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The ROI Revolution Blog

Articles Tagged with 'Analytics Basics'

Why You Shouldn't Use the Top Landing Pages Report in Google Analytics

March 18, 2010

If you're trying to get landing pages that really grab your visitors, there's one Google Analytics report you absolutely cannot live without. And guess what?

It's not Top Landing Pages.

Before I unveil the report that ROIers use to do quick landing page analysis, let's find out why we're not big fans of the built-in Top Landing Pages report:

• It only shows entrances, bounces, and bounce rate
• It doesn't tell us conversion data for our landing pages
• It can't show the revenue generated by our landing pages

Thankfully, there is a way to get what we need for robust landing page analysis out of GA. Hit the jump to find out how.

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New GA Feature: Annotations

December 8, 2009

Keeping up with the changes on your site can be nearly impossible. Equally challenging is keeping up with those changes in your Google Analytics reports. Yesterday Google announced a new feature called Annotations to help you remember what happened on your site, who did it, and when it happened.

Any user with Google Analytics access can write comments on the over-time graph to indicate any notes they have for that particular event. This will save a lot of time for companies where the tasks are distributed between numerous people, which means you the analyst will no longer have to spend hours figuring out why all your data has changed. Just view the annotations to see if any major updates or changes were made!

In addition to this new feature, Google also released the ability to use the Custom Variables in Advanced Segments and Custom Reports, and the new Tracking Code Setup Wizard. To view more information about these you can visit the Google Analytics blog.

Are Long Page Load Times Driving Your Visitors Away?

November 25, 2009

You're always checking on your landing pages, right? You read the blogs, run experiments, and generally try to make your site as user-friendly as possible.

But chances are, if you're reading the ROI Revolution blog, you're on a high speed internet connection. If your webpages are loading in nanoseconds with your T1, how are they faring for those visitors who aren't as lucky as you? You know, the ones on crappy cable modems and DSL and (gasp!) the dreaded dial-up?

Does it matter? Well, it depends. If you're a gaming website or Internet marketing blog, most of your audience is probably on broadband. But if you're running a site for a retirement community in Florida, then my grandma is hitting your Flash-encrusted site in her AOL browser and she's waiting. And waiting. And waiting. She's a patient old gal, my Meemaw, but she's not going to wait all day. She's going to point her browser and her pension elsewhere.

Aside from your visitors, your site's load time is also important to Google. Not only does page load time affect your AdWords Quality Score, but according to Matt Cutts, it's going to be playing a bigger role in the organic search ranking.

So read on to learn how to optimize your landing pages' load times, and maybe make a few bucks off my Meemaw.

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ROI Revolution Attends 3rd Annual GAAC Summit

October 30, 2009

Every year when autumn rolls around, you'll find the ROI Revolution Analytics Team hard at work planning our strategy. Not for clients (we do that all year 'round, of course) but for the strange and fun activities planned at the annual Google Analytics Authorized Consultant Summit. Last year, it was Rock Band. This year, trampoline dodgeball.

Not all of our time at Google is spent jumping around on trampolines and pegging each other with balls. For four days, Google Partners from around the world convene in Mountain View to talk about the state of analytics and optimization, learn from one another, and push the limit when it comes to supporting our favorite free analytics platform.

Click for a rundown of what we covered...

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Five Google Analytics FAILS

August 21, 2009

Here at the ROI Revolution blog, we usually strive to provide you with helpful how-tos and the best examples on making your Google Analytics accounts lean, clean, and useful. Today, we're going a different route in the hope that instead of teaching by example, we can show what not to do.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you our top five Google Analytics FAILs. These are real life examples that our intrepid Google Analytics support staff have encountered in the line of duty. They are not pretty. You have been warned.

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1. There Can Be Only One: utm_nooverride=1

We've talked at length about utm_nooverride before. We're big fans of using the utm_nooverride query parameter to make sure that branded and email traffic doesn't overwrite more important long tail referral data.

But there's really only one parameter value to use in this situation. One. It's one. The only one is one. Does that make sense?

No? Ok. Well, see the screenshot to the left? That's what you shouldn't use.

First of all, you should never see the utm_nooverride parameter in your Google Analytics reports. Secondly, you should spell it correctly. Third, don't pass "2" as a value. It doesn't work. Just follow Shawn's instructions in his three-part series on using utm_nooverride and you won't FAIL.

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2. You Are Not Selling Medium Green T-Shirts

At the very least, you're not selling only medium green t-shirts, right? Well, maybe you are. Who am I to judge?

The example provided in the Google Analytics Help Center article on e-commerce is just that: an example. But I'd be lying if I said that I hadn't seen people cut and paste that example script right onto their receipt pages, then called it a day.

Google Analytics can't figure out what you've sold unless you tell it. You need to roll up your sleeves and find the variables that contain a visitor's transaction data. Then pass that data to Google Analytics. It's like a relay race, except you're passing product names and revenue figures.

Place a test order. If you view your receipt page's source code and you don't see the correct order total or the products you purchased (or if your code says you bought a medium green t-shirt), then you've got more work to do.

