Friday, 30 October 2009

It's Friday, time for some fun! Advanced API analytics fun :)

Here is a captivating way to look at your Google Analytics data in a Treemap visualization. You can visualize your own data with our live demo. (Note: IE currently not supported for visualization part.)

click to enlarge

And, here is a video explaining how to look at the Treemap visualization and how to use it.



The goal of this example was to teach people how to use the Google Analytics API on App Engine in Java, as well as to demonstrate how to use both OAuth and AuthSub along with the App Engine's various services. The code looked great, but the output was a boring HTML table. So we used some open source tools to transform the table into a pretty tree map visualization, which is also useful in noticing interesting metrics.

All the code has been open sourced on Google Project hosting. Also, here's an article describing how this application works making it easy for developers to use this example as a starting point for new data visualizations and other Google Data projects.

For the data retrieval part, we used the App Engine Java SDK and the Google Analytics Data Export API Java Client Library to retrieve data from Google Analytics. The example code implements both unsigned AuthSub and registered OAuth authorization methods allowing developers to get up and running quickly in their dev environment and later switch to a secure authorization method in production environments. The application also uses the Model-View-Controller pattern, making it flexible and allowing developers to extend the code for new applications (e.g. adding support for other Google Data APIs).

And lastly, for the visualization part, we used the open-sourced Protovis SVG Visualization Library to create the Treemap. This JavaScript library is maintained by the Stanford Visualization Group and excels at creating brand new visualizations from a data set (in this case a boring HTML table). To handle all of the interactions, including rollover, tooltips and slider controls, we used JQuery. Here is the JavaScript source for the visualization part of the sample.

Enjoy!


p.s. If you have created any cool new visualizations using the Google Analytics Data Export API,email us so we can highlight them as well.

Wednesday, 28 October 2009

Last week, we announced a bundle of new enterprise-class features in Google Analytics. Over the next few weeks, we'll do posts which go into depth on each new feature. Here is the first, which goes into detail on the expanded and improved goals in Google Analytics (related video). It's very clearly and insightfully written by our friends at WebShare, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant, with links to related help center articles.

You can probably think of more than four things you'd like your visitors to be doing when they visit your website. Until last week, Google Analytics had limited the number of configurable goals per profile to just four. Sure, you can create 50 profiles and thus track up to 200 goals, but having to switch back and forth in your reports can be a bit cumbersome. Well, here's some very welcome news:
comprehensive site performance measurement just got easier. A newly released feature in Google Analytics now lets you create up to 20 conversion goals per profile, including new Engagement goals.

What is it?

Each profile now can be configured with up to four “Goal Sets”, each capable of housing five individual goals. In your Traffic Sources reports, each goal set appears as its own tab (see
screenshot below) and the goals associated with the set are listed out in plain text, just as before, to show you how your visitors are accomplishing the objectives of your site. (Click any image to enlarge it.)

In the screenshot above, you can see that Goal Set 1 is comprised of five individual goals. Look in the white boxes under "Goal Set 1" and you'll see "Goal 1: Newsletter Signup", "Goal 2: Contact Us Page", "Goal 3: New User Registration", "Goal 4: Webinar Signup" and "Goal 5: Catalog Request". Goal Sets 2, 3, 4 contain various other goals, and a simple click on the tab puts the numbers you need right at your fingertips.

When viewing your Goal reports, you'll now see up to 20 individual goals in the “Select Goal:” dropdown list, so you can quickly and efficiently look at trend data, funnel visualizations and more:

Setting Up Your Goals

Goal configuration has a new look which follows the goal set organization. For each goal set, you can add up to five individual goals (the remaining number of goals in each set are conveniently noted for you). To add a new goal, just click on the “Add goal” link for the goal set you wish to add a goal to.

With all of these new goals to configure, it's a good practice to use your goal sets to group your goals strategically. For example, you might use Goal Set 1 to track a set of e-commerce related goals such as Successful Purchase, Added Item to Shopping Cart, Deleted Item from Shopping Cart, and things of that nature. For your next set, you might want to track interaction goals such as Newsletter Signup, Followed us on Twitter, Logged In, etc... The sky's the limit, but make sure to consider how you'll want to use your reports when configuring your new goals.

