UPDATE: Thanks for all the great questions. I’m going to close this offer for a little while. Look for a post in the future requesting more Google Analytics/Urchin/Web Analytics questions.
In the interest of trying something new, I’d like for all you readers to ask me a question. As soon as a good number accumulate I’ll start to answer them. I don’t know if I’ll be able to answer all of them, but I’ll try.
What can you ask about? I would hope that most of the questions are Google Analytics, Urchin or Web Analytics related because that is the focus of this blog. If you have a question post it below.
I have a limited amount of time to blog, so I won’t be able to answer site-specific questions or requests. Try to ask more ‘theoretical’ or ‘how-to’ type questions. I think those answers will benefit a larger portion of the community.
I can’t claim credit for this idea, Matt Cutts has answered reader’s questions before.
I look forward to hearing from you all!
Okay, I’ve got two things that I don’t know if are possible with Google Analytics (and I’ve got much technical expertise and have spent many hours trying):
1. I connect to my 3rd party software site using a BuyNow landing page, which immediately redirects via a Meta Refresh tag, i.e.:
<META HTTP-EQUIV=”Refresh” CONTENT=”0;URL=https://www.my3rdpartyvendorsite.com/jsp/buynow.jsp?contractId=nnnnnnn”>
I specifically do not want to use a Javascript redirect because of the delay it causes and it is less reliable. Is there any way doing the Refresh that I can pass the Analytics cookies to this site so I can continue tracking the purchase path?
2. Failing that, my hope was that I’d at least be able to track the purchase when it came back to my site. What a purchase triggers for me is a call to an asp script (you know: the .asp files made up of visual basic script and javascript that run on Microsoft Windows servers). This script adds the purchase to my customer database, but it does NOT produce a webpage. Try as I might, I cannot get this to work.
Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Louis Kessler
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Well, you know that I always want to be first.
Can GA track the distribution of pageviews? For example, if I drill down on a Google AdWord campaign to the keyword level, I can see pageviews per keyword. But I really want to see that as a statistical distribution, not as an average. Are page views pretty good because almost everyone bounces, but the few people who stay look at a lot of pages?
We are setting two cookies on our site for access control of content. How do I set up a filter to make sure I can see user activity (in the User Defined Variable report) for visitors with one or more of these cookies.
What are the 5 KPI that you look carefully in GA ?
What do you think about travking web 2.0 ? What are the new KPI ? (time/number of people using a widget,…)
What is your methodology to make a website optimisation ? ( is it “lifecycle customer centric” : reach – aquisition – conversion – retention . Then you check each part with KPI tryimg to improve them)
Do you think GA is a great player compare to WSS, Omniture, Coremetrics, WT and CT ?
What is you best success stories due to WA ?
Hoa can you measure the brand awareness ? is it relevant ?
In one sentence, what is WA for someone not familiar with those stuff?
Thanks
Adrien Naeem
Not really a question but more of a request.
I was wondering if you would be able to write a post (or series of posts) on the eCommerce portion of GA.
For example: uses, implementation challenges, etc.
My questions would be:
1. Can you give examples of good ways to use filters to drill down on data?
2. Other than a standard completed order conversion funnel, what other KPI’s do you try to ascertain using conversion funnels?
Thanks for all the great info you post.
Jason Mischel
http://www.golfgods.com
I’d love to hear your ideas on the pros and cons of using Google Analytics vs. Google Adwords for third party pay-per-click conversion tracking on a keyword by keyword basis. When I took a brief look, the conversion tracking setup was different for Adwords vs. Analytics. Are the results presented differently, too? Is one interface better than the other for viewing conversion data?
Thanks!
Can you provide some training resources related to Google Analytics. Web sites, books, audio… anything you can recommend would be appreciated.
I’ve got a question for you….
Have just added Adwords for a domain. getting a steady stream of extra visitors.
however when i view GA by source I don’t see cpc anywhere
(I can view the data under adwords analysis)
I’m using auto-tagging & the data that is in GA seems to be 100% accurate.
just wondering why it seems to be in the wrong place…
thanks in advance,
mike
Very useful post (The one on GA and Google Mini) thank you for that. But I was wondering if could be more specific on how to link Google mini search results and Google Analytics tracking. You explain that the url need the variable to be able to track it, but how specifically do you pass that variable in the url?
Thank you
I currently have GA fully implemented on my ecommerce site. Integrating GA and my ecommerce engine AND my own website search engine was a pain.
How would I replace my third party site search software package (for users looking for things within my site) with a Google mini? What do you have to know? My site is hosted on a Verio virtual server. Can I just plug it in and say go? Probably not, but sure would like to know more about the basic drill of setting up a Mini.
Thanks!
Im a bit late, but Im searching for an answer to my question for a long time already:
what does ‘search’ mean as a source?
It can’t be http://www.search.com based on my comparison of the analytics data and our logfiles. Also google hasn’t answered this question yet..
see also:
http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help-basics/browse_frm/thread/52f3f07d12be4845?tvc=1&q=search
Hi – I am in the process of developing a new version of our site and I have the following ‘basic’ question, that I can’t find any info on — so maybe I’m missing the point or am not looking in the right place.
