Marketing Optimization with Google Analytics

Improve ROI from Shopping Comparison Sites

These days, I'm getting a lot of clients who want to increase their ROI on referral site campaigns. We'll explore this topic by talking specifically about shopping comparison sites. The same techniques are generally applicable to all kinds of referring sites. My goal is to help you track and identify the referring sites that bring you quality traffic and generate more business and profit.

We'll explore:

• How to identify shopping comparison sites in Google Analytics reports.
• How to assess revenue generated by each of the sites.
• How to export your Google Analytics data and merge it with cost data.
• How to analyze to identify winners and fix under performers.

Identify Shopping Comparison Sites in Google Analytics Reports

To identify the sites in question, check with your marketing team and get a list of all the shopping comparison sites you use. This sounds like an easy step, but sometimes it takes a lot of back and forth with your marketing team to get the complete list. In this list, you should see some common names such as NexTag, BizRate, Shopzilla, PriceGrabber, DealNews, and Shopping.com. There might be other sites that are not as common but may be applicable to your vertical, so look for those too. You could also include other sites in this analysis such as Yahoo! Shopping if you have your products listed there.

Let's get started!

Say your site gets traffic from NexTag, BizRate, Shopping.com, and Yahoo! Shopping. In Google Analytics, go to Traffic Sources, click on Referring sites, and then use this inline filter to quickly look at the sites you want to analyze:

You can examine time on site, bounce rates, and other readily available metrics.

If you like to review this report frequently, and you should if you are spending a lot of money on these sites, you can create an advanced segment with "Referral" as the medium and then list your comparison sites as the sources.

Assess Revenue Generated by Each of the Sites

In the same Traffic Sources/Referring Sites area, you can next click on the Ecommerce tab and get a full picture of revenue and conversion rates.

In this report, and for this specific site, you'll see that although NexTag generates a lot of visits, its conversion rate, 1% is less than half of BizRate which is 2.32%. You can also see that shopping.com did very well with a conversion rate of 2.94%. Traffic from shopping.com seems to outperform the rest as it has the highest conversion rate and also the highest average order value.

So far these reports are very helpful in providing easy access to how each source is performing and the revenue it is generating.

There is still one thing that is missing though - cost data! There is a cost in bringing these visits to the site, and what if the cost of listing our products on these shopping sites is higher than the revenue being generated? I would think that a ninja analyst as well as a novice analyst would definitely want to include cost data and ROI in their reports. After all, you are in business to make money, not just to improve conversion rates!

Export your Google Analytics Data and Merge it With Shopping Sites Cost Data

For now, Google Analytics doesn't allow importing cost data into its reports (except for Adwords), so we will export the GA data and merge it with the shopping sites cost data in a spreadsheet.

Step 1: In the above report (Traffic Sources/Referring Sites, with your sites filtered), click on the "Export" button, choose the CSV format, and save the file

Step 2: Get your cost data from your respective shopping comparison sites.

Step 3: Using Excel or a Google spreadsheet, open the CSV file and, insert your cost data, and run your ROI calculation

For our analysis below, the client has indicated that to make money (profitably) they can't afford to spend more than 25% of their revenue on advertising. So we created the Return on Ad Spend table below taking into account the client provided business metrics. (you can view this table at the following link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pkrS9PTOkmimeBKiGJ3oZMQ)

Analyze to Identify Winners and Fix Under Performers

• It is clear from the table above which sites are profitable, namely sites#2 and #4. Both had a less than 25% of Ad Spend/Revenue ratio.
• It is also clear that the site with the highest conversion rate, site#1, might not be profitable at all!
• What actions can be taken?
• See how you can get more of the high quality traffic from sites#2 and #4.
• Immediately investigate site#1's traffic because it is a top spender with an unacceptable ad spend ratio.
• Once you are done with the above, start examining the other under-performing sites.
• You can also look into average order value and create a different ROI baseline it. Maybe it is OK to spend more on advertisements for sites that bring a higher average order value.
• What could be causing such bad return on sites#1 and #3?
• Mismatch between product listed on the shopping site and product listed on your landing page.
• Mismatch in pricing: you advertise one price on the shopping site and when visitors come to your site, they find a higher price.
• Ineffective bidding strategy: you are paying too much for clicks on your listed products.
• Site related issues such as slow load time.
  
• Seasonality. For example, I'm sure Christmas ornaments aren't hot sellers in the peak of summer.
  

A few other comments:

• When analyzing sales/conversion/ROI, ensure that you have all data elements included. For example, if your online business allows for phone orders, you then would want to ensure that phone order revenue and cost data are all appropriately attributed to their original sources. This is much easier said than done but there is tremendous value in doing it!
  
• Averages often don't tell the complete picture, so digging deeper into the data of each site and its categories is likely to reveal even better insights.
• The above analysis is done for a one-time period. You would want to trend this data daily, weekly and/or monthly and watch for external factors as well. For example, a weak economy is likely to have a negative impact on sales across the board.

