advanced google analytics

Advanced Google AnalyticsJeff WisniewskiDarlene Fichter October 27, 2013

Welcome!

Greetings Earthlings

Everyone have a GA account?

Login or buddy up!

Your experience with GA?

I set up a GA account

Game plan

• Filters and advanced segments•Goals and funnels• Tracking non-HTML files• Events • Tracking outbound links• Alerts (intelligence events)

SEE THEN DO

Filters and advanced segments

Important distinction:

Filters are destructive, advanced segments are not

TIP: Create a backup, non filtered profile (view) of your data for safekeeping

Create backup profile (view)

Admin > View Settings > Copy View

Filter example: IP addresses

•Why might you want to exclude IPs from your analytics? You want to see, or need to report on, traffic that excludes devices from within your libraries.

•This could include staff devices, publicly accessible devices, or both.

How to exclude a single IP

1. Go to Admin2. Click Filters3. Click New filter button4. Choose create new5. Filter type: predefined6. Name the filter7. Choose Exclude traffic from the IP addresses8. Enter IP9. Save

Click New Filter

Create New Filter

Exclude traffic

How to exclude IP range(s)

1. Go to Admin2. Click Filters3. Click New filter button4. Choose create new5. Name the filter6. Filter type: custom, exclude7. Filter field: IP address8. Filter pattern??9. Save

Filters: Exclude IP ranges

Enter using “regular expressions”

Stand back. I know regular expressions.

Filters: Regular expressions"In computing, regular expression provides a

concise and flexible means for "matching" (specifying and recognizing) strings of numbers or

text, such as particular characters, words, or patterns of characters." -Wikipedia

Think Boolean searching meets wildcards, on steroids.

Example

^136\.142\.(1\.([2-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1([0-9][0-9])|2([0-4][0-9]|5[0-5]))|(([2-9]|[1-2][0-9]|3[0-4])\.([0-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1([0-9][0-9])|2([0-4][0-9]|5[0-5])))|35\.([0-9]|1[0-2]))$

Filters: Regular expressions

Google has a form-based tool for generating regular expressions for ranges of IPs ! Yay Google!

http://support.google.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1034771&rd=1

Use this: http://www.analyticsmarket.com/freetools/ipregex

Filters: Exclude IP range(s)

Have multiple ranges?

Rerun the tool with the additional range(s), put them all together

separate each expression it generates with the pipe symbol |

and paste into your filter

Advanced segments

Advanced segments are non-destructive; they create distinct VIEWS of your data

Advanced segments

Several predefined advanced segments are available out of the box

Can create custom advanced segment

You can work with up to a total of four segments at a time

Advanced segments

Example: Create an advanced segment that easily shows how many users access your site remotely versus onsite

Advanced segments

Advanced segments apply throughout a profile.

If you keep the segment(s) active, they’re visible in all of the different reports available to you in GA.

Advanced segments how to

1. Define segment2. Create statement3. Combine statements

Advanced segments how to

Once you’re in your website’s profile go to:

Admin > Advanced Segments > New Segment

Admin > Advanced Segments > New Segment Name

Domain name contains verison OR comcast

Second segment for visits from pitt.edu

Advanced Segments > Choose 2 custom segmentsPitt & Remote Access

Pitt Remote Access

Report on visits from

Goals and funnels

Admin > Goals > Create a Goal

Goals: Setting up goals and funnels

1. Name the goal something intuitive, “Class Registration”2. Choose whether the goal is active (ON) now3. Choose a type of goal.

• Most library scenario goals will be “URL Destination”. This means the goal is to get the user to a specific place, such as “thank you for registering” page

4. Enter the URL for the goal page5. Under “Goal Funnel” click ON6. Enter the URL(s) of the page(s) along the path a user would

take from the homepage all the way to the |thank you” page.

TIP

“Exact match” has to be EXACTLY the same as the URL….even leading or trailing spaces will cause it to fail

Goal Name

Goal Type - Destination

Destination URLthankyou.html

Tracking non HTML files

Use event tracking to track:• Any Flash-driven element, like a Flash

website, or a Flash Movie player• Embedded AJAX page elements• Page gadgets• File downloads, like PDFs

Tracking non HTML files

Two ways:

1. Virtual pageviews Downside - artificially inflates pageview

numbers

2. Event tracking

Event tracking

Five components:

• categories• actions• labels• values• implicit count

Event tracking

Category: A category is the root level of Event Tracking Some sample categories are "Videos" and ”PDFs".

Action: An action is a descriptor for a particular event.

Event tracking

Label: A label is an optional

Value: A value is a numerical variable that you can assign to any event that you've assigned to a category.

Implicit Count: The implicit count is a count of the number of interactions with an event category.

Event tracking code

<a href=“geneaology.pdf" onClick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', ’Guides', ’Download', ’Intro to Genealogy Research]);”>Download the guide</a>

Category = GuidesAction = DownloadLabel = Intro to Genealogy Research

Event reports

Appear under Content > Events

Events

Event reports by event name

Tracking outbound links

Insert this code into the <head> of the page(s) on which you want to track outbound links:

<script type="text/javascript">function trackOutboundLink(link, category, action) { try { _gaq.push(['_trackEvent', category , action]); } catch(err){}setTimeout(function() {document.location.href = link.href;}, 100);}</script>

Tracking outbound linksTag the link(s) you want to track by using a javascript

onClick statement:

your link: www.example.com

<a href="http://www.example.com" onClick="recordOutboundLink(this,

'Outbound Links', 'example.com');return false;">

the category the link label

Alerts

Google calls these “Intelligence Events”

Alert me when 5 camels cross the road.

Examples

Any referrals from a local news site that recently wrote about your library?

A class confirmation page has been generated X times, class nearly full

Pageviews of your 404 page go up by X %...what’s wrong?

Alerts

Admin > Custom Alerts > Create New Alert

How to create an alert1. Alert name2. Apply to?3. Period? (Day, Week, Month)4. Send me an email?5. Set up your mobile phone (optional)6. Alert applies to?7. Alert me when?8. Click Create Alert

New alert applies to www.library.pitt.edu

Alert name – facebook referrals

Referral path contains “facebook”

Increases by 10%

This event applies to PITTClassic profile

Word cloud (bonus!) Acquisition > Keywords > Organic

Keyword Display as:

Questions? Comments?

Inte

rnet

Lib

rari

an 2

013

Thanks!

Photo Credits

• Slide 2 JD Hancock• Slide 3 Women's eNews• Slide 4 cambodia4kidsorg• Slide 4 brett jordan• Slide 5 LifeSupercharger adapted, new image license CC BY-SA 2

• Slide 6 Patrick Hoesly• Slide 13 Jenn and Tony Bot• Slide 14 SuziJane• Slide 20 santheo adapted, new image license CC BY-SA 2

• Slide 37 ajstarks • Slide 47 Åndrey • Slide 48 mkhmarketing • Slide 57 __MaRiNa__