Since the launch of the new Google Analytics platform I have generally been pleased with the updates, but there are still a few issues that keep cropping up that make our lives very difficult.
I have spoken to a number of people in the Digital Marketing industry to get some feedback on what elements of Google Analytics they would like to see updated and have compiled a list in this post.
I don’t know about you, but I just can’t get enough of the Custom Google Analytics Dashboard. Whilst the standard sets of reports in Google Analytics are great, if you aren’t using the Dashboards yet, you’re certainly missing a trick. There is so much more that you can do to understand the traffic that is hitting your site; this will help you get the most out of your marketing campaigns.
This is a guest post from Arend Zwaneveld (@Arend78), analytics expert at online optimisation consultancy Online Dialogue. A large part of Arend’s job is spent analysing data, contributing to online design, and optimisation projects with valuable data-driven insights.
Data analysis is my hobby. My day is incomplete without an excel sheet and / or some solid data-driven insight. The good news for me: every day more data is stored and … is just waiting to be analysed! If you have not been living under a rock recently, you know: the business trend of the moment is called “Big Data”.
In this article I try to describe the key concepts associated with Big Data, for anyone who – like me – wishes to have a say on this important development. (more…)
One of the most frustrating things I face on a daily basis is other marketing channels reporting back using BS metrics. Today I’d like to share a recent example of measuring ROI across all channels and levelling the playing field to determine the performance of the different channels.
In the example I am going to use the digital marketing budget is 30% of the overall marketing budget with
SEO getting less than 5% of the overall budget. We continually went back to the client with exceptional ROI numbers and areas where we can deliver increases but they constantly said that there was no room for budget expansion and no more time could be spent on the account.
We then were asked to sit in a broader marketing meeting I was amazed at the fluff and rubbish that was reported back from the offline marketing channel. Cost per response in my opinion is fluff and it takes 5 seconds on a spread sheet to return an ROI percentage. It won’t be 100% accurate but it’s far better than not measuring at all. They were also not reporting back on how the offline spend was affecting direct traffic or brand search traffic and we saw consistent declines in both. They just assumed that it happened and had a flippant attitude to it. From my perspective it was time to shake their ivory tower a little. (more…)
Since Google started rolling out its SSL search for logged-in users, SEOs have been scrambling to find ways to reclaim some of the lost data. Our industry relies heavily on keyword data gathered by web analytics software. For someone such as myself, who thrives on web analytics data, seeing the accuracy and usefulness of analytics data eroded further causes an almost physical pain.
There have been many very good approaches with custom reports and advanced segments to gain some measure of insight in to the (not provided) traffic. There’s a very good post by Rachael Gerson on SEER Interactive which talks about looking at the landing pages where (not provided) keywords arrived on, and David Harry has a thorough examination of (not provided) on Search News Central.
Today I will add a new approach to (not provided), which I hope will further help undo the damage SSL search has done – and continues to do – to our keyword reports. (more…)
Last year when Google announced that they were going to make search more secure and this would impact keyword data I saw the whole thing as a bit of a storm in a teacup. It was estimated to impact about 10% of all search queries but in my experience thus far it seems to be affecting a higher proportion than that. Now that Firefox is going to use secure search by default the volume of ‘not provided’ keyword data is set to grow even further.
I do believe that it is a huge double standard on Google’s behalf given that it doesn’t apply to paid search traffic but the bigger issue in my mind is that it will allow very poor SEO agencies to thrive. (more…)
This morning at SES New York Avinash Kaushik, Google’s Analytics Guru announced a new feature for Google Analytics which has been long awaited for: Social Reports.
Google has also put up a blogpost describing what the reports are about. Google states the new set of reports “bridge the gap between social media and the business metrics you care about – allowing you to better measure the full value of the social channel for your business.”
Google launches different type of reports: the Overview Report (social performance at a glance and its impact on conversions) and the Conversions Report (which goals are being impacted by social media). They are also giving out Social Sources and Social Plugins: which is published most. (more…)
It’s almost two years to the day that State of Search was launched and I heard Avinash speak at SES. He was truly inspirational and some of the ideas he presented that day I still use on a weekly basis today. Needless to say I am a huge fan and was really looking forward to the keynote.
He started with a favourite quote from a Kenyan Farmer, “information is powerful but it is how we use it that will define us.” We spend a lot of time making love to data but very little happens as a result. The key is trying to find out how to move beyond that information to drive change in your company.
Reporting on the success of your SEO work by using ranking reports alone doesn’t really paint a full picture. Good SEO should be about way more than just improving rankings; for starters is your client making more money, how’s their organic traffic growing, what does their brand look like online? Using ranking reports in conjunction with other metrics can provide a wider picture of how your website is performing and help to educate the client as to what they are getting from SEO, and what areas might need more attention.
However, despite explaining other important KPI’s and trying our best to explain how to measure true success and value; the one thing clients often want to know about first is where their pages are ranking. Sometimes this question can come before discussing traffic, conversions and other such metrics that actually make a real difference to their business. (more…)
I was doing my usual shuffle through a few analytics accounts the other day, for interest rather than with a clear goal in my mind when this blog post occurred to me. Firstly apologies for again writing something that is not ‘in the news’ as such. I promise my next post will be about current events – from Google plus-ing to site mobile-ing and everything in between.
For now, back to the thought I had about content, brand and analytics.
Here’s my train of thought:
1. We all know that our analytics accounts tell us what content is working, what search terms people come in on and even what search terms send the ‘right’ kind of people to our site.
2. We all know that we need to hone our keyword targeting in order to get those ‘right’ kind of people – even if we are limited to using endlessly frustrating tools like the dreaded Adwords Keyword Tool.
3. We all know we need to write content, using those target keywords, in order to get conversions.
4. How often do we think about brand visibility and its value alongside conversions?
Let me give you an example. (more…)
Recently I wrote about a very nice tool called Mouseflow which can be used to easily track the movements of visitors on a website. Mouseflow has now offered us some recordings to share with our readers. And who are we to say no to something our readers benefit from right?
If you want to give the tool a try you can sign up for a free account, after you added the Javascript code you have 100 free recordings per month. These 100 recordings aren´t much and so if you have more than 100 visitors per month you will run of out these recordings very quickly.
Last week, Google launched Google Analytics Premium. An enterprise solution for some of the largest customers that currently use the Google Analytics free edition. These customers have specific needs that Google Analytics could not meet previously. Yesterday, one of the few selected Premium Resellers, Cardinal Path presented Google Analytics Premium with a 1 hour webinar and Q&A.
I will summarize the session for our readers. (more…)
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