As a general guide, Marketers prefer Google Analytics, IT departments prefer Urchin…

This statement is reflected in the user-base for each product. Urchin is mainly used for measuring intranets (an area of the business that Marketing is not involved in), and used by web-hosting providers where deployment scalability for a large number of websites is important.

On the other hand, Google Analytics, apart from being a free service (Urchin requires a purchased license), is used by organizations that wish to have greater control of their individual web analytics implementation.

Those are not mutually exclusive rules or requirements, so lets look at some criteria.

When GA is the best fit

Select Google Analytics if you are measuring the success (or not) of your website, its ability to convert, and the effectiveness of online marketing. Google Analytics is much easier to implement, has stronger AdWords integration, and by comparison is maintenance free. Site overlay and internal site-search reports are only available in GA.

Google Analytics also has AdSense integration, which Urchin does not, and has the greatest potential for other Google product integrations. This is because Google Analytics is SaaS (Software as a Service) solution running on the Google network. Essentially, it is much, much easier for a vendor to integrate data within its own network, rather than an external stand-alone system.

These are key reasons why marketers love Google Analytics.

When Urchin is the best fit

Select Urchin if:

• You have an intranet site behind a firewall that blocks internet activity. Google Analytics is a hosted solution that needs access to the internet in order to work.
• You are unable to tag your pages*.
• You are a hosting provider wishing to offer visitor reports to thousands of customers. Urchin has a command-line interface that can be scripted to create and modify multiple website reports at once. That is, Urchin has greater flexibility when it comes to large-scale, multi-user deployments.
• You wish to track individual visitors (anonymously). Google Analytics does not track individuals as it is against Google’s privacy policy. Hence GA data is both anonymous and aggregate.

*Note: Some third-party hardware solutions can automatically insert Google Analytics page tags for you on the fly, that is, as the page is requested from your web server. They achieve this by using proxy servers that sit within your network (in front of your web server) and insert the code for you. See, for example, www.click-stream.com, www.coradiant.com.

When you need both

Select both if you need the flexibility of maintaining your own visitor data, for example, for third-party auditing purposes. combining Google Analytics with Urchin Software gives you the best of both worlds—the advanced features of Google Analytics (free) and the flexibility of Urchin (data control). This article: Backup your Google Analytics data and use Urchin describes how you can configure your page tags to stream data both to Google Analytics and Urchin simultaneously.

Recommendations

My recommendation is to use Google Analytics wherever possible. it is easier to implement, has a slicker user interface (with best-in-class geomap overlay reports), and is primarily aimed at Digital Marketers. Urchin Software should be used where there is a specific technical need that Google Analytics cannot fulfill. Urchin currently lacks some marketing features that GA has, though it can track individual visitors anonymously. if you can, use both tools.

Are you considering the merits of Urchin v GA? Please add your thoughts with a comment.

© Brian Clifton for Measuring Success with Google Analytics, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: hybrid, log file, logfiles, Urchin, urchin 6, urchin software

Often these two scenarios overlap, and marketers frequently find themselves using the same toolset as webmasters and web developers. This post is a compendium of useful tools I have used for GA administration. Regardless of your job role, all the tools listed here are straightforward to use.

[ This page is an edited version of Appendix B, taken from the second edition of Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics. The new book is due March 2010 ]

Tools to Audit Your GATC Deployment

The key to being able to improve your website is having good, solid, accurate data that you can rely on. A fundamental step of implementing any web analytics tool is getting the data in – there simply is no point investing in analysis if the data is flawed. After all, garbage in equals garbage out. Maintaining data integrity is key. Adding page tags, the GATC, is therefore not a one-time, “set it and forget it” process. It requires careful deployment planning and regular maintenance checks to ensure data holes do not appear.

[ For background reading, see "What is the Xth thing to do when considering a web analytics implementation?" ]

The following is a list of site scan and site audit tools that can verify the completeness of your GATC:

• 1. SiteScan by EpikOne free and paid software as a service (saas) vendor. Performs a text search and regular expression match for the GATC: www.sitescanga.com
  
• 2. WASP (Web Analytics Solution Profiler) is a Firefox plug-in that detects the setting of the GATC cookies plus 100 other vendor tools. Works on a page-by-page (free) and site-scanning (paid) basis: www.webanalyticssolutionprofiler.com
• 3. Statistics Detector is a free Greasemonkey script for Firefox. Performs a text search and regular expression match for the GATC plus 34 other vendor tools. Works on a page-by-page basis only: http://yoast.com/tools/seo/greasemonkey/statistics-detector/
• 4. ObservePoint is a paid software as a service (saas) vendor. Detects the setting of the GATC cookies plus omniture’s. Works as a site-scanning and monitoring/alert tool: www.observepoint.com
• 5. Accenture Digital Diagnostics (formerly Maxamine) Paid software as a service (saas) vendor. High-end site diagnostic tool: www.accenture.com

As an example, a typical report from the above listed tools would show the following (in addition to the individual URIs):

Pages scanned = 548 (100%)
Pages with correctly functioning GATC = 522 (95.3%)
Number of incorrect GATC = 14 (2.6%)
Number of pages not found (error 404) = 12 (2.1%)

How Often Should I Audit My GATC Implementation?

