Analyze Organic Search Engine Marketing with Google Analytics & Webmaster Tools Data

There are many ways to measure the effectiveness of organic search engine marketing. We’d like to explore various techniques in a series of posts here on the Analytics blog. Today we’ll talk about understanding organic using landing pages and Webmaster Tools data. 

Today, almost all marketers are investing heavily in creating high-quality content as a way to reach users with information about their products and services. The content can take many forms - from product specific content to brand specific content. The intent is to generate traffic and conversions from a variety of sources, one of the largest of which is often search.

One way to measure the effectiveness of content is to analyze its performance as a landing page. A landing page is the first page a user sees when they land on your site. If it’s great content, and if it’s ranked highly by search engines like Google, then you should see a lot of websites ‘entrances’ via that page. Looking at landing page performance, and the traffic that flows through specific landing pages, is a great way to analyze your search engine optimization efforts.

Begin by downloading this custom report (this link will take you to your Analytics account). This report shows the landing pages that receive traffic from Google organic search and how well the traffic performs. 

Let’s start at the top. The over-time graph shows the trend of Google organic traffic for your active date range. If you are creating great content that is linked to and shared then you should see the trend increasing over time.

When you look at this data ask yourself the question: how well does the trend align with my time investment? Looking at the data below we see that the organic traffic is increasing, so this organization must be working hard to create and share good content.

Organic traffic is steadily increasing for this site. An important question to ask is, “how does this align with my search optimization efforts?”
The table, under the trend data, contains detailed data about the acquisition of users, their behavior on the site and ultimately the conversions that they generate. This includes data like Visits, % New Visits, Bounce Rate, Average Time on Site, Goal Conversion Rate, Revenue and Per Visit Value. 

Using the tabular data I can learn how search engine traffic, entering through a specific page is performing. 

Each metric provides insight about users coming from organic search and entering through certain pages. For example, % New Visits can help you understand if you’re attracting a new audience or a lot of repeat users. Bounce rate can help you understand if your content is ‘sticky’ and interesting to users. And conversion rate helps you understand if organic traffic, flowing through these landing pages, is actually converting and driving value to your business.

Again, we’re using the landing page to understand the performance of our content in search engine results.

Remember, make sure that you customize the report to include goals that are specific to your account. You can learn more about goals and conversions in our help center.  

Another very useful organic analysis technique is to group your content together by ‘theme’ and analyze the performance. For example, if you are an ecommerce company you may want to group all of your pages for a certain product category together - like cameras, laptop computers or mobile phones.

You can use the Unified Segmentation tool to bundle content together. For example, here’s a simple segment that includes two branded pages (I’m categorizing the homepage and the blog page homepage as ‘brand’ pages).


You can create other segments that include other types of pages, like specific category pages (and then view both segments together). Here is the Acquisition > Keywords > Organic report with both segments applied. This helps me get a bit more insight into the types of pages people land on when visiting from Google organic search results.

Plotting two segments, one for branded content landing pages and one for non-branded landing pages, can help you understand your specific tactics.
Regardless of the tool you use, the analysis technique is the same: look at the performance of each landing page to identify if they are generating value for your business. And don’t forget, the best context for this data is your search engine marketing plan. 

Here’s one final tip when analyzing organic traffic. Whenever you create a customization in Google Analytics, like a segment or custom report, don’t use the keyword dimension. Instead use the Source and Medium dimensions. Set the Source to ‘Google’ and Medium of ‘Organic’. It provides the most consistent data over long time periods. 

In addition to using Google Analytics, you can also use the data from Webmaster Tools to gain an understanding of your search marketing tactics. You can link your Google Analytics account and your Webmaster Tools account to access some of this data directly in Google Analytics. If you’re not familiar with Webmaster Tools, check out their help center for an overview or this awesome video.



In general the Webmaster Tools data will help you understand how well your content is crawled, indexed and ranked by Google. This is extremely tactical data that can inform many search marketing decisions, like which content to create, how to structure your content and how to design your pages. The reports are in the Acquisition > Search Engine Optimization section. 

