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What Is Web Analytics?

Friday, October 30th, 2009

What is Web Analytics?

Web Analytics is a software that, once implemented into the code of a website, allows a website owner to track visitor movement such as pageviews, ecommerce transactions, pages visited, and time spent on site. It also allows website owners to track which online marketing mediums are driving traffic to their site. These are just some of the capabilities that an analytics software can offer. There are many Analytics software programs available; some more robust than others. Read More

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GAAC + WOAC Summit 2009

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Two weeks ago, Google held its annual GAAC, WOAC and USAC Summit in Mountain View, California.  Two representatives from 6S attended and got the scoop on all of the new features being rolled out for Google Analytics and Website Optimizer.

First a little bit of background.  Back in 2007, 6S Marketing was the second company in Canada to be designated as Google Analytics Authorized Consultants (GAAC).  Then in October 2008, 6S was appointed as official Website Optimizer Authorized Consultants (WOAC).  Today, we are one of five Canadian companies who have the dual certification.

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Google Analytics Intelligence

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Standard_deviation_diagramA couple of new features were released today in Google analytics, and are available for some people now – soon to be pushed out to all accounts. Google have been looking to re-position the GA for the more enterprise level customer and a number of these new features look to step up the level of data and strategic insight that users are able to glean from it.

The first of the new features is ‘Intelligence’. In what is the first of a phased roll out of new features the Intelligence report which will give user access to an algorithm-driven intelligence engine in Google Analytics. That sounds fancy, but what does it mean? Well, in essence google is now giving users the ability to automatically highlight key changes to their site metric over time. For instance the intelligence tool will be able to see if there is declining trend in conversion by comparing similar conversion points over time. So you won’t need to toggle back and forth across time to see if this weeks conversions dropped compared to the same day last week or month. the Intelligence tool will be able to spot interesting trending changes in your data automatically tell you.

Click for more on Google Analytics Intelligence

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New Google Analytics Features Announced

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

authorized-consultants2It’s all change at Google Analytics. Today saw the roll out of a range of new features. These new updates have been released under the catchy tag line of Powerful. Flexible. Intelligent. However what does this fancy marketing speak really mean? Is it possible that we are seeing a re-positioning of Google Analytics?

Well maybe. Originally aimed at the low level user who wanted to have free easy to use site statistics, Google has always positioned GA as the solution for the small to medium level user. However with the roll out of these new features Google may just be looking to capture the bigger fish! And who would blame them? With the acquisition of Omniture by Adobe earlier this month maybe they see an opportunity to attract the more enterprise level users. Read More

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Google Analytics Hacked?

Friday, June 26th, 2009

There is an article out right now that’s sending companies around the world into a frenzy.  The article covers accounts of company websites with the default Google Analytics implementation script, being replaced with a string of characters that do not belong. Read More

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Applying Cost Data in Google Analytics

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

In March Google updated the way in which Analytics tracks cost data. An email sent out by Google informed users that it will now only display Clicks/CPC Source/Paid Keyword Traffic if either the cost Data is applied or auto tagging is turned off and you manually tag your CPC ads.

This wasn’t a huge change but if you didn’t understand what it meant it could bring up some interesting changes in your reports. A lot of people use the filter described in this blog post – http://tiny.cc/IyI22 to focus on their CPC traffic and keyword referrals. In order to have this filter work properly you will need to ensure that the cost source data from your AdWords is applied to the profile. Google will no longer automatically tag the referrals from your AdWords account. In most cases you won’t even notice the difference as this option is defaulted on when you set up a new profile. However profiles set up previous to the change will not have this on unless you specified it and you may see some strange data in your reports.

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Google Universal Search Tracking Parameters

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

Have you implemented Google Analytics filters to track Universal Search traffic, and wonder what all of those “oi” parameters mean?  So did we.  That’s why we’ve put together this handy reference for all the ones we’ve come across.

Have some other “oi” parameters to add?  Drop a note in the comments.

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Changes to Google Analytics

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

On March 4th, Google will be implementing some changes to the way Google AdWords cost data is imported into Google Analytics. These changes will aim to improve security and provide greater control.

Currently, when setting up new Analytics profiles, “Apply Cost Data” is selected by default; however after the changes implemented on March 4th, it will be necessary to choose this option when setting up new Analytics profiles.

Be sure to make the necessary changes to your Analytics accounts by the 3rd of March to ensure correct data collection.

