Google Analytics

Google is really trying hard to make sites faster as this is now part of the Quality Score for Google Adwords and SEO.  In the past they released the Chrome extension for site speed, the page speed tool and now they made it even easier for site owners to understand more about their sites with a new report within Google Analytics.

With the Site Speed report you can measure the page load time across your site.  All you need to do is add the line of your asynchronous code, _gaq.push(['_trackPageLoadTime']); This is available only in the new version of Google Analytics. You can find out more here.

The custom report for Site Speed looks like this:

Introducing Multi-Channel Funnels

Google Analytics launched the multi channel funnel reports. This is a feature that was really missing from Google Analytics and it will help users a lot. The Multi-Channel Funnel reports is very similar to the search funnels in Adwords but now with more data and the option to compare up to four different channels. (Including social). So far last click was getting the credit of a conversion now marketers will be able to see interaction from other channels and how this helped the user to get to convert.

In more detail the announcement from Google. You can also watch the video here.

About Multi-Channel Funnel reports
Multi-Channel Funnels reports will help marketers see a fuller picture of the “interactions” that led to a goal or transaction tracked in Google Analytics. Previously, by default, Google Analytics gave credit to the final interaction preceding a goal or transaction. However, the typical customer does research, touching multiple points in the purchase funnel before converting.

For instance, customers may become aware of a product through a social networking site and ultimately convert via an email newsletter or visiting the website directly via their browser. Or, a customer may become aware of a product from a banner ad, then search on Google for the brand name of the product. In this case, the brand name search on Google gets full credit for the conversion since it was the last interaction. However, the investment and effort the marketer made on the banner ad can go unnoticed.

Now with the Multi-Channel Funnel reports you will be able to see the interactions from any source in the funnel, over 30 days preceding the conversion. They will encompass all channels tracked in the Traffic Sources section today, including Paid Search (all search engines), Organic Search (all search engines), Referral clicks, Affiliate clicks, Social Network clicks, Email Newsletter clicks, Display ad clicks, and even offline sources like TV, Radio etc. via vanity URLs.

We hope these reports will be groundbreaking, innovative, and most of all, useful to marketers. They will give marketers a more complete picture of how their different initiatives and budget choices affect conversion, allowing them to improve the choices they make using data.

A lot of times our clients ask us: Why Google Adwords Numbers are not the same with Google Analytics? actually there are a few reasons on why this is happening. Although Google Adwords and Google Analytics are both run by Google and share a very similar interfaces most of the times the figures are not the same.

Tracking URLs  are not set up correctly or the account is not linked with the correct Adwords account. Make sure that you Adwords account is linked with Google Adwords. If you are tracking Yahoo or MSN make sure that all URLs are tagged correctly.

Slow page loads times. The best place for the Google Analytics tag to be on is near the </Body> tag.  If you landing pages are slow to load there is a chance that the user will navigate away.

Clicks vs Visits. Remember that Google Adwords reports measure clicks and Google Analytics visitors.

Invalid clicks. Google Adwords monitors invalid/fraudulent clicks and adjusts their stats immediately. Google Analytics doesn’t get access to this data and as a result they keep reporting.

Keyword matching. Users visit your site by clicking different match types.

Google Adwords delay. In Google Adwords you can see the data updated almost hourly or in some case less than that where Google Analytics imports Adwords data once a day.

The above are the most common issues that we have identified causing the issue with Google Analytics PPC data.

Since the launch of iPhone a few years ago everyone was expecting the “mobile revolution” where thousand of sales will be generated every day from mobile. I personally don’t believe we are there yet but we are getting closer. The search volumes on Google mobile are raising and users feel more comfortable surfing the net on a 3G connection or WiFi.

A few weeks ago we did a Google Analytics consultancy for a client and realised that actually they generated 225 transactions in 30 days from mobile. A great number if you consider that the website doesn’t have a mobile version and it’s very difficult for the visitor to navigate through the existing menu.

When we look closely to the actual devices we can see that iPhone and iPad are top of the list. As iPad offers the same experience to the user as a normal laptop or PC the conversion rate is higher. iPhone is still on the top of the list with the most visits and transactions but lower conversion rate. Android/Blackberry and iPod touch have a very low conversion rate.

Overall mobile will eventually become an important channel (not as important as some people predict) and if we add iPad under that channel we will definitely see an increase in visits and sales. It’s important to try and test your site in the devices and if possible correct any issues. Similarly to the web user experience is very important for mobile users too. The trend is here and we have noticed that all our clients have seen an increase in traffic from mobile.

Make sure that you check the your analytics regularly for the number of visitors from mobile devices. For Google Analytics users click  Visitors>Mobile>Mobile Devices.

Last month Google announced an enhanced integration of Google Adwords reports inside of Google Analytics. This included access to 3 new reports and the ability to segment by 10 new dimensions. The new reports include: Day Parts Report, Destination URLs Report, and Placements Report. You can find the new Adwords reports in Google Analytics under Traffic Sources> Google Adwords.

and the new dimensions: