1. Google University at Tech 4 Africa
10 August 2010
Sarah Blake

2. Hello
Head of Engage and
Optimise at Quirk
eMarketing
(But please don’t Google
me!)

3. 1 x Celebration
1 x Irritation
3 x Something I want to learn today
(5 post-its)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/langleyo/4222627030

4. MORNING
9 - 9.30 >> welcome & introductions
9.30 - 10 >> why web analytics + introduction to Google Analytics. The GA
cookie. What it can and cannot track.
10 - 10.30 >> setting up account best practice
10.30 - 11 >> conversion tracking
11 - 11.30 >> tea
11.30 - 12.30 >> reports and metrics
LUNCH
12.30 - 1.30
AFTERNOON
1.30 - 3 >> AdWords
3. - 3.15 >> tea
3.15 - 4.30 >> diving into your data
Come armed with questions!

5. (In case I’ve forgotten to mention this
already)
• Ask questions – any questions
• The last session is all about your questions
and your data – so start thinking about
what you want to ask (and what logins you
might need to ask it)

6. Starting out: web
analytics and a brief
introduction to
Google Analytics
Credit: Stuck in Customs http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/

7. Why web analytics?

8. Web analytics
• The web makes things measurable – so
measure it!
• Campaign reporting – ROI
• Understand user behaviour

9. Why Google Analytics?

10. Why Google Analytics
• It’s free!
• It’s powerful and customisable
• It has pretty reports
• You can track A LOT (if you know how to)

11. How does Google Analytics work?

17. The code

18. “traditional” - immediately before the </body> tag of your page
Asynchronous - just before the closing </head> tag

19. Why asynchronous
• Documentation
• Should reduce latency concerns
• Should improve data accuracy

20. The cookie

21. Google Analytics Cookie
• First party cookie
• Used to identify a visitor as well as visits
(sessions)
• Includes referral information (where did
the visitor come from?)
• Builds visit information (what did the user
do?)
• No PII!

22. Google Analytics Cookies
Name Descrip,on Expira,on
__utma Unique visitor 2 years from set/update.
30 minutes from set/
__utmb Unique visit (session) update.
__utmc Also unique visit (session) Not set.
__utmz Type of referral (updated with each 6 months from set/update.
visit)
__utmv Custom variable 2 years from set/update.
__utmx Google Website OpHmiser 2 years from set/update.

23. One of the best ways to see if Google
Analytics has been installed correctly is to
check the cookie is being set.

27. In your favourite browser, view cookies
and search for a domain. You can see the
cookies that have been set, and you can
see the Google Analytics cookies there as
well.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jblndl/45769316

28. Google Analytics Cookies
Name Descrip,on Expira,on
__utma Unique visitor 2 years from set/update.
30 minutes from set/
__utmb Unique visit (session) update.
__utmc Also unique visit (session) Not set.
__utmz Type of referral (updated with each 6 months from set/update.
visit)
__utmv Custom variable 2 years from set/update.
__utmx Google Website OpHmiser 2 years from set/update.

29. Privacy Policy

30. Google Analytics + Privacy
• First party cookies.
• No personally identifiable data.
• Aggregate data is used to understand user
behaviour and improve the web experience.
• “This site uses a cookie to collect
anonymous traffic data.”
• You can provide opt-out information.
• IP masking is available as well.

31. Setting up a Google
Analytics account the
right way
Credit: Caro Wallis http://www.flickr.com/photos/carowallis1/

32. Accounts & Profiles
Administrators and Users

34. Account: UA-475313 Profile: UA-475313-4

35. Profiles: use a different
profile number and
therefore different
code; usually for a
different domain.

36. Profiles: or use filters
on the same domain
and profile number

37. Use profiles for
• Microsites / campaigns
• Reporting on segments of traffic / visitors
• Granting limited access when required
• Testing code changes

40. Administrators can make changes, delete
and add profiles. You can have many
administrators.
Users can view reports of select profiles
only. You can have many users.
A Google Account (email address) can
have access to many different accounts
and profile.

