Linking all of your AdWords accounts to Google Analytics

This is part of our series of posts highlighting the new Google Analytics. The new version of Google Analytics is currently available in beta to all Analytics users. And follow Google Analytics on Twitter for the latest updates. This week, Gavin Doolan, an Analytics specialist shares some of improvements to AdWords linking in Google Analytics v5.

We are happy to announce a new feature that will allow you to use multiple AdWords accounts with Google Analytics more effectively.

Previously it was only possible to link a single AdWords account to a single Google Analytics account. This made it more challenging to use auto-tagging and the AdWords reports inside of Google Analytics.

Starting today, you can now link multiple AdWords accounts to your Google Analytics account. The new data sources section in the Google Analytics account settings area makes it easy to use auto-tagging with multiple AdWords accounts and import your AdWords data into Google Analytics.

Let’s take a look at how to set this up:

Before you start, make sure that you're using a Google account that has access to both your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts, and is an Administrator for the Analytics account.

If you want to link multiple AdWords accounts to a single Analytics account, you need to set the new version of Analytics as your default:

1. Sign into Google Analytics at http://www.google.com/analytics.

2. Click New Version at the top right of the page.

3. Click Make this version default.

If you skip this step, you won’t see the new linking interface when you sign into AdWords.

Linking your accounts

1. Sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com.

2. Click the Reporting and Tools tab, then click Google Analytics.

3. Click the gear icon at the top right.

4. Click All Accounts at the top left of the page.

5. Click the account to which you want to link the AdWords account.

6. Click the Data Sources tab.

7. Click the AdWords tab.

8. Click Link Accounts button.

If you are linking from a My Client Center child account the process is very similar. You can more in this article: Linking Analytics Accounts to My Client Center (MCC) Accounts.

Improvements to applying AdWords account data to multiple profiles

Now that you can link multiple AdWords accounts to Google Analytics, we’ve also made it easier import your AdWords data into multiple profiles in Google Analytics. We have put together a quick video demonstrating how to do this:

If you’re less of a visual learner, you can always find instructions on how to link accounts in the Google Analytics Help Center.

Happy linking!

Gavin Doolan

Google Analytics Team

Read More

Introducing two new versions of the Management API

Today we are releasing two new versions of our Management API into public beta; a brand new version 3.0 and a backwards compatible version 2.4. While the data the API exposes is the same, both versions migrate the Management API from the existing Google Data Protocol to Google’s new API infrastructure. This impacts the way you request and handle data from the API.

With this change, we are also announcing the deprecation of the legacy version 2.3 of the Management API. It will continue to work for 2 months, after which all v2.3 requests will return a v2.4 response.

The biggest changes in switching to the new versions are that developers need to register their applications via the Google APIs Console and use a developer token. Also the URL endpoints have changed, which influence how you request OAuth authorization tokens.

Here’s a rundown of what’s new:

Version 3.0
Is the latest major version of our API and is not backwards compatible. Features include:

• A faster response over version 2.3


• An improved quota policy


• Integration with the Google APIs console to manage API access and request more quota


• OAuth 2.0 is now the recommended way to Authorize users


• The URL to make requests is now at https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/management/...


• The API response is more compact using JSON


• New Google API client libraries, which support many more languages


• Support for the Google Discovery API

All future development of the API will be done to this version so we also added some exciting new data only in version 3, including:

• Event goals are fully represented


• An internal web property id which can be used to deep link into the GA user interface


• Profile configurations for the default page and site search query parameters

Version 2.4
This is a minor version upgrade and we tried hard to make it backwards compatible with the existing Version 2.3. New changes include:

• A faster response over version 2.3


• An improved quota policy


• Integration with the Google API console to manage API access and request more quota


• Continued support for existing authorization mechanisms; OAuth 2.0 now supported


• The URL to make requests is now at https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v2.4/management/...


• Supports XML response only


• The Google Data JavaScript client library will not work with this version

The XML output from this version is the same as version 2.3 so the existing Google Data client libraries will continue to work.

If You’re a Developer, What You Need To Do
Take a deep breath and get excited ;)

While we typically don’t share our roadmap, to alleviate any concerns, we wanted to give you some insight on where we’re going and how this release fits into the bigger picture. Today’s release adds two new versions to the Management API, v2.4 and v3.0. We also have a Data Export API that provides access to report data, which is still on version 2.3. In the future, we plan to do a similar upgrade to the Data Export API Data Feed by releasing two new versions for it, and deprecating version 2.3. At that time, we also plan to completely deprecate the Data Export API Account Feed.

The future of our APIs is to access all configuration data through the Management API and all processed report data through the Data Export API.

So for now, if you are already using the Management API, we recommend you migrate to the latest and greatest version 3.0.

If you are still using the Account Feed in the Data Export API, we highly recommend you test out the new Management API and start planning your migration. But, you can probably wait to do a full migration until all our APIs are on version 3.0.

If you have any questions feel free to reach out in our Management API developer group.


Posted by Jeetendra Soneja and Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team

Read More

Introducing Multi-Channel Funnels: discover untapped opportunities in your conversion path

An ad is clicked, and a purchase is made. Marketers have long used Google Analytics and similar tools to see which marketing efforts drive sales and conversions. Measurement is fundamental to ROI-focused marketing. Now, we’re taking this measurability a few steps further.

When a customer buys or converts on your site, most conversion tracking tools credit the most recent link or ad clicked. In reality though, customers research, compare and make purchase decisions via multiple touch points across multiple channels. So marketers that measure return solely on the last channel that a customer touches before conversion are getting an incomplete picture, and potentially missing out on important opportunities to reach their customers.

That’s why we’re excited today to introduce Multi-Channel Funnels to all Google Analytics users. This set of five new reports in Google Analytics gives marketers insight into the full path to conversion over a 30 day period, not simply the last click.

By looking at interactions across most digital media channels, including clicks from paid and organic searches, affiliates, social networks, and display ads, you can understand how different channels work together to create sales and conversions.

We’ve been piloting Multi-Channel Funnels with several customers over the past few months, and we’ve seen our customers gain valuable insight into the buying-cycle and understand the often hidden contribution of channels like social and display to conversions.

One of our early partners in the pilot, HUGO BOSS, uncovered significant contributions from upper funnel efforts, helping to better inform marketing strategy. "Knowing more about how our customers find us is very important, and this data helps us make better decisions. We found out that nearly two out of every three conversions involves more than one touch point,” said Patrick Berresheim, Director E-Commerce/CRM for HUGO BOSS. “It's now possible to value the contributions of assisting channels, which had previously been hidden by looking only at the last click.”

If you use Google Analytics on your website, and have goals or e-commerce tracking enabled, you can begin using the reports today by clicking on the My Conversions tab, with no further setup required. If you are an AdWords customer, make sure to link your AdWords and Analytics accounts to get the most detail on your ads performance. Starting today, you’ll see complete data in the reports for the past two months, and we’ll be expanding to encompass data back through January 2011 in the coming days. Update: This data is now available in Multi-Channel Funnels reports.

To help you learn more about the type of analysis you can do using Multi-Channel Funnels, including advanced features such as conversion segments and custom channel groupings, we’ll be scheduling a free webinar - look out for the registration details on the blog in a couple of weeks or sign up here to be notified by email. We’ll be walking through the reports and common use cases and you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions - we hope you’ll be able to make it.

Update: September 1, 2011 10:30am PST - Conversions are now available in the Multi-Channel Funnel reports going back to January 2011

Posted by Bill Kee, Product Manager for Google Analytics

Read More