New Goal Types - Engagement Goals

Another change you'll notice is the addition of two new goal types called Engagement goals: Time on Site and Pages/Visit. Previously goals could only be counted when a particular page URL was visited, but Engagement goals will allow a conversion to be recorded when a visitor reaches a certain threshold of involvement with your site. For instance, do you have an ad-serving site and want to record a conversion when a visitor has seen 10 pages? Now you can. Or, are you serving up audio/video or longer content pieces and want get an idea of how long people are listening, viewing or reading? A Time on Site goal can help.

Time on Site allows you to specify a greater than or less than value of time spent on your site as one of your goals. The following goal would fire once a visit passes five minutes in length:

Pages/Visit allows you to set a greater than, equal to or less than value to a pages-per-visit value. The following goal would fire upon the 6th pageview of the visit:

As always, if you'd like a monetary value to be assigned to any of your goals and used in cost and revenue calculations, just enter the amount in the "Goal Value" field.

Note: funnels do not apply for Engagement type goals. Speaking of funnels...

Goal Funnels

One more change to the goal creation page is the goal funnel creation step. The setup is collapsed by default (as it is optional), but if your URL Destination goals follow a path and you'd like to see how users are entering, following and abandoning that path, this is something that you can take advantage of. To create a funnel, just click on the “+ Yes, create a funnel for this goal” link and start entering the URL path to your goal, adding up to 10 steps.

Happy Goaling!

With this new addition to Google Analytics, opportunities to understand and then cater to your visitors abound. So the question is, how will you take advantage of this for your site?


Monday, 26 October 2009

Since we launched the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) program, many of you have asked for a way to prove to others that you have passed the Google Analytics IQ test and are therefore Google Analytics qualified. We're pleased to announce that you are now able to create and publish a link to your official test record. You can publish this link on your website or share it with others however you wish. When someone clicks on your link, they'll be taken to a page that looks like this:

Your test record can also display your test score and a contact email address if you wish to share this information. You can even create multiple test records -- for example, one that includes your contact email address and one that doesn't -- to share with different people.

Here's how to set it up. Go to the Google Testing Center and sign in to your account (using the same email to log in that you used when you took the test). Once you've signed in, click the Manage Your Test Records link (highlighted in yellow on the screenshot below).
You'll then see this screen (below). Click the Add link (highlighted in yellow).
On the next screen, you select the information that you want included in the test record. The Description can be any name you want; you'll be the only one who sees this name.
Save the record. You'll now see a test record. Click the record (shown in yellow, below) to get the link.

You'll now be able to share your test record by copying and pasting your link.
We encourage you to share and publish links to your test record, but please remember that you may not create logos or graphics (or reuse any logos that you find online) to promote your Google Analytics qualification. The link to your test record is your official proof of qualification.


Tuesday, 20 October 2009

Today, we're announcing a new set of Google Analytics features which builds on last year's enterprise-class feature launch. Some add more power to existing capabilities. Others provide new flexibility to further customize and adapt Google Analytics according to the needs of your enterprise. Finally, we'll introduce Analytics Intelligence. Resist the temptation to skip ahead. We wouldn't want you to miss anything. :-)

Powerful.

Power-users have asked us to add even more data manipulation and analysis features to Google Analytics. We've been listening, and are adding the latest power features to expand Google Analytics enterprise-class capabilities.
  • Engagement Goals..and more of them! Two new goal types allow you to measure user engagement and branding success on your site. The new goal types allow you to set thresholds for Time on Site and Pages per Visit. Furthermore, you can now define up to 20 goals per profile. Watch this short video on goals to learn more.



