Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 4: Tacking Lead Gen Forms

July 2, 2008 by Justin Cutroni

One thing that I try to stress in my client work and training is that Google Analytics is a platform. If you understand the framework you can use it to track many different things. E-commerce tracking is one part of Google Analytics that is particularly flexible and can be used many different ways.

There’s a lot you can do with e-commerce tracking even if you’re a non-commerce site. You can use the e-commerce reporting to monetize lead gen forms and measure visitor interactions with a form.

The Need

Let’s say we have a lead gen site that sells books, cars and jets (a completely unlikely combination). The site has a very simple lead generation form that let’s the user choose the item they are interested in and their time frame for purchase.

We want to measure which fields visitors fill out, the values they choose, and the overall value of the form.

The Implementation

To measure the above I created a simple form using HTML and JavaScript. Here’s what the form looks like:

And here is the source of the above form:

When the visitor submits the form the JavaScript code assigns a value to both the item that the visitor chose and their time frame for purchase. It then calculates a total value for the form by summing both values.

In this example a form that includes a high priced item (like a jet) and a short time frame (buy now!) is worth more than a low priced item with an unknown time frame. I chose arbitrary values for each item and each time frame, but you could derive these values from business data.

After manipulating the data the code places both pieces of information in the GA e-commerce format where they are happily whisked away to Google.

I decided to do all of the calculations in JavaSript because it was easy. You could create a “form calculator” on the server side, but you would still need to format the data like a transaction in order to send it to Google Analytics.

The Data & Analysis

Remember, we’re using the e-commerce framework to equate products to form choices. So any report that displays product information will really show form elements and their values.

The best example of this is the E-Commerce > Product Performance > Product Overview report. This report simply lists all of the products that were purchased in all of the transactions.

Based on the way I created the code, each “product” in the report will be a combination of the item that he visitor is interested in and their time frame for purchase.

Google Analytics Prodcut Performance Report.

How is this data actionable? This information is the direct voice of the visitor. The visitor is literally telling us what they want and when they want it.

From the report above we can see that everyone wants a jet. Most visitors did not specify a time frame for purchase but one visitor wanted a jet today. I’d call that a hot lead!

Another report that is very useful is the E-commerce > Transactions report. In our configuration this report lists all of the forms that have been submitted and the value of each.

Google Analytics Transaction Report for Lead Gen Site.

The great thing about this report is we can drill into each transaction and review the specific form details. If I click on the first transaction in the report above I get the details of the form (see image below).

Individual Google Analytics Transaction Detail

I know this example is not that exciting, but image a form with many, many fields. You would be able to see all of the visitor’s choices and better understand what made a specific form valuable.

The effect of using e-commerce tracking for a lead gen form goes far beyond the e-commerce reports. Remember many reports in Google Analytics have an e-commerce tab that displays monetary metrics related to the data in a report.

For example, the Traffic Source > All Traffic Sources report will show metrics like average order value, transactions and revenue for each traffic source. If you use standard goal tracking you will only get conversion rate. I think this is far more valuable.

Google Analytics Traffic Sources report for Lead Gen.

A Reminder

You’ve probably figured out that you can use e-commerce to collect many different types of data. Please be mindful of your site’s visitors and the Google Analytics privacy policy. It is not permitted to collect personally identifiable information using Google Analytics.

This is part 4 in a multi-part series on e-commerce tracking. You may be interested in parts 1, 2 and 3:

Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 1: How It Works
Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 2: Installation & Setup
Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 3: Why EVERYONE Should Use It


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Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 3: Why EVERYONE Should Use It

June 25, 2008 by Justin Cutroni

Google Analytics Visits to Purchase and Time to Purchase reportsThe Google Analytics e-commerce reports contain two specific reports that I believe are critical to understanding the behavior of site visitors: Days to Purchase and Visits to Purchase. These reports are the only way to measure the online sales cycle using Google Analytics.

But, as their names imply, these reports are focused on commerce. But not all websites are commerce based. What if we have a lead gen website? We want to measure how long it takes to get a lead, not make a purchase.

Herein lies the problem: there is no “time to conversion” or “visits to conversion” report in Google Analytics.

To get around this little issue EVERYONE should use GA e-commerce tracking to measure conversions, regardless of site purpose.

The Reports

Before I talk about how to set up e-commerce tracking for a non-commerce site let’s discuss the Visits to Purchase and Time to Purchase reports and how they can be used. Remember, in this application of e-commerce tracking “purchases” are really just conversions.

Here’s the first report we want to use, the Visits to Purchase report.

Google Analytics Visits to Purchase Report

The Visits to Purchase report shows how many visits a visitor generated before they converted. The chart above shows that most visitors convert on the first visit. This is good. It means that visitors come to the site, find what they need and convert. This can also be very bad, it means that we have one chance to get someone to convert. If they do not convert on the first visit then we may not get another chance.

Let’s pair this data with the Time to Purchase report to better understand how much time passes between a visitor’s initial visit and their “conversion” visit.

Google Analytics Days to Purchase report

The data indicates that everyone converts on Day 0, or the current day. This makes sense since most everyone converts on their first visit.

But what if most conversion occurred on the second visit? If conversions happen on the second visit, but still on Day 0, it means that visitors are probably doing some research prior to conversion and are checking another site on the same day before returning to our site to convert.

Knowing how many visits to a site it takes to convert a visitor is very actionable. What if the data indicates that visitors convert after the third visit? This means that we need to get a visitor back the site a third time to have any chance for a conversion. We may change our keyword bidding strategy to target visitors that are further along in the conversion cycle or we might try to collect an email address to send them additional information via email.

The key concept is that this data explains how many times we need to get the visitor to return to the site in order to generate a conversion.

If we do not using the e-commerce code to track “conversions” then we do not have access to this information.

One More Reason to use E-Commerce

There is one other reason why I like to use e-commerce tracking to track conversions. Google Analytics will only track one conversion per visit. If a visitor converts multiple time at the same goal Google Analytics will only count one conversion.

However, GA will track multiple purchases per visit. Is this a big deal? Not really. But if you want to make the data as accurate as possible, and have a goal that can be achieved multiple times per visit, then try using a transaction to track it.

Plus, using e-commerce to track conversions adds an extra “goal” to each profile, bringing the total to 5. Woo hoo!

Installation & Setup

There are three basic steps necessary to use the e-commerce tracking code on a non e-commerce site. While the steps are similar to those described in my previous post on installation there is one big difference. Let’s walk through each step.

Step 1: Activate the Reports

The first step in setting up GA e-commerce tracking is enabling the e-commerce reports. Log into GA and edit the profile settings. Specify that your site is an e-commerce site. This enables the e-commerce reports.

Google Analytics E-Commerce Reports

Remember, the e-commerce reports is a profile setting that is “off” by default. You’ll need to activate the reports for each new profile you create.

Step 2: Tag your Receipt Page

I know this seems like a silly step, but make sure you add the GA tracking code you your receipt page. You must have the standard GA tracking code on your receipt page in order to track purchases.

Step 3: Install the Code

This is where the installation differs from the standard installation. To measure purchases with Google Analytics you need to add the following code to your thank you page. The code does not need to be modified in any way.


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

<script type='text/javascript'>
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-30208-1");
pageTracker._setLocalRemoteServerMode();
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();

// Some simple code to create a fake order ID
var timeObj        = new Date;
var unixTimeMs   = timeObj.getTime();
var unixTime      = parseInt(unixTimeMs / 1000);
var orderID        = pageTracker._visitCode() + '-' + unixTime;

pageTracker._addTrans(
      orderID, // required
      "",
      "",
      "",
      "",
      "",
      "",
      ""
); 

pageTracker._addItem(
      orderID, // required
      "",
      "",
      "",
      "1",  // required
      "1"   //required
); 

pageTracker._trackTrans();

You’ll notice that I added the e-commerce code to the regular GA page tag, but you can add it anywhere on the page. I just like keeping things together, it seems more organized to me.

You’ll also notice there is a lot of missing information in the above code. I’ve added the bare minimum for the tracking to still work. Don’t worry about the missing data, GA will still track a transaction, i.e. a conversion, and we will be able to use the Visits to Purchase and Time to Purchase reports.

That’s it. Once the code has been added you’ll start to see some data in your Visits to Purchase and Days to Purchase reports.

Got an interesting story to share about your e-commerce implementation? I would love to hear about it below in a comment.

Remember, this is part 3 in a multi-part series on e-commerce tracking. You may be interested in parts 1, 2 and 4:

Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 1: How It Works
Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 2: Installation & Setup
Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 4: Tacking Lead Gen Forms


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I’m Back. Finally.