To summarize:

1. Look for opportunities to get more out of what you are spending. Don't let your comparison shopping site ad spend be set on auto-pilot.
2. Track and analyze on-site metrics including revenue by referring site.
3. Take one more step: merge your cost data and run your ROI calculations to find what is profitable and what is not.
4. Act on your findings!

Related Posts

• Grouping of Referring Sites in Google Analytics
• Tracking E-Commerce with Google Analytics Video
  

Posted by Feras Alhlou of E-Nor, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant

Back to Basics: Control access to your data

Many Google Analytics account owners give people access to their account (e.g. account manager, clients, staff members) in order to get help with managing their account or interpreting the data in their reports.

Luckily, the User Manager feature in Analytics prevents you from giving out your user name and password to dozens of people – which means no worrying about people poking around in your account settings without your knowledge. User Manager lets you easily give and take away different levels of account access to anyone you want.

Administrator
This level of access gives full privileges to your account. Administrators can change settings, such as adding (or removing) profiles, users, filters and goals. They can also give other people access to your account. Please note that administrators have control over all profiles and reports in your account.

Reports access
This access level gives a person the ability to view reports, but he or she won't be able make any changes to the account. Reports access users can be further restricted to view reports by specific profiles by the Administrator.

The video below walks through the process of adding or editing user-level access to your account.



Posted by Christina Park, Google Analytics Team

Exam Prep

Our exam will be Wednesday April 1.  Here is what you will need to know:

At the beginning of class tomorrow you will be given a product to sell (shoes, a Senator, pizzas, etc..).  You will also be given an audience (teenagers, auto executives, students, etc...).  You will have the class period to create a website selling this product and to create a blog post "hyping" this product launch.  You will have to work fast.

I would study:

1. Defining and creating a website in Dreamweaver.

2. Basic Flash and Fireworks techniques that will improve the modern look of your website.

3. How to link and write effectively to your audience in a website and a blog post.

4. Check out the website rubric.

5. Prepare some templates.

Sample exam: Sell Box4Blox to young mothers who need to organize their house.

How to write

Today we will again practice reading, synthesizing, and writing.  What is your message, and who is your audience?  Don't forget many of your readers do not live in the United States and might be five years old or fifty.

Choose one, some or all to write about:

• Read this color pencil thing carefully.  Its brilliant. 
• I kind of want to do this thing for Seymour.  
• Should dogs be more visible at Seymour High School?
• What do you want to do when you are 96?  What did you think of Professor Kurnow and his story?
• Do you twitter?  Should we in school?

What do you think? Tell me in your blog.  Include quotes, links, other info and your thoughts.  

Friday

I think this has been a good week.  I have enjoyed watching you create your Fireworks products.  As we transition from the more technical part of web design ("What does this button do?") to the creative side ("What emotion do I want to create?") many of you are struggling.  This struggle is essential.  Quality design does not come without sacrifice, thought, and perseverence.

In addition I really need you to focus much less on you and much more on audience.  Otherwise your work will not accomplish its goal of selling movie tickets, pizzas, or ideas.

Please answer the following questions on your blog:

1. What did you learn this week? Include link to assignment.  What score/grade do you expect?

2. Which product (poster, letterhead, etc...) are you most proud of?  Why?

3. Which product in the UDrive are you most impressed with? Why? 

If you complete this please hunt for red dots for your clustrmap and complete the fourth blogging challenge.  Check out some other blogs.  You could also write about the NYTimes article I posted yesterday.

Sexting

Kids do stupid things and there could be serious consequences.  Check out the blog today from Gadgetwise.  

Remember, everything, and I mean everything, you do on an electronic device can haunt you forever.

Google Analytics Cake

Umm... delicious. Nice work Tim and Clarkson!



Find out how he made it.

Posted by Sebastian Tonkin, Google Analytics Team

Using Google Analytics to Create an Optimization Plan

Let’s face it, your website is never really finished. Testing pages is an inexpensive way to manage a constantly shifting audience and market. It's great for:

1. Increasing ROI on your advertising
2. Teaching you about the likes and dislikes of your customers
3. Trying out alternatives used by competitors
4. Breaking down preconceptions about what works
   
5. Convincing a stubborn boss to try something new

What and where to test?

So where do you start? First you need a goal. What do you want users on your site to do? Complete a form, buy something, sign up for a newsletter? Without a goal, it's difficult to optimize, so you should be sure to define one if you haven't already.

Once you have a goal, you can use Google Analytics to identify those pages that are having the biggest negative impact on the total number of people "converting," or achieving that goal. These are the pages to test.

Top landing pages report

(Content > Top Landing Pages)

This report gives you instant insight into how well (or poorly) your landing pages are performing. You want to find pages that have both high "entrances" and a high "bounce rate." These pages are costing you a lot of visitors.

