Making Google Analytics Work For You

Mike Pantoliano@MikeCP

Lead SEO Consultant

distilled

“Advanced” Analytics

Answers important questions regardless of your web analytics

package

GA’s Increasing Flexibility•Event Tracking

•Custom Reports

•Advanced Segments

•Custom Variables

•More

_setCustomVar,

‘Whatever-The-Hell-You-Want’

(not provided)

(stupid not provided)

BooHiss

Rabble Rabble Rabble

Extrapolateor

Ignore

Extrapolation

• Imprecise and Untrustworthy

• Only going to get worse

Ignore

I know, it hurts.

Custom Reports

Custom ReportsThis is annoying

Custom ReportsBuild end-to-end reports for easier

analysis!

http://dis.tl/ActldX

Events_trackEvent(category, action, opt_label, opt_value,

opt_noninteraction)

Checkout Errors & Alerts

<p>Please enter valid payment information.</p>

Checkout Errors & Alerts

<p onload=“_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Checkout Errors', 'Please enter valid payment information.’]);”>Please enter valid payment

information.</p>

Other Event Ideas

• Video Plays - http://dis.tl/xq941K (google.com)

• Button Clicks - Same as above

• File Downloads - http://dis.tl/x56Qic (blastam.com)

• Content Scroll Analysis - http://dis.tl/y3urWb (cutroni.com)

• Site Exits

Watch Your Bounce Rate!

Event Caveat

Watch Your Bounce Rate!

Event Caveat

_trackEvent(category, action, opt_label, opt_value, opt_noninteraction)

Entourage.js for File Downloads

http://dis.tl/xsT12z

Custom Variables_setCustomVar(index, name, value, opt_scope)

Organic Ranking

How-to: http://bit.ly/90zcJT

Blog & Social ROI

_gaq.push(['_setCustomVar',1,'social','blog entrant',1]);

More Custom Variable Ideas

•Blog Post Author

•Blog Post Year

•Repeat Purchaser

•Logged In/Member

Custom Variable CaveatMust be paired (above) with a _trackEvent

or _trackPageview

Custom Alerts

The Basics

•Traffic Drops

•Bounce Rate Increases

•Conversion Drops

Advanced Metrics

Long Tail Traffic Drop

RegEx for 3 or more keywords:^\s*[^\s]+(\s+[^\s]+){2,}\s*$

Advanced Metrics

Checkout Error Increases

Roll Up Accounts

Cross-(sub)Domain• Can get complicated

• Don’t forget to create secondary trackers

_setAccount(UA-XXXXX-1)_trackPageviewb._setAccount(UA-XXXXX-2)b._trackPageview

• Make sure your matched up exactly - _setDomainName - _setAllowLinker

Using Filters

“/” “www.domain.com/”

A Specific Problem

Folding a new subdomain in

How to not mess with historical data

^(www\.example\.com|example\.com)(.*)$

Multi-Channel Funnels

Assisted / Last Interaction Ratio

But Wait! Let’s Segment...

AdWords Awesomeness!

Soccer JerseysAC MilanAC Milan Away

JerseyTime.com

Campaign

Affiliates Taking Too Much Credit

Multi-Channel Funnel Caveats / Limitations

30 days only

No cost or impression data (outside of AdWords)

No one size fits all!

It’s Not Attribution Modeling

Last Click

1 2 3 4 50%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

First Click

1 2 3 4 50%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Even Attribution

1 2 3 4 50%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

U - Curve

1 2 3 4 50%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Time Degrading

1 2 3 4 50%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Watch for (not provided)

t.co is a referral in stock channels!

Excel Magic

Excellent Analytics http://bit.ly/izpY69

http://bit.ly/excel-ninja

Thanks!Mike Pantoliano

@MikeCP

mike.pantoliano@distilled.net