No! Basic Google Analytics Tracking on Your Sub-Domain is Not OK

Big No-No

Widespread access and ease of use, not to mention lack of price tag, have made Google Analytics ubiquitous on modern commercial websites.  It’s easy to get up and running, fun to watch the data come in, and has the look of very sophisticated software.  But what many companies are failing to realize, is that anything beyond a simple website will likely require modifications in order to ensure accurate, relevant data and to get the most out of Google Analytics.  For example, one issue that has come up with a few clients recently is the use of basic Google Analytics Tracking Code on a main domain (www.site.com) as well as several sub-domains (blog.site.com, support.site.com, shopping.site.com…).  This is a big ‘NO-NO’.

Why It’s Not a Good Idea

The problem is that using the plain vanilla tracking code will lead to data distortions.  This is because, by default, Google Analytics considers a domain to be a separate entity from a sub-domain.  A visitor that moves from a domain to a sub-domain will be: a) counted twice and b) identified in the ‘referring sites’ report as coming from your domain – neither of which are particularly helpful.  The situation is further complicated if the visitor goes back from the sub-domain to the main domain.

The 14,000 visits indicated from ‘xyz-software.com’ are actually visits from the main domain to the sub-domain – i.e. double-counting of visits to the site.  Here how the data breaks down in the above scenario:

* Google Analytics will keep track of all the referrals used in a session (through multiple trips in and out of the site, all within 30 minutes of the next), but it will only attribute the visit to the first one in the session.  Subsequent referrals will be assigned to ‘0′ visits. See an example of multiple referral tracking here.

What To Do About It

Since this is a fairly common situation, Google has provided an easily implementable solution for sub-domain tracking that results in your domain and sub-domain being considered all part of the same site. All it takes is one line added to the GA tracking code:

The addition of this modification tells Google Analytics that any sites within the domain identified (‘.example.com’ in this case) should be considered as one. No duplicate counting, no self-referring. Done.

Note that in addition to the small change to the tracking code, Google also provides information on a filter that can be implemented to identify the domain or sub-domain of a given page in content reports.

Key things to remember:

1. This same code should go on ALL your pages of your main domain and any sub-domains you are tracking.

2. If you use the same file names for pages on your main domain (www.yoursite.com/index.htm) and sub-domain (blog.yoursite.com/index.htm), apply the recommended filter to distinguish them in your content reports.

3. If your site has been running for a while and has accumulated a significant number of duplicate visit counts due to traffic between the main domain and sub-domain, be prepared for lower traffic numbers under the new tracking.  It may be necessary to explain to your boss that this does not mean that actual traffic has dropped off, but that it was artificially over-inflated previously.  (Unfortunately, old data can not be retroactively adjusted.)

What If  I Want to Track My Domain and Sub-Domains Separately?

In some cases, you may consider your sub-domain to be a different site than your main domain and you may want to track them separately. That’s cool. It just means that you should set up a separate profile for the sub-domain using the ‘Add a Profile for a new Domain‘ option.   This method will provide you with a new UA number that will be used in the tracking code to differentiate the sub-domain profile from the main domain.  They will then be tracked as independent sites.

Now you know what to do to make sure Google Analytics is set up to track domain and sub-domain traffic in the way that best suits your needs.

Power, Flexibility, Intelligence: the New Google Analytics

Google Analytics has some very cool new enhancements announced on the Google Analytics Blog today.  It may take some time to get the full appreciation of these improvements, but it is clear that these moves have increased the power and flexibility of Google Analytics, taking it another step toward being a fully-featured enterprise analytics package.

The primary changes announced are:

1. Engagement Goals – now you can set goals based on time or pageviews, in addition to conversion events. Major bonus for site’s wanting to track engagement.
2. Expanded Mobile Support – now identifies and tracks traffic from a wider range of mobile devices, and can tracking use of apps.
3. Advanced Filtering – can now apply filters to multiple metrics within the same report.
4. Multiple Custom Variables -  whereas previously only one custom variable could be set on your site, using the _setVar() function, it is now possible to use more custom variables for visitor segmentation.
5. Alerts – automatic and custom alerts designed to help users focus on changes that are the most meaningful in terms of their site goals. Below is Google’s short video explaining this feature:

So this is some pretty big stuff. Not all the features will be available to every account right away, but it will be great to make use of them as they do become available and offer new ways to extract valuable insights from the data.

Pulling Data from Google Analytics, Pt 4: ShufflePoint

Part 4 in a 4 part series looking at different tools for accessing the Google Analytics API to pull data into Excel.