Goal visualization report

(Goals > Funnel Visualization)

The funnel visualization in Google Analytics shows you where people leave during your buying process. For example, the below report shows that 40% of the 200 potential buyers left during "Step X" in the checkout process. Average order value is $100. This means the merchant is losing up to $8,000 in revenue every month due to "Step X."

Exit pages

(Content > Top Exit Pages)

With this report, you should look for pages that are designed to sell, but have high exit rates. Using the top content report, I see that my product pages have a 35% exit rate. These pages are supposed to persuade potential customers to add products to the shopping cart, so they would be good candidates for optimization.

Having looked at these reports, there's a fair chance you've found high-impact pages that perform below average. If not, you can take a look at the "top content" report and pick a few pages that see a lot of traffic, but are poorly designed or out-of-date.

Setting up a test with Google Website Optimizer

Google has a free tool to test you pages called Google Website Optimizer. Find out more here .

Here are a few tips for using Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics together:

1. Make sure you get to see your variances in Google Analytics.

In the case of an A/B test this is relatively easy. Tag your variances with the GA code snippet and perhaps give them a unique name. For a multivariate test this requires a little bit of technical knowledge; you have add a little bit of code to your test page. You’ll find the instructions here.

2. Make a filter to exclude your test data from your other profiles
3. Create an extra profile where you only measure your test pages
4. Create Advanced Segments and extra goals in your testing profile relevant to the test. This lets you evaluate the test outcome on different visitor segments.
   

Other Resources

• GWO Techie Guide
• Website Optimizer Blog
• Website Optimizer YouTube Channel
  

Have another resource? Add a comment!

Posted by Tim Bakker and Janco Klijnstra of Traffic4u, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant

Back to Basics: Is your website a "closer"?

Many successful sales people describe closing a sale as a process that is composed of many steps. It's a dialogue -- a series of information exchanges that culminates in the ultimate sale or final agreement. This closing process occurs thousands of times every day on websites around the world. Websites and visitors engage in a dialogue during which products are chosen, shipping and credit card information is provided, and sales are closed.

But a sales person has an advantage -- he or she can observe where customers get concerned or uncomfortable during a sales process and address these obstacles before they result in a lost sale. Your website can't do this by itself.

It's up to you, the website owner or manager, to look at what happens during each step of the closing process (i.e. conversion funnel) and find a way to make each page in the process as helpful and painless as possible.

You can look at the Funnel Visualization report in Google Analytics to see how many of your prospects move from one step to the next, where they drop out of the conversion process and where they go instead. Once you have this information, you can start fixing the pages that lose would-be customers, just as a good sales person addresses obstacles that prevent customers from closing.

You can learn how to use the Funnel Visualization report in the latest Google Analytics in 60 seconds video. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.



Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

Fireworks Challenge

Here is the Fireworks challenge.  You get one point for every successful challenge.  Goal is five points but you can score up to seven (extra credit).   If you submit five successful entries your grade is 5/5.  Yes, you will have to move fast.  Computers available after/before school and during study halls.

Notice that I did not give specific assignment of tools for each challenge.  You have many choices. I am curious to see how your design process works.  Think about audience!

Keep all challenge assignments in a folder (bschneiderchallenge) to submit to the UDrive on Friday.

Some images you need are in the UDrive-WebSchneider-Fireworks Challenge folder.

1. Create a logo for "Acme Iron Works".  Here is a good idea tool for logos.

2. Create a letterhead for "Acme Iron Works" of Seymour, CT using a word processor (Google Docs or MS Word for example).

3. Put Barack Obama in the stands at a New York Yankee game.

4. Put Claudia in a green tube. (image in UDrive)

5. Create a cool business card for Mr. Schneider.

6. Create a poster for the new Star Trek movie.  

7. Change the girl's prom dress to blue.(image in Udrive)

Google Analytics at SES NY

SES New York is next week and Google Analytics will be there. You can come by the booth to meet members of the team and learn more about the latest features.

Here are a couple of sessions that you might enjoy:

Pay Per Conversation
Tuesday, March 24th, 1:45pm to 2:45pm
Sandra Cheng, Product Manager for Google Website Optimizer, and Bryan Eisenberg, will discuss a different approach to looking at your website's visitors. Every click is a potential customer trying to engage you; will you continue the dialogue or have them bounce off your landing page just moments after they arrive? This session will show you how to identify missed conversations and what you can do to improve them and your PPC ROI.
More info

Google Workshop: Maximizing Your Website's ROI

Wednesday, March 25th, 4:00pm to 5:15pm

Alex Torres, Product Marketing Manager for Google Enterprise, will talk about some of the many tools Google offers site owners can use to improve their website's return on investment. He'll also be giving a more in-depth look at Google Site Search.

