This document provides an overview of key Google Analytics concepts including: how Google Analytics works by tracking users with JavaScript tags; metrics like pageviews, visits, and visitors; traffic sources; goals and funnels; profiles and filters; cookies and campaign tracking; ecommerce tracking; and custom visitor segmentation. It explains concepts in a straightforward way and provides examples to illustrate techniques like cross-domain tracking and event tracking.

1. Google Analytics
Concepts
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2. Introduction
With Google Analytics we can:
● make informed site and content decisions
● increase conversions
● measure keyword and ad performance
● track a wide variety of metrics
2

3. How Does GA Work?
● Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC)
JavaScript in each page of our site
● Google Analytics only uses first-party cookies
3

4. What happens if ...
someone who blocks their → not tracked
cookies
someone who deletes their → tracked but identified as a new
cookies visitor
someone who disables → not tracked
JavaScript
cached pages → tracked if connected to the
internet
JavaScript error on the page → not tracked if the error occurs
before the tracking code is
executed
4

5. GA Tracking Code
● You'll sometimes need to paste the GATC at the top of
the page:
● tracking ecommerce transactions
● tracking across multiple domains or subdomains
● using iframes
● using custom JavaScript functions that may conflict
with ga.js
● New asynchronous tracking code.
5

6. Interpreting Reports
● Create context
● compare with other metrics
● look for trends
● Data driven decision making
6

7. Pageviews, Visits and
Visitors [1]
pageview: is counted every time a page on your
site loads
visit (session): period of interaction between a
browser and a website. Closing the browser or
staying inactive for 30 minutes ends the visit.
visitor: is uniquely identified by a Google
Analytics cookie
7

8. Pageviews, Visits and
Visitors [2]
unique pageview: number of visits during which
page was viewed
absolute unique visitor: each visitor is counted
only once during the selected date range
new and returning visitor
8

9. Pageviews, Visits and
Visitors [3]
9

10. Time Metrics [1]
time on page (n) = timestamp (n+1) –
timestamp (n)
The time on page of the last page on a visit is
always 0, because there's not timestamp GA
can use to calculate the time.
time on site = sum(time on page) for a visit
10

11. Time Metrics [2]
avg. time on page = time on site / (pageviews –
exits)
pages with time on page 0 are excluded from the calculation
avg. time on site = sum(time on site) for all visits
/ visits
pages with time on page 0 are not excluded from the calculation
11

12. Traffic Sources
● where the traffic is coming from on the internet?
● which source is sending the best quality traffic?
● e.g. small bounce rate
12

13. Traffic Sources
direct traffic: bookmark or URL typed directly
into the browser
referral traffic: via a link in any web site
search engine traffic: click in a search results
link in a search engine
organic: non-paid
paid: ads
13

14. Keywords
● What were visitors expecting to find on your
site?
● You fail to meet their expectation:
● high bounce rate
● low goal conversion rate
● e-commerce per visit value
● Which landing pages are being used for a
keyword?
14

15. Campaign Attribution
15

16. GA Accounts [1]
● One Google username:
● up to 25 GA accounts
● can be added as an administrator to an unlimited
number of GA accounts
● Administrators can:
● create filters, profiles, goals
● add users
16

17. GA Accounts [2]
● Users:
● read-only access to reports
● can be restricted to specific profiles
17

18. Profiles [1]
● Profile: set of rules that define what data is to
be included in the reports
● Examples:
● subdomains
● sections of a site
● filtered data (access control)
18

19. Profiles [2]
● The settings of a profile include:
● user access
● goals
● filters
Each domain has a unique tracking code number (property number)
19

20. Campaign Tracking and
AdWords Integration
● Autotagging:
● reports are automatically populated with click, cost,
… of every keyword you buy
● if autotagging is not enabled, unpaid and paid clicks
will look they came from the same source:
google/organic
20

21. AdWords Data
● Clicks
● Cost
● CTR (Click-through Rate) = ( clicks / impressions ) * 100
● CPC (Cost per Click)
● RPC (Revenue per Click)
● ROI (Return on Investment) = ( E-commerce Revenue +
Total Goal Value - Cost) / Cost
21

22. Data Discrepancies
● Clicks (AdWords) vs. Visits (GA)
● Browser preferences (JavaScript, cookies)
● Unable to load GATC or GATC missing
● AdWords filtering
● Report data sync
● Destination URLs not tagged
● Redirects
22

23. Tracking Online Marketing
● You can add tags with campaign identifying to
your destination URLs in paid links:
● keyword links
● banners
● links inside emails
● Manual URL tagging => query string
23

24. Tags
● Always:
● utm_source: advertiser (google, yahoo, …)
● utm_medium: marketing medium (cpc, banner,
email, …)
● utm_campaign: campaign name
● Optional:
● utm_term: paid search keyword
● utm_content: ad version
24

25. Tagging Examples
25

26. Goals [1]
● Goal: website objetive
● Types:
● URL destination goal
– head match (/offer1/)
– exact match (/offer1/signup.html)
– regexp match (/.*/signup.html)
● Time on Site goal
● Pages/Visit goal
26

27. Funnels
● Funnel:
● the set of steps, or pages, that
you expect visitors to visits on
their way to complete the
conversion
● URL destination goals
27

28. Funnel Numbers
28

29. Goals [2]
● Goal Value (optional): assign monetary value to
non-ecommerce goals
● During a visit:
● goal conversions => once
● e-commerce transactions => multiple times
29

30. Filters
● Modify data:
● remove data from internal sources
● restrict data for a profile or user
● segment data
● Customize reports
30