  • Expanded Mobile Reporting: Google Analytics now tracks mobile websites and mobile apps so you can better measure your mobile marketing efforts. If you're optimizing content for mobile users and have created a mobile website, Google Analytics can track traffic to your mobile website from all web-enabled devices, whether or not the device runs JavaScript. This is made possible by adding a server side code snippet to your mobile website. To install the code snippet, select "Advanced" from the "Add new profile" setup wizard within Google Analytics, and select the radio button, "A site built for a mobile phone". We support PHP, Perl, JSP and ASPX sites in this release. Of course, you can still track visits to your regular website coming from high-end, Javascript enabled phones.

    iPhone and Android mobile application developers can now also track how users engage with apps, just as with tracking engagement on a website. What's more, for apps on Android devices, usage can be tied back to ad campaigns: from ad to marketplace to download to engagement. Check out the SDKs and technical documentation on mobile apps tracking to get started. And coming soon, you'll be able to see breakout data on mobile devices and carriers in the new Mobile reports in the Visitors section!


  • Advanced Analysis Features: Advanced Table Filtering feature is being added to the arsenal of power tools you can use to perform advanced data analysis. Earlier this year we announced Pivoting and Secondary Dimensions. Using Secondary Dimensions, you could, for example, see revenue metrics for city + keyword combinations. So, you could see how much revenue your site received from visitors in Boston who searched for "bean bag". You could then "pivot" by source and see revenue by search engine for each of these city+keyword combinations. Here's a quick tutorial video.
Now we're adding Advanced Table Filtering. This allows you to filter the rows in a table based on different metric conditions. Watch the following video to see an example of how you could filter thousands of keywords to identify just the keywords with a bounce rate less than 30% and that referred at least 25 visits.



Together, these three power features let you perform in-depth, on the fly analysis without having to export your data to spreadsheet tools.

  • Unique Visitor Metric: Now when you create a Custom Report, you can select Unique Visitors as a metric against any dimensions in Google Analytics. This allows marketers to see how many actual visitors (unique cookies) make up any user-defined segment.

Flexible.


Every enterprise has unique web analytics tracking and reporting needs. Today, we're enhancing two of the tools that organizations use to adapt and customize Google Analytics. We're adding multiple custom variables to the tracking API and making it easy to share Custom Reports and Advanced Segments.
  • Multiple Custom Variables: Custom Variables provide you the power and flexibility to customize Google Analytics and collect the unique site usage data most important to your business. If you've used the _setVar() function, the concept of custom variables will be familiar, but we've taken it a step further: you can now define and track visitors according to visitor attributes (e.g. member vs. non-member), session attributes (e.g. logged-in or not), and by page-level attributes (e.g. viewed Sports section). Use custom variables to classify any number of interactions and behaviors on your site. This powerful customization capability makes Google Analytics even more flexible and able to meet the needs of the most demanding enterprises. Multiple custom variables will become available to all accounts in the coming weeks but you can start learning more about them now.
  • Sharing Segments and Custom Report Templates: You may have recently noticed in your accounts the ability to administer and share Custom Reports and Advanced Segments, features we announced earlier this year. Have a Custom Report you created just for the Sales Team? Simply share the URL link for that report to anyone who has an Analytics account and a pre-formatted Sales report template will automatically be imported. You can also now select which profiles you want to share or hide your Advanced Segments and Custom Reports with.

Intelligent.


Now, for the new feature you've been waiting for! Wouldn't it be great if Google Analytics could tell you what to pay attention to? Beginning today, it can.
  • Analytics Intelligence: We're launching the initial phase of an algorithmic driven Intelligence engine to Google Analytics. Analytics Intelligence will provide automatic alerts of significant changes in the data patterns of your site metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly and monthly periods. For instance, Intelligence could call out a 300% surge in visits from YouTube referrals last Tuesday or let you know bounce rates of visitors from Virginia dropped by 70% two weeks ago. Instead of you having to monitor reports and comb through data, Analytics Intelligence alerts you to the most significant information to pay attention to, saving you time and surfacing traffic insights that could affect your business. Now, you can spend your time actually taking action, instead of trying to figure out what needs to be done.
  • Custom Alerts make it possible for you to tell Google Analytics what to watch for. You can set daily, weekly, and monthly triggers on different dimensions & metrics, and be notified by email or right in the user interface when the changes actually occur.