More info

If you also use AdWords, there's one more session you may want to attend: Preview the new AdWords interface, on Wednesday, March 25th from 10:45am to 12pm. They're taking questions in advance, so please send them in. Enjoy.

Posted by Sebastian Tonkin, Google Analytics Team

Fireworks

I enjoyed reading your blog posts about the TED talks.  I had fun pushing some of you who are stuck in a pragmatic definition of life.  Is life about "metabolic processes" or is it about having a soul?  Keep watching, and keep reading.

Good job to Gabriela and Alex for enrolling in the blogging challenge (notice their red dots?).  Keep up the good work!  Now that you have readers what will you write about?

Today all classes will work on Fireworks tutorials.  Whether this is new or review I would like all to do the same work to start.  You should move straight down the "image effects" category.  Then move to the other categories.  This is sandbox time today and tomorrow.  Create a fireworks folder to save all of your work.

Web 4 has completed their project and should answer the following questions in their blog:

1. What did you learn?

2. What would you have done differently?

3. Did you create a successful movie?  Why or why not?

4. Is this your best work?  Why or why not?

Introducing Hourly Tracking and more for your TV Campaigns

Imagine you're advertising on national television. You've selected several programs and networks that you think will deliver your message to the right audience. Now, wouldn't you want to know which of those target placements was most effective at driving traffic to your website? Well now it's even easier for Google Analytics and Google TV Ads advertisers to learn just that.

Check out the new hourly breakdown of your TV Campaigns metrics

alongside your website metrics. In addition, we've included two new TV campaign metrics, Viewed Entire Ad and % Initial Audience Retained, so you can see how viewer engagement relates to your website activity.

Here's more information on each of these enhancements:

New TV Ads metrics

The two new TV Ads metrics help you to understand full ad viewership with Viewed Entire Ads providing you an absolute number and % Initial Audience Retained providing this data expressed as a percentage.

• Viewed Entire Ad: The number of impressions tuned to your ad from beginning through to the end.

• % Initial Audience Retained: The proportion of the audience that was present at the beginning of the ad who then watched the entire airing to the end.

These two metrics are currently available in Report Center within AdWords, and we've now added them to the TV Campaigns report in Analytics. As always, Analytics provides powerful visualization tools. You can see TV campaign metrics alongside your website metrics to help you more easily identify which of your TV ad airings most effectively drove traffic to your website.

Hourly data reporting

One of TV advertisers' most requested features has been to view ad performance at an hourly level. Advertisers have been able to review TV campaign data at a daily, weekly and monthly level within Analytics. Today we've enhanced the TV Campaigns report to show metrics in hourly breakdowns. Simply click on the "Graph by Hourly" clock icon in the top right hand corner above the chart. This view makes it easier to attribute website metrics to specific TV ad airings.

Please note that the hourly display in Analytics is based on the specific time zone associated with your Analytics profile and AdWords account, while the TV Reports within AdWords will show the time of an ad airing based on the TV station's time zone. For example, if you live in San Francisco and have your AdWords account in the PST time zone but are airing an ad on the TV station's time zone of the East coast, the hourly data in your TV Campaigns report will be displayed based on PST.

With these enhancements to Analytics' cross-media reporting you can more easily analyze the online impact of your TV campaigns, and use this information to optimize your campaigns as you learn. If you're not currently advertising on TV and are interested in learning more, visit our Google TV Ads website.

Posted by Dai Pham, Google Analytics Team

TED Talks

Well, yesterday was brutal.  I slept almost all day.  I'm conscious today so I am here, but don't expect too much.  By the time you read this I am either feeling fine or I am realizing it was a big mistake to come in.

It was nice to be home yesterday and read your blog entries.  A few reminders:

• Write in 3D.  Include links.
• Leave comments.
• Build on what other people say by linking to their articles.

One thing you want to do in life is get around smart people. I was lucky to go to a school that had really, really smart people around. Listening to them makes life interesting.

Many of you have seen some of the TED talks before. TED is a place where smart people get together and kind of do a show and tell.

I would like you to watch at least two videos today from start to finish. Everyone must watch the Theo Jansen video. I give you some prompts to start a discussion on your blog. Some of these videos are about 10-20 minutes long. They say teenagers can't pay attention to anything. Prove them wrong.

Hans Rosling: How data is cool. Think of your little Excel charts. Will you be ready to use data like this. This guy is fun to listen to.
Jeff Han: How displays will change. This would profoundly change how we use computers.  This is from two years ago.  How fast technology evolves (Hello iPod!).
John Maeda: A smart, funny guy talks about simplicity. Think about how simplicity is the driving force in design (hint: iPods).
Rives: This guy can talk.  Power of the spoken word.  I laughed out loud (also notice his use of powerpoint).  Check this poem about the internet by Rives.  Fascinating (and why you should work on your poetry).
Theo Jansen: Freaky. Mind-blowing. But pay attention. What is life? Can you make something that lives out of PVC pipe? He does. Cyborg alert!
Blaise Aguero y Arcos: Demonstrates Photosynth. Wow. The Notre Dame cathedral thing is amazing. Can you think of ways you could use this software?
Anand Agarawala: The BumpTop desktop. Certainly a different set-up! Would this help you search your photographs?

