Google Analytics is divided in five main categories: Visitors Advertising Traffic Sources Content Conversions In this post, I want to talk about the Content category. I will not discuss all  the reports available, but the ones I use most frequently. If you click on Content it will expand to the sections below:   Overview The overview gives a quick overall view of your content. You can see metrics such as pageviews, unique pageviews, avg. time on page and bounce rate. By using the date range option on the top right corner, you can select your date range and also ea [...]

Related Topics: Beginner | Channel: Analytics | How To | How To: Analytics | Search & Analytics

The first login to a Google Analytics account can be daunting. There are so many things to see, and so many different ways to tweak data, that deciding which are the most important metrics to watch can be an insurmountable decision. Ultimately, in my opinion, you are the only one who can decide what metrics and reports are important to your business. Some websites don't collect money but do send traffic to other sites, or collect subscriptions or email sign-ups as a form of conversion. Some do collect money, but it's just a small portion of their business; the phone call may really be co [...]

Related Topics: Beginner | Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | How To: Analytics | Search & Analytics

One of the most important hurdles to tackle before analyzing data is collecting clean and correct data. There are many ways to make your data more accurate; tagging is one of them. Although the correct tagging of your campaigns seems something basic, I still see a lot of companies and websites that aren’t tagging at all or do it in a wrong way. In this article, I will explain the major tagging issues and how to tag correctly. Campaign Tagging Problems The most important issue with tagging your campaigns is the involvement of many different colleagues and partners. With the implementa [...]

Related Topics: Beginner | Channel: Analytics | How To | How To: Analytics | Search & Analytics

Setting up Analytics accounts has evolved beyond installing "generated" scripts on pages and calling it a day. What started with the advent of software that told us how many "hits" we got a day has evolved into a sophisticated decision assistance engine, and keeping up on the new and cutting edge offers full time employment for many people across the world. As part of our website designs, many of us feature various graphic "buttons" or images on our site that either link to interior pages, booking paths, or even lead users off-site. We embed video, or have image links to our social media [...]

Related Topics: Beginner | Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | How To | How To: Analytics | Search & Analytics

If you're not using these tools to measure social media, you're getting it wrong.  These  tools enable you to measure social media properly, in a way that will lead to building stronger relationships, getting more traffic and converting more. What Social Media Analytics Includes ... And Excludes The purpose of social media is to interact with people, thus building relationships. From a business perspective, there are many reasons to do that, chiefly that people buy from people they know and like and because it opens opportunities - hence social "networking" - you're getting the same benefi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | How To: Analytics | How To: Social Media Marketing | Search Marketing Toolbox | Social Media Marketing

All too often, there are still companies who set their daily budget on their Adwords campaigns that is not sufficient in comparison to the available search volume. This will cause lost impression share. If your campaigns are performing according to the KPIs you have set, the budget should not be a factor. With the day parts option in Google Analytics, you can see the performance of your campaigns during the different hours of the day or days of the week. For companies with a fixed daily budget, the day parts option can give you insight to increase or decrease bids on certain hours of th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | How To | How To: Analytics | Intermediate | Search & Analytics

Data is a fickle friend. It is only as reliable as the setup you have and the effort you put into understanding the numbers. There are so many variables that can kill your data, and fixing the things that are broken is always a process of elimination. I can tell you that most skewed data is generally caused by two things 1) incorrectly installed scripts, or 2) the site owners themselves. You and your coworkers and employees are the one that visits your site most often. Your marketing team and webmaster are probably a close second and third. Do those visits really represent honest traffic [...]

Related Topics: Beginner | Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | How To | How To: Analytics | Search & Analytics

Google Analytics announced a change on the way a sessions are calculated on the tool. While this change will not affect the majority of the accounts significantly (according to the official blog post "most users will see less than a 1% change"), it is an important change. Below, I will describe why it is important and how this can affect some Google Analytics accounts (mostly companies that misuse Google Analytics campaign parameters), and what you can do to make sure you are on the right track. What Is Changing & Why? According to the official post, here is a summary of how Google An [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Features | Google: Analytics | How To | How To: Analytics | Intermediate

Google recently released its new Analytics interface to all of their users. Personally, I think that one of the biggest improvements is the ability to create multiple dashboards as well as the flexibility of widgets to customize your dashboard with essential metrics. This post will elaborate further on: how to create (multiple) dashboards the possibilities of the new dashboards a few examples for your own dashboards suggestions for new features Multiple Dashboards The new Google Analytics gives you the power to create up to 20 custom dashboards for each profile. This makes it per [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | How To | How To: Analytics | Intermediate | Search & Analytics

One of the major headaches in multinational campaigns is solving the many web analytics issues thrown up as a result of operating across multiple subdomains, in multiple languages. Part of the problem is technical, but probably the most difficult issue you'll encounter is actually maintaining consistency in numbers across the various departments and agencies involved in multinational campaigns. Getting the right numbers into the right reports for the right people should be straightforwards but rarely is. Here are my top tips for making your multinational analytics drive success. Tip #1: [...]

