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The ROI Revolution Blog

Articles Tagged with 'Reports'

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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Get More from the Navigation Summary and Pivot Tables

December 1, 2009

Back in August, a tip was released on the Official Google Analytics Blog that allows you to export more than 500 rows from a report. In the post, this technique was used to export more than 500 rows worth of keyword data. Here we often use this technique to export more than 500 rows worth of pages from the Top Content report.

What you may not realize is that you can also use this trick to export more than 10 previous and next pages from the Navigation Summary report. As you may recall, the navigation summary report looks something like this:

In some case, 10 previous and next pages may be just what you need. But what if you want more?

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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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Power Using the New AdWords Interface, Part 2: Integrated Placement Performance Reports

June 8, 2009

A few weeks ago, I posted an article outlining the benefits of the new integrated search query reporting feature built into the updated AdWords user interface.

I covered in depth how the Search Query Report (SQR) could be used to capitalize on new keyword opportunities, previously hidden in the depths of the report center.

I also covered how the new interface's integrated SQR makes finding money-hemorrhaging search queries you're matching on easier than ever to identify and exclude from your account.

Today, I'll be covering the other advertising power tool provided to advertisers in the new interface, the Integrated Placement Performance Report (PPR).

The SQR is only half of the equation for successful micromanagement of your AdWords account since it is only used on the search network.

While most advertisers start their AdWords campaigns on the search network, many continue to neglect the content network. The AdWords content network can be the biggest and most profitable source of traffic for many accounts. As such, using the Placement Performance Report has given us the ability to see which content network websites (placements) our ads are showing on, as well as how they are performing.

While we've had the ability to run PPRs in the AdWords report center for some time now, like the Search Query Report, Google has recognized its usefulness and integrated it into the interface for easier use.

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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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Time on Page and Time on Site - How Confident Are You?

May 29, 2008

Ah, Average Time on Page and Average Time on Site - what strange metrics. They sound so simple, but as I hope to point out in this article, both must be treated with caution. Due to the way Time on Page/Site are measured, there is a certain amount of error that goes along with them. Fortunately, there's a way to measure this error.

In the interest of getting to the point, I've provided two versions of this article. The first version is the short version. No proof, just the final answer. For those of you who demand proof (as I hope you do) - I've also provided the long version, with diagrams and Algebra and everything. Feel free to choose the version that suits you!

SHORT VERSION

Time on Page is more credible when a page has a lower Exit Rate, and Time on Site is more reliable when a source/medium/etc. has a lower Bounce Rate.

Confidence in Time on Page
Applies only to a page or group of pages

Example: The Exit % for my home page, /index.htm, is 30%, so confidence in Time on Page is 70%.

In other words, the Time on Page only applies to 70% of my home page views, and I know absolutely nothing about the other 30% - other than they all resulted in exits.

True Time on Site
Applies to any source, medium, campaign, keyword, ad, or user defined value

Example: My AdWords traffic has a Bounce Rate of 40%, and Google Analytics has my Avg. Time on Site for AdWords as 00:01:00 (1 minute)

So:

True Time on Site is 1/(1-.40) = 1/.6 = 1.67 = 1m 40s

My True Time on Site is 1m 40s, which represents 60% of my AdWords traffic.

Also, the Time on Site is unknown for 40% of my AdWords traffic.

END OF SHORT VERSION

I don't expect anyone to take my word for any of this, and I love to talk about these kinds of things, so I've provided a longer version for those that might be interested in how I came to the above conclusions.

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Using Website Optimizer with Google Analytics NEW!!

May 12, 2008

You may remember that back in April of '07, I came up with a way to get your Google Website Optimizer multivariate experiment data to show up in Google Analytics. While useful, there were a few drawbacks that I'm sure some of you have noticed, and it wasn't the easiest thing to implement. After getting a lot of great feedback from users, I've come up with a new script that has many advantages over the old method:

• Uses easier implementation
  
• Works with both ga.js and urchin.js (make sure you use the right instructions below for Step 2)
  
• Includes error-handling so that a JavaScript error no longer occurs if an experiment is not yet running or is paused, stopped, or completed
  
• Features automatic page name tracking - no more changing the Google Analytics code on the page
  
• No longer replaces regular page reporting

As a refresher, the whole point of this integration is to allow you to make the most of your experiments. While Google Website Optimizer by itself can give you a quick look at which combination is best at improving conversion, it tells you nothing about transactions, revenue, micro-conversions, navigation, segmentation by source, and bounce rate. If you integrate Google Analytics into your Google Website Optimizer experiments, you will get much richer data, and be able to get a true idea of how your test is doing.

Again, this integration is designed for multivariate experiments only - you do not need to use any special tools to be able to get A/B test data from Google Analytics.

The first thing to do is find out if you are using ga.js or urchin.js. Depending on which version of the Google Analytics code you are using, you'll want to use different instructions.

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Google Analytics Benchmarking in Beta

March 5, 2008

Today, Google announced new benchmarking functionality within Google Analytics. Combined with a new data-sharing option, this will allow Google Analytics users to compare their site's data against aggregate data from other sites in various industries. These two new features are in beta, but should begin to show up in all Google Analytics accounts throughout the day.

Click to enlarge

Also briefly mentioned was the unveiling of the Audio Ads integration, with an official blog post to come tomorrow.

For more information, check out the official announcement at the Google Analytics blog, the benchmarking FAQs, and the data-sharing FAQs.

Default Page vs. Home Page

December 12, 2007

You've probably played around with the Default Page setting in Google Analytics. In many cases, this is definitely the way to go, as it will prevent your home page from showing up in different ways in your Google Analytics reports (as / and /index.html for example).

But you need to be careful when you set the default page, as it will not only affect your home page, but any page that ends with a forward slash ('/').

What do I mean by this? It's pretty simple - if you set the default page to index.html, it will not only change any future / entries into /index.html, but if you have another page ending in /, say /blog/, it will change that to /blog/index.html too. But what if your blog's default page is actually /blog/index.php? Well, then you have a problem.

If you have several such subdirectories or pages, then you have several problems. The good news is that there is a simple way to create a simple filter that only replaces the home page.

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Excluding Internal Traffic the Easy Way

November 20, 2007

If you've done research on excluding internal traffic from your Google Analytics reports, then you've probably heard words like "user defined variable", "dynamic or static IP address", and "orphaned web page." While you may want to become familiar with these terms someday, the truth is that not everyone is a webmaster.

What's my point? Well, I'm not sure if anyone's come up with this before, and quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised as this method is very easy, but here's a quick and easy way to exclude any kind of internal traffic from your reports, regardless of IP-whats-its. All you have to know is how to write an email.

Here's how:

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