The introduction ofcustom variables to Google Analytics opened up many possibilities in measurement for site owners. It allows you to extend the dimensions tracked by Google Analytics to include facets that are meaningful to your business. For example, wouldn’t you like to know how your logged in members behaved differently to your casual visitors? Or which categories of content your visitors are consuming?
Visitor-level custom variables: Swissotel were able to segment their visitors based on membership levels, understand their preferences, and then target their marketing efforts accordingly.
Session-level custom variables: Fairmont measured which booking method (i.e. single vs multiple) was more popular on their booking engine; and were able to understand which method appealed to which types of customers.
Page-level custom variables: Swissotel used page-level custom variables to group pages according to the language of the content. With these groupings they were able to conveniently analyse the behaviour patterns and preferences of visitors according to the language of content consumed.
We would also love to hear how you use custom variables. If you have any tips or suggestions, please leave them in the comments of Barbara’s articles.
Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Senior Conversion Specialist, Google Southeast Asia
Google Analytics is a tool that helps you understand how visitors interact with your website. The JAPAC Conversion Room Blog recently highlighted how online bespoke shoe retailer Shoes of Prey uses a combination of Google Analytics and Google Alerts to keep tabs on which blogs and websites are writing about them. As a newly-formed startup, they rely heavily on positive buzz about their products, so staying up-to-date on these sites is crucial.
One of the ways Shoes of Prey keeps up with online buzz is by regularly checking their traffic sources and Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts to see which blogs are sending them the most valuable converting traffic. They constantly monitor the Intelligence Alerts reports to look for unusual spikes in overnight traffic from referring sites. Since the web moves at light speed, Shoes of Prey wants to ensure that they are speaking to people writing about them as soon as they publish and not a week or two later.
For the time-poor analyst, Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts are as good as having a personal assistant. Analytics Intelligence constantly monitors your website's traffic. Anytime your traffic patterns change significantly, such as a dip in traffic from a particular country, it adds an automatic alert to your Intelligence reports.
Head on over to the JAPAC Conversion Room Blog to learn more about how Shoes of Prey took advantage of the insights gleaned through Intelligence Alerts to increase traffic to and sales on their site.
Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Google Analytics Team
Whether you're an individual or a company, you can demonstrate your proficiency in AdWords by joining the Google AdWords Certification Program. It's a globally-recognised stamp of approval, which showcases your knowledge of the latest AdWords tools and best practices. You can choose from a variety of exams based on what's most relevant to your areas of specialisation. The goal of the exams is to provide you with the knowledge you need to effectively manage Google advertising programs.
Over the last few months we have offered live webinars to help you study for the Google Advertising Fundamentals and Search Advertising Advanced exams. We are pleased to announce that we are now offering live webinars to help you prepare for the Google Certified Partner Reporting and Analysis Advanced Exam. In this three-part webinar series, we will cover the key topics found on the exam and offer a few tips to help you study.
Reporting & Analysis Advanced 1: Advanced Conversion Tracking Date: October 19th at 12pm Sydney time (9am SG and 2pm NZ) Description: In this session, we'll review the function and purpose of AdWords Conversion Tracking and explain related terms. We'll also share some best practices for using AdWords Conversion tracking in your AdWords account.
Reporting & Analysis Advanced 2: Google Analytics Date: October 21st at 12pm Sydney time (9am SG and 2pm NZ) Description: In this session, we'll discuss which types of data can be found in each section of Google Analytics. We'll show you how you can analyze visitor, traffic sources, content, and goal report data to meet your advertising goals.
Reporting & Analysis Advanced 3: Website Optimiser Date: October 26th at 12pm Sydney time (9am SG and 2pm NZ) Description: In this session, we'll discuss how website and landing page testing can help achieve online performance goals. We'll walk you through getting started with Website Optimiser and summarise the differences between A/B and multivariate testing.
In addition to the new webinars above, you can now watch the Google Advertising Fundamentals and Search Advertising Advanced webinars on-demand. The sessions cover the key topics found on each exam and you can access them online whenever it is convenient for you. All you need to get started is an Internet connection and a computer with speakers or headphones.
Google Advertising Fundamentals - Targeting the Google Network - Understanding Search Ads Quality - Optimisation Tools & Strategies - Selling Google AdWords
Search Advertising Advanced - Leveraging AdWords Tools - Performance Monitoring and Conversion Tracking - Conversion Optimiser Strategies - Multiple Account Management Tools and Best Practices
Editors Note: This guest post is from Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar -- a Googler focused on Analytics solutions in Asia Pacific. This new blog aims to share advanced usage tips, and case studies from digital marketers about successfully using Google’s conversion products to increase performance and conversion rates. With specialists sitting in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, China, India, and Japan, you will be sure to get a variety of perspectives!
