I’d like to clarify how Google Analytics track time on page and visit length. It’s probably different than you think.

Understanding Engagement Hits

The key to understanding Google Analytics time calculations is understanding the data that is sent to Google. We affectionately refer to these data as HITS. I know, that’s a terrible term to use when talking about analytics. But they really are hits.

Data hits are the image requests sent to Google Analytics. Three are six different types of data hits in Google Analytics:

• Pageview hits
• Event hits
• Ecommerce transaction hits
• Ecommerce transaction item hits
• User defined hits (this is the predecessor of custom variables)
• Social plugin hits

While these are all data hits they are not all engagement hits.

An engagement hit is any hit that is not marked as “non interaction” and is not filled only with custom variable information. This means that the hit has at least page information, ecommerce transaction information, ecommerce item information, event information or social tracking information.

Filtering the above list of data hits using the engagement hit definition results in five types of engagement hits:

• Pageview hits
• Interactive event hits
• Ecommerce transaction hits
• Ecommerce transaction item hits
• Social plugin hits

You’re probably wondering, “what the heck does this have to do with time calculations?”

Most analytics tools use the time between pageviews to track time. But Google Analytics time calculations uses engagement hits to get a more accurate measure of time on page and time on site.

How Time on Page is Calculated

Time on Page is calculated in two different ways. The calculation depends if the visit has one pageview OR if the visit has multiple pageviews.

When There are Multiple Pageviews in a Visit

This is pretty easy to understand.

If there are multiple pageviews during a visit then the time calculation is based on the start time between the current page and the start time of the next page hit. Here’s a visual representation.

Image #1: When there is more than one pageview in a visit, Google Analytics uses the time between pages to measure time on page.

Pretty easy, right? Most tools work this way, measuring time based on pageviews. But this leads to trouble.

We can’t calculate the time on the last page of the visit because there is no pageview after the last page. Stay tuned, more on this later.

When There is Only One Pageview in the Visit

Most people believe that Google Analytics can not, and does not, calculate time on page when there is only one page viewed in a visit. This is partially correct.

If no other page is viewed during the visit, Google Analytics use the time between the initial page hit and the last engagement hit that follows the page hit.

Time on Page = (time of last “engagement hit” on page) – (time of first hit from page)

Let me make this clear, if a visit only contains one pageview (i.e. the visit is a bounce) then Google Analytics can track time on page by using other engagement hits.

If you add multiple engagement hits to a page you can get a more accurate measure of time on page and site, as shown in the image below.

Image #2: Google Analytics uses the last "engagement hit" to measure time on page when there is only one pageview during a visit.

This was the whole reason behind the posts Advanced Content Tracking Part 1 and Advanced Content Tracking Part 2.

How Visit Length is Calculated

Visit length also uses engagement hits to get a more accurate measure of time. Rather than use just the time between pageviews, the visit length measurement includes the time between the first hit and the last engagement hit of the session.

Visit Length = (time of last “engagement hit” of visit) – (time of first hit of visit)

Let’s look at a real example. Here we see a number of pages in a visit. Normally, if we only measured visit length based on page load time we’d miss all of the time on the exit page.

But because there is an engagement event on the exit page we get a more accurate measure of the visit.

Image #3: Google Analytics uses the last engagement hit of the visit to measure visit length.

It’s also importnat to note that in the previous example Google Analytics will also use the engagement hit to calculate the time on page for the exit page. In Image #1 it was not possible to calculate the time on the exit page because there was no final engagement hit after page 3.

But in Image #3 there is an engagement hit on the exit page. So Google Analytics will use that piece of data to calculate the time.

Don’t forget, there are other engagement hits, like the ecommerce transaction hit, that can also be used to more accurately measure the length of a visit.

I hope this post demystified how Google Analytics tracks time.

Let’s hear it for greater accuracy!