Let’s start by viewing some data using the Acquisition > Search Engine Optimization > Landing Pages report.

Webmaster Tools data is available directly in Google Analytics. You can view the data based on landing page or search query.
Let’s review a couple of metrics that are unique to Webmaster tools: Impressions, Average Position and Click Through Rate. Impressions is the number of times pages from your site appeared in search results. If you’re continuously optimizing the content on your site you should see your content move up in the search results and thus get more impressions.

Average position is the average top position for a given page. To calculate average position, Webmaster Tools take into account the top ranking URL from your site for a particular query. For example, if Alden’s query returns your site as the #1 and #2 result, and Gary’s query returns your site in positions #2 and #7, your average top position would be 1.5 [ (1 + 2) / 2 ].

Click Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of impressions that resulted in a click and visit to your site. Again, you can see both the impressions and the CTR for every landing page on your site. 

If we’re optimizing content then hopefully we should see our average position increase, the impressions increase and ultimately an increase in click-throughs. A very easy way to observe this behavior is by applying a date comparison to the Acquisition > Search Engine Optimization > Landing Pages report.

Use the Search Engine Optimization > Landing Pages report to understand if your content is getting ranked higher and generating clicks.
What happens if impressions and average position are increasing but you’re not getting clicks? You’re getting ranked better, but what is listed in the results may not get a response from the user. 

There are lots of ways to optimize your content and change what is listed in the search results. You could adjust your page title or meta description to improve the data that is shown to the user and thus increase the relevancy of the result and your Click Through Rate. 

We’ll be back soon with another article on measuring and optimizing organic search traffic with Analytics.

Posted by Justin Cutroni, on behalf of the Google Analytics Education team

Measure What Matters—A Better Approach to Social Attribution

Webinar on Tuesday 7/16
Register for the webinar here.

When it comes to web analytics, one of the biggest complaints from marketers has long been the lack of technology to measure the ROI of social media. Thanks to our exciting integration between Google Analytics and Wildfire by Google that was first announced at thinkDoubleClick in June, those blind spots are now a thing of the past. This webinar will demonstrate how social media impacts the customer journey and then show you how Google Analytics lets you measure that influence in detail.


We’ll start by showing you the best way to set up your modeling and reporting to include all your social marketing efforts. Then we’ll give you a live demo of the Google Analytics integration with Wildfire. Now you’ll be able to see exactly how each and every social message and page published with Wildfire drives traffic and revenue to your website.

The webinar features Adam Singer, Product Marketing Manager for Google Analytics and Jessica Gilmartin, the Head of Product Marketing for Wildfire by Google. They’ll be joined by Adam Kuznia, Social Media Manager for Maryland Live! Casino, who will share the story of how he built the gaming industry’s largest East Coast social media community from scratch in just six months using Wildfire and Google Analytics, and proved to his management team the ROI of social.

This webinar is Part 1 of a three-part educational series introducing Google and Wildfire analytics integrations, so be sure not to miss it.

Date: Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Time: 10am PDT / 1pm EDT/ 5pm GMT
Duration: 1 hr

Level: 101 / Beginner

Register here.



Webinar Video: Combined Power of AdWords and Analytics

Last Tuesday, Rachel Witalec and Simon Rosen, Global Sales Strategy Leads, shared tips for getting more out of your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts by using them together. During the webinar, they showed why it’s important to link your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts (which is now even easier to do) and how to see Google Analytics data in AdWords as well as AdWords data in Google Analytics. They also presented a live demo of the reports and how to use them.