The main factor to consider here is how often your content changes. If 10 percent of your website content changes each month, then by halfway through the year the majority of your website will have changed. The greater the change, the higher the possibility of errors. Even non-humans such as CMS, CRM systems, and web servers can, and do, make errors. And because page tags are a hidden piece of code, errors are not visible by simply visiting the page in your browser. The result is that page tag errors easily go unnoticed and build up rapidly on your website.

In the early stages of a GATC deployment (or redeployment) I recommend you scan your pages weekly. Assuming there are no holes in your data collection, or they have been fixed, move to a monthly scan after eight weeks. Again, assuming data holes and anomalies have been ironed out, you should be able to move to quarterly scanning frequency by Q3. Maintain quarterly scans until your next major site redesign or a replacement CMS comes online, and then increase the frequency again.

Firefox Add-ons

Add-ons are installable enhancements to the firefox browser. Developed by third- parties, add-ons are capable of customizing firefox by providing additional func- tionality and, best of all, the vast majority of add-ons are free to use. Because of this flexibility, I recommend firefox when viewing Google Analytics reports. More infor- mation on firefox add-ons is available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

The following are add-ons that can help with your implementation and usage of Google Analytics. I use all of them:

• Better Google Analytics This is the mother of all Google Analytics helper add-ons. It enhances Google Analytics with a compilation of Greasemonkey user scripts produced by various authors. At the last count, it incorporated 19 add-ons, including:
• • Automatic access to your Google Analytics account
  • Automatic navigation expansion
  • full-screen view: Removes the side menu
  • Content search direct from the side menu
  • Table sort: sort only what you see, not the entire report data set.
  • Integrated social media metrics: Includes sphinn, Technorati, Digg, stumbleUpon metrics, and several others.
  • Integrated Google Insights search: Perform Google Insights searches on keywords in your reports
  • Advanced date selection: Compare year-on-year data with one click
  • Google Docs export: Adds Google spreadsheets as an export option.
  • Plus it offers a few helper scripts to ease your way around the conversionuniversity.com content. Better Google Analytics is maintained at: www.vkistudios.com/tools/firefox/betterga/

• Goal Copy allows you to copy one set of configured goals over to another profile, and even a profile in another Google Analytics account. Useful when creating multiple carbon copies of profiles, for example, a profile for U.S. visitors separate from U.K. visitors: www.lunametrics.com/blog/2008/01/21/copying-goals-in-google-analytics-a-firefox-extension/
• Web Developer Toolkit is Firefox add-on adds a menu bar to your browser with a whole range of useful features for anyone who has an interest in creating web pages. It has an excellent browser error console and DOM inspector, as well as quick lookup tools for cookies, source code, and so forth: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60
• Firebug This free firefox add-on adds debug capabilities for Javascript, Css, and HTMl live in your browser. Currently with over 20 million downloads, it is one of the most popular firefox add-ons: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843
• Live HTTP Headers is an add-on that allows you to view HTTP headers of a page while you are browsing. All the communication requests sent and received by your browser can be viewed. These can be quite numerous and difficult to follow. Therefore, to follow only Google Analytics requests, set the configuration of this add-on to filter URls With Regexp set to /__utm.gif.*. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3829

Google Chrome is a new browser (released in September 2008) that I find myself using often. Though support for Mac computers is currently limited, Chrome uses extensions in the same way Firefox uses Add-ons. That is, allowing third-party developers to extend its capabilities. For example, the Analytics Helper extension displays a notification if a Google Analytics account code (UA number) is detected in a web page. See: https://chrome. google.com/extensions/search?q=analytics+helper.

Desktop Helper Applications

• WebBug is a Windows application that allows you to enter a URl and see exactly what is sent to the web server and what response is sent back. This is the information that your browser takes care of when rendering a page. I use this mainly to check a web server’s status code response. It is very useful for tracking redirection issues—a common problem that can result in the loss of campaign variables from your landing page URls. WebBug is free to use, Windows only, and is available for download from: www.cyberspyder.com/webbug.html
• Regex Coach is a regular expression validator. Regular expressions (regex) are snippets of pseudo code that match patterns within text. In Google Analytics, regular expressions are used for filtering – both within a report (table filter) and for creating separate profile reports (profile filters), for defining advanced segments, and for configuring goal conversions and funnel steps. In other words, regular expressions are important.Going beyond the basics, things can rapidly appear complex because regular expression often appear like algebra. Therefore, before implementing your regular expression, validate it through the excellent Regex Coach application (Windows only). Regex Coach is free to use and can be downloaded from: http://weitz.de/regex-coach/.

Have I missed any others? If you are using (or have developed) a useful admin tool for Google Analytics please let me know with a comment.

