Barry Hand » Web Analytics

Learning on the Cheap: Google Analytics Individual Qualification

Barry — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:01:50 +0000

There are many ‘digital’ courses and seminars popping up in Ireland for Google Analytics, some of which can cost up to €900 just to attend. Now that’s frankly shocking for something which is essentially already available online. Here’s how to do it a lot less, and get yourself a Google recognised qualification and not just some shabby record of attendance.

Drop over to the Conversion University to check out the latest videos and resources available and spend a few hours checking out Justin Cutroni’s blog, the Google Analytics blog and the Google Analytics Group to see what the latest issues and developments are within the industry. So with some prep done and a few hours to spare, have a bash at the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) exam, which is 2 hours long with 70 multiple choice questions and a pass mark of 80% required, and only costs $50.

I recently got through it in around 90 minutes, and came out with a score of 96% which wasn’t too bad. If anyone works with Google Analytics on a day to day basis and has done the prep work required, they should be able to get close to full marks , and if you’re only starting with Web Analytics, then the Conversion University, a Google Analytics account and some time is definitely worth the investment more-so than spending two days in a classroom. The qualification is valid for 18 months, after that you’ll need to resit. How’s that for a up skilling on the cheap?

Plugging In to Opt Out of Google Analytics

Barry — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:11:50 +0000

It looks like Google are going to allow visitors to websites which are tracked with their Analytics package to opt-out of having information about their interactions stored, although it seems like they’ll release this as a browser plug in.

There are two massive issues with this, Firstly – it would be a massive blow to Google Analytics if website visitors opt-out en masse. Tracking visitors with JavaScript over using log file analysis already has issues around the completeness of data. Secondly, a browser plug in will only appeal to those most clued into how the internet works (and maybe the tinfoil hat people)

So, what’s the point in all this? Well the main issue is privacy, and concerns over what data is being stored on a visitor through Google Analytics. One of the things some people don’t understand is that tracking through an analytics package is one of the key reasons why the web improves, having a better understanding of how visitors interact with a website – ultimately leads to improvements.

It will be interesting to see how this get’s rolled out, with more news due over the coming weeks.

Asynchronous Tracking with Google Analytics

Barry — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:05:28 +0000

There are a lot of interesting improvements happening with Google Analytics which are bringing enterprise level features to the masses.

I’ve blogged before on speeding up web pages, as well as a handy tricky on storing the GA code locally, and now Google have added a new method of calling their tracking code, called Asynchronous Tracking.

Faster overall page load time.
Improved collection for short visits to rich media or script-heavy pages.
Collecting (and retaining) user clicks that occur before the tracking code loads.

I recently took the GAIQ exam, and a large amount of questions were geared towards rich media & session data, where effective tracking is a little cumbersome (especially in flash) – so this is a welcome development from Google. Impressively it also comes with an API with the push function looking particular powerful.

Installing the code is pretty simple, either grab the updated snippet from your Google Analytics account, or use some of the migration examples and drop that code in high up your page after the tag.

Using Google Analytics to track Social Media

Barry — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:11:51 +0000

Not all traffic is equal, and the ability to segment and understand visitors helps us evaluate websites even better.

Advanced segments in Google Analytics is not new, and has been around since back in 2008, here’s a quick one similar to a setup I’ve used to jusify ROI on Social Networks.

Advanced Segments

Fire up Google Analytics and look for the Advanced Segments on the left hand side.

Create a new segment with the Source dimension and the Regular Expression condition.

Reporting on this segment allows you to analysis based on key metrics like bounce rate and time on site (both surprisingly good)

Intelligence

Reporting is one thing, but how about an alert – sent to you. While not real time, and perhaps not as good as BLVD Status – Google Analytics does allow you to setup some triggers. Here’s how…

Reuse the same pipe from above

Here I’m using a really basic visitor trigger, but you can use any available metric from Google Analytics, like revenue, bounce rates etc.

Google Analytics is extremely popular, but shiny reports and graphs are no replacement for knowing what data is actually useful. Setting up a few simple segments is a good what to understand what makes visitors tick.

Do you have any good Google Analytic tips? why not share them below.

Top Websites in Ireland – January 2010

Barry — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:44:06 +0000

Google had updated their data on Irish web traffic for January 2010, and just like the information collected for December 2009 – I’ve exported as much as possible for sharing.

Top Irish Websites

(View all websites)

While I’ve said before that this does not fully conclude what websites actual traffic is, it does offer an indication and when comparing with Dec 2009 will show changes.

For example, Facebook.com is still the highest visited website with identical numbers to December, apart from page views which has now grown from 1.4B to 1.9B – has facebook become more sticky? the rise of younger members with their love of Farmville type applications would be a good indicator of this happening.