If you missed the webinar, you can check it out here:



Read on below for answers to some of the top questions we received during the webinar:

Why should I link my AdWords and Google Analytics accounts?
Linking your AdWords and Google Analytics accounts is an important practice to ensure the two measurement tools can work together to help you get the most from your advertising. The bottom line is that linking Analytics and AdWords gives you powerful information that can tell you where you should be spending more or less based on real ROI data. When you link accounts, the data can flow both ways - from Google Analytics to AdWords (for example, engagement metrics or remarketing lists), and from AdWords to Google Analytics (for example your AdWords cost data). In particular, you can take advantage of powerful features such as:
We covered this topic in detail during the webinar, so watch the video above to learn more.
    Could you share the list of resources that were provided during the webinar?
    Of course! Here are the links and resources we shared:
    What are the best practices around importing Google Analytics Goals? If i’m using AdWords Conversion Tracking should I also import goals?
    If you’re currently using AdWords Conversion Tracking, there are still benefits to also importing some of your goals from Google Analytics. In particular, some goals (such as engagement goals) can’t be tracked with AdWords Conversion Tracking, so importing these into AdWords can complement your Conversion Tracking data. However, it’s important not to import any goals that you are already tracking through AdWords Conversion Tracking as this can create double-counting and duplication, which would make your conversion data hard to interpret.

    Is it possible to link a My Client Center (MCC) account to Google Analytics?
    At this time it’s not possible to link an MCC to Google Analytics. Each individual AdWords account within an MCC needs to be linked to the appropriate Google Analytics property. Learn more here.

    How do I import Google Analytics engagement metrics into AdWords?
    The process for importing the metrics is straightforward, but it’s important to note that there are a couple of additional steps needed beyond linking the AdWords and Analytics account. The full set of instructions can be found here.

    I have noticed discrepancies between the data in my AdWords and Google Analytics accounts, do you know why?
    AdWords and Google Analytics differ in some very important ways regarding how they measure and report on data. It’s important to understand these key differences, which are outlined here. Additionally, there are key differences between AdWords Conversion Tracking and Google Analytics, which are covered in detail here.

    Can someone help me get more support with AdWords and Google Analytics?
    Yes, Google partners with a global network of certified partners to help. For AdWords, you can get support directly from Google or you can work with a Google Certified Partner to help with your AdWords management. You can learn more about both of those options here. If you’re looking for help with Google Analytics, you can tap into our global network of Google Analytics Certified Partners, who offer paid services for anything from Google Analytics tag implementation to product training to more strategic support. Learn more here.

    What is a tag?
    Tags are tiny bits of website code that let you measure traffic and visitor behavior, understand the impact of online advertising and social channels, use remarketing and audience-based marketing, test and improve your site, and more. The tags we mentioned in the webinar are AdWords Conversion Tracking and Google Analytics. These both help you understand the performance of your digital campaigns. While AdWords tracks the performance of your Google AdWords campaigns, Google Analytics tracks the performance of any traffic to your website -- such as from email marketing campaigns or social media. You can learn more about how they’re different here and through some of the content in the webinar.

    What is a conversion?
    A conversion is an action that a customer takes on your website that has value to your business, such as a purchase, a sign-up, or a view of a key page. These actions are called conversions because a customer's click translated -- or converted -- to business. Think of it as the cha-ching! from your cash register. A conversion happens when someone clicks your ad and then does something that’s valuable to your business, such as an online purchase or a call to your business from a mobile phone. Conversions help you understand how much value your ads bring to your business. You can read more here

    Optimize Your Website with SiteApps and GA

    Google Analytics excels at collecting an incredible amount of information about how visitors interact with the web and mobile properties of its users. This data provides marketers and analysts who know what they’re looking for with with an incredibly powerful platform to understand what’s working and what’s not. To those who aren’t sure what they’re looking for though, all of this information can be overwhelming and make it easy to take no action at all.

    SiteApps enables businesses to get instantaneous, free recommendations on how to optimize their website based on their Google Analytics data. SiteApps’ technology runs hundreds of automated analyses on its customers’ web data to identify opportunities for improvement. Based on these tailored recommendations, SiteApps then enables businesses to install apps from their marketplace to help solve these problems.


    One of SiteApps’ customers is a family-owned home furnishings designer that was having difficulty maintaining their eCommerce presence while still focusing on the day-to-day operations of their brick and mortar retail store.  Within minutes of signing up for SiteApps, they were able to identify dozens of opportunities for site optimization. By installing the apps that were recommended to them, they were able to create a compelling web presence that increased their conversion rate by 108% and led to 65% more time spent on site by its visitors.  This led to a substantial increase in revenue for the business simply by unlocking the power of their web analytics data.

