The purpose of this hack, is to be able to differentiate regional variations of search engines. For example, instead of just reporting search engines as their generic Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. (as Google Analytics will do by default), I want to be more regional specific in order to compare SEM efforts in different countries:

[ Last update Dec 2009: Now 100+ additional SEs + GA defaults (140+ domains). You no longer need to re-define the default set of search engines that Google Analytics uses as this hack now prepends new search engines to GA's list. For details on new prepend revision see: code.google.com ]

• Google.com
• Google.co.uk
• MSN.co.uk
• MSN.fr
• eniro.se
• eniro.no
• maps.google.com (local search)
• etc.

It is straight forward to add to Google’s list of recognised search engines – you simply add your own as described in the following Help Centre article . However, the Help Centre article cannot customise the list – only add new search engines. That is, "google" as a whole has already been defined so adding google.co.uk to the list won’t work as – it’s too late.

This hack was written to enable you to do this (original 2007 post here ).

Some further background…

I discuss this hack in Chapter 9 of the book and show the script to do this. However recent changes in the Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC) has meant that the code no longer works written as it was.

Fortunately after some experimenting (a pseudonym for trial and error!), and help from Tomas Remortigue from Mountain View (all round nice guy and Google Analytics technical wiz), the hack is now fixed and back working

How to track regional search engines

From the book, this is a simple update with respect to the placement of code – the call to the custom_se-ga.js . You can host the script locally (get the file from my scripts directory and place it in /scripts on your web server), or simply link directly to my file as shown.

The JavaScript file first clears the default list of search engines in Google Analytics and then defines 100 regional specific ones. Below is the layout you need to use for GATC:

Schematically, change your standard GATC from:

<script>
     // load the ga.js file
</script>
<script>
     // set account number
     // track pageview visit
</script>

to:

<script>
     // load the ga.js file
</script>
<script>
     // set account number
</script>
<script src="http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/scripts/custom_se-ga.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script>
     // track pageview visit
</script>

Notice the bold line inserted between setting the GA account number and tracking the pageview.

So a full GATC will look as below (remember to replace the account number, beginning with "UA-" with your own):

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>

<script type="text/javascript">
	var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-123456-1");
</script>

<script src="http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/scripts/custom_se-ga.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
	pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

Note: The syntax of the GATC has to be exact for this to work. When in place, your Traffic Sources > Search Engine report will look something like the one below:

If you use this hack, I would be interested to hear want you think, so please add your comments below or provide a rating by clicking the stars.

© Brian Clifton for Measuring Success, 2009. | Permalink | 39 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cusomise, customize, local, regional, search engines

Visits from older generations of Internet enabled mobile phones cannot be tracked by web analytics tools that use page tags – including Google Analytics – as they do not execute JavaScript or cookies. The traditional solution to this was to use a Log analyzer such as Urchin. However the lack of cookie and JavaScript support was precisely the reason so few people used their phone for web access. In many cases sites just failed to work, so tracking the few mobile visitors out there was never a priority – until now.

The newer generation of Smartphones (iPhone, Blackberry etc.) have driven the recent proliferation of web usage via mobile devices by supporting cookies and JavaScript. Therefore visitors accessing your site from a Smartphone can now be tracked – in the exact same way as a desktop or laptop user.

Mobile Web audience statistics

• Mobile web browsing as a proportion of total web browsing is currently very small at 0.72 percent, though growing. [NetMarketingShare via Econsultancy.com blog, March 2009]

• US Smartphone users spent an average of 4.6 hours per month on mobile Internet sites. [M:Metrics via Marketing Charts, May 2008]

• In the US, 63.2m people used their mobiles to find news and information in January 2009, more than double that of January 2008. [comScore, March 2009]

• Of 182 million people in China with Web-enabled mobile phones, 102 million (56 percent) use the devices to connect to the Web. [Netpop Research via Clickz, April 2009]

How to track mobile visitors

As stated, by default Smartphone mobile visitors are tracked just as any other visitor to your website – you don’t have to do anything! However, the caveat is that these are a relatively small proportion of traffic, so are be buried deep in your reports.

In order to bubble these up to the top, you need to create an advanced segment. (If this means nothing to you, take a look at the advanced segment article on the GA Help Centre). The Figure below shows how to create an advanced segment in Google Analytics to highlight your mobile visitors. It detects either the visitor’s operating system or browser type and matches it against a known lookup list. Just as for profile filters, it uses the regular expression pipe character “|” to separate multiple possible matches for the same metric or dimension.(...)
Read the rest of How to track mobile phone users with Google Analytics (230 words)

© Brian Clifton for Measuring Success, 2009. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: advanced segment, advanced segments, filter, Google Analytics, mobile, smartphone, track, tracking

This update allows you to track Bing.com as a search engine in Google Analytics with visitor keyword detail.

Background

Search still has a long way to go in helping people efficiently find information other than for product search, so reading the Bing press release certainly caught my attention. Also see my latest post tracking regional search engines.

Although Google will no doubt apply a bing.com fix in the near future, the “Tracking regional search engines” hack is a script that allows you to define your own specific list of search engines for Google Analytics. For example, by default, Google Analytics groups all Google organic searches a ‘google / organic’. But what if you wish to separate google.com versus google.co.uk versus google.cn and all the other country specific domains? This hack enables this and allows you to define other regional specific engines such as naver.com (Korea), Eniro.com (Sweden) etc. In fact, over 100 regional specific search engines are now included, and you can easily add your own (or ask me to add them here!).

