The ROI Revolution Blog

February 2008

ANNOUNCING: Seminars For Success That Will Provide The Classroom Google® Analytics Training To Turn Your Website Into Your Best Salesman!

February 25, 2008

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Finally, the wait is over! Get your Google Analytics Training in person! Make the most out of your data by analyzing YOUR website's traffic with a fully configured Google Analytics account!

When? Where? Keep reading, it's all here :).

Two Days for Two Sessions
On March 25th and 26th ROI Revolution will be presenting Analytics Seminars for Success in Durham, NC. This two day event will offer one session on each day. March 25th will be the Introduction and User Training Analytics session, while March 26th will be the Advanced Technical Implementation session. You have the opportunity to register for one or both depending on your needs. Click here for more information on what each session covers and which is right for you.

Limited Acceptance
Sign up quickly as registration will be limited to the first 40 people to apply for each session. This is a hard limit due to space and the supplies that come packaged with the training seminar such as workbooks and tasty snacks during breaks. Signing up in advance comes with a perk too! Registering by March 18th, 2008 entitles you to a $50 AdWords™ Credit* from Google.

Location and Cost
The seminar will be at the Solution Center located in Durham, North Carolina, minutes away from the International RDU Airport. Street address and directions available here. Each day costs $249 or $498 if you register for both sessions. The seminars will be a full day from 8am to 5pm EST. Lunch will not be provided, but morning and afternoon breaks will be offered.

What's in it for YOU
Analytics Seminars for Success will help you better leverage the insights found in your Analytics report by covering topics such as setup tips, best practices, and analysis techniques. Seminar leaders will use in-depth course materials, hands-on exercises and valuable tips from their years of managing Analytics accounts to teach you how to achieve your goals.

We can't wait to share our Google Analytics knowledge with you in person, so register today! Don't miss out on this great event designed to help you get the most out of your website's traffic!

*Promotional credit must be applied to an AdWords account within 30 days of attending a seminar and is valid only for Google AdWords customers with self-managed signup. Advertisers will be charged for advertising that exceeds the promotional credit. Advertisers will need to suspend their ads if they do not wish to receive additional charges beyond the free credit amount. Subject to ad approval, valid registration and acceptance of the Google AdWords Program standard terms and conditions. The promotional credit is non-transferable and may not be sold or bartered. Offer may be revoked at any time for any reason by Google Inc. One promotional credit per AdWords account. New advertisers with self-managed signup accounts are subject to an $5 activation fee that will be deducted from the promotional credit. Expires 30 days after Advertiser's registered seminar session. Void where restricted or prohibited by law.


Interested in learning more about Google Analytics?
Attend our LIVE Google Analytics Seminars for Success training in Chicago, IL Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 and Thursday, September 17th, 2009 or get the latest tips and tricks sent to you via our free, twice-monthly Google Analytics newsletter.

Tracking Secondary Sources and Autoresponders Using Site Search

February 22, 2008

gold.pngOne of the many challenges when using any web analytics application is making sure that it meets your business needs. Many different sales cycles exist in the online market - some opt for a direct-to-sales approach, while others employ a model that takes advantage of autoresponders, teleseminars, webinars, and all sorts of creative methods for drawing potential and return customers back to the website.

Most web analytics applications allow you to track your marketing campaigns using a variety of different methods, usually involving adding some query parameters to your campaign URLs. The problem with this method is that most of these systems will allow you to measure the success of your original sources (like the AdWords ad that first caught a users eye), but lack the ability to simultaneously track the effectiveness of your secondary methods like email blasts, teleseminars and their siblings.

Google Analytics is no different. Out-of-the-box, it is a system designed to match each visit to a single source - the most recent source, so that it's very easy to lose sight of what brought the visitor to the website in the first place. In short, you could easily track either the effectiveness of your keywords to the final goal or your autoresponders to the ultimate goal, but not both.

That's not to say there haven't been attempts to get around this. One method was to make sure that each secondary source brought the user to a unique landing page. For example, teleseminars would use www.site.com/offera, while an online webinar would use www.site.com/offerb. Email autoresponders would also follow this system, with each email in the sequence using its own unique landing page.

If this seems like a lot of work, it is. Making a unique landing page for each type of secondary source can be time-consuming, confusing, and downright impossible to maintain. Adding a simple email to a sequence can turn into a real pain. To top it all off, finding the information you are looking for based on landing pages can get a little sticky if you're not a Google Analytics expert. Other existing methods use the User Defined variable creatively (which I like to reserve for Michael's awesome exact keyword tool), or get creative with custom tracking codes, neither of which is a particularly easy method to implement.