31. Filters and Profiles [1]
● Filters are applied to profiles
● It is recommended to maintain an unfiltered
profile
31

32. Filters and Profiles [2]
32

33. Filter Types
● Predefined filters:
● exclude traffic from a domain
● exclude traffic from a IP address
● include only traffic to a subdirectory
● Custom filters:
filter type | filter field | filter pattern
33

34. Custom Filters
● filter type: ● filter field:
● exclude ● request URI
● include ● hostname
● lowercase / uppercase ● page title
● search & replace ● …
● advanced
34

35. Cookies [1]
● Cookies are text files that describe a small
piece of information about a visitor or the
visitor's computer.
● Google Analytics:
● first-party cookies
● your site can uniquely but anonymously identify
individual visitors
35

36. Cookies [2]
36

37. __utma: Visitor Identifier
37

38. __utmb & __utmc: Session
Identifiers
● Session (or visit) => 30 minutes of inactivity
● Each time de GATC is executed, __utmb is set to
expire in 30 minutes.
● When the visitor loads a page, the GATC checks for
both the __utmb and __utmc cookies. If either one is
missing GA knows it's a new session.
38

39. __utmz: Campaign Values [1]
● The session number increments for every session during
which the campaign cookie gets overwritten.
● The campaign number increments every time you arrive at the
site by a different campaign or organic search, even if it is within
the same session.
39

40. __utmz: Campaign Values [2]
40

41. __utmv: Visitor
Segmentation
● Only set if the site calls the _setVar() method
● _setVar() => deprecated
● _setCustomVar()
41

42. E-commerce Tracking [1]
● Enable e-commerce reporting in your website
profile
● Add the GATC
● Add some additional code to track each
transaction
42

43. E-commerce Tracking [2]
43

44. Revenue Metrics
● Calculated based on:
● the goal values:
– Per Visit Goal Value
● the e-commerce revenue:
– Revenue
– Average Value (of an e-commerce transaction)
– Per Visit Value
● goal Values + e-commerce revenue:
– RPC, ROI, Margin, $Index
44

45. $Index
● $Index is a way of ranking the pages that have
the most impact on site profitability
(Goal Value + E-commerce Revenue) / Unique
Views of Page Before Conversion
● Useful as a way of ranking pages
45

46. $Index Example
46

47. Tracking across Domains [1]
● Add the following lines to the GATC on all
pages of both domains:
47

48. Tracking across Domains [2]
● Add _link() to all links between domains:
48

49. _linkByPost()
49

50. Tracking Subdomains
● Add the following line to the GATC on all pages
of each subdomain:
50

51. Best Practice #1
● Create separate profiles for each subdomain:
51

52. Best Practice #2
● To differentiate between visits to identically
named pages:
52

53. Domains with Subdomains
● Add:
● _link() & _linkByPost()
53

54. Advanced Segmentation
● Isolate and analyze subsets of your traffic:
● visits from California
● visits with purchases of $100 or more
54

55. Advanced Segments vs.
Filtered Profiles
● Advanced Segments:
– can be applied to historical data
– are available across all domains and profiles
– can be compared side-by-side in the reports
– are easier to create
● Filtered Profiles:
– to permanently alter or restrict the data that appears in a
profile
– if you need to restrict user access to a subset of data
55

56. Internal Site Search
● Analyzing internal search can help you identify:
● missing or hidden content
● ineffective search results
● keywords not previously identified for search
campaigns
http://javiervidal.net/?s=hola+mundo
query parameter: s
(Can be provided up to 5 query parameters)
56

57. Site Search Reports [1]
● Site Search Usage: compares performance of users
who use site search versus those who do not
● Site Search Terms: only includes visits where a
search is performed
– can compare metrics between internal search
queries
– useful for identifying new keywords
– can be combined with segmentation
● Search Refinement: View the keywords visitors used
to refine their original searches
57

58. Site Search Reports [2]
● Search Navigation: See where visitors who search on
a specific keyword go after viewing the search results
page
● Start Pages: Shows you where visitors begin using
the search function (useful to assess the effectiveness
of landing pages)
● Destination Pages
● Trending
58

59. Goal Conversion and Site
Search
● Goal conversions in the Site Search reports are
based on visits that include at least one
search
59

60. Event Tracking & Virtual
Pageviews
● Cases where a pageview is not generated:
● Flash
● AJAX
● file downloads
60

61. Virtual Pageviews
● Call _trackPageview(filename)
● Best practices:
● Adopt a consistent and clear naming convention
● Filter out the virtual pageviews in a separate profile,
for example, use a virtual directory, /virtual
61

62. Event Tracking
● Event tracking will not generate an extra
pageview
● You can easily organize your events in:
● categories
● actions
● labels
● values
● _trackEvent()
62

63. _trackEvent()
63

64. Advantages of Event
Tracking
● Analyze user interactions in much greater detail
● Avoid inflating your pageview count
64

65. Custom Visitor
Segmentation
● Predefined segmentation variables: City,
Language
● Custom segmentation variables
● _setVar() => only one (visitor-level)
● _setCustomVar()
65

66. Member vs Non-Member
66

67. _setVar() [deprecated]
● __utmv cookie
67

68. _setCustomVar()
_setCustomVar(index, name, value, scope)
● index: slot 1-5
● scope:
● 1: visitor-level
● 2: session-level
● 3: page-level
68

69. Interesting URLs
http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/?hl=en
http://www.seorabbit.com/google-analytics-individual-qualification-test-notes
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/915172/GAIQ_examples.zip
69

70. ¡gracias!