Contributed Articles
Writing
How To Build Your Analytics Confidence
The reason the Analytics community is not growing like a weed is because professionals are not confident enough with numbers and charts. In this article Daniel Waisberg discuss three techniques that can be used in order to make the field grow healthily.
Best Of 2012: Google Analytics, Big Data & Visualizations
This post is a summary of the most viewed content at Online Behavior during 2012.
5 Ways To Ensure Google Analytics Is Running Perfectly
Guest post on the Google Analytics blog on how to make sure an implementation is sending the right information to Google. As Abraham Lincoln once said: “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my axe.”
Building A Centralized Digital Marketing Platform With Google Analytics
In this post at the official Google Analytics blog I discuss some of the elements I wrote on my eBook: Google Analytics Integration
Google Tag Manager: A Step-By-Step Guide
This guide will walk you through the newest Google tool: the Google Tag Manager. This tool conveniently helps marketers manage tags on their sites; this will reduce errors when it comes to tag implementation, make it much faster to implement tags, and free webmasters to work on other important tasks.
Google Tag Manager: New Google Product
Coverage of the launch of Google Tag Manager. This product is an extremely important addition to marketers, as it allows them to add or remove tags used for marketing and measurement without the need to ask from webmasters to change the website code.
Upgrades To Google Analytics Content Experiments
Post describing several upgrades to the Google Analytics Content Experiments feature.
Remarketing Now Available With Google Analytics
Post about a Google Analytics launch concerning the remarketing feature of Adwords. The post describes how this feature became available through the Analytics interface.
Google Analytics Goes Mobile – Launches App Analytics
Post describing a new functionality on Google Analytics: App Analytics. The post goes over the reports and metrics available through the new SDK and an explanation on how to use them.
New On Google Analytics Pages Reports – Entrance Metric
News post on a new metric on the pages report on Google Analytics: Entrances. This metric tells us how many of the visits to a specific page were also the first page seen in the session.
Yahoo! Web Analytics To Be Discontinued
News post about Yahoo!’s announcement that it discontinued Yahoo! Web Analytics as a stand alone product.
Building A Bulletproof Analytics Implementation
In this article, I describe the structure of accounts on Google Analytics and then dive into the Top 3 mistakes when it comes to settings and configurations on Google Analytics. I also describe four techniques that will help analysts and marketers to improve their data accuracy.
Google Analytics Content Experiments – A Guide To Creating A/B Tests
In this post I go over Google Analytics Content Experiments, a tool that can be used to create A/B tests from inside Google Analytics. Content Experiments provide a quick way to test your main pages (landing pages, homepages, category pages) and it requires very few code implementations.
Google Analytics Gets New Testing Functionality: Content Experiments
News post covering the launch of Google Analytics Content Experiments, a functionality to create A/B Tests using the tool.
Live Blogging: Interview with Amit Singhal, Google Fellow
Live blogging (SMX London) Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman interviewing Amit Singhal. Amit is a Google Fellow, a honorary title reserved for Google’s most accomplished engineers, and he has spearheaded Google’s core ranking team since 2000.
Google Analytics Custom Variables: Segmentation Power
This article is a guide to Custom Variables, the most powerful segmentation feature on Google Analytics. Daniel Waisberg provides a proper definition of this method, where it should be used, how to plan its implementation, and additional advanced tips.
Discover Links Using Google Analytics New Backlink URL Report
Post about a new feature of the social reports in Google Analytics showing which content on a website attracts links to it.
Using Google Analytics Social Reports To Measure Your Website Content And Engagement in Google+
Google Analytics has recently launched a new set of reports called Social reports, which can be used to analyze on-site and off-site interactions with social networks in reference to your own website content. The reports’ ultimate goal is to enable brands to measure the return on investment for social media activities and make more accurate, data-driven decisions about social. Learn how to use it.
Phil Mui, Google Analytics Group Product Manager, Heads To Acxiom
News post about the announcement that Dr. Phil Mui, previous Group Product Manager at Google Analytics, joined Acxiom as the chief product and engineering officer.
Keep Your Analytics Data Safe And Clean
Whoever works with analytics on a day-to-to-day basis knows how important it is to have a continuity with the data. Any slip might be fatal: data can disappear, trends misunderstood and jobs lost. Losing data can have long-lasting consequences, as very often it isn’t possible to reprocess the data—so what is lost cannot be recovered. Learn how to keep your analytics clean and safe.
