Web Analytics TV #18

Welcome to yet another amazing episode of Web Analytics TV! We had so much fun doing this one, you are going to have a blast as well.

Web Analytics TV, as you well know by now, is powered by your questions. In this episode we had questions from Australia, Brazil, India, Denmark, England, Netherlands and so many other places. Y’all rock!

Our process for this show is simple.

Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions. Vote on next week’s questions using this Web Analytics TV Google Moderator site.

Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer them. : )

Here is the list of last weeks questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

• (0:12) Best way to integrate Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics
• (1:21) Getting the page title next to the all navigation report
• (2:18) Why clicks and visits might not match between AdWords and Analytics
• (3:43) Preventing URL tracked with campaign tracking being indexed by Google
• (5:04) Is there a downtime using ga.js (tracking code). And the benefit of async?
• (7:04) Why you see other in the top landing pages report?
• (9:06) Why you see self-referrals in Google Analytics
• (10:41) Tracking banners and internal campaigns
• (12:45) Combining the search referrers to a group of pages
• (13:55) Tracking the number of clicks that happen between domains
• (15:48) Is there a Pod cast on iTunes?
• (16:20) Google Website Optimizer
• (17:22) Differentiating between video click referrals
• (18:16) Using matched search query term without auto-tagging

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

• Passing IDs from Google Website Optimizer to Google Analytics
• Reasons for clicks and visits discrepancies in AdWords and Analytics
• Why Steve Souders recommends using GA Async Tracking
• Why you see other in your reports
• Using setDomainName and ignoring certain referrals
• Another approach to tracking internal campaigns using internal site search
• Using Custom Reports in Google Analytics v5
• Using Events as Goals in Google Analytics v5

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you are there don’t forget to vote for your favorite questions. Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #16 - Goals and ECommerce Tracking Edition

Welcome to our first Web Analytics TV episode of 2011!

Web Analytics TV is powered by your questions, in this episode we had questions from Australia, India, Russia, Germany, Israel, Poland, Argentina, Dubai, Cyprus and so many other places. It is amazing to see such an engaged audience from around the world. You all rock!

Our process is simple. Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site. Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski answer them. : )


In this episode our special guest is Sagnik Nandy, Engineering Lead for the Google Analytics back-end team. We are also thrilled to present Alan from Vancouver with the “Analytics Ninja of the Episode” award for his excellent question about sampling in Google Analytics. Alan, just send us an email and we’ll send you an autographed, personalized, copy of Web Analytics 2.0.

Here is the list of last weeks questions.


In this action packed episode we discuss:

• (0:34) Detecting new local search engines in Google Analytics
• (1:11) Effects of browser Do Not Track features on Google Analytics
• (2:50) Is there anything you can do to reduce sampling in reports
• (4:56) Measuring visitors who have visited one page for more than 30s
• (5:50) Is passing a random visitor id in a visitor level custom var allowed?
• (7:03) Tracking Google Places paid ad referrals
• (8:18) Using jQuery to track outbound links
• (9:18) Ways to filter or segment on the day of week
• (10:05) When will Google Analytics work on devices that don’t support Flash
• (11:06) How to track e-commerce and goals that happen on a 3rd party site
• (12:37) Unique visitor metrics now available through the API
• (14:38) Tracking Ecommerce transactions in one web property in different profiles
• (15:45) Is it OK to track the name and email address with Google Analytics
• (16:23) Can you use events to track outbound links on your site

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

• Using _addOrganic link to detect new search engines
• General event tracking documentation
• jQuery plugins to simplify Google Analytics tracking
• Solutions to view Google Analytics on mobile devices

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.


This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you are there don’t forget to vote for your favourite questions. Avinash and Nick will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.


Thanks!
Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Introducing In-Page Analytics: Visual context for your Analytics data

When looking at Google Analytics reports, sometimes it’s difficult to visualize how visitors navigate on a given website page. To make this visualization easier, some users keep the website open in another browser tab so they can reference it while looking through reports. Others rely on the Site Overlay report in Google Analytics, which, admittedly, hasn’t worked as well it could.