    Our business is completely based on data. It’s incredibly important to us that customers know - or learn - just how valuable their data is,” says Phillip Klien, co-founder of SiteApps. “We consider Google Analytics the foundation for our platform and use the results to help customers make the most of the data their website produces.”


    SiteApps is free to try and takes a matter of minutes to set-up.  Give it a try today to see what you can uncover from your web analytics.


    Posted by the Google Analytics team

    Segment Your GA Data by Demographics with UserReport

    One of the most complex challenges that marketers face is managing the effective segmentation of their user base. Each of their target audiences has a different set of preferences and the process of creating campaigns based on intuition just isn't effective.

    UserReport is an on-site survey tool that integrates with Google Analytics and tackles this problem head-on. The product providing the ability to use demographic information and traditional research data to optimize acquisition, content and conversions when working with websites.

    UserReport helps its users collect information about their website’s visitors with a free online survey tool that measures usability and key demographics of the site’s users. The product integrates harmoniously with Google Analytics to turn the survey data they collect into actionable insights by merging it with the behavioral data already stored in Google Analytics.



    SAXO.com is one of the largest online book stores in Denmark and utilizes UserReport to identify their highest value demographic segments, create more targeted advertising material and to better understand which online advertising networks they should use for targeting specific groups of customers. By using UserReport, SAXO.com was able to uncover some surprising insights about their customers, including:
    • Men and women have about the same conversion rate, but the average basket size for women is almost $20 higher than it is for men. This made SAXO.com feel more comfortable in supporting a higher CPM/CPC to advertise to niche female audiences. 
    • SAXO.com’s older book buyers have a higher conversion rate than their younger counterparts but the younger buyers’ average basket size is about $40 more than the older users’. A closer investigation revealed that most of these young customers were students purchasing books for classes. This led SAXO.com to focus on targeting the university student market to bring more young buyers into the mix.
    The findings made by SAXO.com through integrating their Google Analytics data with their UserReport survey data has enabled them to create online campaigns focused on bundling unique, focused products and target them at the right customers on the right channels to drive conversions.

    UserReport is free to use and takes minutes to set up. Give it a try to see what you can uncover about your own online audience!


    Posted by John Milinovich

    John is a Developer Program Manager working to build the ecosystem around the Google Analytics APIs. In his spare time he likes to explore San Francisco and cheer loudly during UCLA games.

    Analytics reporting with Google Apps Script at the UK Cabinet Office


    Guest author Ashraf Chohan works at the Government Digital Service (GDS), part of the UK Cabinet Office. Originally posted on the Google Apps Developer Blog by Arun Nagarajan.

    Recently, when we were preparing the launch of GOV.UK, my team was tasked with creating a series of high-level metrics reports which could be quickly compiled and presented to managers without technical or analytical backgrounds. These reports would be sent daily to ministers and senior civil servants of several government departments, with the data customised for each department.

    We decided to use Adobe InDesign to manage the visual appearance of the reports. InDesign’s data-merge functionality, which can automatically import external data into the layout, made it easy to create custom departmental reports. The challenge was to automate the data collection using the Google Analytics API, then organize the data in an appropriate format for InDesign’s importer.

    In a previous post on this blog, Nick Mihailovski introduced a tool which allows automation of Google Analytics Reporting using Google Apps Script. This seemed an ideal solution because the team only had basic developer knowledge, much of the data we needed was not accessible from the Google Analytics UI, and some of the data required specific formatting prior to being exported.

    We started by building the core reports in a Google spreadsheet that pulls in all of the required raw data. Because we wanted to create daily reports, the start and end dates for our queries referenced a cell which defaulted to yesterday’s date [=(TODAY())-1].


