It's easy to set up multiple ads for an Ad Group within Google AdWords, but how can you tell which ad is performing at a higher level? You may be using Conversion Tracker to make your decision, but that only tells a small part of the story using a single metric, cost per conversion.

Google Analytics allows you to get the entire story about the ads that you are testing, using multiple metrics. Here's how to get that story:

Continue reading "Testing AdWords Ads in Google Analytics" »

If you're following the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, then you're probably well aware of how crazy the weekend was. Hopefully you've also entered our Elite Eight Contest and, if you're doing better than I am with your picks, you've got a good chance to win a really beautiful pearl necklace from Magnum's Jewelers. It's worth $500, so even if you're not a huge basketball fan, you really have no excuse not to enter.

Saturday saw three games that went into OT, but Sunday came with the sad realization (at least for Shawn and I) that the upsets were not to be. Aside from UNLV's win over Wisconsin and perhaps Vanderbilt's narrow triumph over Washington State in the Battle of the Derricks (Byars and and Low), it was par for the course. To put my own spin on a common sports writer's cliche, Goliath went home with David's little slingshot as a trophy.

Continue reading "NCAA Tournament Contest Update" »

Well, things are really heating up in the NCAA men's tournament, and in our Elite Eight Contest. (By the way, if you haven't entered yet, you're missing a tremendous opportunity to win a great prize).

After a somewhat disappointing day for upset-lovers, things are looking a little more promising on this second day of the First Round. There are quite a few upset Duke fans (not including myself, I'm from New York) roaming around the office today. Maybe upset isn't quite the word. It's more like.... stunned, really.

As someone who picked VCU to pull off the upset, I definitely gained some ground. Sadly, it seems I cheer for the underdog way too often and find myself in dead last in our own office pool. It looks like you'd be wise to avoid my suggestions. Anyway, here are my Elite Eight picks, along with a little reasoning to go along with the selections.

Continue reading "Contest Update and Shawn's Picks" »

Here at ROI we're just crazy for statistics, and being in the heart of college basketball country, we also go a little nuts at tournament time. So we decided to have a little office pool where the winner gets a free lunch.

In the same spirit, we'd like to give you the opportunity to participate in the fun! Instead of picking the entire tournament, however, you just need to pick the winners from the elite eight on. Why? Well, we're giving you the opportunity to win a gorgeous pearl necklace (valued at $500) from Magnums Jewelers at www.magnums.net just in time for mother's day. All you have to do is send us your picks before the first Sweet Sixteen game on March 22nd!

Here's how:

1. Pick your elite eight, final four, final and champion on our entry form.


2. Fill out some simple contact info so that we can let you know if you've won the beautiful $500 pearl necklace.


3. Sit back and watch the action! If your entry has picked the most winners, then you'll win the prize!

Continue reading "March Madness 'Elite Eight' Contest" »

So you've gotten your Google Analytics account, it is all set up, and you're tracking your paid search advertising. Your results are good, but you want them to be GREAT! What's the next step?

Getting your landing pages in top form, of course! Here are 7 tips to help start you on the path of better landing pages.

1. Make sure your ad and your landing page are closely correlated. The guys over at grokdotcom.com call it a 'scent trail'. These are the same brilliant people who brought us such books as Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? and Call to Action. People need to be able to follow the scent trail and find what they are looking for.

"If we interrupt our scent trail, we leave our customer stranded. The path she was following becomes a dead end. Where's she supposed to go? Do you really want to trust that she's motivated enough to continue on her own? When it comes to scent trails, dropping the ball is one of the leading causes of site abandonment!"

2. Set a measurable goal: What do you want people to do on your landing page? Having a measurable goal will help you to quickly and easily determine how well your landing page is working. Your goal could be to have people buy something directly from the landing page, download a report, sign up for a mailing list, etc.

This way, you can track the performance of your landing page with your Google Analytics account.

Continue reading "Top 7 Landing Page Strategies" »

We're getting together for a casual 'Web Analytics Wednesday' on March 14th for all those web analytics professionals in the North Carolina Research Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) area who would enjoy getting together for a cold beer, some hot wings, and some great chat/networking. We know you're out there!