Understanding Google Analytics Time Calculations is a post from: Analytics Talk by Justin Cutroni

Related posts:

1. Understanding The Google Analytics Terms of Service
2. Understanding the New Google Analytics Interface
3. Understanding Google Analytics Custom Reports

Before we get into the deals, I should mention that this version is going to be a fairly slow rollout. So don’t be surprised if it takes a few weeks for your account to see the changes.

How about a video walkthrough to start.

And now some feature descriptions, for the SEO :)

New Navigation

[Click for high res image]

Google Analytics V5 has a completely reworked navigation system. You no longer need to choose an account and profile. Instead you can choose to immediately jump into the new Dashboard section, My Site (Reports section, Intelligence Reports) and Custom Reports. There’s also a way to jump directly into the admin section from the nav bar.

This is a fairly major shift. I think Google realized that there were just too many plain reports in Analytics, most of which rarely got used. So they simplified the navigation to let you jump directly to the reports that are important. In most cases these are reports that you’ve customized, like a Dashboard or a Custom report.

Another change that is coming is the ability to create sections in the Google Analytics navigation and add reports to the new sections.

New Home Section

Also along the new Navigation bar is the addition of a Home section. When you log into GA you no longer see the Admin section. The new Home section is a list of all the accounts and profiles that you have access to. The list of accounts is searchable which, if you have access to a lot of accounts, is REALLY helpful.

The home section also contains direct links to various reporting sections of Google Analytics. You can direct link to the Visitors, Traffic Sources, Content or Goals section. This should help save a few navigation clicks and make it faster for you to get to your reports.

New Dashboards

That’s right, the old, clunky dashboard is gone. And to be honest, I’m not that sad! While the dashboard was nice I stopped using it when custom reports were added to Analytics. But GA needs some type of dashboarding tool that let’s me display only the metrics I want using different visualizations.

Google Analytics V5 Dashboard

[Click for high res image]

One of the major drawbacks of the old dashboard was the inability to customize how the data looked on the dashboard. Sure, I could add almost every metric but I could not control how it looked.

The new Dashboard tool has many more data visualizations. These include:

• Absolute metrics
• Data over time graphs containing multiple metrics
• Pie charts
• Tabular data

You can also apply filters to each widget on the dashboard to further customize the data in the widget. Waaaaay better than the old dashboards.

Updated Custom Reporting Tool

GA still has custom reports, but the actual interface and functionality have significantly changed. This is the enhancement that I’m most excited about. Because the changes are so dramatic, I’ve got a dedicated post to understanding Google’s Custom Reports.

Here’s a brief summary of what’s changed:

• You can now create a standard Explorer report (think a drill-down into data like the current GA report) or a Flat Table report where all dimensions are represented as columns. This is a HUGE enhancement.
• You can apply a filter to your custom report. This removes the need to add an advanced segment or in-report filter to your report.

[Click for high res image]

New Admin Section

While the core contents of the Admin section have not changed much, the location and flow of administering your account is very different.

[Click for high res image]

You now access the admin section using the Admin item in the top navigation. The biggest functional change in the Admin section is a more clearly defined hierarchy. You can now drill down from an account level, to a web property level and finally to a profile level.

[Click for high res image]

In the old GA admin you were not able to change the name of your web property. This caused all sorts of confusion as duplicate web properties would show up in a drop down box. But Google has finally given us a way to rename the web property, making it easier to navigate the various properties in our account and then drill into the different profiles.

Once you get to the profile level in Google Analytics you still have most of the same admin settings. You can still configure 20 goals per profile (all stored in 4 goal sets), you can still create the same types of filters, and you can still control profile settings. User access also remains unchanged.

New Word Cloud Visualization

Quietly tucked into the Google Analytics Table view is a new Word Cloud visualization tool.

[Click for high res image]

Word clouds, most commonly used for text analysis, display words based on their frequency. Words that are bigger in the cloud appear more often.

While word clouds are not a new tool, they are new to GA. More on these in an upcoming blog post.

Goals as Events!

At long las you can now create GOALS out of events in Google Analytics. This is a HUGE feature. You can create goals based on Categories, Events and the Labels. PLUS you can conditions around when a conversion should be tracked.