June 20, 2008 by Justin Cutroni

After a hiatus that was much too long I am back blogging! Many people have emailed me asking why I have not posted in so long. The simple answer is I was really, really, busy with work.

Specifically I’ve been working on Google Analytics Seminars for Success. This is a two day training session held in different cities. We had one in San Francisco in March and another in Boston in May. Both went really well and we’ll be holding our third session in Portland, OR on July 23 and 24. Checkout out the Seminars for Success website for more information. I think these seminars are a tremendous value, $498 for 2 days of GA training.

So what happens to blog traffic when you don’t post for 5 months? Does it completely tank? Nope, in fact traffic has been flat over the last few months.

Visits to Analytics Talk

Note the small drop off in June, but that’s due to the display of the data.

The driver of my traffic is primarily Google organic search, so things have been chugging along even though I have not posted any new content. I’m no SEO expert, but the Google bot loves my writing!

While traffic has been flat, subscribers, one of my success metrics subscribers has increased. Sure, it’s been a slow increase, but it’s headed up and to the right.

Subscribers to Analytics talk

Another metrics that I monitor closely (as does every blogger I know) is my Technorati rank. Surprisingly my rank has remained fairly consistent with a value of (about) 32,000 and an authority of 162 (sorry, no graph for Technorati rank).

Finally…

I want to thank everyone that emailed me asking if everything was OK. I really appreciate the concern and well wishes. I also want to apologize to everyone that posted a comment and received no response. I’m in the process of catching up on the 900 pending comments.

Blog to you soon.

Justin


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Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 2: Installation & Setup

January 22, 2008 by Justin Cutroni

This is part 2 in my series on Google Analytics e-commerce tracking. In part 1 I described, at a conceptual level, how GA e-commerce tracking works. In this post I’ll get into the specifics of the code and how to install it.

This isn’t the most exciting stuff (that will be part 3), but a correct setup leads to correct data. :)

Step 1: Activate the Reports

The first step in setting up GA e-commerce tracking is enabling the e-commerce reports. Log into GA and edit the profile settings. Specify that your site is an e-commerce site. This activates the e-commerce reports.

Google Analytics E-Commerce Reports

There are other e-commerce settings that don’t get much use (unless you’re an international site). You can specify one of 25 different currencies (wow!) and the number of decimal places you would like displayed (1,2 or 3). Even if you use USD you can specify 3 decimal places. Go ahead and try it, it’s interesting.

Remember, e-commerce reports is a profile setting that is “off” by default. You’ll need to activate the reports for each new profile you create.

Step 2: Tag your Receipt Page

I know this seems like a silly step, but make sure you add the GA tracking code you your receipt page. You must have the standard GA tracking code on your receipt page in order to track transactions. The reason is that the e-commerce tracking code is stored in the ga.js. If this file is not included on the receipt page then you can’t track transactions.

Step 3: Install the Code

This is the hard part: code construction. As we learned in part 1, GA uses a JavaScript collection technique to track e-commerce transactions. Your server code must inject transaction information into the GA JavaScript before sending the receipt page back to the browser. When the receipt page renders in the visitor’s browser the JavaScipt executes and sends the transaction info to GA.

Get ready for some construction.

Let’s take a look at the code:


<script type="text/javascript">
pageTracker._addTrans(
      "order-id", // required
      "affiliate or store name",
      "total",
      "tax",
      "shipping",
      "city",
      "state",
      "country"
); 

pageTracker._addItem(
      "order-id", // required
      "SKU",
      "product name",
      "product category",
      "unit price",  // required
      "quantity"  //required
); 

pageTracker._trackTrans();
</script>

The three parts of GA e-commerce trackingThe first thing that you’ll notice is that there are three distinct parts to the JavaScript. Each is a different method. The first section, identified by the _addTrans() method, creates the transaction and stores all the information about the transaction.

The second section, identified by the _addItem() method, is used to add an item to the transaction. You need to create an _addItem() section for each different item, or SKU, in the transaction. The order ID in the _addItem() method must be the same order ID used in the _addTrans() method. That’s how GA ties an item to a transactions.