You'll probably also want to check out the values you're passing. We've seen some pretty hinky stuff show up in the Google Analytics e-commerce reports because someone threw too many numbers into the revenue or shipping fields (see left).

Start by checking out Caitlin's article about de-stressing your Google Analytics e-commerce setup. If you're still mired in FAIL, you can always hire us.

Hit the jump for three more epic Google Analytics FAILures.

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Viewing A/B Experiments in Google Analytics

July 24, 2009

I've written a few articles before about the power of integrating Google Website Optimizer with Google Analytics, but the landscape has changed considerably in the past few months. I thought it would be a good idea to provide an update as to how you can view Google Website Optimizer and other kinds of experiment data within Google Analytics as it has become much easier with the addition of a magnificent feature called Advanced Segments.

As the title implies, this article will focus on finding data quickly and easily for A/B (or A/B/C/D, etc.) experiments, whether they be Google Website Optimizer experiments, or just some testing that you're doing on your own.

First, why would you want to do this? Doesn't Google Website Optimizer (or AdWords, etc.) provide you with Conversion Rate already? Sure it does! But I maintain that an aggregated Conversion Rate (for a single goal no less) is simply not enough. I demand more from my experiments, and by looking at my experiment data within Google Analytics, I can get a great idea of how the experiment is working for different segments of visits and for every goal on my site. What's even better is that by using Google Analytics, I'll also have access to transaction and revenue data, along with any powerful customizations that I'm already using to get the most out of my tracking.

Here are some of the benefits to using Google Analytics to measure your A/B experiment results:

• Segmenting the data
• Seeing statistics for more than one goal
• Looking at transaction and revenue data
• Excluding internal traffic
• Flexibility and the ability to customize data
• Custom reports, emailing and exporting reports, all of the other fun features in Google Analytics

I hope you'll agree there these are some pretty massive benefits. So enough of my gabbing, here's how to do all of this for an A/B test in two simple steps:

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Site Architecture & Google Analytics

July 8, 2009

Typically when someone decides to use Google Analytics on their website they grab the code and paste it on the site without thinking too much about what they're doing. Many of those who are new (and even some not so new) to Google Analytics don't understand how site structure will affect Google Analytics. If you are thinking about installing Google Analytics or if things aren't quite working like you expected, consider mapping out your site architecture to see where you can simplify things before you get in too deep.

Domains:
If you can help it, one domain will make the Google Analytics setup and tracking much easier. By increasing the number of domains, you will complicate the tracking process. Because Google Analytics uses first party cookies, each time your visitor travels to another domain, you have to pass along all the information about who they are and where they came from. Doing this again and again could potentially result in a loss of data and your referral information might not make it to the final destination. That means that if you are running paid advertising campaigns you won't be able to attribute the sale or conversion to its correct source, which might make it look like you're losing money when actually your paid campaigns are very profitable. By simplifying the number of domains on your site you will not only save yourself some headaches with the Google Analytics Tracking Code, but typically it will make for a much better user experience since the user will know where they are at all times.

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Tie It All Together: Linking Google Analytics Goals With AdWords

June 19, 2009

Isn't it annoying when you have to click back and forth between your Google AdWords account and your Google Analytics account to see which campaigns, ad groups, and keywords are bringing the most profit bearing conversions for you? Well I have good news... You don't have put up with that headache any longer!

We've seen it in our client accounts for some time now, but Google has just announced that it is now possible to import your goals and transactions from Google Analytics into your AdWords account.

To be able to do this, you must first have your Google AdWords account linked with your Google Analytics account. Once that is set up, you just have to make a few clicks, and you're done.

In the new user interface, you can find conversion tracking under the tools tab.

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6 Tools Every Google Analytics User Should Have

January 30, 2009

Google Analytics is a fantastic tool as it is - and it's always improving, but there are a lot of people out there that have created tools to make it even better.

In an effort to make everyone aware of these fantastic and easy-to-use tools, I've compiled a list of the ones we use everyday. If we missed one, or if you've got a great tool that we should add to the list, please let us know! We're always looking for ways to make Google Analytics easier to install and use. I hope you find them as useful as I do, and a big thank you goes out to each of the people responsible for these fantastic time-saving tools.

Here's the full list:

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Avoiding Calamity: Google AdWords/Analytics User Access

August 19, 2008

One of my best mates recently tied the knot onboard a cruise ship. The day before the boat left dock, destined for international waters, the unfortunate groom discovered that he had overlooked one all-important detail. It was just one detail out of thousands, but one that nonetheless had the potential to scupper months and months of planning for the big day...

It turned out that he had failed to pack his passport! So while he should have been enjoying the company of his mates the day before the big event, he actually spent the time racing back home (a 10 hour round trip) to save his marriage even before it had started!

Why do I relay the events of this poor unfortunate? Because in the frenetic world of online marketing we often deal with so much information that we fail to stop, take a breather, and make sure that we have not overlooked one all important detail that might sink months and months of planning and implementation.

Last week I received a call from a client reminding me of this fact...

Almost a year ago, the client had granted administrative access to the Google Analytics reports to a trusted employee. For whatever reason, the relationship between employer and employee soured over the next 6 months and the employee ended up leaving the organization.

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