Part 1: VBA Macros | Part 2: Tatvic | Part 3: Excellent Analytics

Part 4: ShufflePoint

ShufflePoint.com has a set of tools for “making presentations manageable”, including “dynamically associated Google Analytics data with Excel, Powerpoint, and Google Gadgets.  Unlike the other solutions reviewed in this series, there is a cost, which is $29-$199/mth depending on volume.  You can take a free 7 day test drive – BUT – you will have to provide a credit card to get set up (and then remember to cancel your account within 7 days if you don’t want to pay for the service).

Once you register and login, you open a new workbook in Excel and go to Data > (Get External Data) From Web and enter “https://www.shufflepoint.com/feed” into the New Web Query address bar.

Launching access to ShufflePoint from within Excel 2007

Clicking on ‘New query in GAQL Studio‘ gets you to the handy interface below, where you can set up your Google Analytics query (you may have to log in first):

ShufflePoint Query Window

The available choices for Metrics and Dimensions correspond to the available options in Google Analytics, although with different terminology in some cases.

I found this to be a very user friendly interface with drag-n-drop functionality, some helpful notes in the ‘Help’ panel, and even definitions that show up when you roll-over metrics, etc.  It looks easy enough to change date range, but you actually have to select ‘Given‘ from the list in the ‘Date Range‘ dropdown first.  Otherwise, you just go with the provided date range options.  If you hit ‘Get Results‘ you get a preview of your report.  You’d expect that clicking the ‘Import‘ would then import your data from GA into your spreadsheet, but you’d be wrong.  In fact, the next step is to hit ‘Continue‘ and go through a couple more clicks to get the data imported.

You add some rich text formatting prior to import and here’s what it looks like for the query shown above:

GA Data Imported into Excel

Now, it’s true that in this case, you can create a custom report in Google Analytics to display the same data:

GA New Visits by Month

The benefit of using a tool like ShufflePoint to get the data easily into Excel is that you can then extend the data to get something like this, with accompanying chart:

Comibining GA + Excel

And, with a few clicks, you can update the data from within Excel – for example for the next month.

So another tool worth checking out if you have a need to import data from Google Analytics into Excel.  As for me, I’m going to get busy figuring out how I can get build some loyalty and increase return visits!

Pulling Data from Google Analytics, Pt. 3: Excellent Analytics

Part 3 in a series looking at various tools for getting data from Google Analytics in Excel via the API.

Part 1: VBA Macros | Part 2: Tatvic

Part 3: Excellent Analytics

Excellent Analytics is a free, open-source, plug-in/add-on/client for Excel 2007 designed to make it easy to extract and mine data from Google Analytics.  You can download it from the Excellent Analytics site, and where there is also a page with some instructions for how to use it.  And they even have a short tutorial video.  And there’s a lengthy article with an example over at Web Analytics World.

The only hitch I had with downloading the .rar file was losing track of where the files ended up after extraction. Eventually found them: C:\Documents and Settings\me\Local Settings\Temp\Excellent Analytics .

After running the setup file, you will see a menu item for Excellent Analytics when you open Excel:

Excellent Analytics menu in Excel

Operation is pretty straightforward, intuitive, and offers lots of flexibility in selecting the data you would like to collect.  You can easily set the date range and make multiple choices from the complete list of dimensions and corresponding metrics.  A particularly cool function is the ability to filter data.  In the example below, the filter is set to exclude keywords that based on the company name to focus on product keywords.

Filtering Data in Excellent Analytics

One thing lacking with Excellent Analytics (unless I missed it) is the opportunity to choose how the date is broken down, such as weekly, monthly, etc.  All in all, though, another handy way to grab data from your Google Analytics profiles into Excel for further manipulation.

Pulling Data from Google Analytics API, Pt. 2: Tatvic

Part II in a series looking at getting data from Google Analytics into Excel via the API

Part 1: VBA macros

Tatvic GA Excel Plug-in

The Tatvic GA Excel Plugin requires users to download and install a plugin in order to extract data from the Google Analytics API, unlike the VBA macro approach.  In exchange for this small inconvenience, you get a more robust tool with a built-in interface that makes it easy to grab the data you want.

Installation is intuitive and trouble-free.  Once installed, all you need to do go to the ‘Add-Ins‘ tab in Excel, hit ‘Login‘ and enter a GA username and password.  Click on ‘Add New Data Block‘ and all the accounts and profiles associated with that username will be available for downloading. Pick an account and profile, date range and range breakdown.  This breakdown feature is very handy, as it allows you to, for example, get a year’s worth of data broken down by month – something you can’t do within the GA interface.