The final section is the _trackTrans() method. This method actually sends the data to GA by requesting the __utm.gif file once for the transaction and once for each item in the transaction. So if you have 3 different SKUs in a transaction there will be 4 requests fot the __utm.gif.

The above JavaScript can appear anywhere on your receipt page. Just make sure that it appears after the main GA page tag. The reason is that the e-commerce code is part of the pageTracker object. If the pageTracker object has not been created then you can’t call the e-commerce methods.

Just to reiterate a point: you must create server side code that outputs the transaction data in the format above. If you do not have access to your shopping cart code, and your cart provider does not provide e-commerce tracking, then you may be out of luck.

Once the code has been installed you should begin to see e-commerce data in your reports.

Notes and Suggestions

Like many things in Google Analytics, there are some things that can trip you up:

  • If you do not wish to pass a certain piece of data to GA then do not add anything between the quotation marks. The only required fields are the order ID, the unit price of each item and the quantity of each item. Everything else is optional.
  • Do not use currency identifiers or commas (to separate thousands) in any of the numeric fields (i.e. total, tax, shipping). These characters have caused problems in the past.
  • Each piece of transaction data that you send to Google Analytics becomes a data element in GA, just like any other piece of data in GA (geo data, campaign data, browser data, etc.). You can do all sorts of neat things with filters and e-commerce data. More on this later.
  • The affiliate or store name field is no longer used in the GA reports. However, the data is still collected by GA so you can use it in a filter.
  • The transaction geographic data collected by GA is no longer used BUT it is collected. Google Analytics determines the location of the user, and thus their transaction, based on their IP address. The old version of the GA tracking code used the data specified in the transaction. Like the affiliate field, the data can be used in a filter.

Up Next

In the next post I’m going to talk about some creative ways to use e-commerce tracking. Specifically, why I believe that everyone should use e-commerce tracking on their website.

This is part 1 in a multi-part series on e-commerce tracking:

Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 1: How It Works
Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 3: Why EVERYONE Should Use It
Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 4: Tacking Lead Gen Forms


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Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 1: How It Works

January 13, 2008 by Justin Cutroni

This post is the first in a series of e-commerce transaction tracking with Google Analytics. Why is e-commerce tracking important? Well, transaction data is a vital piece of information when analyzing online business performance.

Sure, it’s great to measure things like conversion rate, but revenue is much more tangible to many business owners. Having the e-commerce data in your web analytics application makes it easier to perform analysis. Do you need to set up e-commerce tracking? No, but it sure helps. :)

The Big Pictures

E-commerce tracking is based on the same principal as standard pageview tracking. JavaScript code sends the data to a Google Analytic servers by requesting an invisible gif file. The big difference is that e-commerce data is sent rather than pageview data.

But how does Google Analytics get the e-commerce data? That’s the tricky part. You, the site owner, must create some type of code that inserts the transaction data into the GA JavaScript. Sounds tricky, huh? Well, its not that bad.

Step by Step: How it Works

Let’s break it down and walk through what actually happens.

1. The visitor submits their transaction to your server.

2. Your server receives the transaction data and processes the transaction. This may include a number of steps at the server level, such as sending a confirmation email, checking a credit card number, etc.

3. After processing the transaction the server prepares to send the receipt page back to the visitor. While preparing the receipt page your server must extract some the transaction data and insert it into the Google Analytics JavaScript. This is the code that you must create.

4. The receipt page is sent to the visitor’s browser.

5. While the receipt page renders in the visitor’s browser the e-commerce data is sent to Google Analytics via special GA JavaScript.

Here’s a basic diagram of the process. Again, the biggest challenge during implementation is adding code to your web server that inserts the transaction data, in the appropriate format, into the receipt page. I’ll cover the setup in part 2 of this series.

What Data can be Tracked?

Google Analytics collect two types of e-commerce data: transaction data and item data. Transaction data describes the overall transaction (transaction ID, total sale, tax, shipping, etc.) while item data describes the items purchased in the transaction (sku, description, category, etc.). All of this data eventually ends up in GA reports. Here’s a complete list of the data:

Transaction Data

  • Transaction ID: your internal transaction ID [required]
  • Affiliate or store name
  • Total
  • Tax
  • Shipping
  • City
  • State or region
  • Country

Item Data

  • Transaction ID: same as in transaction data [required]
  • SKU
  • Product name
  • Product category or product variation
  • Unit price [required]
  • Quantity [required]

A few notes about the data. First, the geo-location data is no longer used by Google Analytics. The new version of GA tries to identify where the buyer is located using an IP address lookup.