Today we introduce the Japan and Asia-Pacific (JAPAC) Conversion Room and Blog. Over the last two years we have seen a tremendous uptake of Google’s conversion products in this region, celebrated many success stories with users, and witnessed the development of local expertise. The JAPAC Conversion Room aims to inspire JAPAC (and global) online marketers towards maximising conversions through sharing success stories and expert tips from this region.
If you are drawn to digital marketing, optimising for conversions, and have an interest in the Japan and Asia-Pacific region, then head on over to the site now and subscribe to all the latest articles.
Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Google Analytics Solutions, and James Toepfer, Google Customer Marketing Manager
We recently launched the Google Certification Program and we’re glad that thousands of you all over the world have taken the new exams and joined the program. This certification program replaces the Google Advertising Professionals program. To provide you with time to make the transition, we’ve run both programs side by side during a six month grace period which ends in October. To retain certified status and continue using the badge within your marketing collateral, you’ll need to meet the requirements of the new program.
What’s the difference between the two programs? With the Google Certification Program, we’re offering updated learning materials written by Google experts. We’ve developed four in-depth exams on AdWords management called Fundamentals, Advanced Search, Advanced Display and Advanced Reporting & Analysis. The exams are designed to prove proficiency in these areas and are being widely adopted by employees of search marketing agencies. In addition to this, we launched Google Partner Search, a directory to help advertisers find agencies to manage their campaigns. Currently, all Google Advertising Professionals who have opted in are part of Google Partner Search, but this will not be the case by the end of October.
We’re informing all of you who have qualified under the old Google Advertising Professionals program to update to the Google Certification Program. In order to do so, a company must meet a minimum AdWords spend level, and have at least one employee become individually qualified under the Google Certification Program.
If you have an employee that already qualified under the old program, this is a great time for them to update their skills through the Google Certification Program. Upon completion, just update your company profile so that advertisers can find you using Google Partner Search.
To learn more about the Google Certification Program visit our Help Center.
Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team This is a cross post from the Agency Ad Solutions Blog
We recently announced a new set of AdWords reports in Google Analytics to give you more insight into what happens after users click on your clients' ads. These reports can help you answer questions like:
- Which match types drive more conversions? - What are the highest converting times of day and week for a particular ad group? - Do people clicking on particular ads tend to leave the funnel at certain points?
The new reports allow you to see how many clicks you got from each AdWords Campaign, Ad Group, Keyword and Query. You can then see how many pages that group visited and the average time spent on site. If you use the funnel reports in Google Analytics, you can even see the specific step where visitors tend to drop off when trying to make a purchase.
We’re rolling these new AdWords reports out gradually over the next several weeks, so you may not see them right away. You’ll know when the new reports have been added to your account when you see the 'AdWords' section in your 'Traffic Sources' reports in Google Analytics.
For more information, and to view a video on the new reports, visit the Inside AdWords Blog
Last month we held three Google Analytics Master Classes in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Sydney. We had close to 1000 advertisers, agencies, bloggers, developers, and technophiles joining the events to learn more about web analytics. For those of you who made it out, thanks for your participation and interest. We hope you found the speakers helpful and learned a few new Google Analytics tricks!
Today we are making available videos of all the talks from the Singapore event. We kept each session short - no speaker goes longer than 20 minutes - so that we could offer these tips to you in convenient, bite-sized portions.
You can find Product Manager Beth Liebert’s keynote below. Please check out the Solutions for Southeast Asia blog for the full list of videos.
Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, JAPAC Google Analytics Lead, Global Technical Services
Have you ever looked at aggregated data in Google Analytics and wished there was a way to analyze individual audience segments? Google Analytics now makes this possible with advanced and custom segments.
Different types of visitors - whether new, returning, organic, or paid - behave differently to each other and have vastly different expectations. Advanced and custom segments can be a key tool to understand what your visitors want, and how to cater to them. Website owners tell us that they want data about audience segments that visit their site to improve their user experience and conversions.
You can take advantage of this new feature immediately with predefined segments (e.g. new visitors, paid search visitors, iPhone users). You can also tailor segments and create your own custom advanced segments. You can also share custom advanced segments with other users across accounts.
I've included below examples of advanced segments that I've found most helpful.
Last month we conducted a webinar on the new Google Analytics features. If you missed the webinar, you can watch a recording of it here, and get a copy of the slides here. During the webinar we also took questions from the audience. Unfortunately we did not get a chance to answer all the questions. As promised, however, we answer them below. "When can we expect to see these features in our accounts?"