I’ve been asked a few times on what exactly is useful about the data extracted from Google, personally I’ve been using it as part of competitor analysis, selecting all websites in the industry I work in as a basis of understanding our place in the market. As a web only business – this is extremely important. I don’t reply solely on Google, but combine a number of sources and assumptions to deliver a more robust evaluation.

Has anyone discovered something or found a use for the Google traffic stats?

Website revenue increased by 5% with split testing

Barry — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:55:38 +0000

Interesting blog over on Get Elastic in their series of conversion optimisation for the Official Vancouver Olympics store.

They ran a simple split test with 2 versions with over 2000 transactions in a 3 week period. Although they did not get a significant design winner, they did choose the above design as it achieved the following:

Variation A converted (GWO) 3.14% better than control variation
Visits with Variation A resulted in 12.54% less Bounce Rate
Overall site Conversion Rate was increased by 0.59%
Average Order Value was increased by 5.16%

They also calculated that revenue would increase by 5.78%. One of the great things about web analytics is that it can help remove the guesswork involved in website evolution & can automate testing which makes a real revenue improvement for ecommerce websites.

How many twitter users are there in Ireland?

Barry — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:28:15 +0000

Simple question, not so simple answer.

I asked last night from twitter for some estimates and most replies were in the 40,000-50,000 mark.

My estimate is 150,000 and here’s why…

Following on from from my post on Irish website usage, I’ve drilled down a little further to see how accurate or not the Google Ad Planner data is and to see if there’s any insight into how many users from Ireland twitter has.

Damien Mulley found stats that Ireland counts for 0.52% of total Twitter users, putting us 17th in the world. Although the report calculated location with “proprietary technology to infer geography based on user disclosed information which does not rely on Twitter’s geo-location API.” and may not be as useful as it appears, but it’s a good starting point and with the lack of anything else, let’s run with it.

The stats taken from Google Ad Planner show 200k Unique Visitors (UV) from Ireland in December, which is 6.9% reach of total web users (2.9M) – generating a mammoth 15M page views. Again from Ad Planner, taking the total twitter.com unique visitors and Irish specific traffic, we see around 0.27% of all twitter.com traffic originating from Ireland.

Of that 200k UV, you could assume that the total number of Irish twitter users to be as high as 400k because more than half of all users (55 percent) use a Twitter app, but I doubt if we’re looking at such a huge amount and the Ad Planner data covers the UV for the full month and I’d expect that users would use the web interface occasionally throughout a month.

So calculating total Irish twitter users is proving a little tricky, mainly due to Twitter not publishing total account numbers.The estimated twitter usage is at 18 mllion in the US, Interestingly Ad Planner shows 19 million UV from the US during December 2009. Again using the Sysomos report, the US contributed 50.88% of total twitter users. So assuming total twitter accounts in the 36 million region – would it be fair to say that Ireland has 184,000 users?

Let’s hit up Google for some more stats – this time using some search strings to see is “Ireland” indexed in users bio’s which returns 128,00 results, although I’m not convinced of that relevance as the page listings end after about 900 results, something discussed at We are Social’s blog.

Time to go back and look at the initial 200k figure, this time using Google Trends for a daily breakdown. The profile below ties in with what I would expect a 200k monthly UV website to look like, running between 30-40k daily uniques.

Twitter.com usage during December 2009

And looking further back to see where we are in terms of growth, which is pretty steady from the start the year peaking in early June.

Twitter.com usage over last 12 months

So being fairly confident of the traffic stats from Google which ties in with the research from Sysomos, I’m going to estimate that there are 150,000 Irish twitter accounts, by comparison there are over 1.2M Facebook users in Ireland (source: Facebook advertising)

While the twitter.com website has 200k estimated UV from Ireland, I’m also considering that there is a duplication in that number. Also visitor numbers would never be equal to accounts as some of that may be search traffic as twitter status’s are now included in Google search results.

So am I over-estimating usage? or does the dormant accounts dwarf the active users resulting in skewed numbers, but that’s a whole other story, until then I’m going to run with 150,000

Top Websites in Ireland – December 2009

Barry — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:10:48 +0000

I’ve mentioned Google’s Ad Planner before, debating the usefulness of it on Irish data.

The lack of any meaningful competitive intelligence for Irish web usage has led me to delve a little closer into what the Ad Planner data can do. For a more robust method, I use a mixture of tools but still think that without a Hitwise equivalent, Google is the best source for figures – regardless if they are not accurate, they are at least will be consistently inaccuate

So first off, How does Ad Planner collect data?

Google Ad Planner combines information from a variety of sources, such as aggregated Google search data, opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in external consumer panel data, and other third-party market research. The data is aggregated over millions of users and powered by computer algorithms; it doesn’t contain personally-identifiable information.

In addition, Google Ad Planner only shows results for sites that receive a significant amount of traffic, and enforces minimum thresholds for inclusion in the tool.