41. Very key takeaway: create a new account
for each brand / client.
Campaign sites can be profiles in the
same account.

42. Potential considerations you should be
aware of
• Large amount of traffic
• Crosses multiple domains and sub-
domains
• Non-HTML pages you want to track
• Dynamically created pages
• Frames
• Flash
• eCommerce

43. So, let’s get to it
(even if you already have an account set
up, it’s worth going through this)

48. Full URL of your website.
Include subdomains. This
populates the account name.

49. Make account names easy
to find in a long list.

50. Timezone and territory are
taken from your AdWords
account.

51. User agreement
• Part of the user agreement is to share data
(anonymously) for benchmarking.
• If you don’t share your data, you don’t get
access to benchmarking reports.
• You can always change your mind later.

52. Tracking code – always asynch now!
• Basic customisations are available
– Many domains and subdomains
• Generate mobile code here as well

53. Key customisations in account setup
• Always keep an unfiltered profile
• Reporting profile – remove internal and
agency traffic!
• Testing profile – test new filters, etc

54. Key customisations in account setup
• Set your homepage

55. Key customisations in account setup
• Remove unnecessary parameters (such as
sessionids)

56. Key customisations in account setup
• Apply AdWords data

57. Key customisations in account setup
• Enable eCommerce (and don’t forget to set
up the tracking!)

58. Key customisations in account setup
• Enable site search (NB: you might need to
switch the search to GET)

59. If laptops and logins are handy, we can run
through this right now
• Profiles – unfiltered, reporting, testing
• Set homepage
• Remove unnecessary parameters*
• Apply AdWords data*
• Enable eCommerce*
• Enable site search
Customisations are done per profile, not per
account!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jblndl/45769316

60. Tracking code customisations
• # for tracking
• Sampling
• IP masking
• Domains and subdomains
• Session timeout
• Cookie duration

61. Install script

62. Check it!
Check the cookie.
Check the account after 24 hours.
Remember your profiles + filters and look
in the right place.

63. Key customisations
• Use annotations
– Helps to identify the effect of offline activity

64. Goals and Tracking
Conversions

65. Digital objectives (also called goals)
KPIs – the metrics that matter

66. The key questions
• Why does my website exist?
• What do I want my visitors to do?

67. What do I want my visitors to do

68. What do I want my visitors to do >
TRACKING CONVERSIONS

69. A conversion is a defined action that we
want a user to take. It’s often called a
goal. And a user is also called a visitor.

70. Google offers three types of conversion
tracking
• AdWords Conversion Tracking
• eCommerce Tracking
• Goal Tracking

71. AdWords Conversion Tracking
• Implement tracking code on conversion
page.
• Reports on AdWords traffic only.

72. eCommerce Tracking
• If they’re using a credit card, use
ecommerce tracking.
• Collects transaction ids, product
information, etc > lots of detail.
• 3rd part payment solutions, iframes,
subdomains etc all need careful attention.
• It does not convert currencies.

73. Goal tracking: (usually)
no code manipulation
• URL destination (actions)
• “Engagement” goals
• 20 goals / profile
• Goals allow for funnels, so use in
conjunction with ecommerce tracking
• Goals can be imported into AdWords
• Values can be assigned

74. Goals – a little bit more in depth
Why? Because as account administrators,
we can do pretty much all of this ourselves.
And they’re really important.

75. Engagement goals
• Time on site
• Pageviews / visit
• Content sites?
• But there are other metrics you might want
to consider

76. URL destination
• Use to track desired actions
• Use the URL of the page seen once action
has taken place
– Thank you page
– Confirmation page
• You just need to input from the first folder
on

77. Three match types
• Exact
• Head
• Regular expression

78. Making them more useful
• Assign a value > helps to determine ROI
If 25% of people who download the ebook buy the print version.
And the print version gives a profit of R100.
Then I could assign R25 to each download.

79. Making them MUCH more useful > funnels
• Define the steps in the
path to conversion
• In the report, identify
problem areas
• You might need to make
friends with regular
expressions!

80. Funnels > why you would use goals AND
ecommerce tracking together

83. Goals also give you a Reverse Goal Path
report

86. Some customisations that might be needed
• Virtual pageviews > when there is no
unique URL
• Regular expressions > when there are
variations that need to be reported
together

87. http://www.flickr.com/photos/motograf/1071219987