Tatvic GA Plug-in screen

After selecting the account, profile and date range you want to report on, next step is to pick your dimensions and metrics.

Tatvic GA Plug-in data selection screen

Hit next and the data lands on your spreadsheet, starting in a cell of your choosing.

Tatvic GA Plug-in data results

Note that in this case I choose to breakdown the data by week, with the weeks being identified as numbers in the output. Not exactly optimal, but with some fiddling with Excel functions, the date for the first day of the week can be derived.

Some of the real convenience factors here include:

• drop-down list of all available accounts and profiles associated with the username – easy to grab data from multiple profiles in the same spreadsheet file.
• ability to breakdown time period by day/week/month or year
• built-in list of all the available GA dimensions and metrics
• easily add multiple dimensions and metrics, with preview pane showing generally what it will look like
• can edit reports after the fact if you want to add a metric, dimension, etc.
• ability to select starting cell, so you can add to existing data over time.

Tatvic GA Plug-in is currently available as a free demo.  Not sure what the future plans are, but at the current price it offers excellent value. Check it out at http://gaexcelplugin.tatvic.com and keep up to date at the Tatvic blog.

Pulling Data from Google Analytics API, Pt 1: VBA Macros

As mentioned back in April, the release of the Google Analytics Data Export API was bound to lead to a variety of options for accessing/manipulating GA data without going through the interface.  More recently, the Google Analytics Blog did a quick list of some of the approaches that are now available for extracting GA data into Excel.  There are some real advantages to being able to pull Google Analytics data into Excel – especially for larger sites with lots of rows of relevant data.  Being a ‘roll up the sleeves’ kinda guy, I thought I would test these various methods and assess some of the pros/cons of each.  There are 4 tools mentioned in the Google Analytics Blog:

1. VBA Macros (with template by Mikael Thuneberg) – described in this blog post

2. Tatvic Excel Plugin

3. Excellent Analytics

4. ShufflePoint

I plan to look at them each in some detail, so I will do a separate blog post on each one, starting with…

VBA Macros (demonstrated by Mikael Thuneberg)

This is the most straightforward approach and requires no additional tools other than Excel.  Mr. Mikael Thuneberg has provided a good explanation of how it works in his blog Mikael’s Excel Page and – even better for those of us not well-versed in VBA – a spreadsheet template that can be used to fetch data.  So the easiest way to get started is to download GA_data_fetch.xls from Mikael’s page and fill in the boxes.  Below is a screenshot of what I got with my login info and the default report settings:

You can use Google’s Dimensions & Metrics Reference to find other dimensions and metrics that can be added (using & between them), in which case the possibilities are almost endless.

The worksheet uses an array formula to display multiple dimensions and metrics. It is set up to display 34 rows of data but the VBA module can fetch up to 10,000 rows (which I think might be the max allowed by GA in 24-hr period – see the API Quota Policy).  In order to display a larger set, you will have to expand the area of the array formula.  This can be easily done:

1) select the entire expanded area (including existing data)

2) F2 to enter edit mode

3) CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER to copy array formula to empty cells.

A very flexible solution that quickly gets data into Excel for further manipulation.  You can set it up to pull data from different profiles into different worksheets in the same Excel file to have easy access to them. And it’s free!

Next up: Tatvic Excel Plugin

Breaking the 500-Row Barrier in Google Analytics

Google Analytics has many strengths as an analytics tool, but it has its limitations. A major one has been the restriction of only being able to export 500 rows of a report at a time.  For example, the screenshot below shows that the report for Site Search Terms has over 22,000 rows, yet we can only select a maximum of 500 rows to display at once (number of rows displayed is the number that will be exported):

GA 500 row limit

It may not be particularly useful to look at all 22,000 rows, but even if we want to get a report on the top 2,000 search terms, we would have to create 4 reports, selecting 500 rows each time, exporting, then moving on to next 500. Tedious – to put it mildly.

Accessing data via the Google API offers one way around this limitation.  However, the Google Analytic Blog has provided a more straightforward solution that anybody can use.  In this Tip for Exporting Rows, it is explained that the 500-row limit can be overcome using these easy steps:

1. Go to the report you want to export.

2. Append &limit=x to the end of the report URL (where x=number of rows you want to export)
Example: https://www.google.com/analytics/reporting/search_keywords?id=6146&pdr=20090727-20090826&cmp=average#lts=1251391512461&limit=2000

3. Hit enter to refresh the page (double-check to make sure the &limit= is still there)

4. Export as CSV.

Voila! Easy and efficient!  Thanks to the folks at the Google Analytics Blog for sharing this trick.