William Kamkwamba: Inspiring.  Many of you are 14.  What is on your resume?  Think about all that you have to work with here.

What did you learn? Share what you learned. Start a conversation. Can you add something to a discussion?

Be sure to have links to the talk on your blog.

Technorati Tags: TED innovation k12 education

Tips for Tracking Email Marketing Campaigns

Email campaigns are a cost-effective way of attracting quality return visitors to your site. It's important that you tag your email campaigns with campaign tags so that you can track how well each email performs. This lets you optimize your efforts and track your return on investment.

What are campaign tags?

Campaign tags are additional information that you apply to links. Once a link is clicked, the tag information is passed to Google Analytics. Tagged links allow you to evaluate the performance of individual links within your emails.

Why tag email links?

Let's say that you send out an email newsletter in January and February that does not use campaign tags. Visitors coming from emails reported within the Referring Sites Report will only include visitors coming from web-based email clients like Gmail:

But, did they visit your website as a result of the January email or the February email? Unless you've used campaign tags, you'll have no way of knowing.

Visitors who click a link in your email using an email client on their computer will be reported as Direct Traffic -- and will therefore be grouped in with visitors who used bookmarks or who typed your website's URL into their browser.

A quick reference for tagging emails

The Google Analytics URL Builder is a great tool for generating tagged links to use within your email campaigns.

You can pass the following information to Google Analytics in the form of campaign tagged links:

Name	Description	Examples
Campaign Name	Name of the email marketing campaign.	Email News, Email Promo 14 April 2009, Email Newsletter May 2009
Campaign Source	Use Campaign Source to identify who distributed your email newsletter.	If you are sending your own email campaign then use your own company name. If you advertise in other email newsletters then use the name of the particular company sending that newsletter.
Campaign Medium	Set Campaign Medium as 'email' for all your email marketing campaigns.	email
Campaign Content (optional)	If you have multiple calls to action within your email, use different Campaign Content tags to see which version drives more visitors.	20% Discount Offer, New Product Information, Support Services Product Image, Read More Button, Text Link
Campaign Term (do not use)	Recommended for use in tracking Keywords in search marketing campaigns.

Make sure that you are consistent with the names that you use in your tags. For example, if you enter the source as Company_Name, company-name and Company+Name for three different emails, Google Analytics will report these as three unique sources.

Important Tip: Remember to generate new campaign tagged links for each campaign you send, otherwise you will not be able to compare your individual campaigns over time.

Making Life Easier

Don't have time to manually create campaign tagged links? There are several online email marketing solutions that automatically apply Google Analytics campaign tags to the links included within your emails.

• Campaign Monitor (http://www.campaignmonitor.com/)
• MailChimp (http://www.mailchimp.com/)
• VerticalResponse (http://www.verticalresponse.com/)
• AWeber (http://www.aweber.com/)

These four solutions can automatically apply campaign tags to links in emails.

Campaign Monitor allows you to define which links should automatically have campaign tags applied (specified by domains) and allows you to assign the Campaign Source on the settings page.

MailChimp allows you to enter the Campaign Name when you create a new email campaign.

Be sure to research the limitations of each tool before launching your campaign. Campaign Monitor and MailChimp do not automatically differentiate unique links within an email. You may still want to manually tag each link within your campaign if that data is important to your organization.

That's all! Happy tracking.

Posted by Benjamin Mangold of Mangold Sengers, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant


Updated on 11/10/2011 -  with clarification for use of "Campaign Term".

Back to Basics: Quick tracking code fixes

While browsing through some of the entries in the Google Analytics Help Forum, I found a useful thread on how to troubleshoot tracking code errors. Borrowing heavily from the conversations in the thread, I've summarrized the top ways to fix your tracking code here on the blog. Hopefully, after reading this post, you'll never have to return to work after the weekend to find that you have no data in your Analytics account! 

·  Make sure you have your Google Analytics Tracking Code installed on your site by checking your site's page source. I know, it seems obvious -- but it's actually one of the most common implementation errors our users encounter.

·  Remember to enter the code somewhere between the <body> and </body> tags, preferably towards the </body> tag.

·  Get rid of unnecessary line breaks in your code. Copy the tracking code exactly as it's generated from within your 'Instructions for adding tracking' page. For example,

         document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' 

 type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));

should be: 

document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));

·  Having more than one Include filter in a profile may cancel out data collection for that profile. Try removing extra Include filters so that you've only assigned a maximum of one to your profile.