    Watch this video on Analytics Intelligence and then look for the feature to appear in your account in the coming weeks!




That's the summary. We're excited to share more details about each of these features, so stay tuned! We'll discuss each feature in turn over the next few days.


P.S. We're not the only ones with exciting news today! Google Website Optimizer also announced some big features - over time charts and a Website Optimizer API! Check out the Google Website Optimizer blog to learn more.
Every now and then, we like to shout out events that our Google Analytics Authorized Consultants are doing for the community.

Seminar For Success In Melbourne
Two weeks ago we mentioned some upcoming Seminars For Success which are all day seminars on Google Analytics. Here's one more Seminar For Success in Melbourne, Australia this Thursday and Friday, October 22 and 23, hosted by Mangold Sengers, a Google Analytics and Website Optimizer Authorized Consultant.

Thursday will be a Google Analytics Introduction and User Training, and Friday will be an Advanced Technical Implementation session. You'll learn how to use Google Analytics and also get some indispensable techniques for analyzing and optimizing your marketing and traffic. Take a look at the agenda to learn which one would be right for you.


User Conference in Chicago
On November 4th, Authorized Consultant Stratigent is holding their 2009 Google Analytics User Conference
with many members of the Google Analytics Product and Engineering teams in attendance to meet you and hear about how you're using the product and what you'd like to see.

Join fellow Google Analytics users for a full day packed with tips from industry insiders, discussions on the latest innovations, customer panel conversations featuring organizations making the most out of Google Analytics. And,

Stratigent will discuss some of the applications that you can’t live without and, of course, networking with other members of the Google Analytics community will be a huge part of the day. Some of the highlights from the day's agenda include:
  • Improving ROI and Conversion with Google Analytics: Presented by Phil Mui, Ph.D., Senior Product Manager at Google.

  • Enterprise Insights: Understand what sets world-class analytics programs apart

  • Customer Discussion Panel: Listen to everyday Google Analytics users discuss their struggles and triumphs

  • Applications You Can't Live Without Competition: Discover these useful add-ons that make your life easier

  • Google Analytics - Guide to Success: Hear tricks of the trade from seasoned professionals
Register by 10/11/09, you’ll receive an extra 10% off. Click Here to Register Now. Also, Google Analytics has provided a limited number of Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) exam vouchers, which allows individuals to demonstrate proficiency in Google Analytics (a $50 value).

Thursday, 15 October 2009

Recently we started an initiative to ask you to share your most burning questions via Google Moderator (link: Google Analytics Google Moderator site).

This week, Avinash and I sat down to do a rapid fire Q&A to answer your questions. Rather than do a dry text Q&A version, we chose to do a video, and we think you'll find it educational and entertaining.

In this episode we discuss:
  • How is bounce rate calculated
  • Effect of search bots on data collection
  • Finding a benchmarking category for sites that don't fit into any particular benchmark category
  • What is the best way to identify landing pages with high bounce rate
  • How to find new keywords to improve content performance
  • Effects of private browsing and incognito mode on data collection


Here are links to resources we discussed in the video:
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. We will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

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


Thursday, 8 October 2009

Come to the nation's capital and join us again this year at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Washington, D.C. from October 19-23.

Ah, The Fall Classic. If you're stateside*, you may be aware that the baseball playoffs are in full swing. Full swing.

Bear with us here. Are you familiar with the expression, "Right in your wheelhouse"? In baseball, a wheelhouse is a hitter's powerzone. It's the part of a batter's swinging range in which they will make the best contact with the ball. It's the sweetspot. If a pitch is right in your wheelhouse it's basically that pitch that makes your eyes widen in anticipation. The ball is coming right where you want it, in the spot where you'll have the best chance of hitting it out of the park. Grip it and rip it.


Some hitters like a pitch inside and low, some like it level center right over the plate. Each hitter has a wheelhouse, and a pitcher should figure out where that is and keep the ball away from it. Our buddy Justin Cutroni, lifelong Red Sox fan and web analytics practitioner extraordinaire, knows a thing or two about this.