As I mentioned the UI for the new Google Analytics is not revolutionary. But many of these changes will make it easier to create reports and data visualizations. They also appear to function of a new, improved middle-layer, thus making it possible for more advanced reporting and analysis tools in the future. But we’ll need to wait and see what Google has up their sleeve.

So what do you think of the new version of Google Analytics? Love it? Hate it? Let me know!

Introducing Google Analytics, The Next Generation is a post from: Analytics Talk by Justin Cutroni

Related posts:

1. Introducing Google Analytics v4
2. Introducing SiteScan
3. Getting to Know the New Google Analytics Admin Interface

With that said, I’ve seen the number of inquiries from larger organizations dramatically increase in the past two years (ever since Google released the API, Custom Reporting and Advanced segmentation in 2008).

That brings me to the point of this post. With more and more inquiries, more executives are asking some interesting questions about Google Analytics. Here is my humble attempt to answer some of the most common questions I’ve heard about Google Analytics.

Is Google Analytics really free?

In reality GA is far from free. While you don’t have to pay for the tool you do need to invest in people. First and foremost you’ll need people to use the tool. This can be an analytics team or a marketing team. It depends on your organization and how you choose to tackle analysis.

In addition to people to use the tool you’ll also need IT resources to maintain the tool. You need someone that will be able to maintain and modify the implementation and configuration. Obviously this can be a huge investment depending on the size of your organization.

This is where most organizations fail. They do not commit to maintaining their data collection infrastructure, resulting in bad data and a loss of confidence in the resulting analysis.

But remember, spending less on the tool frees up more money to spend on resources to use and maintain the tool.

So I get that the GA is free (from a product perspective). But how good can it really be? Free stuff usually has some limitations.

This is a classic question. I’m going to be bold here: Google Analytics will fill at least 85% of your analytics needs. Probably 90%. Yes, I know that’s a bold statement, but I believe it’s true.

Now some of these features may not be very elegant (I still think Campaign Tracking sucks in certain ways) but GA does a hell of a lot. Here are some of the standard features in GA:

• Campaign tracking (ppc, email, display, social, seo)
• Conversion tracking
• Ecommerce tracking
• Event Tracking
• Custom variables
• Mobile site tracking
• App Tracking (Android and iPhone)
• Automated data monitoring and alerts
• Automated analysis via Intelligence
• Advanced analysis using Motion Charts
• A formal data export API
• Custom reporting
• On-the-fly segmentation
• Integrated AdWords reporting with pre-click / cost data
• Automated report distribution

Not too bad, huh? That’s not to say it does everything (more on this later), but that’s a pretty impressive list of features that cover a majority of analysis tasks.

I heard there is no support for Google Analytics. Is that true?


This one really gets me fired up! In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last 5 years there is a fairly substantial network of Google Analytics Certified partners (GACPs). I’m partial to the company I work for, WebShare. We’re located on almost every continent (anyone want to send me to Antartica :) ) and we work with some of the biggest companies in the world.

While Google does not directly support GA they lean heavily on the partner network and, if I may say so, I think we do a pretty good job of helping people out. We’ve seen almost every implementation possible and have compiled a slew of solutions to almost any implementation issue.

We also offer flexible ways to engage us. You can talk to us for an hour or engage us for a year. It’s up to you.

And, with the data API, we provide a huge assortment of add-ons and tools that can be used to extend Google Analytics.

So, to say that there is no support for GA, in my opinion, is just plain nuts.

That’s nice, Google has partners. But I need to call someone in case my people can’t get access to GA or the data collection isn’t working. Google needs to put some skin in the game and guarantee this thing will work.