·  Try adding the "{}" after the "catch(err)" in your code. Although modifying the tracking code with this new addition is optional, doing so adds the benefit of removing a JavaScript error message for visitors who unintentionally have JavaScript messaging enabled on their browsers. For those visitors who have enabled messaging, the try and catch will have the effect of halting any messages from the Google Analytics tracking code snippet.

An example of the try and catch block is below: 

<script type="text/javascript">
  var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl."  : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js'  type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));

  </script>

  <script type="text/javascript">
  try {
  var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-50020-1");
  pageTracker._trackPageview();
  } catch(err) {}</script>

If you don't believe in the wisdom of crowds, hang out in our Google Analytics Help Forum and you may change your mind. Try asking a question on it or browse through other posts answered by our community of savvy Analytics users (we love you guys!).

Posted by Christina Park, Google Analytics Team

Tuesday blogging

We will continue the blogging challenge today.  Can you make your blog a "must-read"?

1. (this was posted yesterday--now unblocked). Watch a NYTimes video.  Respond on your blog.  How do they match sound and visual images?  Can you relate this to your greeting card project?  Are you listening to or watching the movie?  Try closing your eyes--can you still follow the movie (aha---the big secret!!)?? Try searching for somethng that interests you.
2. Try new ways to improve your blog from the blogging challenge.  Can you get a red dot on your clustrmap from three different continents?  Ten different states?  How will you make those connections?
3. Check out this website of Lewis Elementary.  Can you find other school sites that are highly usable?  What makes this site so interactive, useful, and efficient?  
4. Cool site of the day.  Notice how you use the site, you don't read it.  Can you use these design techniques in your work (especially Web 4!!).

Monday

I am generally happy with the work Web 2 and Web 3 did on their greeting card project.  I would like to highlight a few things:

• Story must be front and center.  Most of you have chosen CGallo as the best for this reason.  Its the whole point of a card; to tell a story in very few (or no) words.
• Color counts.  Check out CWyskiel Easter page-- she nailed it.  
• The most elemental mistake was using sound improperly.  Don't have the music loop!  Stop the film and have an ending.
• If you want credit get your blog post in.

I have a list of things for you to do today:

1. Leave a positive comment for your favorite greeting card on that person's blog.  Use proper format (First name-last initial, email is blank, the URL of your blog).  Improper format comments will be deleted.
2. Read about the blogging challenge.  I think this is a great opportunity to improve your digital footprint.  I encourage you to tackle the entire challenge.  But at least tackle one of the suggested improvements.  This assignment goes to the heart of web design--can you be an effective communicator.  Your blog is a reflection of you; if it looks sloppy (typos, colors, etc..) that will be the readers impression of you.  Does your site look like this?
3. Watch a NYTimes video.  Respond on your blog.  How do they match sound and visual images?  Can you relate this to your greeting card project?  Are you listening to or watching the movie?  Try closing your eyes--can you still follow the movie (aha---the big secret!!)?? Try searching for somethng that interests you.
4. Watch this video.  Notice the Flash aspects. Then watch this one.  Then watch this one.  Do you need to step up your game??  

New Podcast "Get Your Google Analytics On"

Check out this new podcast from Startup Nation. This week's episode gives a great beginner overview on how to get the most out of Google Analytics. It starts by explaining how to get up and running, and then explains how Startup Nation has used analytics to improve the performance of their own site. If you'd like to check out the contents before listening, you can also find an overview here.

Thanks to Brian Cleveland from Statup Nation for sharing his expertise. Happy Friday!

Posted by Sebastian Tonkin, Google Analytics Team

Blog Entry

When you finish your greeting card please answer the following on your blog:

• What was your subject?
• What techniques did you use?
• Are you happy with it?  Why or why not?
• Who has the best greeting card in the UDrive?  Why?

Motion Chart Scavenger Hunt Followup

Last week we launched some new features in Motion Charts. Instead of telling you what they were, we decided to let you discover them for yourself and post what you found in our blog comments.

It didn't take long for several of you to find the new features. Karthik was first to notice that you can now control bubble opacity and that you can zoom into the chart. This is a great feature that allows you to eliminate the distraction of outliers and focus on the core data set. Nick and Adrian P. also found the zooming and panning feature and the bar charts, but a special Congratulations is in order to Rajeev Edmonds who found (almost) all of the new features.

One feature hinted at in Rajeev's comment bears a little more explanation. It's now easier to find specific data points because there's a Select list which has all the data points listed in alphabetical order. So, instead of mousing over the dots or barchart, you can just select them in the Select list. And then, when you don't need the labels anymore, you deselect all the data points by clicking "Deselect all."