Related Topics: Advanced | Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | How To | How To: Analytics | Multinational Search

As companies spread their media mix, and expand their activities to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social channels, it is essential to try and integrate numbers as much as possible. And this integration should not only be on the marketing message and design, but also on its tracking. It is important to have a centralized marketing measurement tool that can provide us with the ROI of each of the channels. I have previously discussed Google Analytics integrations with Webmaster Tools, with Website Optimizer, and with Feedburner at Search Engine Land. In this post, I will discu [...]

Related Topics: Beginner | Channel: Analytics | How To | How To: Analytics | Search & Analytics

Much has been said about A/B testing techniques and the value that Website Testing can bring to website owners. In this article, I will not discuss what to test or how to do it, but how to analyze what you have already done. I have written in the past about the differences between A/B and Multivariate Testing and how to choose between them. Back then, I wrote that one of the advantages of multivariate tests is that you can analyze each and every interaction between elements in a much deeper level. However, one of the points that I missed is that A/B Tests are easier to be analyzed using [...]

Related Topics: Advanced | Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | Google: Website Optimizer | How To: Analytics | Search & Analytics

Had you exchanged pleasantries at a 2001 cocktail party, describing yourself as a search marketer, you’d have undoubted been met with a moment of uncomfortable silence and a blank stare. A decade later, it’s hard to imagine a company of any size, in any industry, that isn’t using SEO or paid search advertising to market its products or services. In fact, a company not pursuing these activities now is almost universally viewed to be at a disadvantage to its competitors who are so engaged. Well, marketing history appears to be repeating itself in the form of attribution management. I [...]

Related Topics: Advanced | Channel: Analytics | Credit Is Due | How To: Analytics

In mid-November, Google Analytics and Feedburner announced a very interesting integration. While this is excellent news for Google Analytics and Feedburner users, it must be dealt properly when it comes to SEO, especially on websites that are heavily based on RSS feeds. Google Analytics users rejoice! This integration is very interesting in that it allows a much deeper understanding of the interaction of users coming from feeds and the profitability of this segment on websites. So, which level of granularity can be achieved through this integration? Which parameters get added? As can [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | Google: FeedBurner | Google: Webmaster Central | How To: Analytics

If John F. Kennedy were an internet marketer, I think he would say, "Ask not what your marketing can do for your site. Ask what your site can do for your marketing." Kennedy understood the idea of cause and effect in his original quote: that people make a nation effective, and not the other way around. Online, the site makes marketing effective because the majority of what determines your ROI is not the media itself but what happens after the user clicks. And that's what marketing analytics needs to focus on. The problem In the world of marketing web sites, we tend to treat the site a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | How To: Analytics | Search & Analytics

In a previous post, I discussed the importance of using behavioral targeting to increase your conversion rates. I also wrote about how to use Google Analytics to understand personas of the users who visit your site. This post will present a fast and easy way to get your behavioral targeting (BT) process up and running. Although any discussion of BT can sometimes turn into a PhD-level conversation, it is really important to pluck some low-hanging fruit to convince executives that it is a worthwhile journey. If you do, your path will likely be paved with gold. Recently, BTBuckets, a free [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | Google: Website Optimizer | How To: Analytics | SEM Tools: Web Analytics

Forrester Research, Inc. recently released their Interactive Attribution Q4: 2009 report, a 44-criteria evaluation of interactive attribution vendors. The report opens with a statement of why accurate, interactive attribution is so crucial: "The de facto industry standard of measuring the value of campaigns or media placements by the most recent click or interaction is ripe for change." The report continues by defining interactive attribution as "the practice of measuring the correct partial value of each interactive ad that drove a desired outcome." Reading the report will give you an un [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Credit Is Due | How To: Analytics | How To: SEM

Following my last post on behavioral targeting, which was an overview of the field, I will provide a more hands-on approach in this post. To briefly recap, behavioral targeting involves creating multiple "personas" that represent multiple users of your site, and using analytics to create a unique experience for each persona group based on observed and predicted behavior. The first step to a successful behavioral targeting process is finding the right targets. It is not always obvious which users should be "bucketed" together. Creating effective buckets requires knowledge about the site and [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | How To: Analytics | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | SEM Tools: Web Analytics

Avinash Kaushik is Google’s well-known and widely respected analytics guru. In this wide-ranging interview, he talks about his passion for metrics, why they’re critical for success, and how search marketers can use analytics to take their campaigns to the next level.

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Features: General | Google: Analytics | Google: Employees | How To: Analytics | Top News

It's hard to justify the time spent on social media account management. But there are ways to measure the real value (monetary or otherwise) of fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter. These top two social media websites offer free advertising, an open customer service and communication platform and a demographics database all wrapped up in one, so knowing the value of fans and followers can be a big help when deciding how much time should be allotted to social media efforts. Here are some of the ways to measure how much Facebook and Twitter users are really worth. Number of quality fans [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | How To: Analytics | How To: Twitter | Social Media Marketing