I will have a login system on my site and I want to combine this login system with GA — meaning if I know the user, I want GA to know the user too, and identify them to me. (I’m not picky on how this is done — I’d use a unique id or something if avail?). Is there a way to do this? Should I do it the other way around (and put the GA cookie id in my users DB? Is this possible?)
Any info on this type of integration would be greatly appreciated!
Ok…here’s a GA question for you…when implementing commerce for GA…following instructions found here…
http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=27203
…what if your commerce system doesn’t output all these values…
UTM:T|[order-id]|[affiliation]|[total]|[tax]|
[shipping]|[city]|[state]|[country]
…what should be put between the pipes where there is no value output? I’ve tried one implementation with only order id and total, but it doesn’t seem to be tracking revenue. The goal is tracking, but no dollar figures coming in, so I’m wondering if I need to leave blank placeholders where I don’t have values in the UTM:T line. Also, can I leave out UTM:I if I don’t care about the transactions at a line item level? Or do I need to put that in there with no data as well?
Thanks so much for your ongoing help…much appreciated!
Thanks,
Josh
Thanks for the great information here. I have you in my list of recommended resources. My question pertains to using Google Analytics (GA) data for making decisions on PPC advertising.
Enormous percentages of conversions are not attributed to advertising I know to be generating those sales. I have been told that GA is configured to use last visit, causing the PPC and other referrer tracking to be overwritten. That would explain the data I’m seeing.
Is it true that the original PPC tracking will be overwritten in each of these circumstances?
1. By a click on another PPC ad
2. By a click on an organic listing
3. By a visit through a referral link on another site
I also see conversions attributed to referrals from the sites’ shopping carts, the sites’ search functions, and alternate forms of the domain names (www. versus non-www. versus store.domainname.com). Do any or all of these also result in the loss of the PPC ad tracking? Could this be improved or remedied by altering the GA configuration?
If a buyer who has a cookie from a PPC ad or other referring source types the site URL into their browser does that conversion end up as Direct instead of as the result of those referrals?
If all or most of the above are true the result is that PPC advertising will appear to be ineffective when in fact it is generating sales that are being attributed to other sources. I believe the solution is for GA to use first visit instead of last for conversion tracking.
Can GA be reconfigured to use first visit? Would it violate Google’s TOS to do so?
I would go so far a to make a business case for Google to change the default for conversion tracking to first visit. As tracking is now, advertisers are cutting general keywords and spending based on poor conversion rates when in fact they have incomplete data. Cutting that spending can dramatically lower revenue because the PPC ads are the source.
This is resulting in loss of income to both Google and the advertisers. I believe using first visit would be more accurate. Are there any drawbacks that you know of or could foresee in changing to first versus last visit tracking?
Thank you for sharing your time, knowledge, and wisdom.
Rose
thank you for help us wz this answer plz forgive my bad english but i would ask if i can know how much i earn every day from google adsense is there any report tell me how much income every day i did track my blog and its working well & it Receiving Data how can i know when any one click ads on my blog how can i know how much i earn daily
Thank you
Hi Mahmoud,
Thanks for the question. Right now, there is no way to measure AdSense revenue in Google Analytics. I hope this feature is added soon.
Justin
Hi,
Is it possible to find out the number of unique visitors (not unique views) by title with Google Analytics?
Thanks
Hi Mel,
Unfortunately no, it is not possible to find the number of unique visitors that view a specific page title.
Thanks for the question,
Justin
I recently purchased Urchin 6 and also have Google Analytics installed. I’ve implemented the code for allowing visitors to be tracked by both programs and set up UTM Tracking for Urchin.
Added this to the ga.js tracking code:
pageTracker._setLocalRemoteServerMode();
However, my “visits and pageviews” within Urchin are showing as 67 visits, 101 page views. In Google Analytics they are showing as 2,122 visits, 8,835 page views.
I’ve read that Google Analytics can show lower results than Urchin, but not the other way around and not this drastically.
I’ve spent days on this and haven’t come up with anything. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Hey dMan,
I would check a couple things:
1. Make sure you filters are identical for Urchin and GA
2. Make sure you’re looking at the same date range.
3. Double check the UTM setup in Urchin and make sure that your log is storing cookies, you’re not using an IP based tracking method and that the __utm.gif request to your local server is not generating a 404 error.
Hope that helps,
Justin
Hi Justin,
Thanks for the response.
I checked a couple of things and noticed that the Cookie information for utm.gif when viewed through Firefox/Firebug is different than the cookie information written to the log file.
It’s displays utma, utmc, etc. when viewed in the browser, but replaces all of the cookie information along with the utm info when written to the log files. Not sure if this is firewall related or what.
I’m open for suggestions.
dMan,
My last thought is that the log file format may be incorrect. Make sure that your server is configured according to the Urchin 6 instructions. Not only must it log cookies, but they must be in a specific format.
Hope that helps,
Justin
Log file format was incorrect. The firewall was sending the log file information outside of the firewall and then reprocessing it back through the firewall before sending it to our log file server; stripping out the cookie information.
Sendind the log files from the firewall directly to the log server solved the problem.
Thanks for the help.