A couple of not-so-new features were also identified. Lin/Log scale and the ability to bookmark charts have been there all along -- but we're happy that you've noticed them again :)

As far as the Advanced State string, this little feature was built to support hard-core flash developers who work with the Motion Charts tool, but was not actually intended to make it into Google Analytics. In other words, it's a (harmless) bug, so thanks to everyone for noticing it!

So what do you think about the scavenger hunt idea? We've never heard of anyone else launching features this way and we thought it was a bit unique -- did you like it? Are you clear on what the features are now? Do you use Motion Charts? Leave us a comment and let us know.

Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

Seminars for Success coming to Austin and Philadelphia in March

Seminars for Success are day-long seminars designed to help you improve your online marketing and get the most out of Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer. We've selected industry professionals from our Google Analytics Authorized Consultant network to teach these seminars in cities around the U.S.

Google Analytics – Introduction & User Training

Wednesday, March 18 - Austin ,TX

Monday, March 23 - Philadelphia, PA

Walk away from day one with the knowledge to take actionable information out of Google Analytics and drive your business decisions. Day one topics include:

• Introduction to Web Analytics
• Common Interface Features
• Dashboard Reports & Customization
• Understanding Visitors
• Much, Much More…

Google Analytics – Advanced Technical Implementation

Thursday, March 19, Austin, TX

Tuesday, March 24- Philadelphia, PA

Day two takes you through Google Analytics configurations, best practices, filter set ups and advanced installs and implementations. Day two topics include:

• Profiles and Strategies
• Filters – Uses and Implementation
• Profile and Filter Combinations
• Goals & Funnels - Configuration & Setup
• And much, much more…

Landing Page Testing with Google Website Optimizer

Friday, March 20, Austin, TX only!

The Google Website Optimizer experts present this practical course taking you through the process of testing your site to improving your users’ experience and seeing your conversion rates soar. The course includes an overview of Website Optimizer, loads of testing best practices, and hands-on experience to better understand and run A/B and multivariate tests on your website and key landing pages.

Seats are limited, so register today!

Austin seminars for success

Philadelphia seminars for success

Posted by Eva Woo, Google Analytics Team

Some ideas

I'm going to post some cool tutorials (some hard, some easy) that you might decide to use for your project:

• Changing Color
  
• Tunnel Effect
• Brush Animation
• City Tool Animation (convert to ballpark?)
• Rotating Letters 

Thats probably enough.  Remember--the tools can be fun but are you telling a story?  Who is your audience?  Are you recognizing bias in your design?

Back to Basics: New Getting Started Guide for Google Analytics

Hot off the presses, the Google Analytics Help Center has published yet another informative online resource - the Getting Started Guide. The guide's purpose is to walk new users through the basics of having an Analytics account, and it also picks out must-know definitions like goals and funnels. It also has a diagram of the reporting interface so first time users can follow along and learn about the various reports and features. Finally, the guide also provides practical set-up and implementation instructions in the 'Installing Analytics' section, as well as tips on how to set up your reports and interpret the data once you start receiving it. 

If the Getting Started Guide is too basic and you're ready to get started on more advanced code customizations or look through videos on tips and tricks, you can browse through the 'Other resources' section at the end of the guide.

We hope you find the guide useful - feel free to bookmark the Getting Started Guide for your own reference or share it with others!

Posted by Christina Park, Google Analytics Team

Flash Assignment

This is week is crazy as well. Period seven meets three times, period four meets twice, and period five meets, of course, five times. Hard to keep track.

I will judge your work based on the amount of time you have in class. Period five's assignment should be stronger than period fours since they have more time.

Web 2 and Web 3:

You will create a Flash greeting card. This card will celebrate Easter, Baseball Opening Day, or Mother's Day. Your card should do the following:

• Play automatically when loaded.
• Include at least one of the following: zoom in, masking, or bouncing effect.
• Be saved appropriately (folder--bschneidergreeting) to UDrive when done.
• Include sound.

We will use the standard website rubric.

Web 4:

I will grade your rough drafts on Wednesday and your final drafts are due March 18.

Control Your Search Result URL

Tracking parameters allow analytics programs to differentiate between paid ads and other sources of traffic, such as direct visits, organic searches, or referrals. They are invaluable for understanding the effectiveness of online advertising.

From an SEO perspective, URL parameters can be somewhat problematic. People who click on your ads may like the content so much that they decide to share your webpage with friends or post it on their own websites. Although this type of viral marketing is a good thing, imagine what happens if the link that they copy looks something like this:

http://www.yourwebsite.com/landingpage/?utm_campaign=FreeOffer&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc

If this link is popular enough, then search engines will begin to index this URL. It may supplant the same version of this page without tracking parameters in the search results. Clicks on this new organic result will increment the visits number for Google(cpc) when it should really be attributed to Google(organic).

One popular SEO method of dealing with this challenge is instituting a 301 redirect and storing campaign variables in a cookie. Although this prevents search engines from indexing the same content multiple times, it has the undesired effect of stripping campaign parameters and generally messing up analytics tracking (boo!).