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Flash and Google Analytics: Google ports ga.js to Actionscript 3

Monday, November 17th, 2008


Today Google announced a major update to the Google Analytics platform in regards to it’s ability to track flash events. As previewed to us Google Analytics Authorized Consultants at the 2008 GAAC and WOAC conference, the javascript tracking code ga.js has been fully ported to Actionscript 3 meaning that it just got a whole lot easier to track user interaction with flash files in Google Analytics.

Flash, Flex, and AS3 content will now be far easier to track, even across multiple domains. The new tracking code has two modes, Bridge Mode and AS3 Mode. Selecting the mode will determine how your tracking communicates with the Google Analytics servers.

Bridge Mode

Bridge Mode is used most effectively when Flash elements are part of a larger site, for example a site which is largely PHP-based but has Flash-based banners or navigation. Bridge mode will tie the interactions with these elements into that page’s Analytics numbers. This will create a view where the Flash elements and other elements are all part of the same page.

AS3 Mode

AS3 Mode is designed for situations where the creator and host of the flash file may not have control over the environment where the flash file is displayed, but is the primary host of the SWF file. AS3 mode will be a boon to game creators and advertisement hosts alike. AS3 mode treats the SWF flash file as an independant object, and collects analytics data for interactions with this object separately from the page in which it is embedded. For example, it would be ideal to track a flash game which is centrally hosted, but is embedded on a number of flash game websites.

Google’s public announcement can be read on their Analytics blog here, and the technical details can be read here.

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Google Analytics – Exploring metrics…Gotta love benchmarking!

Friday, April 18th, 2008

There is so much data available in Google Analytics (GA) that it can be difficult to decide where to start with exploring the metrics. Traditionally analytics focus was placed upon the more commonly measured metrics such as visitors, page views and subsequent conversion for those visits to action. In my opinion it is completely ambiguous to measure conversion against “industry standards”. How do you ever compare the loose term “conversion” to other category websites when marketing efforts always differ, brand awareness comes into play, and there is a multitude of conversion funnels that can occur from one web property to another? For example, conversion to form submission, conversion to sale, conversion to pdf download, conversion to login etc… the list goes on…

Recently Google released benchmarking functionality within GA. Benchmarking is still in beta, but is accessible through all Google Analytics Accounts under the visitors tab in the GA interface. Benchmarking allows users to compare their core site metrics with websites of similar size and content categories. Finally a legitimate “industry standard” to measure against! Here at 6S Marketing in Vancouver we have found this quick reference ability invaluable. 6S Marketing works with many great clients in the hotel and accommodations industry throughout the region. It is so refreshing to now have the ability to measure the performance of our client sites against the other websites in the industry. Comparison metrics include “visits”, “bounce rate”, “page views”, “average time on site”, “pages per visit” and “new visits”.

My personal favorite is “bounce rate”. I have traditionally found this metric difficult to gage and act upon as it so very dependant on industry and the nature of the site. For example – How interactive is your home page? Is the content fresh and engaging? Are you driving completely qualified visitors to your site? Do your landing pages cater specifically to the content needs of your audience? Etc…

The benchmarking beta is a fantastic way to dictate if you need continued focus on improving bounce rate on site, or if you are meeting the potential of your site.

Google Analytics Benchmarking Beta Feature

As Google Analytics evolves we are seeing more and more quick reference functions being built into the tool. Many of my favorite functions are still in beta, namely the Graph By [fig 1 below] functionality where you can view trends by day, week or month (such a seemly simple feature but has made life much easier since it came along). Another really cool feature worth checking out is the metric comparison feature [fig 2 below]. More and more we are seeing features coming out of beta. Thank you to Google for continually innovating and becoming increasingly responsive to the feedback from the Google Analytics Authorized Consultant (GAAC) community.

Google Analytics Benchmarking Feature - Graph View

Good reading:
Avinash Kaushik (Google Evangelist) talks realistically about bounce rates in his blog Occam’s Razor. http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/08/standard-metrics-revisited-3-bounce-rate.html

Also Wikipedia as ever is a good resource to start research in and around any topic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_Rate

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6S Marketing helped us execute a highly targeted and measurable search engine marketing strategy for the Victoria Marriott. Our overall web site traffic has increased by over 50% within a year which resulted in a 45% increase in leads to our reservation page. Not only do we have a strong web presence but our organic traffic has increased by 65% and we are ranked in the top 10 for our main key phrases. We have also achieved prominent placement in the Google local results 10 pack.
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