Ah yes, the SLA question. This one comes up quite a bit. There is no SLA for Google Analytics. But let’s look at GA’s performance over the last 5 years:

• The UI has almost never gone down. It has been down for maintenance before, but those service interruptions are announced. On occasion, and this happens VERY rarely, the reporting interface is unavailable. But this has hardly been widespread or lasted more than an hour.
• The data collection process has had less than 5 issues over the last 5 years. And those outages have been very obscure. For example, there was a recent issue with GA collecting data from sites displayed in Google Chrome that use an iFrame. And there was an issue with ecommerce data collection on an extremely old version of IE 3.5 years ago. But the data collection system has never experienced a catastrophic collection issue. And let’s be realistic, how many companies in the world can put together a global data-center infrastructure like Google?

What about the data ownership? What is Google going to do with all that data and specifically mine?

Privacy. This is a big issue for Google, and not just the their analytics product. Your analytics data is your data and Google will not use it for anything unless you give them permission. There is a setting in the admin interface that explains how Google will use your data if you give them permission.

If you do let Google use your data, it will be used in aggregate, for things like benchmarking industry trends or providing unique visitor counts (i.e. a cookie count) for other tools like DoubleClick Ad planner.

If you ever want to take your data and permanently delete your GA account you can. Ultimately, you have control over your data.

I heard Google Analytics uses third party cookies and this guy Avinash told me third party cookies suck.

Yes, I’ve Seriously gotten this question from Director level people. Google Analytics uses first party cookies. End of story.

We’ve got a BI team, what can they do with Google Analytics?


Great question. There’s lots of debate re: web analytics and its relationship to business intelligence. It’s taken some time but web analytics is moving in a BI direction.

Right now, Google Analytics has an official data export API. That means you can programmatically suck the data out and add it to a data warehouse and do more advanced analysis.

However, and this is a pretty big caveat, it’s difficult to find a primary key in your analytics data that can link GA data to other data sources, which is usually customer level data. Basically there is no individual visitor tracking inside Google Analytics, and this means no individual customer profiling or analysis. Section 7 of the Google Analytics Terms of Service states that you can not track any personally identifiable information with Google Analytics, which means you can’t go and push someone’s email address into the GA data set. If you choose to use an identifier that is not personally identifiable, however, whatever you choose to do with that in your own systems is up to you.

For those that need to work with individual user profiling within their analytics tool, I know, this is a fairly big drawback. But there are workarounds that can link Google Analytics data to other data sets once it has been extracted from GA.

If all this is true, then how come I never see Google Analytics metrics quoted in the Wall Street Journal or other publications?

Good observation. Honestly, no one wants to be the first to step up and say, “We use Google Analytics to measure our site and here is our data.” It’s going to take someone who has a kick-ass implementation of GA to step up and say that they have complete confidence in it. Then they’ll be confident enough to quote their metrics.

So there you have it. That’s what people have been asking me. What’s ironic is a large number of these organizations already have a “rogue” implementation of Google Analytics. It’s not unusual for small teams to install GA to track a specific campaign. It’s also very common to see GA installed along side of other paid solutions as a backup or a test.

From a features perspective there is very little reason for any executive to be scared of Google Analytics. If you still have questions, install it and start using it. The product itself won’t cost you anything. But please take the time to educate your team on how to configure the tool and how to use it correctly. Work with a Google Analytics Certified Partner to resolve any issues you have and answer any lingering questions.

Now it’s your turn. What kinds of questions do you get about Google Analytics?

The Executive’s Guide to Google Analytics is a post from: Analytics Talk by Justin Cutroni

Related posts:

1. Google Analytics Installation Guide
2. EpikOne Google Analytics Setup Guide
3. 2008 Google Analytics Resolutions

You’re probably wondering why two books? Aren’t there enough books on Google Analytics (274 according to Amazon.com)?

To be honest, the Google Analytics user base is HUGE. And, more importantly, it’s very, very diverse. There is a core group of GA power users and a gigantic long tail of people just learning about web analytics and Google Analytics.

It really is unbelievable to number of people that are getting into analytics. We’ve all heard that small businesses are the engine of America’s economy. Now image that all of those small businesses adopt Google Analytics. These companies are totally off the radar. They’re not at Emetrics or SES. They’re at home trying to figure out measurement and optimization on their own.

And then image that a large portion of enterprises start “playing with” Google Analytics” on the side. It’s happening more and more.

