates within Tag Manager.

  • Google Analytics Gets Some Ecommerce Updates

    Google Analytics Gets Some Ecommerce Updates

    Google announced some updates it’s making to Google Analytics tracking code and processing, specifically related to ecommerce.

    “These changes will allow you to better filter, segment and categorize the revenue generating portion of your traffic,” says Google in a blog post.

    Users will now be able to utilize custom variables, and Google is expanding filters for ecommerce to support page titles, hostnames, request URIs and internal search terms. Before, ecommerce data didn’t respect profile filters for “page-level” data, Google points out.

    “Say you are tracking www.website.com and store.website.com,” the company explains. “In order to analyze store traffic separately you have created a duplicate profile with a filter that includes traffic to store.website.com only. Currently, ecommerce reports would include data across both store.website.com and website.com which is not working as expected. Following this change, ecommerce reports would respect the filter to only include data from store.website.com which we believe is the correct behavior.”

    Google notes that if you have profile filters for page level data, the change will mean ecommerce data is only included for the subset of your traffic you’re filtering for.

    The changes will roll out on Friday.

  • Google Analytics Gets New Shortcuts

    Google announced the launch of Shortcuts in Google Analytics. These, as Google explains, are designed to get your the exact view you want of your data in “record time.”

    Google is all about speeding things up, and this should help out in the GA department.

    “Rather than having to go through the ‘find report, add segment, change, sort’ process daily, with Shortcuts you can do it once, save it, and come back to it in a single click,” says Andrew Seguin from Google’s Analytics team.

    The shortcuts will save standard or custom reports for context, the currently viewed tab on the report, sort order, advanced segments and graphed metric. They will not, however, save date ranges or sample sizes. Google says this is because they’re dependent on the data you’re looking at. If you need to save something to the shortcut, just make sure you click save from the utility bar.

    Google Analytics Shortcuts

    To set up a shortcut, click the “Shortcut” button, which appears on standard or custom report pages, in the utility bar. Name the shortcut, and it will take you to a new “Shortcuts” section in the “Home” tab. You can visit this section anytime from Google Analytics to quickly get to the reports you want to look at, with minimal hassle.

    Shortcuts

    Well done, Google. Although personally, I’d like to see the option from the realtime overview page.

    It’s worth noting that shortcuts can be emailed and exported, just like any other standard report. Shortcuts apply at the profile level.

  • Google Analytics Gets New Apps Script Automation

    Google announced today that it has released a new Google Analytics feature, that enables data from GA to be put into any Apps Script-supported product more easily. That includes Google Docs, Sites and Spreadsheets.

    “Many people have been asking for a simple way to put Google Analytics data into a Google Spreadsheet,” says Google engineer Nick Mihailovski. “Once the data is inside a Google Spreadsheet, users can easily manipulate Google Analytics data, create new visualizations, and build internal dashboards.”

    Here, you can see what Google Analytics data accessed via Apps Script, and displayed in a Google Spreadsheet might look like:

    Google Analytics in Spreadsheet

    “We know that a popular use case of this integration will be to create dashboards that automatically update,” writes Mihailovski. “To make this easy to do, we’ve added a script to the Spreadsheets script gallery that handles all this work – no code required. The script is called Google Analytics Report Automation (Magic).”

    He provides the following video demo of how to use the script to build a dashboard:

    You can find the Google Analytics Apps Script documentation here. And here’s a tutorial for automated access to Google Analytics data in Google Spreadsheets.

  • Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels Reporting Gets API

    Google has released the Multi-Channel Funnels API, a feature the company says has been heavily requested since they released Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics last year.

    “The API allows you to query for metrics like Assisted Conversions, First Interactions Conversions, and Last Interaction conversions, as well as Top Paths, Path Length and Time Lag, to incorporate conversion path data into your applications,” says Google software engineer John Huang. “Key use cases we’ve seen so far involve combining this conversion path data with other data sources, such as cost data, creating new visualizations, as well as using this data to automate processes such as bidding.”

    “For example, Cardinal Path used the new Multi-Channel Funnels API, Analytics Canvas ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) and Tableau Software to help their client, C3 Presents, uncover how time and channels affected Lollapalooza ticket sales in an analysis dubbed ‘MCF DNA,’” adds Huang. “The outcome was a new visualization, similar to a DNA graph, that helped shed light on how channels appeared throughout the conversion funnel.”

    Multi Channel Funnels

    Google says you should upgrade to the new v3.0 API libraries for full functionality. The company provides a migration guide here.

  • Google Launches Remarketing With Google Analytics

    Google has announced that it’s rolling out Remarketing With Google Analytics in beta, to help users create remarketing lists based on specific audiences who visit their sites and show interest in products.

    Before, users had to tag their sites twice – for Google Analytics, and again for remarketing specifically. No longer will that be necessary.