The Definitive Guide to Google+ Analytics
Google Analytics has recently launched a new set of reports called Social reports, which can be used to analyze in-site and off-site interactions with a brand on Social Networks. In this post, Daniel Waisberg discusses how Google Analytics can be used to analyze Google+ in-site interactions (e.g. +1 button clicks) and off-site interactions (e.g. comments, posts, shares that happened on Google+).
Google Analytics Launches New Social Reports To Measure Social ROI
Post about the launch of Google Analytics social reports, designed to help marketers measure the return on investment for social media activities.
Web Analytics Experts – Lessons From Lego
This article provides three lessons to expert Web Analysts learned from playing Lego. In order to be a successful professional in the Analytics industry, professionals need to focus on order, social skills and simplicity.
Google Analytics Improves User Interface
A description of an update to Google Analytics interface. The primary goal of this update is to bring more attention to the things that matter: legibility of score card and table data, and refined color palette to draw attention toward data instead of navigation elements.
Google Analytics Update To Organic Reports
In this article I detail an update to Google Analytics Search Engines reports. In summary, they started recognizing Search Engines that were previously considered regular websites.
Google Analytics For The Enterprise: Perception & Reality
Last year Google released Google Analytics premium in an effort to expand its enterprise clientele. But for some people, Google Analytics is still perceived as less professional/enterprise than other tools. In this post I try to explain whether this perception is rightfully attributed to Google Analytics and why it happens.
Google’s Urchin Is Closing – Why & What To Do Next
Article discussing the retiring of Urchin software, a Google product bought in 2004 that served as the foundation of Google Analytics. I provide some historic context and commentary on the change.
Windows Phone Now Recognized By Google Analytics
Article covering anew development by Google Analytics: recognition of Windows Phone as an Operating System in its reports.
UK On Cookie Compliance: Website Owners “Must Try Harder”
Article about the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) Guidance on the rules on use of cookies and similar technologies. The ICO is the UK’s authority “set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals.”
Google Analytics Announces Social Data Hub, Hopes To Centralize All Social Metrics
Google Analytics announcement of a new initiative to improve its social reporting capabilities: Social Data Hub. It’s not a set of reports but rather a way for Google Analytics to centralize social activity from a variety of social networks.
New on Google Analytics Landing Pages Report – Measuring Success
Post about a Google Analytics improvement to Landing Page reports. This report was almost useless before the change and got very useful afterwords. In a few words the change was simple: it enabled linking landing pages to goals, i.e. it added the possibility to see the value of each landing page out of the box.
Social Tracking Integrations For Google Analytics
Back in June, Google Analytics unveiled a new set of Social Engagement Reports, which can be used to get content interaction metrics from social sharing icons such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other. Google+ is tracked by default (no codes needed), but other networks must implement the _trackSocial method in order to collect the interactions. This post is about an announcement made by Google regarding an official integration with social sharing services ShareThis and AddThis.
Keyword “Not Provided” By Google Spikes, Now 7-14% In Cases
Post about Google’s encrypted search for logged in users which appears to block a much higher percentage of search terms than when it initially rolled out. In some cases, it might even be higher than the 10% or less figure that the company initially predicted might be impacted.
Google Analytics Gains “Napoleon’s March” Flow Visualization Charts
Post about Google Analytics Flow visualizations, a set of reports intended to help webiste owners to visualize and understand visitor behavior in websites.
Google Analytics Premium: Better Support & Goodbye Data Sampling
Post about Google Analytics premium, a paid version of Google Analytics that processes higher volumes of page views and provides additional support.
Google Analytics Real Time Reports
Post about the Google Analytics Real Time feature, wich shows the number of people coming to a site for every minute, and the number of visitors actively on the site at that moment. It enables monitoring the sources sending traffic to the website, the pages being viewed, the GEO location of visitors, and the keywords that brought the visitors (if from search, paid or organic).
How to Turn Visitors Into Customers – Part II (Hebrew)
Article describing the process that can be used in order to better understand website visitors through Web Analytics. In Part II I discuss data analysis, testing and implementation.