There’s just a lot of adoption from everyone. And with a diverse community comes diverse needs. And with diverse needs comes two books!

Performance Marketing with Google Analytics

I had the pleasure of working Sebastian Tonkin (formally of the Google Analytics team) and Caleb Whitmore (founder and lead consultant at Analytics Pros) on Performance Marketing. These are two guys that really know their stuff and we had been talking about working together for while. This was a great opportunity that fell into place.

Sebastian, Caleb and myself believe that small businesses, and those that are just getting into web analytics, need an analytics book focused on marketing optimization. Hence Performance Marketing!

If you’re just starting with Google Analytics and web analytics Performance Marketing is a good option for you. We don’t dive right into Google Analytics. We divided the book into three sections that gradually explains what web analytics is, how to get up and running with Google Analytics and then how to actually do analysis.

Section 1:
What is web analytics?
What are some of the challenges with web analytics?
What holds companies back from succeeding?

Section 2:
Google Analytics implementation and configuration
How to plan, install, configure, and use Google Analytics to its fullest capability

Section 3:
Analysis, analysis, analysis!
We look at how to actually use the data in Google Analytics to analyze display and sponsored search ads, organic search engine optimization, offline, email marketing, and more.

You can get Performance Marketing with Google Analytics at Amazon, Borders or directly from Wiley.

Google Analytics

In addition to Performance Marketing I’ve completed an update to my original Google Analytics Short Cut. I know, I’ve been talking about an update forever but this time it’s done! To prove it I’ve got my very own O’Reilly animal. :)

While this is not a 400 page manifesto on web analytics and Google Analytics it’s a nice update to the original. This book is really for the power users. For those that have been using Google Analytics for a while and want to tackle things like event tracking, custom variables and CRM integrations. I even dabble in some of the challenges that enterprises are having using Google Analytics. Most importantly all code samples have been updated to use the new async version of the tracking code. I wanted to call it the missing manual but it’s not long enough (yet).

At just 200 pages this book is lean and mean. It’s all about the guts of Google Analytics. I make a huge effort to describe how the system works so you can use it in new and creative ways.

This new version will be available in print and electronic (PDF, epub, apk and mobi). If you bought a copy of the original PDF you’ll get a free electronic update. A big thanks to O’Reilly for making that happen. For those that did not purchase the original I can offer an 40% discount on the print version and 50% off the electronic version. Drop me a note and I’ll hook you up!

Thanks for slogging through the self promotion. But, in all honesty, I really do believe that there are a lot of folks out there that need some help. And some folks just don’t read blogs or attend training events. Some people like books (no matter how fast they become out of date :) ). Hopefully these books put people on the path to analytics nirvana.

If you’ve purchased a book already then I thank you. I really, really apprectiate. It truly means a lot to me. Thank you.

Now that the books are done it’s back to blogging!

Adding Two Books to the Analyst’s Bookshelf is a post from: Analytics Talk by Justin Cutroni

Related posts:

1. Adding Business Data to Google Analytics Data
2. Google Analytics Short Cut
3. Writing More than Blog Posts

Specific things that Brett talked about:

The rebranding of Google Analytics consultants as Google Analytics authorized partners.

This was announced on the AdWords blog and on the Analytics blog. Google is unifying their partner programs. The GAAC is gone, now partners are Google Analytics Certified partners. This should help differentiate partner companies from individual passing the GAIQ exam.

The formal launch of the new Async tracking code.

It’s been out for a while but this was the official coming out for the new version of the tracking code. I wrote a about how the async code works and if you should switch. The async code will now be the default for tracking. Check out the blog post for more information about how it works.

The introduction of the Google Analytics Apps Gallery.

Google is creating a place to showcase apps built on the API. I’ve long felt that the marketplace can innovate more than any Analytics company. GA has more or less become a giant data collector. The gallery should help push more development of analytics tools.

The addition of the AdWords ID to the GA API.