    These queries were dynamically fed into the Google Analytics API through Apps Script:
    // All variables read from each of the “query” cells  
    var optArgs = {
    'dimensions': dimensions,
    'sort': sort
    'segment': segment
    'filters': filters,
    'start-index': '1',
    'max-results': '250'
    };

    // Make a request to the API.
    var results = Analytics.Data.Ga.get(
    tableId
    , // Table id (format ga:xxxxxx).
    startDate
    , // Start-date (format yyyy-MM-dd).
    endDate
    , // End-date (format yyyy-MM-dd).
    endDate
    , // Comma seperated list of metrics.
    optArgs
    );
    Next, we created additional worksheets that referenced the raw data so that we could apply the first stage of formatting. This is where storing the data in a spreadsheet really helps, as data formatting is not really possible in the Google Analytics UI.

    For example, the final report had a 47-character limit for page titles, so we restricted the cells in the spreadsheet to 44 characters and automatically truncated long URLs by appending “...”.


    Once the initial formatting was complete, we used formulas to copy the data into a summary sheet specially laid out so it could be exported as a CSV file that merges seamlessly into InDesign.


    Below is an example of how a report looks on publication. Nearly everything on the page was extracted from the API tool, including the department name and the day number. Because most of the data was automated, it required minimal effort on our part to assemble these reports each morning.


    We discovered that an added bonus of pulling data into a Google spreadsheet was that it also allowed us to publish the data to a Google site. This helped us display data to stakeholders without adding lots of users to our Google Analytics account.


    The tools let us present Google Analytics data in deeper, more creative ways. That’s really important as we share information with more and more non-technical people, whether they’re inside GDS or beyond.

    Posted by John Milinovich, Google Analytics team

    Getting The Most Out Of Google Analytics For Lead Generation

    The following is a guest post from Jeff Sauer, Vice President at Three Deep Marketing, a Google Analytics Certified Partner. Jeff recently started a website dedicated to advancing digital marketing knowledge called Jeffalytics

    Lead generators know that the combination of Google AdWords + Google Analytics is a winning combination for generating an inflow of high quality leads. They are like peanut butter and jelly, Forrest Gump and Jennay, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. 
    What many users may not realize is that there are many features that they can unlock in Google Analytics to make their lead generation campaigns perform better while becoming more transparent and accountable. What follows is a series of tips, trips and hacks that you can use to make your lead generation campaigns work even better. I have broken this down into three sections: ConfigurationIntegration, Analysis.

    Configuring Analytics for Lead Generation Websites

    Set Up Goals in Google Analytics
    Yes, this is a very elementary step in your Google Analytics evolution. You surely configured goals on your site years ago, right? Well, let's make sure you didn't miss anything: 
    1. Navigate to the URL of your 'thank you' page shown after a lead is generated. Make note of the URL of this page.
    2. Make your best guess as to the value of each lead that you generate (note: you can have multiple lead values, and multiple goals).
    3. Configure your goals in Google Analytics, assigning the proper goal value for each lead you generate.
    4. Unlock a new world of reports in Google Analytics and see the real value of your lead generation efforts.