These new features should now be available in your accounts.
"The url that GA provides when sharing segments and reports are horribly long, do Google have plans to use a url shortener to make them easier to share? Additionally do the links expire?"
The links do not expire. The current workaround for creating friendlier URLs is to pass these links through a URL-shortening service.
"I'm new to GA. We want to track number of downloads of swf, xls, pdf, etc. files from our website. We have hundreds of these documents. How do we track downloads? Do we have to set goals for each document?"
You can track downloads with either Event Tracking or using _trackPageView(). If you want to track these downloads as goals, then you should use the _trackPageView() method and use those virtual URLs for your goal URLs. "Can you share with us the statistical methodology behind the 'intelligence' feature? Curious to understand the limits placed within this (for example a one day spike is not necessarily a data point worth deep diving into)."
Google Analytics uses a mixture statistical model taking into consideration short-term and long-term trends as well as weekly periodic patterns. The methodology is currently under multiple patent considerations. When the patents are approved, the methodology can be referenced from the patent disclosure. "Alert that email when the site has dip in traffic is a good feature but is the alert triggered based on real time data since GA is not real time?"
While there is a delay in reporting, that delay is becoming shorter and shorter. Alerts are processed several times a day. You will receive an e-mail as soon as that alert is triggered during that process. While the alert may not be real-time at the moment, it will at least be within 24 hours of the event occurring.
"_setVar is deprecated, and to what should it be transported? I tested _setCustomVar(1, name, value, 1) but it didn't appeared on the visitor report."
_setVar() will be deprecated over time in preference for custom variables. We will give ample warning when _setVar is moving towards deprecation. You may not have seen the information in your reports because (a) the implementation may have been incorrect or (b) custom variables were not yet visible in your account. If you suspect an incorrect implementation you can seek the solution in the documentation or Analytics help forum. "I'm making a software using Google Data Export API, and trying to retrieve data by XPath. But it doesn't work because of a namespace problem. The namespace url "http://schemas.google.com/analytics/2009" isn't acessible."
It is difficult to answer this question without first taking a look at the source code, requests sent, and the resulting responses. Please post details of your problem in the Google Analytics API group for assistance.
"any changes to improve quality of data passed from Google Local results to reporting?"
We don't comment on product plans, but we are aware that information from Google Local results can be improved. If you have more specific feedback, please send it to ga-feedback@google.com (no support questions please).
Thank you for participating in the webinar. Stay tuned for announcements of future webinars in 2010.
Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Customer Solutions Engineer
We recently announced additional features in Google Analytics to make your life as an analyst easier. Here is an overview of these new features:
* New Setup Wizard - When you now create a profile, you'll notice a new tracking code setup wizard in Google Analytics. This wizard automatically generates the appropriate tracking code according to the setup options specified by you.
* Segmentable Custom Variables - Users can now create an advanced segmentation based on any key, value, as well as key-value combination of all Custom Variables, and see it across all of your reports.
* Custom Reports with Custom Variables - You can also create Custom Reports with any of the key or value dimensions associated with any Custom Variable. Now, you can see how a segment defined by Custom Variables behaves along any of the metrics available in Google Analytics.
* Google Analytics API v2 - We will soon be announcing new features for the Analytics API. The updates will include the availability of support for Advanced Segmentation. In addition, new data dimensions and metrics will be made available, including those in our recently announced features.
Another one of the new features is Annotations, which allows any user with access to a Google Analytics profile to leave shared or private notes right on the over-time graph. A simple note from a colleague can save hours of real work (and frustration) for an analyst who is tasked to explain a usually dry set of numbers. This short video will show you how to use Annotations.
For a complete update, including videos and screenshots, please visit the Google Analytics blog.
We recently introduced expanded mobile reporting features in Google Analytics. To help advertisers better track mobile user activity, this launch includes features that make it easy to see how people are using specific parts of iPhone and Android applications. The same Google Analytics reports that provide insights into website traffic and engagement are now available for mobile applications.
Here are some of the new features that you can access in Google Analytics:
* Track the activity on standard websites that comes from high-end mobile devices. * Track user activity on mobile websites, the same as their standard desktop websites, using a server-side snippet. * Track how users engage with mobile apps, the same as tracking engagement on a website. For apps on Android devices, usage can be tied back to AdWords ad campaigns. * View data by device or carrier in new Mobile Reports.
Redfin, an online brokerage for buying and selling homes based in San Francisco California, recently tested Google Analytics on their mobile application. Watch this video to learn more about their experience:
To start using Google Analytics to better understand how people use your iPhone or Android mobile application, check out the technical documentation. For additional information about these updates, please visit the Google Analytics Blog.