Today, we’re happy to share with you a bit of what we’ve been working on to address this problem. We’re releasing a new feature into beta: In-Page Analytics. With In-Page Analytics, you can see your Google Analytics data superimposed on your website as you browse.

Take In-Page for a spin and let us know what you think. In-Page Analytics is still in beta, so some things in the report may not work perfectly yet. There’s a lot left to do, but there’s even more that we want to build going forward. In-Page is currently available for all English users of Google Analytics. We also have a demo video that walks you through the feature and how you might use it.

You’ll find the In-Page Analytics report in the Content section in your Google Analytics account, and it replaces Site Overlay. You can read more about In-Page in the Google Analytics Help Center. Let us know what you think and how you’re using it!

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #12 - The power of the API

Lo and behold, it’s another episode of Web Analytics TV. In this exciting series with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, you ask and vote on your favorite web analytics questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them.

In this episode, we are delighted to have Rod Jacka as our special guest on Web Analytics TV. Rod is the Managing Director of Panalysis, a specialist web business analytics company and GA Certified Partner, Rod has experience in every web analytics tools, and if you need any consulting help in Australia then Rod's your man.

Here is a list to last weeks questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

• (1:45) Why does you own site show in the Referring Sites report?
• (3:15) Is there any way to export more than 5 columns in a pivot report?
• (4:15) Getting app integrations migrated to async tracking
• (5:55) Is there a way to grant read-only access to Website Optimizer?
• (6:50) How to cross IDs set in Custom Variables with other GA data
• (8:50) In which report can you find the PPC search terms (not bid terms)?
• (10:20) Tracking links from emails that point to sites not being tracked by GA
• (12:25) Thoughts about optimizing the async code
• (15:15) If a user keeps clicking every 29 minutes, can a session last for 9 days?
• (16:50) What could cause advanced segments on reports to have different totals?
• (18:28) Why should people use other web analytics products when GA is free?
• (20:50) Does GA track transactions in the same session or across session?
• (21:08) How to get the goal funnel data through the API?
• (22:28) What does “other” mean in the traffic sources overview reports?
• (24:18) Is it possible to get segment-able motion charts?
• (25:42) Why do product revenue and transaction revenue show different values?
• (27:36) Where you can find unique visitor data in Google Analytics
• (29:35) Why do advanced segments that match pages return other pages?
• (31:22) Is it possible to export data from one account into another account?
• (33:08) How to link multiple AdWords accounts to one Google Analytics account
• (34:15) How to distinguish website referrals from desktop applications

And here are the links to the topics we discuss:

• Google Analytics / Excel integrations built using the API
• Get free funnel abandonment data through the API using PadiTrack
• The video for the “visualize” button in Google Analytics
• Sample code mashup to build your own segment-able motion charts using the API
• How advanced segments work in the API

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below. And, if you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question and vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Thanks!

Post content Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #11 with Avinash and Nick

Yay! It’s another episode of Web Analytics TV!

In this exciting series, with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, you ask, and vote on your favorite, web analytics questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them.

This episode was particularly awesome since there were some fantastic questions. Tough questions that made us think hard. But also questions that made us proud of how sophisticated Google Analytics users are.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

• Google Website Optimizer and the ga.js async tracking code issue
• What is considered Personally Identifiable Information (PII)?
• Teaching Google Analytics the location of your local __utm.gif image
• Implementing ecommerce tracking with multiple currencies
• Goal names in Google Analytics
• Similarities and differences between Visitors and Unique Visitors metrics
• Lovely opportunities for developers to build products using our API
• Reasons why utm_content values show up as (not set)
• Best practices for applying segments to specific pages (cool answer!)
• Implementing ecommerce tracking if you don’t have an order id
• Using advanced filters in the connection speed report
• Why the value “other” shows up in your reports
• Tracking how a visitor finds a site the first time for attribution
• Correlating business data with Google Analytics data

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

• Setting the __utm.gif path using _setLocalGifPath
• How Mikael T. built a business using the Google Analytics API
• Troubleshooting the tracking code

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partners.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

If you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question and vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #10 with Avinash and Nick

It’s the 10th Anniversary of Web Analytics TV! Happy Birthday to us!