Also, you should avoid using any non-alpha numeric characters in the data. Especially in the numeric fields. Do not add a currency identifier (i.e. dollar sign) in the total, tax or shipping fields. this can cause problems with the data.

Like this post? Check out the rest of the series:

Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 2: Installation & Setup
Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 3: Why EVERYONE Should Use It
Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 4: Tacking Lead Gen Forms


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2008 Google Analytics Resolutions

January 8, 2008 by Justin Cutroni

Happy new year! I can’t believe 2007 is over. Continuing with a tradition I began last year, I give you my 2008 GA resolutions.

Before I get into the list, I want to thank everyone who reads and contributes to Analytics Talk. 2007 was an incredible year for me, and I really owe a lot to you guys. Thank you for reading, posting questions and helping me learn so much.

1. I will migrate to the new GA.JS tracking code.

Google announced a new version of the tracking code, ga.js, in October 2007 and launched the new code in December. After some minor launch problems things seem to be running smoothly. While you don’t need to migrate to ga.js, you should start to think about it because Google will no longer add features to urchin.js. In my opinion, you should tackle this problem sooner rather than later.

2. I will contemplate Event Tracking and how I can use it.

The reason Google introduced a new version of the tracking code was to enable a powerful new feature called Event Tracking. While most folks might think of event tracking as a ‘web 2.0′ tracking tool geared towards video players and Ajax, it’s really a flexible framework for data collection. I was skeptical at first, but now I’m a convert. All of us can take advantage of this new feature.

I’ll be writing more about Event Tracking and its uses when Google pushes the feature to everyone. In the mean time, check out this series of posts to learn more:

Event Tracking Pt. 1: Overview & Data Model
Event Tracking Pt. 2: Implementation
Event Tracking Pt. 3: Reporting & Analysis

3. I will get creative with profiles.

This is something I’ve been talking about for a while. Profiles are so much more than website data. They’re a collection of data and business rules. Last year, as part of my 2007 resolutions, I mentioned setting up test profiles as a way to insure your configuration settings are correct.

For 2008 I suggest setting up profiles for all major marketing campaigns and mediums. Why? So you can segment reports that normally can not be segmented. Check out Segmenting Visitor Loyalty Reports in GA for more information.

4. I will try some type of ‘advanced’ Google Analytics configuration.

Most of us have a fairly basic implementation of GA. We don’t need to do much more than add the tracking code to our site, set up goals, and configure on site search reporting.

Why not try something new this year? How about using an ‘advanced’ feature like custom segmentation, event tracking or even e-commerce tracking? All of these features can help you learn more about your visitors and what they do. That’s why we use these features and try these hacks: to gain insight and knowledge.

5. I will keep track of website changes and Google Analytics changes.

This is something that I wrote about a long time ago, but it’s still really important. It’s a good idea to keep track of your GA configuration changes so you can better understand the data. Any modifications, like a change to a goal, funnel or filter, should be recorded.

It’s also a good idea to keep track of website changes and online marketing changes. Knowing what’s going to happen with your online business helps drive analysis and you’ll be able to deliver data that will make people happy.

You don’t need anything elaborate, a simple Google Spreadsheet, like this one, will work just fine.

There you have it, a few ideas to spice up your 2008 Google Analytics plans. Got a better idea or think that I missed something? Leave a comment below. And happy new year!


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Updated GA.JS Tracking Code

December 17, 2007 by Justin Cutroni

I’ve gotten a lot of comments over the weekend about using the new ga.js code with ASP sites. It turns out that the code does not work with nested SP script tags. Also, the new tracking code that GA spits out is not XHTML compliant. These are unrelated issues that are causing a number of issues.

Google knows of these issues and will be pushing a solution soon. I’m not sure when, but soon. In the meantime, here is a copy of the new code that you should use on your site.


<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-xxxxx-x");

 pageTracker._initData();
 pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>


Remember, you need to replace “UA-xxxxx-x” with the appropriate information for your profile.

Sorry for the short post… I’m pretty tied up at work but wanted to post this information.

Props to Eivind Savio for sending me a nice email about the problem and a number of solutions.