The term "wheelhouse" itself actually comes from even further back than baseball. A wheelhouse on a ship is where the captain commands the ship, also known as the bridge.


But, the phrase can also be used generally to refer to something that is in your area of expertise. For instance, "Analyzing website traffic is right in Justin Cutroni's wheelhouse." This is our usage.

Here's another one: "The eMetrics conference is right in Google Analytics' wheelhouse." You probably saw that coming, but it's true. We love this conference because it brings together a bunch of analysts, marketers, vendors, thoughtleaders and general wild cards who are agitating over the methods and tools that help them focus their organizations towards the best data-driven practices. Wire to wire, it's a good week of learning, arguing, networking and information sharing. We'll be there, and hope you will too!

Here's a discount code for 20% off a 1 and/or 3-day pass when you register for eMetrics:
SPONSORDC09

In addition to our booth, here's some Google Analytics and Website Optimizer related things going on at the conference, including some breakout sessions we'll be hosting in conference room Beech. (We'll also have details about the following at our booth.)

Monday, October 19:
9am - 4:30pm Google Analytics Workshop in conference room Chestnut
This will be excellent and enriching. You'll be exposed to Google Analytics from soup to nuts in a small, hands on, high energy, classroom setting where you can get personal attention. You'll learn set up for your particular site, best practices, newest features and be exposed to other related products such as Google Website Optimizer. You need to register for this separately.
Instructor: Caleb Whitmore from Analytics Pros

Tuesday, Oct 20:
10:30-11am: Google Website Optimizer 101 in conference room Beech
Get acquainted with Google Website Optimizer and learn about a/b and multivariate testing on your site. "Conversion rate lift" will become part of your regular vocabulary.

2:30-3pm: Google Analytics main presentation in Plaza B&C
You'll hear some good stuff from our team, presented by the best speaker we know. We've been working hard to be ready for eMetrics and this should be a fun half hour. :)

3pm-3:30pm Deep dive! in conference room Beech
Google Analytics enterprise-level feature deep dive breakout session led by Phil Mui, senior Product Manager of Google Analytics. You'll love this. Phil has the style of the best professor/mentor/wizard you had at MIT. :-)

Wednesday, Oct 21
10:30-11am: Google Website Optimizer Techie Session in conference room Beech
Website Optimizer Engineers from the team will cover advanced topics and techniques to help you take it to the next level.

3:00 - 3:20: Meet the Google Analytics and Website Optimizer Partner Network in Conference Room Beech
Some of our authorized consultants will be attending the conference and will intro themselves and tell you what they can do for you, from simple support or training, to helping you get the right implementation, to basic or advanced analysis, either on a project basis or ongoing. In addition to analytics and website testing, they do SEM, SEO, e-commerce, design, branding and more. Feel free to ask them questions to get details about engaging one of them. There are over 100 worldwide, so chances are there's one near you.

The conference is less than two weeks away. We hope you register and we see you there!



Monday, 5 October 2009

Earlier this year, we asked Forrester Research to help us understand the key trends in enterprise web analytics. The commissioned study conducted by Forrester, "Appraising Your Investment in Enterprise Web Analytics" provides rich insights into what large companies want from an enterprise solution and how they are thinking about their web analytics decisions.

First, let's provide some context for what was considered an "enterprise." The study looked at companies with at least $500 million in annual revenue. Of the 198 companies that met this criteria, almost half (45%) have annual revenues in excess of $5 billion. Three quarters of the companies have over 5,000 employees.

One of the study's findings that we find interesting is around the role of people and web analytics technology. As companies re-evaluate their investments in web analytics, the study explains that:
"Enterprise companies must ask themselves if they are paying too much for capabilities that they simply do not need. In some cases, gaining fewer seldom-used capabilities is a worthwhile tradeoff if funds can be reallocated to hire more resources necessary for analysis."
Companies are recognizing that analysts drive insights, not the analytics tool itself. According to the study, "sixty percent of decision-makers agree that investments in web analytics people are more valuable than investments in web analytics technology." This is in-line with Avinash Kaushik's 10/90 rule for web analytics success: invest 10% of your analytics budget on the actual technology and 90% of your budget in the people who deliver actionable insight, whether in-house analysts, agencies, or vendor partners. It's the people that matter.