    Bonus tip: There's absolutely nothing wrong with measuring micro conversions on your lead generation site. Have a PDF that someone can download freely? Set a goal and assign it a modest value (even if it's $5, the impact can be huge). Have a 2 minute video? Give it a value as well, even if it's just a dollar or two. Both PDF downloads and video plays can be tracked using GA event tracking - and you can configure goals around events.  
    Track Visitors Across Domains
    Many lead generation sites use third party forms and services to capture leads, whether as part of an affiliate program or a third party CRM site. While this acts as an excellent conduit to lead delivery, it can often result in missing data in Google Analytics reports. Depending on the services used, there is still a way to retain this data in Google Analytics by tracking your visitors across domains. Here's how this is done: 
    1. On your primary website, add the _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'PRIMARY DOMAIN']); and _gaq.push(['_setAllowLinker', true]); methods.
    2. When linking to your external domain, add an onclick element as follows: onclick="_gaq.push(['_link', 'THE LINK']); where THE LINK is your external page
    3. Add the GA Tracking Code to your third party hosted page, being sure to use the _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'PRIMARY DOMAIN']); and _gaq.push(['_setAllowLinker', true]); methods on this page as well. It is important to make sure you are setting your primary domain here as well. 
    4. Configure your goals to match the thank you page URL on the third party domain (or on your own site if you can redirect visitors back to your domain)
    By linking visits across domains, your reports will accurately attribute visitors and goals to their proper source and medium instead of treating them as direct visitors.  
    Integrate with Google AdWords Both Ways
    Most of us know to share data between AdWords and Analytics and enable the Google AdWords report in Analytics, but many times this is not done properly. In addition, not enough marketers seem to take advantage of Google Analytics' ability to push conversion data back into AdWords. You really have nothing to lose when you integrate these two Google products both ways, but you have many insights to gain. Start off by making sure you configure these integrations properly: 
    1. Share Google AdWords data with Google Analytics. This may seem easy, but is often incomplete when implemented. Make sure that you 1) Turn on Auto Tagging in AdWords, 2) Enable Data Sharing and 3) Apply Cost Data into Google Analytics
    2. Configure your goals in Google Analytics as outlined above
    3. As soon as data starts to collect for these goals, you will see the option in AdWords to import your goals from Google Analytics
    4. Enjoy consistent conversion data between both products and ensure that leads are being properly attributed
    Using your goals in Google Analytics for your Google AdWords campaigns can come in handy when you don't have the ability to add a traditional JavaScript based conversion code onto your thank you page. In addition, importing goals from Google Analytics allows you to track some of the advanced conversions mentioned below in Google AdWords. The result? Better analysis capabilities, more advanced conversion rate optimization strategy and more credit for the leads you generate! 

    Integrating Analytics into Lead Generation Efforts

    Phone Call Tracking
    One thing that marketers may not realize is that for many industries, the majority of leads will come in through the phone instead of through a web form. Google AdWords understands this and now offers a robust system for tracking phone leads generated by AdWords. But how do you properly track and attribute phone calls generated from your site to a particular traffic source? You integrate Google Analytics with your call tracking provider.


    This sounds complicated, but it really is not too bad. In fact, many phone tracking vendors offer a Google Analytics integration option as part of their service. For example, this works well with products like Marchex Voicestar and Mongoose Metrics among others.  
    Here are the basics of how this process works: 
    1. Sign up with a phone call tracking service, create tracking numbers and appropriate campaigns
    2. Place tracking phone numbers on your website
    3. Specify a post-back URL to be visited when a successful phone call occurs
    4. Your phone tracking system will send a visit to the post back URL, complete with all Google Analytics cookie values for the visitor who saw that exact tracking number on your lead generation site

    Please note that if you drive a lot of traffic to your website, it can take a lot of phone numbers and extensions to fully attribute phone calls to users. As such, you may want to start implementing this method for a small segment of your traffic and then building up to all visitors when this data proves useful. 

    Also note that even if you don't link calls back to Google Analytics, phone call tracking is still an imperative part of any lead generation campaign, because it's common for 30-70% of the leads you generate to come from the phone in certain industries. 
    Offline Marketing
    Believe it or not, in many industries leads are still generated offline. Examples include trade shows, neighborhood canvassing (going door to door promoting a product or service), print and television advertising. These are activities that companies have been doing for years, but the problem that they run into when using these mediums to drive traffic to their website is that they don't register the traffic source properly in Google Analytics. The result: many direct visitors without proper attribution. 


    How do we fix this? By following this simple process: 
    1. Create a vanity URL that is unique to your campaign (can be a sub folder or new domain)
    2. Create a tracking URL for your website using the Google Analytics URL Builder 
    3. 301 redirect your vanity URL to the tracking URL (this preserves your campaign attributes)
    4. Learn about how each traffic source performed by viewing your favorite reports in Google Analytics and paying attention to the source/medium/campaign 
    Now you can put your offline and online leads on a level playing field and compare the effectiveness of both side by side. 
    CRM Integration
    For companies that are generating several leads a day, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system becomes imperative for keeping up with the leads coming in the door. Unfortunately, most CRM implementations are not integrated fully with the website and useful data is not shared between the two systems. This can create friction between sales and marketing, while making it nearly impossible to close the loop on what lead generation efforts are working the best.

    Fortunately, people smarter than myself have found a way to solve this problem, and this solution for CRM integration by Justin Cutroni has become my gold standard for how to pull information out of Google Analytics cookies and attach to the lead record you enter into your CRM system. 