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New and Improved GA.JS Documentation

December 13, 2007 by Justin Cutroni

Along with some other features, Google Analytics today launched Google Analytics Custom Tracking. This is a new website (code.google.com/apis/analytics/, a section of code.google.com) that deals with the Google Analytics Tracking Code. The site does a nice job of pulling together information about ga.js and Event Tracking. Plus it has a snazzy movie of Avinash, what a bonus!

While the new graphing features are nice, I think this is a very significant event. Google is really pushing Google Analytics and a data collection and analysis service, not just a web analytics tool. Sure, most of the data is generated via a web interface, but think of the proliferation of web-based applications and services.

Let’s not forget about Event Tracking. It’s not a rigid data structure that we have to adhere to. It is a flexible data model where we can define the data. It will work perfectly with web application.

I’d like to point out that the term API is all over this site. This has nothing to do with extracting data from Google Analytics. There is no API to extract data from Google Analytics.


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Surprise! New Google Analytics Features

December 13, 2007 by Justin Cutroni

It looks like the team at Google Analytics has surprised us all with some new features. What a great way to celebrate the holiday season. Many of these new changes were actually announced by Brett Crosby at Emetrics and are just now getting rolled out to all of us.

New Multi-Line Graph

Google has added a new features to help with analysis. It’s called multi-line graphing. We now have the ability to graph multiple lines of data in the data-over-time graph that appears at the top of each page. There are two ways to use this feature.

Google Analytics Multi-Line Graphing

First, you can compare two metrics in the graph. This is a great way to determine if there is a correlation between the two numbers. For example, let’s say you want to see if conversion rate stays the same if visits increase. Now you can do that.

Google Analytics: Graph two metrics

The second way to use the multi-line graph is to compare a specific segment of data to the overall site data. This helps you analyze how much the segment of data affected the larger set of data.

The graph below shows AdWords visits (blue) and the total site visits (gray). We can clearly see that there was a big bump in traffic but it was not caused by AdWords.

Google Analytics: Compare Data to Site Average

I’ll have a more in-depth post on this tomorrow.

New ga.js Tracking Code

The new ga.js tracking code is now live. For those of you that don’t know, Google created a new version of the tracking code that supports many new features, primarily event tracking.

The new tracking code is very different. Many of the functions that exist in urchin.js do not exist in ga.js. Things like urchinTracker() and __utmSetVar() are gone. Don’t worry, they’ve been replaced with new methods like _trackPageview() and _setVar().

You don’t need to migrate to the new ga.js, you can continue to use the old urchin.js. However, Google will not update urchin.js in the future. If you want to take advantage of new features you must upgrade.

Check out GA.JS: New Google Analytics Tracking Code for more information about why the basic page tag has changed, how it has changed and if you should upgrade to the new tracking code.

To help facilitate the transition, Google has published a migration guide to help you transition from urchin.js to ga.js. It’s a great resource that does a good job of mapping old tracking code settings to new tracking code settings.

How do you get the new tracking code for your site? For existing websites, there is a new tabbed interface that provides the urchin.js tracking code or the ga.js tracking code. Just click on the “Check Status” link for a profile and you’ll see the tabs. Google will automatically supply the new ga.js tracking code when you create a new profile.

Google Analytics Tracking Code Tabs

Caution: do not use the new tracking code and old tracking code on the same page. However, you can use the new tracking code on some parts of your site and the old tracking code on other parts of the site.


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Join Us For Analytics & Usability Training

December 12, 2007 by Justin Cutroni

train.gifNext Tuesday and Wednesday we’ll be hosting a 2 1/2 hour online training session about Analytics and Usability. My co-worker Danielle Giandomenico and I will each speak for one hour to discuss how to use Google Analytics to improve your business. Then we’ll take your questions for a half hour.

Dani will share the techniques she uses to improve user experiences including:

  • Lead form and shopping cart enhancements that lift conversions
  • Key usability metrics in Google Analytics
  • Examples of three websites with different business models and how they could benefit from usability analysis

I’ll be talking about how to effectively use Google Analytic to track and analyze online marketing activities. My topics include:

  • Critical and often overlooked marketing campaign tracking techniques
  • Effective campaign reporting and analysis
  • Tips and best practices for success

The session cost $297 US and you can signup online. If you have any questions please email info -at- epikone -dot- com or call 1-877-273-9921. We look forward to seeing you next week!


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