It is now possible to pull actual ad and search query information via the API. This is huge, I think it’s going to lead to a lot of innovation in the search tool marketplace. Vendors like ClickEquations can now connect what happened on a visitors site directly back to the AdWords search query and ad variation. Pretty cool.

New AdWords reports.

Google also announced the addition of new AdWords reports to Google Analytics. I think we all agree that the previous reprots were less than good. The new reports offer additional data, like the actual search term, that was not previous available in Analytics.

Brett also spoke about the recently introduced AdWords Search Funnels. This is Google’s crack at AdWords campaign attribution. My buddy Nick dove a little deeper over on the WebShare blog.

While some might look at this list and shrug that there’s not much new I think these changes hint at things to come. Specifically I think the AdWords API announcement is huge. This tells us Google is pulling more and more data into Analytics. How long before we get DoubleClick data and other types of data in Analytics? Or when will they let us import data into Analytics, like cost data?

Overall, a nice little treat for us analytics users. Thanks to the Analytics team and great job.

As always, I welcome your comments!

Google Analytics Launches new AdWords Reports & Other Goodies is a post from: Analytics Talk by Justin Cutroni

Related posts:

1. Google Tackles Campaign Attribution with AdWords Search Funnels
2. Google Analytics Campaign Tracking Pt. 3: Reports and Analysis
3. Segmenting Visitor Loyalty Reports in GA

Included in this new release is:

• New and Improved Goals (20 goals per profile and new ‘threshold’ goals based on pageviews and time on site)
• New mobile tracking
• Table Filtering (a way to quickly filter data in a report)
• Unique Visitor Segmentation (Unique Visitors is now a metric and can be added to custom reports)
• Multiple custom variables (an evolution of Custom Segmentation, wicked awesome!)
• Analytics Intelligence (automatic data analysis. And yes, it is as cool as it sounds!)
• Analytics Alerts (customizable alerts based on your data rules)

NOTE: Links above are to individual posts.

There are also a couple previously announced features that have FINALLY made it into the product, including:

• Sharing custom reports and advanced custom segments
• Pivoting data and segmenting with a secondary dimensions

I must say, this release is very cool. Google has listened to users and included some of the most requested features. 20 goals, automatic alerts, more custom variables… We’ve been hearing/making these requests for years!

One thing I think people will ignore is that many of these features represents dramatic improvements in the GA system. While these features have a definite ‘wow’ factor they provide a solid foundation for future enhancements.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you know that I usually blast out as many posts as possible to explain the new features. Today is no different.

Because there are some many people blogging about GA, I’m going to be a bit selective and cover the topics that I don’t think will get much attention or that I just really like :)

So click away! Let’s all explore these cool new features together!

Introducing Google Analytics v4 is a post from: Analytics Talk by Justin Cutroni

Related posts:

1. Introducing Urchin 6
2. Google Analytics Version 3.0
3. Introducing SiteScan

Simply put, Google Analytics will attribute a ‘bookmark’ visit to the information in the Google Analytics campaign cookie.

Many people believe that GA tracks bookmark visits as (direct) traffic. Google Analytics does not track bookmark traffic as (direct) traffic unless (direct) is the value in the cookie. Whatever is stored in the campaign cookie becomes the source of the ‘bookmark’ visit.

The cookie is named __utmz, I’ve talked about a few times, in my series on Campaign Tracking and my post on GA – CRM integration. __utmz always stores where the visitor came from (organic search, campaign referral, etc.)

How about a quick video to walk through an example and save me some typing.

How Google Analytics Tracks ‘Bookmark’ Visits is a post from: Analytics Talk by Justin Cutroni

Related posts:

1. How Google Analytics Tracks Third-Party Domains
2. How Does Google Analytics Track Conversion Referrals?
3. Integrating Google Analytics With a CRM

Today Google is releasing a significant update to Google Analytics. I’m not sure if it is officially version 3.0, but the amount of new functionality is extraordinary. Not to mention some nice changes to the interface to clean things up.