    While Justin's post goes into great detail, the basic premise is this: 
    1. A visitor comes to your website and has source/medium/campaign/keyword information assigned to them in their Google Analytics cookie
    2. This information is accessible to your website by pulling cookie values out of Google Analytics using JavaScript
    3. Once this information is pulled out, you enter the values into hidden form fields underneath where your lead enters their contact information
    4. The vital information (source/medium/campaign/keyword term) is passed into your CRM system alongside the lead record
    5. Your sales team can now have deeper understanding of what type of traffic generates the best leads, all the way down to a keyword level
    6. You can use this information to refine your marketing efforts and campaigns to focus on your top performers
    Sharing information between your website and your CRM system is an imperative step for making your marketing data actionable to the rest of the business. Without integrating, decisions are made based on faith and HIPPOs, instead of actionable data. As a note, with the advent of Universal Analytics this is likely to get even easier.  

    Analyze the Results and Make Your Site Even Better

    How you analyze your site is a very personal thing, and your mileage may vary, so there isn't a magic bullet to ongoing success with your lead generation programs.

    With that said, there are several reports that can be extremely useful in Google Analytics for lead generation campaigns. I would start by paying attention to the following: 
    • Use an advanced segment of paid search traffic and then navigate to the Conversions > Goals report. Compare the goal values you created recently with a similar time period in the past. Are your results improving? 
    • Navigate to the Multi Channel Funnels report and either use standard or custom channels. What is the most common first click channel? Are you giving it enough credit in your reporting?
    • Compare direct traffic before and after implementing the integrations suggested above. Do you start to see more activity with proper attribution? Are you more confident analyzing with less of a grey area?
    • Have you been receiving all of the credit you deserve for leads you generate over the phone?
    • When a salesperson tells you that the leads you generate "suck" are you able to match their lead close rate to the source/medium/keyword that generated the lead?
    • Instead of presenting raw lead numbers in a vacuum are you starting to factor in appointments issued, quotes given and sales made? Can you calculate the true cost of sale from keyword to purchase?
    When configured properly, you can use Google Analytics and residual data from GA to perform some in depth closed loop analysis on how your lead generation campaigns are performing. Savvy lead generation experts have figured out how to deliver maximum value to their clients and constituents using the capabilities built into Google Analytics. Now it's your turn. 
    There you have it, the three pillars to getting the most out of Google Analytics for your lead generation website. Have any cool integrations yourself? Let's talk in the comments below.
    Jeff Sauer 

    An invitation to social sites to integrate with Google Analytics

    Every day, millions of people share and engage with content online. But most sharing doesn’t happen on the site where it was published, it happens throughout the social web. Marketers and publishers are looking for a comprehensive view of all interactions with their content - on and off their site - and so we’re working hard to make this happen.

    To enable our customers to discover who’s sharing, voting and bookmarking their content on the social web, cross-network measurement needs to become easier. So today we’re inviting social networks and platforms to integrate their activity streams with Google Analytics. Through these integrations, marketers and publishers will be able to discover off-site engagement, optimize their engagement within each social community, and measure the impact of each social channel and its associated digital investment.

    Any network can integrate their streams - like +1, votes, and comments - into the Google Analytics social reports, which will be fully available next year to the many marketers, publishers, and websites that are using Google Analytics for free.

    To make integration easy for social networks and platforms we’ve created a social data hub - it’s based on widely deployed, open web standards such as ActivityStreams and PubsubHubbub. A number of partners are already working with us to improve measurement of social actions - including Delicious, Digg, Diigo, Gigya, LiveFyre, ReadItLater, Reddit, TypePad, Vkontakte, and of course, Google+, Blogger and Google Groups.




    We’ll have more to share next year, so keep reading the blog or follow us on twitter @googleanalytics for updates. If you’re a social network or platform interested to learn about integrating with Google Analytics you can visit our developer site where you’ll find more information.

    Phil Mui, Group Product Manager & Ilya Grigorik, Engineering Manager, Google Analytics