In this exciting series, with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, you ask and vote on your favorite web analytics questions via our Google Moderator site for Web Analytics TV and we answer them.

Here is the list of last week’s questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

• Tracking un-subscriptions with negative values
• Best practices tracking social media
• Sources of keywords outside of Paid Search to help site optimization
• Custom reports sorted by date
• Tracking form validation with Google Analytics
• Why Exit Rate is 0% in the Google Analytics navigation summary report
• Tips to avoid sampling on landing pages
• Configuring Google Analytics to track test and production environments
• Comparing Google Analytics and Webmaster tools
• Best practices for tracking PDF downloads
• Getting the full referring URL in Google Analytics
• Sharing custom reports with advanced segments
• Best way to find keywords from mobile traffic
• Tracking dimensions over time in Google Analytics
• Tracking the impact of interactive TV

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

• Best practices for creating custom alerts
• 4Q/Google Analytics survey integration
• Google Webmaster Tools
• Google Analytics Event Tracking Overview
• Obtaining the full referral url in Google Analytics
• Taking screenshots in OS X and Windows
• Migrating to Async Tracking
• Tracking Online impact of Offline campaigns

If you found this post helpful, we'd love to hear your comments, please share them via the comment form below.

If you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question and vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Thanks!

Posted By Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #9 with Avinash and Nick

This is the 9th exciting episode of Web Analytics TV with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, where you ask questions about web analytics via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them. We had lots of fun putting this episode and we hope you get a kick out of watching it. Here is the list of last week’s questions.

In this action-packed episode we discuss:

• How to track each referral source overtime for visitors
• How to share custom segments and reports with other people
• Getting transaction data for only one referral source
• Is there a place to share Google Analytics code snippets and regular expressions?
• Cross domain tracking when users right-click and open in a new window
• How you need to think about Page Speed and Google Analytics
• Using the comparison report with two date ranges (and hypercube space)
• Sending historical or futuristic data into Google Analytics
• Why eCommerce reports do not match an eCommerce backend system
• Tracking commas instead of decimals for revenue in eCommerce
• Tracking pigViews (just watch the video :-)
• Reporting on content consumption (like pageviews) by keywords
• Setting the visible number of rows in reports
• How to normalize keywords to replace underscore with spaces
• Best practices on upgrading to async tracking code
• Best practices to report on cities in a particular state

If you found this post helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Or, please submit a question or vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site and Avinash and I will answer the newest batch in a couple of weeks with another video.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #7 with Avinash and Nick

This is the 7th edition of Web Analytics TV with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski! In this series you ask questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them!

Here is the list of last week’s questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

● Test your tracking implementation without waiting for the data to appear in reports.

● How GZip compression works for the tracking code.

● Retrieving the value for visitor level customer variables.

● Adding annotations via the API.

● Why do searches from Google Image Search appear as referrals in Google Analytics?

● Why do I see self-referrers to my site (my site referring to itself)?

● How to detect new search engines in Google Analytics?

● Fixing site overlay to not distinguish two links pointing to the same page.

● How to exclude internal users now that _setVar is deprecated.

● Why does (not set) appear as page titles in reports?

● What is the best way to begin with web analytics? How do you focus?

● Why do longer date ranges return different results?

● How can you use the Motion Chart bar graph?

● Best practises for setting up conversion goals for e-commerce sites.

Here are links to resources we discussed in the video:

● Validating and Troubleshooting your Google Analytics tracking code.

● Speed up your site, get better data, use asynchronous tracking.

● Use _getVisitorCustomVar() to retieve previously set visitor level custom variables.

● The open feature request to add annotations via our API; please vote and add use cases.

● Override the page referral using _setReferrerOverride().

● One possible solution to tracking Google Image Search.

● Use _addOrganic() to detect new search engines to in Google Analytics.