Gettin’ Certified: Google Analytics & AdWords

Observations on Google Analytics IQ and Google Advertising Professional Qualified Individual Exams

In the search marketing business we all work hard to deliver the goods and continuously improve our skills – we need to in order to  stay relevant in a rapidly changing environment and to demonstrate our value to our employers/clients.  We can let the quality of our work speak for itself, but  it can also be useful to have some more official validation of our general knowledge of our domain.  Which is where certification fits in.  Sometimes required by employers,  sometimes essential in establishing credibility with clients, and sometimes just good to have in the back pocket.

Recently I completed two certification exams in order to ‘prove my proficiency’ in the wonderful world of Google: Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) and Google Advertising Professional Exam.  So I thought I’d share my experiences and observations with others who may be pursuing either or both of these designations.

Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ)

The Google Analytics Individual Qualification was announced on the Google Analytics Blog in March, 2009.  It is earned simply by passing the Google Analytics IQ test.  This is meant to prove that you have proficiency in using Google Analytics.  The idea is to separate beginners/casual users – who can, after all, make quite effective use of Google Analytics due its user friendliness – from those that leverage GA more fully to enhance organizational performance and teach others to do so.

In order to prepare for the test, Google offers ‘Conversion University‘, delivered via a series of free, short, on-demand online videos.  This is a pretty comprehensive look at most of the key features of GA and provides a good grounding in how to use the program.  It is useful to go through the videos even if you have no intention of the writing the test, especially because the broken into highly digestible chunks.

Although recommended, you don’t need to go through Conversion University to get to the test – you can write the IQ Test anytime.  It is delivered online at your convenience, costs $50 and you have 90 minutes to complete about 100 multiple choice questions.  Once you pass, they send you a colorful certificate that you can print out and hang in your cubicle. Ta da…

Google Advertising Professional Exam

The Google Advertising Professional Exam is one of the requirements for becoming a Qualified Individual in the Google Advertising Professionals program.  (The other requirements relate to mainly to maintaining a minimum level of AdWords account activity.)

Again, Google provides some thorough resources for exam preparation through the AdWords Learning Center.  The Learning Center has a series of online lessons in 9 sections that are available both as video or text lessons.  Personally, I focused on the text lessons, which I expedited by clicking on the ‘Print Section’ link to see the whole section on one page, rather than broken up into a bunch of short pages.  A nice feature of the Learning Center is that there are short multiple choice quiz questions at the end of each lesson, which helps to a) reinforce the learning and b) prepare for the exam, which is very similar in style and content.

As with the Conversion University, the AdWords Learning Center contains a lot of good information on getting the most from AdWords and is useful even if you are not planning to write the exam.  It does, however, also have a lot of information that may not be relevant to you – such as billing policies in foreign countries or tactics for ’selling’ AdWords to potential clients.

If it is recommended to take review Conversion University prior to taking the Google Analytics test, I would rate is as HIGHLY recommended to go through the Learning Center – at least the quizzes – before taking on the AdWords exam.  When you are ready, you can jump into the exam via the ‘Pro Center’ tab in your My Client Center.

The AdWords exam has a bit of a bad reputation for being sprinkled with questions that are of limited relevance and/or trickily worded to create ambiguous meaning.  This was an assessment conveyed to me by both colleagues and others in the industry, such as the bloggers at SEO Speedwagon (which is the best seo-related blog name I’ve come across in a while).  While there were definitely some of these questions cropping up, I seemed to me that Google may have responded to some of the criticisms and tightened up the test to make it a more accurate reflection of professional competence.  Overall, I found it a pretty accurate reflection of the Learning Center – even to the extent of some Learning Center quiz questions showing up in the exam.

Bottom Line

Based on my experience, and discussions with colleagues, there is about 9-12 hrs of study involved in each of these exams, but may be less depending on your level of knowledge/experience with these programs.

Both Google Analytics IQ and Google Advertising Pro qualifications have an expiry date: AdWords offers a better deal because it is good for 2 yrs, while you will have to retake the Google Analytics IQ exam in 18 mths to retain your status.

Hard to put a value on these certifications but they do represent tangible evidence that you probably know what you are talking about and can enhance the credibility of yourself and your organization.  Hey, if you can get Google to vouch for you, why not go for it?