This new release includes:

* Motion Charts (a data visualization tool)
* Advanced Segmentation
* Custom Reporting
* AdSense Integration
* A data API
* A new administrative interface

Not all of these features are public. The API and AdSense reports (I believe) are in private beta meaning your account must be authorized to use them. All other features are public! Woo Hoo!

These new features cover 90% of the requests we get from all users, both big and small. In my opinion this release is game changer, especially for the enterprise market.

For example, our ability to manage massive GA implementations (1,000 + sites) is now much easier with the new administrative interface. And the data API let’s companies integrate their click stream data with other data sources. Did I mention that Advanced Segmentation let’s you segment historical data?

I’ll slowly be rolling out some posts and to cover all new features as well as a few posts to discuss how this changes the way we work with GA.

A big congratulations to the Google Analytics team. The amount of new functionality is really amazing.

Google Analytics Version 3.0 is a post from: Analytics Talk by Justin Cutroni

Related posts:

1. Welcome to the New Google Analytics
2. Getting to Know the New Google Analytics Admin Interface
3. Three GA Changes that Predict the Future

When you firs log in the new admin area will display a list of all accounts that you have access to.

Click to enlarge the image.

This tabular layout of accounts is new, and very helpful. If you’re an agency, or a large company, you probably have access to multiple GA accounts. This layout makes it easy to identify performance at the account level.

Key to the new layout is the addition of metrics. Available metrics in are:

* Visits
* Time on Site
* Bounce Rate
* Completed Goals

One column actually does a date comparison. Choose one of the above metrics using the drop down at the top of the column and a simple date range using the buttons at the top right corner of the screen to determine how said metric has changed over the past day, week, month or year.

Looking a bit closer, you’ll notice that each account name is a link. Clicking on the link will display all profiles within that account:

click to enlarge.

This is where things get really juicy!

GA is now grouping the profiles that have been created for each tracking code in an account. I’ve talked a lot about creating multiple profiles for a single site, and this is a great way to see all those properties in one place.

As an analyst I like the fact that I can view basic information in the admin area and do a quick performance evaluation. Would I like to see more metrics? Sure, but this is a great start. This literally turns the admin area into a basic dashboard for large groups of websites.

Another feature that I really like is the Favorites. Anyone that uses other Google products (like GMail or GDocs) will recognize this.

You can ‘star’ certain profiles and then display only those that you starred. This makes it very easy to zoom through all profiles and find the ones you regularly use. Unfortunately starring is not available in the account view, just the profile view.

Try changing the number of rows displayed using the drop down at the bottom of the table… Notice anything interesting? The new interface uses AJAX to dynamically pull back the data. Pretty slick.

Another interesting AJAX feature is the ability to rename accounts and profiles right from the table. Just click on the little pen icon next to an account name or profile name. Is this totally necessary? I’ll let you decide. But given the new interface I bet a lot of people are going to rename their accounts and profiles.

With the new layout of accounts and profiles we can eliminate the website domain name from the profile and account name and use a functional description that everyone can understand.

One thing that is missing from the new admin screen is a summary row. I think it’s critical to have a scorecard, similar to the scorecard in the reporting interface, that displays summary information for the profiles and accounts displayed.

Overall, this is a fantastic change that goes a long way to helping us manage and analyze large GA deployments.

Getting to Know the New Google Analytics Admin Interface is a post from: Analytics Talk by Justin Cutroni

Related posts:

1. Understanding the New Google Analytics Interface
2. Breaking Up Is Hard To Do: GA Account Setup Tip
3. Google Analytics Advanced Segmentation

Below is a list of all standards defined in the WAA metrics definitions document and GA compliance with each definition. GA is compliant with 19 of the 26 metrics. Most of the non-compliance is due to the fact that GA does not offer all the metrics that the WAA defined.

Google Analytics Compliance with WAA Standard Metrics is a post from: Analytics Talk by Justin Cutroni

Related posts:

1. How Does Google Analytics Track Conversion Referrals?
2. GA On Site Search Pt. 2: Reporting & Usage
3. Tracking Google Audio Ads with Analytics