Posts Tagged ‘google analytics’

Google Analytics Opt Out – Armageddon or Just Bump in the Road for Online Marketing

June 29th, 2010 by Andy Groller

Google Analytics is the preeminent web analytics tool used in today’s online world for several reasons including easy implementation, constant upgrades, and unlimited potential. Perhaps the greatest draw to Google Analytics is that it is completely free, which in the business world is almost unheard of these days. Given its unlimited potential and vast usage, what would your answer be to the following:

I’m going to provide an opportunity for any user to opt-out of tracking their navigation and behavior on your website, effectively making it seem as if they never visited your site or even existed?

This, in a nutshell, is what Google did a few weeks ago by releasing its Google Analytics Opt Out Browser Add-on which can be found here. Essentially, this opt out plug-in for the 3 major browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome) prevents a website’s Google Analytics tracking code from collecting information if that user visits the site. I completely understand the call for online privacy and security measures, but let’s take a general look at how Google Analytics opt out can have a significant impact on not only the website/business in question but also online marketing agencies such as DragonSearch. (more…)

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Posted in Search Marketing Industry, Web Traffic Analysis Related | 6 Comments »

Google Analytics Apps Gallery & New AdWords Reports

May 6th, 2010 by Andy Groller

Just the other day Google made two announcements regarding Google Analytics:
1. The launch of its Google Analytics Apps Gallery
2. The soon to be released new AdWords reports in Google Analytics

Although on the surface these two announcements seem relatively small to say Google Remarketing or Search Funnels, both could have relatively long term impacts on the analysis of PPC and traffic in general.

Google Analytics Apps Gallery

The Apps Gallery, found here, is basically a list of Google Analytics apps created by developers that can be integrated into other various software packages and platforms.  For example, the Analyticator for WordPress provides the necessary code to enable Google Analytics on any WordPress blog while Excellent Analytics provides an Excel plug-in allowing the importation of analytics data into a spreadsheet. (more…)

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Posted in PPC Management Related, Pay-per-click | No Comments »

Using Google Analytics For Online Forms Quality Control

April 12th, 2010 by Andy Groller

Form Error Rate Used To Calculate Form Effectiveness

I’m a huge fan of Google Docs. I’ve fully adopted it as my work processing tool, to make spreadsheets and, more recently, to create forms that I can easily embed on a website.

That made Tomasz Lewandowski and the Bluerank team’s recent post on the Google Analytics blog all that more interesting for me. Using Analytics, you can measure the quality of an online form on your site. At first glance, I thought that was pretty cool – forms are an important channel through which businesses and non-profits gather information or measure levels of interest among site visitors. Then, I started thinking of the implications of knowing whether your online form was actually working.

Use Google Analytics to measure the effectiveness of your forms.

(more…)

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Posted in Search Marketing Industry | No Comments »

PPC Effect on Ecommerce: Immediate or Down the Road?

June 5th, 2009 by Andy Groller

In the PPC business you learn something new every day. Whether that new knowledge just rolled off the production floor or has been out there some time with you just finding out about it now, every tool and piece of data can ultimately help a client.

Something that has likely been around for awhile is the “Days to Purchase” report in the Ecommerce section of Google Analytics.  I first heard about this report the other day while listening to a webinar discussion lead by Analytics guru Avinash Kaushik and have become fascinated by its potential ever since. (more…)

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Posted in PPC Management Related, Pay-per-click | 1 Comment »

Advanced AdWords Tip: Getting Hourly Conversion Data in Google Analytics

September 11th, 2008 by admin

by Steve LaLonde – PPC Manager at DragonSearch 

I love Google Analytics.  It’s free – and everybody loves free stuff – but more importantly, it’s very powerful.  In fact, Google Analytics is a perfectly suitable analytics platform for probably 98% of websites.  It’s an arguably enterprise-class web analytics solution.  But Google Analytics is not perfect.  In fact, it’s missing a few key features.

#1 on my list of things Google Analytics is sorely lacking: Hourly Conversion Data for AdWords Traffic.  

rates 

 Having hourly conversion data for AdWords traffic in Google Analytics would be so great! After all, your web visitors behave very differently throughout the 24hr day. Wouldn’t it be nice to know when your site converts paid traffic most effectively?  For sites running Pay per Click advertising this data is very important, as it could – and should – inform your day parting schedules.  Problem is, when you look at AdWords traffic in Analytics, you can’t see hourly conversion data.  

Fortunately there’s a way to (kind of) see this AdWords hourly conversion data.  All you have to do is install another duplicate website profile, and apply a filter to the new profile.  In effect, you’ll be creating a new ‘duplicate’ analytics profile which tracks only AdWords visitors — giving you an easy way to see hourly conversion rates for AdWords visitors. 

To create the duplicate profile, go to Analytics settings –>  ”add website profile” –>  ”add profile for an existing domain” .  Then enter the following filter settings, and click “Save Changes”. 

 

*NOTE: Don’t forget to recreate your goals in this newly created profile!!! Just pull the goal URLs from your original site profile, and re-setup the goals in this new profile.   

 What you’ve created is a duplicate profile for your website, which will only show AdWords traffic.  This way, you’ll be able to look at Hourly Conversion Rates and Totals for AdWords – only traffic.  You won’t be able to get very granular – like down to the keyword or ad group level – but you’ll see obvious AdWords trends across the 24 hour time frame.  This can point out obvious times which your site converts PPC traffic at its best.  Use this data to inform your day parting schedules in AdWords, and watch conversion rates (hopefully) improve!  

 analytics goals tab

I hope you’re able to employ this little trick to isolate hourly conversion data for your AdWords campaigns.  

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Posted in PPC Management Related, Pay-per-click | 9 Comments »

Are You Tracking Site Search with Google Analytics?

September 8th, 2008 by admin

by Steve LaLonde – PPC Manager at DragonSearch          

By now you’re already aware that Google Analytics is an extremely powerful web analytics platform. Today, I’d like to point out one of its more under-utilized features; site search tracking, and why you should definitely be using it.  

analytics site search  

So Google Analytics gives us the option of tracking site search.  In other words, you can track the search queries users type into your websites search box (provided your website has a search box).   Best of all, site search tracking is usually pretty easy to setup.  If your site has a search function, you’ll certainly want to enable the site search tracking function in Analytics. 

But why track site search -?  you may ask.  Well, the answer is simple!  In essense, by using your site search, your visitors are telling you, in their own words, exactly what they’re looking for, after they reach your site!   This info is literally priceless to PPC folks, Website Optimizing folks, and pretty much everyone else who has a vested interest in a particular site.  

Imagine all that you’ll learn about your site visitors and their intentions, by tracking and analyzing this data.   

So how do you set it up?  We’ve provided the basic steps here.  For more detailed info, you should visit this very comprehensive blog post on site search. 

 

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Basic Instructions:

1). First, you’ll need determine whether or not your site has a search function.  If you see a search box on your website, move on to step two.  :)

2). Next, you’ll want to login to your GA profiles’ settings, and click “Do track Site Search”.  Finally, you’ll need to enter a category parameter in the blank field. These are the letters that designate an internal query category.  You may be able to find these by searching for something on your site, and analyzing the URL this search returns.  

3). You’ll then have the option of stripping out these category parameters.   

4). Click ‘Save Changes’ and you’re all set.  

 

You should start seeing some site search data in GA, under the Content Tab in your analytics profile!   

Let the mining of precious data begin!   

 

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Posted in PPC Management Related, Pay-per-click | No Comments »



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