AdWords Conversion Tracking in Two Flavors

Google AdWords recently made a change to how conversions are reported in the new AdWords interface, in order to provide richer information with regard to the full benefits of AdWords campaigns.  There are now two types of conversions, designated as ‘one-per-click‘ and ‘many-per-click‘.  This fairly straightforward and quite useful, and the AdWords crew has provided a pretty decent explanation of what it all means in an Inside Adwords blog entry and in an AdWords Help entry.

However, it is a departure from the past and I think it is fair to say that there has been some head scratching around the precise implications, mostly due to the cumbersome terminology.

Conversions in new Google AdWords interface

So here’s a scenario…

I search for ‘web analytics software’, see your ad, click on it and visit your site.  Your clearly written landing page with attractive call to action persuades me to download your white paper.  After I get a chance to read your thought-provoking white paper, I return to the site (within 30 days – before the AdWords cookie expires) and subscribe to your newsletter.

…and here’s how the conversions break down:

1. In the past, when AdWords reported on ‘conversions’, it was not necessarily the actual total number of conversions, but rather the number of clicks that led to one or more conversions.  Under this somewhat misleading system, the above scenario is counted as 1 conversion, since there was 1 click that led to both conversion events.

2. The new ‘1-per-click’ conversion count corresponds to the old way of conversion counting: still counting clicks as opposed to events – a maximum of 1 conversion per-click.  If you have past trending data that you want to compare to, this is the number to go with.  Also, if you are more interested in the number of PPC visitors (roughly equivalent to ‘clicks’) that convert than the total number of conversion events, this is the number to use.  So for lead generation this is more applicable.

3. The new ‘many-per-click’ conversion count will be 2 – one each for the white paper download and the newsletter sign-up.  Now events are being counted, not just clicks.   This is helpful for e-commerce sites where you want to know the number of purchases that are attributable to AdWords, for example.  This terminology is also a tad confusing, though, because even if there is one conversion it will still be counted in the ‘many-per-click’ column, since ‘many-per-click’ doesn’t actually mean ‘many conversions on a click’ – it really means ‘total number of conversions.‘

Note that these are two separate ways of counting conversions, using different perspectives (clicks vs. events) so these numbers are not meaningfully added together.

We all know that those Google folks are uber-smart, and I’m not going to presume to tell them how to do their jobs, but I’m thinking a more clear and intuitive approach might be something like:

• ‘Conversion Clicks‘ instead of ‘1-per-click conversions’
• ‘Conversion Events‘ instead of ‘many-per-click conversions’

This would tell us very simply: a) how many clicks led to conversions and b) how many total conversions occurred.  Useful information – no head scratching required.

Omniture & New Google Referrer String: Position Report, New Patch

The past couple of weeks have seen some announcements from Omniture Industry Insights blog that are of interest and importance to SiteCatalyst users.  These items relate to the new referrer string that Google is rolling out, which carries richer information about the search conducted.  The announcement back in April on the Google Analytics Blog of the upcoming change showed the following example of the new referrer string:

Two things to note:

1. Introduction of a new parameter, ‘cd=7‘, in this case identifying that the site was in the 7th position on the page for the search term ‘flowers’.

2. Due to the extra detail in the query string, the ‘q=flowers’ that identifies the search term appears much later in the referrer string than in the past.

Correspondingly, there are 2 implications for SiteCatalyst:

1. On May 8, Jordan LeBaron explained how users can take advantage of SiteCatalyst’s new ability to track organic keyword rankings in Google for your site.  He provides a screenshot of the report, although this is an early iteration and Omniture is “actively testing new advanced solutions to make this data more actionable…”  There is no extra cost for this reporting, but you will need to talk to your account manager to get it set up.

2. On a separate but related topic, Ben Gaines blogged on May 15 about a patch that Omniture is recommending SiteCatalyst users apply to their Javascript code file in order to avoid potential loss of the search query term caused by the new Google referrer string.  Due to the length of the new referrer string, sites with long URLs may find that the query term in the referrer string ends up past SiteCatalyst’s 255 character limit, thus preventing SiteCatalyst from identifying the search term that visitor has used.  Result: search term won’t show up in the Search Terms – Natural report under Traffic Sources.  The patch ensures that the search term is captured from the query string.  There are a few steps involved, but Ben provides what looks like thorough instructions.

As Ben points out, there is no need for SiteCatalyst users to panic, as this new referrer string is being introduced gradually by Google (currently being used on an estimated 10% of searches) and in any case most sites shouldn’t have a problem even without the patch.  Also, sites that employ a version of the SiteCatalyst code that is H.20.2 or later won’t need the patch, as this functionality to deal with the new Google referrer is built in.  Good excuse to upgrade your SiteCatalyst code!