© Brian Clifton for Measuring Success with Google Analytics, 2010. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: accuracy, accurate, page tags, tools, trouble shooting, troubleshoot, troubleshooting, useful

The first edition is nearly two years old – eons in Internet years (well probably equivalent to dog years). Those two years were a great success – both personally for me (reading reviews of your work form people you have never met before always brings a smile to my face and a glow to my cheeks – it’s a fantastic ego boost. So much so, I have to prick my head occasionally to prevent it getting oversized!) and for the publisher, who figured out the business of printing and distributing it was good enough to invite me to update the original.

And that’s how it started out – an update. A few week’s work right, ten at tops.

However, within 3 weeks I was re-writing whole sections. Why? Partly because Google Analytics has advanced so much in that time frame that my approach to optimising web sites had changed; Partly because I believe my writing style has improved dramatically since my first book attempt; And partly because since leaving Google, I have gained more experience of using Google Analytics with some great forward thinking people and clients.

For example, two years ago social networking meant having a Myspace account and a Facebook page. Twitter was hardly even heard of, browsing the web on your mobile was quite simply a PITA (pain in the *ss) and if you used the term MVT most people thought you were referring to music television – not mutlivariate testing!

Now, social marketing is the new SEO, the presidential campaign was won on Facebook (not quite, but social networking was a very large part of fund raising and voter engagement – see the excellent presentation by fellow Xoogler Dan Siroker), eye witness tweets hit the news wire faster than CNN and smartphones are the fastest growing segment of the mobile market. Google is even selling a smartphone itself, as well as producing what is possibly going to be the mobile operating system of choice for the next 10 years.

The result is 7 months of hard graft to bring you what I hope is a much better, easier to digest, up-to-date and engaging book. It is essentially a complete re-write – growing to just beyond the 500 page mark – the first edition is 360 pages and took me 18 months to write. Partly because I was a poor writer, and partly because I was working full time for Google at the time i.e. evening, weekends and holidays were sacrificed in the name of “knowledge transfer”.

Anyhow, I hope you will enjoy it. I will provide an update when ready to launch – hopefully mid February.

© Brian Clifton for Measuring Success with Google Analytics, 2010. | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: book, book launch, new edition, second edition

For example, quoting the Average Order Value for all customers is pretty meaningless. Knowing that the Average Order Value for visitors that have downloaded your PDF catalogue is twice that as people who haven’t, is a KPI that values your digital collateral. It allows you to make informed decisions about its prominence, content, update frequency, cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

[ After defining and configuring goals, I view segmentation as your next most important step for your best practice web analytics setup. ]

Segmentation is important you – no, critical. So what options are available?

Within Google Analytics, there are 3 ways to segment your visitors:

1. As you drill down through your reports (clicking on data links)
2. Using profile filters to provide a dedicated profile
3. Using Advanced Segments

Drilling down into your data is intuitive and self-explanatory and happens as you navigate through your reports. However, what can cause confusion are the segment options available to you using options 2 and 3 – Profile Filters or Advanced Segments.

Profile Filters and Advanced Segments are complementary features. Often I use both, first discovering segments within reports using the Advanced Segments menu. This is a quick and efficient method, because I segment the data immediately and can look back at historical data using the same segment. Then if required, I use Profile Filters to create dedicated report sets just for that segment.

I consider profile filters a longer-term segmentation technique—a permanent way of segmenting visitors. Though profile filters can be changed or removed at any time, the main difference is that once data is segmented out for example, removing the filter does not restore historical un-filtered data—the removed segment is permanently lost.

Advanced segments on the other hand, allow you to apply and remove segments without removing data. The table below compares the usage of each and suggests when one method may be more appropriate than the other.

Table: Comparing Advanced Segments versus Profile Filter uses

Summary for Choosing Advanced Segments versus Profile Filters

Use profile filters to remove “noise” segments from your reports, such as your own staff visitors or your agency, which can be excluded from your target audience. Apply profile filters when the segment defined is a long-term one and unlikely to change—for example, your country offices wish to analyse only visits from within their region, or your support department wishes to focus only on help desk visitors. Use profile filters when you wish to control the level of access, such as providing paid search data to an external agency.

Conversely, use advanced segments when you are drilling down to understand visitor behaviour, for example, comparing the performance of a particular marketing campaign against another, viewing mobile visitors versus desktop visitors, social network versus search engine visitors, or determining whether customers browse differently from non-customers. Apply advanced segments when you need to use conditional operators, such as visitors who spend more than 30 seconds on site or visitors who spend more than $100 per transaction.

As always, your feedback and comments are much appreciated.

© Brian Clifton for Measuring Success with Google Analytics, 2009. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: advanced segment, filter, filters, profile filter, segment, segmentation

Title: Using Google Analytics to Improve Your Online Business

This is a two-day training workshop on web measurement aimed at Marketers and Webmasters. Presented by Brian Clifton and Feras Alhlou (e-nor) 19/20 Oct. If you’re looking to get on top of your web metrics, please drop me a line before sign up as I have a 15% discount code for readers, valid until the end of this week.

If you would just like to stop by and say hello, I will also be at Web Analytics Wednesday (WAW) social event in PA on Thursday(!) October 15, from 6:00 PM

If you bring a copy of the book I will happily autograph it for you

Brian Clifton

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