How to Turn Visitors Into Customers – Part I (Hebrew)
Article describing the process that can be used in order to better understand website visitors through Web Analytics. In Part I I discuss the definition of objectives, Key Performance Indicators and Data Collection.
Update Made To Definition Of A Google Analytics Session
Post about an announcement made by Google Analytics regarding a change on the way a sessions are calculated on the tool.
Google Analytics Gets Social Engagement Reporting
Post about Google Analytics Social Tracking, a new set of reports (and functionality) that enables websites to track social interaction with their content. This comes as a welcomed addition as it enables the measurement of the impact of social interactions in and outside websites (either through a Facebook like, +1 or LinkedIn share inside the website or +1 on search results).
Common Denominators between Targeting, Advertisement and Usability
This article is a discussion on how to improve websites when it comes to targeting, advertisement and usability. I discuss some of the unintended consequences of targeting and banner & design blindness; I also provide usability tips for better using ads and call to actions on websites.
Optimizing Error Pages: Creating Opportunities Out Of Mistakes
In this article I review a few techniques that will help Web designers and UI professionals to improve their error pages in order to engage visitors and improve overall website experience. I focus on error and maintenance pages, both from tracking as well as usability perspectives. I also provid a good number of examples on how to use analytics and defensive design in order to optimize user experience for such pages.
How To Integrate Google Analytics & YouTube
As companies spread their media mix, and expand their activities to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social channels, it is essential to try and integrate numbers as much as possible. In this post, I discuss how to best integrate Google Analytics and YouTube Branded Channels.
New Google Analytics Feature: Load Time Measurement
In this post I discuss the addition of Site Speed to Google Analytics, which enables the understanding of how load times affect not only search ranking (or ppc quality score), but also how it affects user experience and ultimately, the conversion rates of specific pages and the site as a whole.
Multi-Channel Funnels & Assists Coming To Google Analytics
This post is describes a Google Analytics set of reports that will help marketers understand which marketing channels customers interact with prior to a website conversion.
A Guide To Understanding Google Analytics Reports & Personality Types
What is the first report you look at when you get access to a new Google Analytics account? Do you start by looking at the Dashboard, Ecommerce report, Content report, Traffic Sources or any of the technical reports? Psychology has shown that many of our day-to-day behaviors are deeply related to our personalities, beliefs, and cultures. In the same spirit, I believe we can learn about people’s professional inclinations from their analytical behavior.
Web Analytics: O Processo de Medição & Otimização (Portuguese)
[Article in Portuguese] – A grande questão é: como um administrador de websites pode convencer os navegadores a comprar um produto ou ler um artigo? E a resposta é: analise os dados e entenda o que está acontecendo no website, ouça as vozes dos clientes e otimize o website para melhor servi-los, afinal, eles são a razão da existência do website. Os clientes devem nos dizer o que fazer, não consultores, amigos ou sentimentos; dados e pesquisas online são o lugar onde procurar as necessidades dos clientes.
How To Analyze A/B Tests Using Google Analytics
In this article, I go over a technique that can be used in order to make the most out of your Google Analytics implementation so that you can understand the bigger picture of your test (independently of which testing tool you are using).
Google Analytics Unveils A New User Experience
This post is about a major upgrade on Google Analytics, also known as v5. The launch unveiled a new UI, new dashboard functionalities, new Goal functionalities and more.
Web Analytics Process – Measurement & Optimization
This article proposes a Web Analytics Process framework that shows the steps and the flow that should be present when implementing Web Analytics in organizations with the objective to improve the experience of online customers. The process will enable companies to create a powerful data-driven culture, to measure customer interaction with the website, to segment visitors and understand how each group behave, to analyze campaign Return On Investment (ROI), and to optimize the website in order to increase profitability.
Google Webmaster Tools Advances Towards Analytics Savviness
In the ideal world of website owners, Google Analytics would play a role of a centralized tracking platform, providing the option to integrate into it (not out of it) all other services, such as Webmaster Tools, campaign data (other than Adwords) and Website Testing.
From Web Analytics & SEM To Business Intelligence
The roles of people involved in both web analytics and PPC management is changing. Both are becoming more important and mainstream within many organizations. And the skills needed to master them are becoming more complex. Here’s a look at the how things have changed, and what to expect going forward.
