Measuring Success

Don’t be put off by this Google Analytics book title! There are no maths and you do not need to be an analyst, statistician or engineer – I am not any of these. Essentially, if you have an interest in measuring the success of your web site and you have heard of Google Analytics, then this book is aimed at you.

That’s a broad audience including website owners, marketers, web designers, developers, content creators, PR departments and all the various intermediaries. It’s about measuring for success (the title of the first section) and applies best practice techniques on how to do so using Google Analytics.

There are of course some technical areas where a strong understanding of HTML and JavaScript are required. However, if that does not describe you, read that content to understand the principals involved, skip the code examples, and pass the book to your web developer team to get the details implemented. That way, you will be able to have an informed discussion with your tech team and be fully in control of your website measurement and optimisation.

Now, try one of these:

• Download sample book content: Intro, Table of Contents, Chapter 1 and the Index (1.88Mb PDF)
• or read the book launch post (second edition, March 2010)
• or Order from Amazon.com (.co.uk) or buy the ebook
• or read unsolicited reviews to date (new window)

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The following content is taken from the opening sections of the book

Who Should Read This Book

As a great friend and mentor to me once said, “Advanced web metrics is about doing the basics very well and applying it in a clever way.” I wish I had thought of that phrase! It epitomizes everything about my approach to web analytics and this book. Thus, I have attempted to make this book’s subject matter accessible to a broad spectrum of readers—essentially anyone with a business interest in making their website work better. After all, the concept of measuring success is a universal desire.

The content is not aimed at the complete web novice, nor is it aimed at engineers—I am not one myself. Installing, configuring, or using Google Analytics does not require an engineer! Rather, I hope that Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics will appeal to existing users of business data as well as readers new to the field of web measurement.

As the title implies, this book is intended for people who want to go beyond the basics of simply counting hits. These can be grouped into three user groups:

Marketers: These are users who have experience with search-engine marketing (paid and organic search), email marketing, social search, PR, and affiliate management but have not yet managed to find a unified measurement tool to compare these side by side. For this group, most chapters focus on integrating your analytical skills with your marketing skills and require no coding ability.

Webmasters: These are experienced website builders who have the skill set and authorization to modify a website. For this group of users, the book offers sections and exercises that require you to modify your web page content; after all, web analytics is all about instigating change using reliable metrics as your guide. Therefore, knowledge of HTML (the ability to read browser source code) and experience with JavaScript are required.

Senior managers: These are decision makers who require guidance on preparing a data-driven strategy and action plan for their organization. I hope to supply these readers with an understanding of what can and cannot be achieved with web analytics and specifically provide information they need to plan the resources and timelines required for building an effective Google Analytics measurement team. My aim for this group is to provide you with the information necessary in order to make “informed decisions.”

With a better understanding of your website visitors, you will be able to tailor page content and marketing budgets with laser-like precision for a better return on investment. I also dis- cuss advanced configurations (Chapter 9, “Google Analytics Hacks”), which are not documented elsewhere. These provide you with an even greater understanding of your website visitors so that you can dive into the metrics that make sense for your organization. In as many areas as possible, I include real-world practical examples that are currently employed by advanced users.

You can use this book in several ways. The most straightforward (and demanding) is to start at the beginning and follow all the steps to completion, building your knowledge in a step- wise fashion. Alternatively, I have deliberately designed the book so that you can skip around and delve straight into a chapter as needed. To help with this approach, I frequently reference content within the book or other resources for further reading. However, I do recommend you put time aside to review the initial chapters (Chapters 1–3), as these introduce important approaches to web measurement, such as accuracy and privacy considerations. Web analytics is still a nascent industry and I am actively blogging about Google Analytics, the book’s content and measurement issues in general at www.advanced-web-metrics.com. You can also follow my thoughts or what I am currently reading on Twitter (@brianclifton). You can download all presented code examples from the site using the referenced links within each chapter.

What (I Hope) You Will Learn

You will learn how to implement and use Google Analytics in a best-practice way. I deliberately emphasize the word use because this is the primary purpose of this book. That is, you will learn how to leverage Google Analytics to optimize your website—in terms of marketing, user experience, and ultimately conversions, all based on solid, reliable data.

What You Need

First and foremost, you need an inquisitive mind! This is not an engineering book, and you require no additional software or tools to apply the advice—just a good understanding of what your website is supposed to achieve, how your organization is marketing it, and an idea of the type of metrics that would help you judge its success.

That said, a couple of chapters do require you to have a good understanding of HTML and basic JavaScript skills. If that doesn’t describe you, read this book in conjunction with a col- league who can help you. As you will learn, web analytics requires a multidisciplinary skill set, and collaboration is the key to success.

What Is Covered in This Book

Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics is organized to provide you with a clear step-wise progression of knowledge building.

• Chapter 1: Why Understanding Your Web Traffic Is Important to Your Business introduces you to the world of web measurement, where it fits in, and what you can achieve.
• Chapter 2: Available Methodologies and Their Accuracy provides the context of what can be measured via web analytics and its limitations.
• Chapter 3: Google Analytics Features, Benefits, and Limitations focuses on what Google Analytics can do for you.
• Chapter 4: Using the Google Analytics Interface walks you through the user interface, highlighting the key functionality.
• Chapter 5: Reports Explained reviews in detail the top reports you need to understand.
• Chapter 6: Getting Up and Running with Google Analytics gets you quickly up and running with the basic install.
• Chapter 7: Advanced Implementation takes you beyond the basics to give you a more complete picture of your website’s activity.
• Chapter 8: Best-Practices Configuration Guide provides you with the knowledge to define success metrics (KPIs) and segment your data.
• Chapter 9: Google Analytics Hacks gives you some lateral thinking for adding extra functionality to Google Analytics.
• Chapter 10: Focusing on Key Performance Indicators is about how you focus on the metrics most important to you—KPIs and the process required to build them.
• Chapter 11: Real-World Tasks jump-starts your analytical skills by showing you how to identify and optimize poorly performing pages, site search, and online and offline market- ing. Website Optimizer is introduced as a method for testing a hypothesis.
• Chapter 12: Integrating Google Analytics with Third-Party Applications shows you how to integrate data either by capturing cookies or using the new Google Analytics export API.
• Appendix A: Regular Expression Overview gives you an introduction to understanding regular expressions.
• Appendix B: Useful Tools describes some useful tools for helping you implement and use Google Analytics.
• Appendix C: Recommended Further Reading gathers together books, blogs, and other web resources that can help you.