The Bing hack for Google Analytics

Using the script is straight forward – simply call it in your GATC before the function call _trackPageview(). For example, a modified GATC is as follows:

<script type="text/javascript">
   var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>

<script type="text/javascript">
	var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-123456-1");
</script>

<script src="http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/scripts/custom_se-ga.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
	pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

Don’t forget to change to your account number (UA-123456-1). If you are using the legacy urchin.js GATC, refer to the corresponding script in the Hacks section of this site (Hack #2).

Your Traffic Sources > Search Engines report will then look something like this:

As always I appreciate your comments/feedback, or a quick rating by clicking on the stars.

© Brian Clifton for Measuring Success, 2009. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bing, bing.com, search engine, search engine optimisation, search engines, seo

Generally, this issue mostly effects enterprise clients. For example, companies with brand specific or product specific web sites targeted at particular markets. Because of this specific need it makes sense to have separate, stand alone Google Analytics accounts for each web site. That way, segmentation, referral analysis, e-commerce revenue (or lead generation) can be analyzed in detail.

However, Marketing Managers also need a high level overview of how the entire online channel is performing. This is when having separate GA accounts can become laborious. Roll-up reporting simplifies this. That is, in addition to individual Google Analytics accounts, you also have a single "catch-all" account with all data from all web sites aggregated. This post shows you how to do this and was recently successfully deployed by Unicef.org.uk .

What exactly is the advantage of this approach compared to using a single profile and then creating additional sub-profiles for each site?

For enterprise clients I generally come across the scenario where the client has semi-autonomous country offices who wish to “play” (segment, filter, open up access to their agency) with their own specific data. The HQ requires a global overview but wish to leave the country/region details to the local office. In fact, they generally wish to leave all training, support and management of analytics to their local office – HQ provides the implementation.

To ensure HQ receives its global overview with confidence in its data integrity, it is better that they maintain their own GA account with access restrictions and change history documentation in place. Country offices can then do as they wish.

Roll-up reporting setup

The principal to roll-up reporting is straight forward – you add multiple Google Analytics Tracking Codes (GATCs) to your web pages. One specifies the individual account, the other is for the roll-up account. Schematically this is shown below for two websites:

<script>
   Call the standard GA loader script
</script>
<script>
   1. Track the pageview into the individual account
   2. Track the pageview into the roll-up account
</script>

The actual JavaScript is as follows:

<script type="text/javascript">
   var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
   document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>

<script type="text/javascript">
   var firstTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-123456-1");
   // Acc. for mysite.com firstTracker._trackPageview();
   var secondTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-987654-1");
   // Acc. for catch-all secondTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

Note, for each stand alone web site, you use your specific GATC i.e. change the UA-123456-1 to match each of your Google Analytics accounts. Below this, you add the same same roll-up account information. The rollup part of the GATC remains the same for each site. In this case UA-987654-1. Obviously you will need to change the UA numbers for your account(s).

E-Commerce

Special consideration is required for e-commerce transactions because you will need to call the e-commerce tracking code for each account. So _addTrans, _addItem and _trackTrans are required for firstTracker and secondTracker objects. Schematically you need to add the following on your transaction receipt/confirmation page (view the Help Centre if you need general e-commerce tracking help):

   firstTracker._addTrans(enter transaction values as array);
   firstTracker._addItem(enter item values as an array);
   firstTracker._trackTrans();

   secondTracker._addTrans(enter transaction values as array);
   secondTracker._addItem(enter item values as an array);
   secondTracker._trackTrans();

And that’s it… except…(...)
Read the rest of Roll up reporting in Google Analytics (592 words)

© Brian Clifton for Measuring Success, 2009. | Permalink | 32 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aggregate, GATC, multiple, roll up, rollup, using multiple analytics accounts

For example, consider the following scenario: A visitor arrives on your site and likes the blog content so much they decide to subscribe. All activity – from the visitor arriving, viewing pages and then subscribing to your feed is tracked. Note, that even though a RSS subscription usually takes place off-site e.g. to feedburner.com, this can still be tracked using the virtual pageview technique (you could also use event tracking to capture this information). This provides you with an indicator as to the interest of your RSS content. That is, the number of subscribers. All well and good.

However, so far this has all been on-site visitor activity, so it does not tell you what happens next…

Now that your visitor has subscribed, there is no need for them to re-visit your web site when you post your next article. Instead, they simply receive your content in their RSS reader and may never visit you again! Because reading an RSS feed happens off your website, you are not able to track this activity. You will not know if subscribers are reading or engaging with your content.

And that is the problem – your RSS subscribers can read your content, enjoy it (have great engagement, or not) and you will be totally unaware of one of your most important visitor types – your influencers. Unless that is, you make the following changes…

Tracking RSS viewers (using Google Analytics)

Although this example uses Google Analytics, the same technique can be applied to any on-site web analytics tool. Essentially, there are two important parts to creating a trackable blog feed:

1. Crafting the article to entice RSS click-throughs – so they can be tracked on your site
2. Crediting these to your feed using filters – to highlight RSS in your reports

(...)
Read the rest of Creating the perfect (trackable) blog article (634 words)

© Brian Clifton for Measuring Success, 2009. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blog, filter, Google Analytics, google reader, tracking RSS, wordpress, yahoo reader