Last week I came across a great slide deck put together by InsightR consulting that compares two free web analytics tools: Google Analytics and Yahoo Web Analytics (formerly IndexTools). While we haven’t had much experience working with Yahoo Web Analytics, the results from this study are quite intriguing, and favorable for Yahoo! in many areas.
As a GAAC consultant, this really doesn’t change anything when it comes to our choice of tools, but I do think that it proves Yahoo Web Analytics to be a true competitor in this space. Competition is good!
Continue Reading Yahoo! Web Analytics vs. Google Analytics →
The Mad Analyst is happy. Why you ask? Because I’m now using some of the latest Google Analytics features and it makes my life easier, particularly the Advanced Table & Report Filtering function. The release couldn’t have been more timely, considering a recent client request.
I was asked to look at the content of their site to determine “choke” points within the navigation. Now the site doesn’t have a lot of page depth to begin with so I wondered how I might look at where people are falling off. Previously, you could look at page data and only sort by the headers – so if I sort by Exit% or Bounce Rate, I either get the pages that are performing well or I get the pages that have super high bounce rates (100% !) but only 2 visits. What do you do? Export all 2,346 rows and then apply a filter in Excel? Not anymore.
Instead I utilized 2 semi-recent functions and the very recent report filtering to easily export a nice little analysis identifying the pages that need attention because they’re losing visitors.
First, I created a custom report that showed me the key metrics I wanted by page:
As marketers, we all know that there is a fair amount of turnover throughout the dynamics of the client/agency relationship. This post series covers solutions to many common problems that may arise while inheriting a Google Analytics account.
One of the key objectives in value added Web Analytics is answering the question “what is the point of this website” and “what do we want visitors to do when they visit.” The metric we use to determine success is a conversion occurring during a site visit.
This is a pretty elementary aspect of web analytics, and a fundamental foundation for a solid analytics install… or is it? From my experience, this is often overlooked. The fact is that most web analytics installations do not have even the most basic fundamental configuration elements in place.
Continue Reading Inferring Google Analytics Conversions when No Goals are Configured →
A few weeks ago, a small group of “Three Deepers” attended Google’s annual Authorized Partner Summit at their headquarters in Mountain View, California. This four-day event provided excellent coverage of their industry-leading marketing products, including Google Website Optimizer (GWO), Google Analytics (GA), and Urchin.
The information presented was an excellent blend of product training, use cases, deep-dives into new capabilities, and breakout sessions with the product managers and engineers themselves. The following is a brief overview of the event and the knowledge that returned to Minnesota with us.
Day One – Google Website Optimizer
Continue Reading 2009 Google Analytics Partner Summit Recap →
As marketers, we all know that there is a fair amount of turnover throughout the dynamics of the client/agency relationship. At many levels, turnovers are a part of normal agency operations.
As the web analytics industry matures and more specialists emerge in the field, I have noticed that turnover is a result of clients reaching out to specialists in order to get the most out of their data. This effect can be credited to three simultaneous events occurring in the online measurement space:
The shift in the web analytics industry from an IT function to a role in marketing.
We have alluded several times on this blog as to our company’s continued interest in Twitter as a listening channel. While a lot more informal and lightweight than blogs, the channel is a great way to listen to what’s going on over the web. As part of my continued Autodidacticism (I know it sounds dirty, but look it up… it means self educating), I am constantly perusing the Twitterverse to see if I can learn any interesting tidbit, technique or insights into how I can improve my skillset.
As part of my daily monitoring, I subscribe to searches for Twitter hash tags (basically words with a # before them) for several people, industries, events, etc. One of my favorite hash tags is the Web Analytics channel #measure. In addition, I love the stream provided by the newly minted #ganalytics hash tag (those of you who have been on Twitter for a while know that these are much better than the deprecated #wa and #ga tags, which were polluted by SPAM for Washington and Georgia state related tweets). These two streams keep me up to date with any new developments in these areas, and also allow for some new techniques.
Continue Reading Web Analytics Insights Found Cruising Twitter →
We are proud to announce that after much effort and continued success with our client engagements, the Three Deep team has been accepted into the Google Analytics Authorized Consultants (GAAC) program.
For those of you who don’t know, the GAAC program is a distinction highly coveted in the Web Analytics industry, and Three Deep is the first Twin Cities/Minnesota based company to achieve this honor, as well as the second in the Midwestern area of the United States.
We are excited to be involved in this program, as it presents our team with the opportunity to become even more engaged in the Google Analytics community. There are some true geniuses – both at Google and consultants in the GAAC program – who have worked to make Google Analytics the most widely accepted web analytics tool in the marketplace.
Our team has much to contribute and collaborate with these great innovators, and our GAAC certification will help us evangelize web analytics to the greater marketing community (both online and offline marketers can get a lot out of Google Analytics), as well as provide valuable and actionable consulting advice to our clients.
Recently, our National Sales Director for Home Improvement Contractors, Tom Audette was interviewed by the folks at Remodeling Magazine for their article, Web Marketing Makeover. You can view the article here.
For the most part, the article provides a high level overview of what you can expect from your website, how you can refresh your website to receive more leads, and how many companies are relying on the web as their primary lead source.
While I agree with the general tone of the article (contractors need to have a web presence, NOW), I can’t help but feel as if they may have overstated a few points and left out some vital pieces of information.
Particularly, there are several points made in the article that I would like to refute (as well as several true statements):
Myth #1: SEO Is Cheap
Continue Reading Three Deep Mentioned in Remodeling Magazine →
Google Analytics vs. the world (the world of other Web Analytics packages that is).
From my previous two posts on what’s wrong with Google Analytics and Flash web sites, you may have become accustomed to seeing the Mad Analyst as a truly Mad Man.
That won’t be the case in this post, because I am madly in love, and want to let the world know about it!
I want to declare my allegiance to the future king of Web Analytics applications, Google Analytics. OK, that may be overdoing it a bit. Google Analytics isn’t the end all be all (there are still several places where it can improve) but it’s damn close and they never stop trying. And best of all? It’s free. Yes, FREE.
Continue Reading The Mad Analyst: Google Analytics vs. the World →
So you want to know how much time a visitor spent on your site, or the average amount of time spent by a segment of visitors. OK, not much of a problem. But now you want to know how much time was spent on a page. Still not hard IF your page is a page. If your site is in Flash however, you have a stickier issue.
Now you already know how much I love Flash (sarcasm), and here’s yet another reason I’m not a fan of Flash sites that aren’t coded properly. A Timer Tick basically counts the elapsed time that occurs while viewing a Flash “page”. You can set it up to increment for whatever interval you want (say 10 seconds). The problem is this “increment” isn’t captured in a Time on Page metric. It’s captured as a click.
Continue Reading The Mad Analyst: Two tracking tools that make me twitch →
As marketers, we all know that there is a fair amount of turnover throughout the dynamics of the client/agency relationship. This post series covers solutions to many common problems that may arise while inheriting a Google Analytics account.
We are proud to announce that after much effort and continued success with our client engagements, the Three Deep team has been accepted into the 