Why am I telling you this? Because I believe we've found a way out of this particular quagmire.

ONE TIME OFFER: Free Google Analytics 2-Day Classroom Training for Non-Profit 501(c)(3) Organizations

February 18, 2008

02.18.08-important-date.jpg ROI Revolution is thrilled to present a totally free Google Analytics 2-Day Classroom Training Course for the non-profit community on March 19-20, 2008!

We've taken our 6 week Google Analytics training course and created a totally free two day classroom workshop for the benefit of full-time employees of 501(c)(3) organizations!

What the Training Seminar Covers
This seminar will cover an introduction to Google Analytics plus tips on how to use Google Analytics for practical improvement on the first day. The second day of the seminar will progress to advanced implementation of Google Analytics, including how to setup goals, funnels, custom filters, and more. For a more detailed agenda, please see our Google Analytics training series online version here, as we will cover 100% of what we cover in our online version.

Limited to the First 20 People to be Accepted

Sign up fast because this special 2-Day Training Seminar for the non-profit community is a ONE-time event and will be limited to the first 20 people to be accepted. This is a hard limit due to limited meeting space. Up to a maximum of two full-time employees per non-profit organization will be eligible.

The seminar will be held on March 19-20, 2008 in the Research Triangle Park area of Durham, North Carolina (details delivered upon acceptance) and will last the full two days from 8am to 5pm EST. Lunch will be on your own, but breakfast, refreshments and afternoon breaks will be provided.

We are able to offer this event to you with the help of our co-sponsors, the good people at iContact and Preation.

Don't miss the in person Google Analytics 2-Day Classroom Training Course for the non-profit community! Contact Kathy to register TODAY! Simply include your name and position at your organization and your contact information. We'll take it from there and contact you about saving your seat.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Update to Matching Specific Transactions to Specific Keywords

Money ShirtShawn wrote an article back in May which showed you how to use filters in Google Analytics to modify your transaction list to see source, medium and keyword data for each transaction. As many of you have noticed by now, there have been some issues since January 15th involving custom fields which have caused this and other advanced filters to stop working.

Since then, we have found a way around using custom fields for this particular set of filters. Your reports will look and function as before.

Here are the details:

Exact Keyword Tracking with ga.js

February 14, 2008


Sleuth! Magnifying glass icon.Last April, I posted a script that allowed paid search advertisers to view the exact search queries of their visitors. This was essentially a free tool that gave website owners the ability to weed out ineffective keywords and put more money toward the precise phrases that were really driving their business.

Google Analytics doesn't do this out of the box. It will tell you exact search queries for visits from organic listings, but for paid search, you're stuck with the keywords that you're bidding on. With broad and phrase matching, these could vary pretty drastically from what the visitors typed into the search engine.

We've gotten a lot of requests to update the script for the new version of the Google Analytics JavaScript, ga.js. Always happy to oblige, we've been hard at work on our new version of the Google Analytics Keyword Sleuth. Call it a Valentine's Day gift from ROI Revolution to you.

Urchin 6: Now In OPEN Beta!

February 1, 2008

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Happy days! The Urchin 6 beta is now open to everybody who wants to participate!

Starting back on October 16th, we shared the news that Urchin 6 was available in a pretty limited release. If you wanted a beta version of Urchin 6, you had to apply for it and hope you made it in time. Now all you have to do is click the "download" button.

Happily the Urchin 6 beta is still a 90-day trial, so you'll have plenty of time to give it a test-drive. The interface is now similar to Google Analytics, and there is a greater focus on the usability aspect.

Urchin 6 even includes such beloved Google Analytics-like features as funnel analysis, site overlay, and geo-targeting! The navigation of Urchin 6 has also been re-engineered to be easier for somebody who is looking to optimize their marketing.

Urchin 6 will be $2,995, and this price includes the full functionality of the software. That means you no longer need to worry about the headache of purchasing all those different modules. With Urchin 6, you can run e-commerce and campaign tracking functionality on a bunch of servers with no extra cost!

For owners of standard Urchin 5 licenses, Urchin Software is available for a discounted price. The amount paid for the Urchin 5 installation will be applied towards the cost of Urchin 6 Software. For example, if you purchased the base module of Urchin 5 for $895, then Urchin 6 Software would cost $2,100 ($2995 - $895).

Urchin has recently made both the Campaign Tracking Module and the Profit Suite $2,995, so if you are purchasing Urchin 5 now with an eye to upgrade to Urchin 6 once the full version is out you'll be all set, and can seamlessly transition to the new version.

The date the full version of Urchin 6 will be released hasn't been announced yet, but if you want to be one of the very first to know, then you can sign up for our Urchin Update List.

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