So let’s break it down, and see where exactly they’re pulling this from.

1. Aggregated Google search data: This can include a number of sources, but I’m guessing it’s mainly from Google.ie and probably also websites like Eircom.net (enhanced by Google search).

2. Opt-in Google Analytics: Unlikely to gain a huge amount from this, Most GA users I’ve spoke to have this disabled, probably an Irish thing of not wanting your neighbour to know what you’re doing.

3. Opt-in external consumer panel data: No idea what this would be, can’t see it being huge – possibly similar to the method Comescore use to collect data

4. other third-party market research: Which could be: Search, Reader, Feedburner, Adwords, Adsense, Checkout, Desktop, Earth, iGoogle, Maps, Toolbar, Blogger, Calendar, Docs, Gmail, Orkut and anything Google can collect.

Data collected on Irish web usage

So, with the data collection being more comprehensive than anything else available here in Ireland, I’ve manipulated the tool to show all websites and dumped as much of what was available for December, which includes…

4548 websites
2.9 Million Unique visitors
4.4 Billion pages viewed
99.4% Country reach (of total Internet users)

Top 10 Websites

(View all websites)

One thing to bear in mind when looking through the list, is that the Ad Planner tool is developed to help assist in selecting websites to advertise on, so the list throws up some anomalies such as no Google.ie (obviously), as well as some questions regarding the high usage of websites like live.com, yahoo.com microsoft.com & mozilla.com. I would consider these to be an amalgamation of the services they provide (including sub domains) and probably not users access the website directly, same goes for xtendmedia.com & mediaplex.com.

It’s no surprise to see Facebook absolutely hammering any other website, with 1.5m UV and 52% reach, in comparison bebo.com with 560K UV and 19.6% reach.

To get into the top 100, you’ll need more than 74,000 Unique visitors for the month – and it’s good to see websites like boards.ie & donedeal.ie making the list and with it being December – portablenorthpole.tv & met.ie have peak traffic as well.

Feel free to filter and play with the data here on Google Tables, One of the cool things you can quickly do, is filter all .ie websites as well filter for your own or competitor websites. I’ve left in all the Ad Planner data including the categories which might be of some use.

I’ll be following up with some extra insight on this over the next few days.

Live analytics with BLVD Status

Barry — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:32:36 +0000

BLVD Status is an live analytics suite which is focused on leveraging analytical data and turning it into live digestable reports that inspire action.

I’ve been playing around with it for about a year now, and with some of the updates in recent months it’s turned into a really useful tool, especially for social media tracking.

One of the reason’s I started using it was because of the their Keyword Vitals report which shows the search engine results position (SERPs) as a rank for incoming keyword searches across the three big search engines.

Keyword Vitals

The real benefit of this than other keyword traffic & rank reports is the strength of the advanced filter and customer reporting, which makes it pretty easy to set-up any kind of reporting.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The new Alerts systems allows you to set-up alerts based on traffic, referrals, campaigns and keywords. You can then get notified when any of these go off by email, twitter (with @ or DM). This gives you the headsup on what’s happening and also where it’s happening. This can then be used to track social media campaigns.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The live dashboard also let’s you track live visitor traffic, giving you a real time view of visitor traffic.

Dashboard

There’s a whole host of cool stuff you can do with BLVD Status in terms of tracking and alevel of customisation and filtering on the reports make it a really useful package.

Piwik – An Open Source Google Analytics Killer?

Barry — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:02:53 +0000

Piwik is a piece of software which aims to be an open source alternative to Google Analytics. The software is downloaded and installed online by you, the tracking code is a simple JavaScript insert.

I’ve been playing with it for a few months, and while it’s not on the same level as Google Analytics for usability, some of the features make it a real contender.

Because it’s open source and has an open API and allows you to develop your own plugins, you can check out the live data available here – Piwik Dashboard – Wiffy.ie

Some of the cool things you can do, is the ability to widgetise the data, Wouldn’t it be cool to grab the latest KPI’s off your website all on one page, and drop them in anywhere by creating your own dashboard. But not just report on those figures, interact with them, change their presentation (try it below by clicking the icons to the bottom left)

I could see this being particularly useful for an intranet website where Google Analytics doesn’t work (for most companies) but also for those who don’t want their data shared with Google.
For an overview of what Piwik can do, check out the presentation below.

View more presentations from matthieua.

So, is it a Google Killer? not yet but it’s certainly getting there – the most obvious benefit of Google Analytics for me is the integration with Google Adwords, but this is becoming less of an issue as I’ve moved to third party tracking, bid management and optimising services.

What’s great about Piwik?

Open Source – you are in control of the data
Open API – very flexible for developing
Plugins – add/remove data – build your own
Live Data – up to date, see metrics right now!

Sounds good? Grab the latest version and see for yourself