● Need help with Google Analytics? Have tough questions? Check out these 4 wonderful resources for help:

○ Hire a Google Analytics Authorized Consultants

○ Google Analytics Help Center

○ Google Analytics Code Site for developers

○ Google Analytics General Help Forum

● How sampling works in Google Analytics.

● Rock out with the Motion Charts Anthem (super cool!).

Special Notice: We also have a Custom Variables Webinar coming up on Wednesday, March 24th at 10:00 am PT. Space is limited, sign up before it’s too late!

If you found this post helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. If you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question or vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Thanks!

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV Episode #6 with Avinash and Nick

This is the sixth edition of Web Analytics TV with with a dash of Nick and Nash! In this series you share your most burning questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them! And, here is the list of last weeks questions.

We love hearing from you and thank all the folks who rated last weeks comments.

In this episode we discuss:

• What you can do if you get spammed pageviews in your Analytics Account.
• How to collect ecommerce tracking variables on 3rd party shopping carts.
• Issues with maintaining campaign information with 3rd party shopping carts.
• How do links from competitors show up in your referring sources site?
• How to find Singapore in the Google Analytics map overlay.
• How to see referring URLs in the campaign report.
• How Google Analytics treats conversions from multiple sources in the same visit.
• Why certain referrals like search can have a number of pageviews but 0 visits.
• Computing page influence to conversion and the Google Analytics $Index metric.
• How events effect and sometimes lower the bounce rate.

Here are links to resources we discussed in the video:

• Google Analytics Authorized Consultants (GAACs) whom you can hire to solve problems with Google Analytics implementations.
  
• Tracking transactions in Google Analytics with 3rd party shopping carts.
  
• Tracking across domains with Google Analytics.
  
• Sebastien describes how to see the full referral URL in Google Analytics.
  
• Patrick Altoft describes one way to track first click attribution in Google Analytics.
  
• Link to the Data Export API.

If you found this helpful, we'd love to hear your comments.

If you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question or vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another Nick and Nash video.

Thanks!

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #5 with Avinash and Nick

This is the fifth installment in our Web Analytics TV series in which you share your most burning questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them.

Here is the list of this week's questions. You all are keeping us on our toes!

In this episode we discuss:

• Tracking online conversions and success for small, local, businesses
• Tracking the number of times a visitor converts in one visit
• How the e-commerce conversion rate can be greater than 100%
• How you can change the duration of Google Analytics campaigns
• How you can differentiate between paid and organic search in Google Analytics
• What is the recommended % balance between branded and category terms
• Why is time spent 0 for visits with 1 page/visit
• Why unique visitor numbers are higher than visits
• How visits and unique pageviews are calculated
• Would survey and qualitative help measure "engagement" ?
• How to best track mailto: links on your site
• What are the best practices for using virtual pageviews, event tracking and custom variables?
• How to see dimensions and metrics by location
• Where to find custom variables reports Google Analytics
  
  
  

Here are links to resources we discussed in the video:

• You can change how long Google Analytics attributes visits to a referral source by using the _setCampaignCookieTimout() javscript tracking method. When you set this to 0, the cookies becomes a session cookie and will be deleted once the user leaves the site. Using this method will make Google Analytics attribute only the first click of a campaign to a visit.
  
• How to link your Google Analytics and AdWords campaigns to differentiate between paid and organic search
  
• Help Center article: How do I link my Google Analytics account to my AdWords account?
  
• Help Center article: What is Autotagging?
  
• Help Center article: How to manually tag your referrals.
• Avinash's Blog: How to Monetize The Value of The Long Tail.
• Avinash's Blog: Calculating Time on Site & Time on Page.
• Caleb's Dimensionator plugin that exposes DMA and other data in your Google Analytics reports.
  

We hope you found episode helpful, and we'd love to hear your comments and have your questions. Please use the comment form below.

In case you missed them, here are our previous videos:

Episode #1
Episode #2
Episode #3
Episode #4

If you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question or vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with another video. We can't wait!

Please add your thoughts about the Q&A via comments below. Thanks!

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team