From the Web Analytics Association site:

Web Analytics Wednesday is the world's only distributed networking event for web analytics professionals. Open to everyone, practitioners and vendors alike, Web Analytics Wednesday is a free event allowing you to meet folks with similar work interests.

It's gonna be at 6pm on Wednesday, March 14th at Sammy's Tap & Grill, which is located on Avent Ferry Road.

If you're interested, register here so we can make an accurate reservation.

We're a friendly bunch - come on down and join us for some analytics chit-chat!

Avinash Kaushik has been blogging for nearly a year, and in that relatively short amount of time, he's cemented himself as one of the premier web analytics experts in the blogosphere. Today, Avinash announced on his blog that he'll be leaving Intuit, where he has worked as Director of Web Research and Analytics since 2003, and will be striking out as an independent consultant.

We'd like to congratulate Avinash on this exciting new opportunity. It takes a lot of guts to go indy, but if this means more time for him to write more great blog articles, then I don't think Avi has anything to worry about. Plus, his first assignment is working as an Analytics Evangelist for Google. He's going to be spreading the word about analytics, and working with the Google Analytics team on speaking and education engagements. I can't really think of any better representation for the tool.

All this just a couple of months away from the release of his much-anticipated new book, Web Analytics: An Hour a Day. If you need proof of how great a guy Avinash is, he's donating all proceeds from this book to two great charities, The Smile Train and Doctors Without Borders. We've already pre-ordered two copies for the office, and if you have any interest in web marketing or analytics, you should head over to Amazon and do the same. For more information on the book, check out its official page: Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, by Avinash Kaushik.

Yesterday, I wrote about tracking your website's visits to both Google Analytics and Urchin. Today, I'll answer a different question: can you track visits from a single website in multiple Google Analytics accounts? Certainly not as popular of a question, but still one that we're asked from time to time.

First things first, you'll need to understand the difference between a Google Analytics account and a Google Analytics profile.

Your GA account is tied into your Google Account, which is a single-entry login point that gives you access to most of Google's free services (Personalized Homepage, Personalized Search, Google Groups, etc.) If you're logging into Google Analytics, then you already have a Google account (but, contrary to popular belief, this does not necessarily mean that you have a Gmail account).

Continue reading "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" »

A lot of our Google Analytics clients are Urchin Software users of old. Many of them hopped on the script-based bandwagon when Urchin introduced its UTM method, which combined traditional log-based tracking with a snippet of JavaScript that wrote and parsed cookies for greater accuracy over multiple sessions.

The natural progression was then to Urchin On Demand, which was entirely hosted and exclusively dependant on JavaScript. When UOD was rebranded as Google Analytics, we helped many of these clients migrate over. Because many had purchased Urchin, or had an Urchin installation through their hosting provider, they wished to track their sites on both the new Google Analytics service, as well as via tried-and-true Urchin.

If you're analyzing logfile traffic in Urchin using the "IP + User Agent" tracking method, you're fine. The standard Google Analytics tracking code will integrate seamlessly with your website. If, however, you are using the UTM method, you will need to make a few minor modifications on your site.

Continue reading "Your Choice: Urchin, Google Analytics... or Both?" »

During our recent training series, we received a lot of questions concerning how to add the Google Analytics tracking code to a site. Now there are lots of different things to think about before doing this, but a very important and basic one is the security level of your domain. If you have a shopping cart or some kind of secure lead collector, then there's a good chance that part of your site resides on a secure server, which you may recognize as https:// instead of the normal http://

Why is this important? Because the regular Google Analytics script can cause errors on secure servers, that's why! Now there are long ways to make sure you don't run into this problem, and there are easy ways. Well, unless you're trying to build character or torture yourself (like all of you who aren't using a separate include for your Google Analytics script), then the easy way is the way to go. Let me share the two easy ways with you...

Continue reading "Secure vs. Nonsecure Pages in Google Analytics" »