    “We’ve made it simple and fast to find the customers you want. Select from predefined remarketing lists, or create your own customized lists—all based on familiar Google Analytics metrics such as pages viewed, visit duration, and goal completions,” Google says of remarketing with Google Analytics. “Then automatically send your customer lists to Google AdWords and run targeted ads in minutes, with just a couple of clicks. Reach precisely the audience you want by taking advantage of more than two million websites on the GDN.”

    “Remarketing can help improve the relevancy of the ads that users see online,” says Google Analytics product manager Jesse Savage. “We’re also committed to giving users increased control over the ads they see on Google and across the web with tools like Mute This Ad, the Ads Preferences Manager, and the Google Analytics Opt-out.”

    The feature will roll out in waves by the end of the summer, Google says. All Google Analytics users who are admins, and have at least one linked Google AdWords account will get it.

    Google has a fact sheet about remarketing with Google Analytics here.

  • Google: Use This Code To Adjust Your Bounce Rate

    Google put out an interesting post on the Google Analytics blog today about how to track adjusted bounce rate.

    For the record, Google apparently does not use bounce rate as a ranking signal, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an important metric to track. However, as Google notes, it’s more useful for some types of sites than for others.

    “Imagine you’re promoting a blog post that describes all the benefits of your company,” writes Alexey Petrov from Google’s Analytics Insights team. “The visitor might read the whole post and remember your company and products really well – they might even go to search for your product on one of the search engines straight away. However, since the visitor only looked at 1 page (exactly where the blog post is) they will be recorded as bounced visitor.”

    “Another example if you have a description of the product right on the landing page, and your phone number on the same page,” adds Petrov. “The visitor might study the description and call straight away – again, they will be recorded as a bounced visitor, as only 1 page was viewed. There are many more examples, and even traditional websites may benefit from the method described below as opposed to the standard bounce rate.”

    So that’s where “adjusted bounce rate” comes in. If you tweak your GA code, you can keep certain visitors from being counted as bounces.

    Here’s the code:

    <script type=”text/javascript”>

      var _gaq = _gaq || [];
      _gaq.push([‘_setAccount’, ‘UA-XXXXXXX-1’]);
      _gaq.push([‘_trackPageview’]);
      setTimeout(“_gaq.push([‘_trackEvent’, ’15_seconds’, ‘read’])”,15000);
      (function() {
        var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
        ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
        var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
      })();
    </script>

    Petrov has further explanation about how it works on the blog.

    More discussion in our forum.

  • Check Out These Changes To Content Experiments In Google Analytics

    At the beginning of June, Google announced the launch of Content Experiments in Google Analytics, which would effectively replace Google’s Website Optimizer tool (the tool goes away on August 1).

    Since the initial announcement, Google says it has been collecting feedback, and making changes accordingly. One change is support for relative URLs.

    “Using relative URLs affords you increased flexibility when defining the location of variations,” says Google Analytics software engineer Inna Weiner. “This is particularly useful if you have experiments running on multiple domains, subdomains, or pages.”

    Content Experiments also now provide the ability to copy experiments. There’s a button to do so on the Edit Settings page of the experiment you want to copy.

    Copy experiment

    “If you are running an experiment on a page, this allows you to run additional experiments after the original one finishes without having to add experiment code to your page or otherwise modify it,” says Weiner.

    There are also improvements to the experiments report. For example, Google has added regular analytics-report capabilities like Site Usage, Goal Set and Ecommerce tabs, as well as the option to choose variations for plotting on the graph.

    Finally, the most significant change, is that Content Experiments are now available to all Google Analytics users. The feature can be found under Experiments in the Content section of Standard Reports.

  • Google Analytics Finally Comes To Android

    Google Analytics is finally available for Android phones via the new Google Analytics App.

    The app allows users to access the same accounts and profiles as they can from the desktop, with more mobile-optimized versions of reports.

    You can swipe through real-time, dashboard and automatic and customized alerts.

    “See the number of visitors you currently have and a list of the pages (for websites) or screens (for apps) that are currently popular,” says Google’s Peng Li. “Monitor the KPIs and user metrics you care about the most. By default, you’ll see your Daily Unique Visitors and your Goal Conversion Rate, but you can customize the dashboard to change which reports, metrics, or segments you see.”

    “Google Analytics detects statistical anomalies in your data and can send you an alert when something unusual happens,” says Li. “See either automatic alerts, or customize your settings to send alerts based on your own benchmarks.”

    Now, all of you analytics junkies can get your fix even more often. The app is available in Google Play. No word on when we might see the app come to the iPhone.

    In other mobile-related Google Analytics news, Google also announced the addition of Mobile Apps reports.