Below are other key findings from the Forrester report's Executive Summary:

• Free web analytics takes residence within the enterprise. A staggering 53% of enterprises surveyed currently use a free technology solution as their primary web analytics tool, and 71% use free tools in some capacity. This places use of fee-based solutions in the minority, with only 33% of survey respondents paying for web analytics technologies (12% use homegrown solutions, and 2% use some other option). In addition, it dispels the belief that free solutions are only being used in small organizations or somehow diminished in their capacity to provide value to the enterprise.

• The merits of free analytics products are compelling. Among respondents currently paying for their primary web analytics tools, 66% would consider displacing them with a free alternative. While the primary driver for this consideration is cost, 60% of enterprises are more likely to consider a free tool now because of recent improvements in free solutions. Additionally, 52% are enticed by free tools because they allow enterprises to invest more in the people necessary to drive insight rather than the technology used to collect and analyze data.

• Balancing costs and benefits requires introspection. We found that 52% of practitioners employing both free and fee-based solutions fail to effectively use more than half of the capabilities offered by their tools. This realization is cause for a needs assessment to determine if fee-based web analytics technologies are justified or simply excessive. For many, spending on web analytics technologies could be better allocated toward program development and acquisition of expertise.

• Reliability and ease of use are characteristics that enterprises crave. For 71% of enterprises surveyed, web analytics data plays a significant role in driving decisions. So it comes as no surprise that users place a premium on data assurance, with 45% citing reliable data collection as the most important vendor selection criteria. This was followed by 40% who listed an easy-to-use interface and product pricing as the second equally most important vendor selection consideration.

• Organizations are approaching a point of inflection. Nearly two-thirds of enterprises would abandon their current web analytics provider given the right circumstances. While 74% of large enterprises agreed that web analytics is a technology that they cannot do without, many indicated that alternative tools would suffice. These metrics indicate that organizations are receptive to change and justifiably seek solutions best suited to meet their needs.

If you'd like to learn more, download the full report. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Post a comment and tell us what you think!

Friday, 2 October 2009

Do you learn best by clear examples? Do you get the feeling you could be doing so much more with Google Analytics, but are not quite sure how? Do you want to take your skills to the next level? Or are you starting from scratch? Whatever your goal or skill level, there's a day-long Google Analytics Seminars For Success that is right for you - and is coming to a US city near you.

Our instructors have years of experience implementing some of the most sophisticated Google Analytics implementations to date and working with customers of every skill level. They are touring the country with S4s (Seminars For Success) spreading that knowledge to the public. They are all Google Analytics Authorized Consultants and are listed in parentheses below next to the city name.

Former students tell us all the time they never realized how much there was to learn and how they wished they had taken the class sooner.

We’re happy to announce a new round of cities hosting the seminars through the end of the year—sign up today!

New York, NY (EpikOne)
Oct 8: Analytics Intro/Marketer Training
Oct 9: Analytics Advanced & Implementation Training

Chicago, IL (WebShare)
Oct 28: Analytics Intro/Marketer Training
Oct 29: Analytics Advanced & Implementation Training
Oct 30: Website Optimizer & Landing Page Testing

Berkeley, CA (WebShare)
Nov 4: Analytics Intro/Marketer Training
Nov 5: Analytics Advanced & Implementation Training
Nov 6: Website Optimizer & Landing Page Testing

Seattle, WA (WebShare)
Nov 18: Analytics Intro/Marketer Training
Nov 19: Analytics Advanced & Implementation Training
Nov 20: Website Optimizer & Landing Page Testing

Phoenix, AZ (WebShare)
Dec 9: Analytics Intro/Marketer Training
Dec 10: Analytics Advanced & Implementation Training
Dec 11: Website Optimizer & Landing Page Testing

Charlotte, NC (ROI Revolution)
Dec 9: Analytics Intro/Marketer Training
Dec 10: Analytics Advanced & Implementation Training