Google Enhances Analytics Intelligence Tools
This post is about Google Analytics announcement of a major upgrade to the intelligence engine through a feature called “Major Contributors.”
Analytics And Testing: What Comes First?
Should you start the conversion optimization journey with a test or with a deep data analysis? The answer, inevitably, contains the expression “it depends”. The answer to the question differs radically between two segments: companies that are new to analytics and testing & companies that are veteran conversion optimizers.
Creating Targeted Tests using DoubleClick Ad Planner and Website Optimizer
Where can you get ideas for tests? How do you choose, for example, if you should use an image of a man, a woman, a couple, a baby or a family? Most of us do not have the privilege of testing the YouTube homepage: traffic is limited for most sites, so it is important to run tests that have a high chance of making a difference. We have to focus our efforts on our best guesses. In this post, we will show a way to use DoubleClick Ad Planner to research for testing ideas that will be tailor made to the segments you are trying to target in your website.
Using Behavioral Targeting to Optimize SEO Traffic
This article is based on a presentation about the value of Behavioral Targeting for SEM, delivered at SphinnCon 2010. We discuss ways to use part of the homepage to provide a customized experience based on search terms, tailoring the user search (which is a strong indicator of intent) to a special offer.
Split Testing Framework
This article presents a framework for split testing. From an overview of the most common techniques (AB and Multivariate Testing) to the resources needed for testing (People, Process, Technology) and the value it brings to the organization.
Integrating Feedburner & Google Analytics
In November 2009, Google Analytics and Feedburner announced a very interesting integration. While this was excellent news for Google Analytics and Feedburner users, it must be dealt properly when it comes to SEO, especially on websites that are heavily based on RSS feeds. This integration is very interesting in that it allows a much deeper understanding of the interaction of users coming from feeds and the profitability of this segment on websites. So, which level of granularity can be achieved through this integration? Which parameters get added?
Google Analytics Wishlist
Even though Google Analytics is great, there is always one or two improvements that wouldn’t hurt. This article presents 3 features that could enhance the tool: Adsense ecommerce integration, Marketing Campaign Import API and Website Optimizer & Webmaster tools integration.
Otimizando a Experiência dos Consumidores Online (Portuguese)
[Article in Portuguese] – Chegamos a um ponto onde as tecnologias avançaram de forma impressionante, mas ferramentas são só ferramentas, elas não pensam. E por isso, as prioridades de qualquer administrador de site devem ser a educação e a pesquisa, pois só através do desenvolvimento dos analistas e marqueteiros poderemos entender este mundo digital. Um mundo onde nos comunicamos, divertimos, aprendemos e pesquisamos através do computador. Um mundo onde a forma de pensar e a forma de interagir com amigos e empresas é complexa e personalizada.
Web Analytics Association: a Special University
The Web Analytics industry is very unique. Learn more about how the Web Analytics Association came to life and where it is heading, including the benefits of being a member.
Test Segmentation for Higher Conversion Rates
Testing is one of the most important techniques when it comes to website optimization. It shows us what the users like, how they react to design, which content they are looking for, which offer is more attractive, and so on. However, “users” are not a bunch of robots with the same needs and tastes.
Q&A With Brian Clifton, Google Analytics Guru Extrodinaire
In this post I interview Brian Clifton, an independent author, consultant and trainer who specializes in performance optimization using Google Analytics. Brian discusses his book, Google Analytics techniques and the future of the industry.
Web Analytics 2.0 – Empowering Customer Centricity Part II
This article was co-authored with Avinash Kaushik (Author, Blogger, and Analytics Evangelist at Google). Part II proposes a pioneering concept of Web Analytics or, as we call it, Web Analytics 2.0. This concept advocates a holistic approach to website analysis in which we consider several sources of knowledge: website data, multiple outcome analysis, testing, competitive analysis, and customers’ voice. The papers are especially valuable to those managing, maintaining or optimizing websites because they provide the tools to analyze and improve online customer experience and website profitability.
Behavioral Targeting Is Easier Than You Think
In a previous post, I discussed the importance of using behavioral targeting to increase your conversion rates. I also wrote about how to use Google Analytics to understand personas of the users who visit your site. This post will present a fast and easy way to get your behavioral targeting (BT) process up and running. Although any discussion of BT can sometimes turn into a PhD-level conversation, it is really important to pluck some low-hanging fruit to convince executives that it is a worthwhile journey. If you do, your path will likely be paved with gold.