  • Google Analytics Just Became Relevant To Mobile App Developers

    Google announced a new set of reports in Google Analytics called Mobile Apps Analytics to better help marketers and developers measure mobile apps. The reports include metrics like downloads, new users, retention, crashes, conversions, app sales, and in-app purchases.

    There is a set of acquisition and user analysis reports, a set of engagement reports, and a set of outcome/business impact reports. The acquisition/user analysis reports track new and active users, Google Play traffic sources, app versions, and device overview. The engagement reports track user behavior, engagement flow, and app crashes. The outcome/business impact reports track goal conversions and in-app purchases.

    mobile app analytics

    Mobile Apps Analytics

    mobile app analytics

    Mobile app analytics

    “The new reports are part of a holistic experience tailored for mobile app measurement, including a new and lightweight SDK v2.0 that’s easier to implement and is opt-out ready, with a streamlined back-end infrastructure,” says JiaJing Wang, Product Manager on the Google Analytics Team.

    “We’ve also revamped our sign-up process, so new users can choose whether they want to start measuring their website or their mobile app,” adds Wang. “This means you’ll be just 3 clicks away from setting up your app analytics account and downloading the SDK.”

    Mobile App Analytics reports are in beta. Google says it will be open to whitelisted users in waves. There’s a sign-up form here.

  • Google Blocks Cuba From Gaining Analytics Access

    Google Analytics is one of the most popular web analytics packages around. The fact that the standard version of Google Analytics is free plays a big part in its adoption, but more than that, it’s a very robust platform that can provide a great deal of insight concerning your site’s performance. Furthermore, the fact that over 10 million sites have Google Analytics installed demonstrates the software suite’s popularity.

    However, if you try to access Google Analytics from Cuba, you’re greeted with the following response:

    We’re: unable to grant you access to Google Analytics at this time.

    A connection Has Been Established Between your current IP address and acountry sanctioned by the U.S. government. For more information, see http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/ .

    Essentially, Google is respecting the sanctions against Cuba, ones that have been in place for 50 years, and by doing so, they aren’t allowing people from Cuba to access their service. A spokesperson for Google acknowledged as much:

    As a US company, we comply with US export controls and trade sanctions that limit us from offering certain services in certain countries,” Google said in an emailed reply to an AFP inquiry. “In order to abide by these laws, our terms of service have always prohibited the use of Google Analytics in sanctioned countries,” it said. “There’s now a technical block in place as well.”

    The Cuban press does not support Google’s course of action, calling it “outrageous censorship.” The report also reveals Google has blocked access to other services like Google Earth, Google’s Desktop Search tool and Google Code Search. While this hasn’t been confirmed by Google, if you’re going to obey such embargos, then blocking access to multiple services only makes sense.

    Is Google doing the “right thing” by blocking access to these services or should they approach as a global entity instead of as an American?

  • Google Website Optimizer Problems Fixed

    Google Website Optimizer Problems Fixed

    Some users of Google Website Optimizer have been experiencing some problems with the service. It appears Google has heard the complaints, and fixed the issues accordingly.

    In a post to Google’s Website Optimizer blog, Google Analytics Sr. Product Manager Enrique Muñoz Torres writes:

    We have gotten reports of spurious conversions appearing in Website Optimizer reports over the last few days. We have since fixed the underlying problem and reprocessed the affected data. Please do let us know if you still see any problems with the numbers in your reports. We apologize for the inconvenience.

    Of course Website Optimizer will soon be going away. A week ago, Google announced the launch of Content Experiments in Google Analytics. This will let webmasters test different versions of pages right from Google Analytics itself, eliminating the need for a standalone product in Website Optimizer.

    Google says Website Optimzer will be going away on August 1.

  • Google Teams Up With ClickZ To Learn About The State Of Mobile Marketing

    Google Teams Up With ClickZ To Learn About The State Of Mobile Marketing

    Google has partnered up with ClickZ on a mobile marketing and apps survey. Google says it hopes to “provide a reference point for the state of mobile marketing in 2012.”

    They say it just takes three mintes to complete, and they’re giving away two pairs of free passes to the Search Engine Strategies conference and a free iPad. If you take the survey, you’ll be entered into a drawing for one of the prizes.

    “The staggering growth of mobile platforms, devices, apps and of course users has inspired an entire generation of marketers and entrepreneurs to take notice,” says Adam Singer from Google’s Analytics team. “But with such rapid change execution and adoption are all over the board.”

    The deadline for the survey is 5 p.m. ET June 15. You can take it here.

    Google is certainly putting a great deal of focus on mobile marketing this week. The company just announced the integration of its AdMob network into AdWords, so AdWords advertisers have access to AdMob display inventory.

    Google still has plenty to learn itself about mobile marketing, as its recent financial results have shown.

    The Interactive Advertising Bureau reported this week that the mobile ad market for 2011 was $5.3 billion.