Google now supports a new format that provides webmasters with more control over the URL that is returned in the search results. You can specify your preferred version of the URL so that properties like link popularity are consolidated to this version. Unlike the 301 redirect, this will not affect your analytics tracking. Read more on how to set up your pages to avoid duplicate indexing on the Google Webmaster Central Blog.

Happy Friday!

Posted by Matt Parry, Google Analytics Team

Motion Chart New Features Scavenger Hunt

Beginning today, you may notice a few new features in Motion Charts. But, we're not going to tell you what they are...yet. First, we'd like to see how many enhancements you can find. If you find a Motion Chart improvement, be sure to add a comment about it to this post. We'll follow up in a few days with a post highlighting all the changes and those people who were first to find new features.

Happy hunting!

Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

Week of Crazy

Well, this week has been a bit of a challenge.  A snow day, a snow delay, CAPT test, an assembly, and a trip to Boston for a track meet.  Obviously I have decided not to assign new work this week as it would be almost impossible to keep track of.  I think we will ease back into our regular schedule on Monday.

Tomorrow (Friday) I will be travelling to Boston with the track team for the New England Championships.  Today we have an assembly periods 6 and 7 for most of you.

So here are the assignments:

Web 2 and Web 3:

• Please continue with your Flash tutorial work.  
  
• Make a blog post: What new techniques did you learn?  Include link to tutorial.  Was the tutorial effective?

Web 4:

• I will grade storyboard on Monday.  If you are in class today I would like to see it.
• How will you ensure continuity of your movie?  If you have a main character should that be drawn first and shared with all teammates?  What about backgrounds, color choices, etc..?  How will you set up the movie so your process is efficient?
• Check what other CT schools are doing (acting locally!)

What is your Google Analytics IQ?

In today's economic climate, data-driven marketing and website decision making is increasingly important. If you have solid Google Analytics skills, more than ever, your talents are needed. But, even if you're just starting out learning Google Analytics, we have some good news for you.

Beginning today, we are offering an online course in web analytics techniques and Google Analytics implementation, administration, and analysis tools. The course is offered free of charge to everyone who is interested. In addition, we're also offering a test you can take to prove you are qualified in Google Analytics -- the Google Analytics Individual Qualification -- or IQ test.

It costs $50 to take the test. Once you pass, you'll be registered as Google Analytics qualified. You must receive a score of at least 75% to pass, so even if you already consider yourself an expert, be sure to at least review the online course before taking the test.

For more details or to start the course, simply visit ConversionUniversity.com. There's a FAQ with all the details and a link to the Google Analytics IQ test.

Best of luck!

Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

Back to Basics: Install your tracking code in under two minutes

This post is the second post in our "Back to Basics" Series. Last week we covered accounts vs profiles.

Before you can start gathering data about your visitors to your website, the very first thing you have to do is to install the Google Analytics Tracking Code on your site. It sounds simple enough, but this can be a very big hurdle if you're not familiar with editing the pages on your website.

If this sounds like you, you may want to follow the instructions in this post or pass the information along to your webmaster. To prove how easy it can be, we've even timed ourselves to show how you can do this in under two minutes. (By the way, this assumes you've already created a Google Analytics account)

Step 1: Find your personalized Google Analytics Tracking Code (30 seconds)

Sign in to Google Analytics. Select a profile from the accounts Overview page. From that profile's Actions column, click Edit. At the top right of the "Main Website Profile Information" box, click Check Status (look at graphic below to find this link).

Step 2: Paste the code onto every page of your website (48 seconds)

I used my Blogger account to add the tracking code. All I had to do was add a "Configure HTML/JavaScript" gadget from the "Page Elements" customization section and paste the tracking code into the field.

If you use a different editor (such as Dreamweaver), just follow this rule: paste the Google Analytics code snippet into the bottom of your content, immediately before the "</body>" tag on every page on your site you want to track. You can also use "find and replace" on the "</body>" tag to install the code quickly on multiple pages.

Step 3: Wait 24 hours for your data

Once you've successfully implemented your tracking code, just sit back and relax. Your Website Profile summary page will tell you the status of your installation approximately 24 hours after you finish. To learn what the icons in your summary box means, read this article.

Next Steps

Once you have your tracking code up and running, here are some good next steps:

• Set up goals (Help Center, Tutorial)
  
• Link your AdWords and Google Analytics account (Help Center, Video)
  
• Configure some profiles and filters (Blog Post)
  
• Check out the Google Analytics YouTube Channel for tips on analysis
  

Do you have a complex site? You may want to consider contacting an Authorized Consultant to get expert advice, or attend a Google Analytics Seminar for Success. If you have another resources to recommend, post a comment and let us know!

Posted by Christina Park, Google Analytics Team