Google Analytics Adds New Features
This post is about a Google Analytics release of features, including “Annotations,” a tremendously useful feature both to analysts and executives, who are usually not up to date on granular details about website activity.
Behavioral Targeting & Google Analytics: How To Create Personas
Following my last post on behavioral targeting, which was an overview of the field, I will provide a more hands-on approach in this post. To briefly recap, behavioral targeting involves creating multiple “personas” that represent multiple users of your site, and using analytics to create a unique experience for each persona group based on observed and predicted behavior.
Q&A With Avinash Kaushik, Google Analytics Evangelist & Customer Insight Guru
This post is an interview with Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist at Google, blogger and Author. Avinash answers some interesting questions about his work, his books and the Web Analytics field.
Behavioral Targeting: Creating A Unique Experience For Each Visitor
Behavioral targeting (BT) has been the buzzword of the year for the last two years in the web analytics field. But is BT really all that important and valuable to the companies making use of it? The answer is usually yes. And does it take a team of PhDs to implement BT for a website? The answer is usually no. In this and a following post I will explain the value that behavioral targeting offers, and show how a marketer can make use of BT to make the website experience richer for users, and increase conversion rates.
Google Analytics New Features: Intelligence Engine, Custom Alerts & More
This post is an announcement of Google Analytics’ features, including more powerful reporting capabilities, greater customization options and a new “intelligence engine” that Google says can help search marketers drive smarter data insights.
Landing Page Testing: Choosing Between A/B Or Multivariate Approaches
In a previous post, I wrote about how to get started with website testing, both choosing which pages to test and how to define which elements will contribute the most to profits. However, there are quite a few testing methods to choose from. In this post I will delve into the two most common testing methods: A/B tests and multivariate tests (MVT). What is the difference between them? How can you choose which one best fits your needs?
A Primer On Website Testing
Search marketers can learn a lot from scientists. Scientists spend their life testing things, one after the other, incessantly trying to discover new interactions between atoms, molecules, viruses, bacteria, etc. One of the greatest scientists of all time, Albert Einstein, said, “A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.” Want everyone to believe in your website? “Experiment” with it—in other words, test it and tune it for optimal performance.
How To Use Google Analytics Motion Charts To Maximize Results
Motion Charts are more than just cool graphs—they really provide some deep visualization that is difficult to achieve through other tools. Motion Charts can be used together with other Web Analytics techniques to optimize search traffic results.
Googlebot Makes An Appearance In Web Analytics Reports
This article shows an example where the Googlebot appeared as a browser in the reports. Although this might sound like a not-so-important fact when it comes to SEO, it is a major change in the Web Analytics field.
Using User Generated Content To Enhance Conversion-Driven SEO
As the web evolves, marketers must find creative solutions to engage customers with their websites and brands. Today, customers are no longer satisfied with consumption; they increasingly expect to be involved in the production of what they buy (or watch), turning them into “prosumers.” As Tapscott and Williams described in their enlightening book, Wikinomics: how mass collaboration changes everything, we have entered the era of prosumption. So how can marketers best take advantage of the voice of the customers, often referred to as user-generated content (UGC)?
How To Optimize For Conversion In Organic Search Results
It is essential to adopt a customer centricity approach to web analytics. Rankings and traffic are not good measures of success for SEO efforts; we should focus on conversions and be sure to calculate the ROI of our organic traffic as we do for all other medium. A few takeaways: keep in mind the tradeoff between including content in the website and keeping it focused on conversions; choose carefully and optimize SEO landing pages; use your internal search to expand your keyword targeting on search engines and to give customers what they are looking for.
Web Analytics 2.0 – Empowering Customer Centricity Part I
In this two-part article co-authored with Avinash Kaushik (Author, Blogger, and Analytics Evangelist at Google), we start by describing the most standard practices of Web Analytics; the first steps required to analyze a website and understand the behavior of its surfers. For this purpose we present a Web Analytics process created by us based on industry best practices. The paper details each step of the process, going from defining goals and KPIs to collect, analyze, and take action using website data.
