Time for a change – why you need to update your Google Analytics tracking code
The analytics tool we use most often in NixonMcInnes websites is Google Analytics. Analytics tools help you gain detailed insight into how your customers are interacting with your website.
Google launched a new version of their free Google Analytics package a few weeks ago.
Benefits of the new implementation include:
- More reliable tracking capabilities
- Lighter code
- Advanced features and sophisticated reporting
- New Multi-line Graph (beta feature) that graphs two different metrics against each other over time
- Reports available in six additional languages, bringing the total number of supported languages to 25
The basic Google Analytics setup has the following features and benefits:
Statistical Analysis
Google Analytics helps you incrementally measure and improve visitor experience by tracking how users arrived at your website and how they navigated through the pages and then providing statistics about those visits. These include:
- Absolute Unique visitors
- Page Views
- Average Page Views
- Time spent on site
- Bounce Rate
- New Visits
- Geo-location
- Visitors browser and operative system
Each statistic can be drilled down and segmented. Different time periods can be compared to show the website’s progress (January 2007 against January 2008, for instance).
Keyword and Campaign Comparison
Track and compare all your ads, email newsletters, affiliate campaigns, referrals, paid links and keywords on Google and other search engines.
Custom Dashboards
No more digging through reports. Put all the information you need on a custom Dashboard that you can email to others or schedule to be sent automatically.
AdWords Integration
Buy keywords on Google AdWords and use Google Analytics to learn which keywords are most profitable to your business.
Trend and Date Slider
Compare time periods and select date ranges without losing sight of long-term trends.
Site Overlay
See traffic and conversion information for every link as you browse your site (no download required).
Email reports
Schedule or send ad-hoc personalised report emails that contain exactly the information that you want to share.
Geo-Targeting
Find out where your visitors come from and identify your most lucrative geographic markets.
Additional benefits can be reported by Google analytics when setup correctly. These are:
E-Commerce Tracking
Trace transactions to campaigns and keywords, get loyalty and latency metrics and identify your revenue sources.
Funnel Visualisation
Find out which pages result in lost conversions and where your would-be customers go – great if you need an answer to these questions:
- What is the rate between visits and purchases
- How many transactions were made? How often?
- What is the average order value?
- How many products were purchased?
- What is the average number of product sales per order?
- Which are the top revenue products?
The image below represents the Google Analytics eCommerce overview panel displaying these benefits:
Google Analytics Funnels are steps the users take to achieve a specific goal, tracking a user’s page by page path on the website. Provides insight to:
- How many users achieved the goal?
- What pages have they visited to get to the goal?
- How many users left the website on which page? Understanding why reviewing these will help improve your site’s performance over time.
Here is an example of a goal called “Search to Purchase”:
The advantages are clear and provide answer to the following questions:
- Where do users leave the site via external links?
- Are the users having problems going through the checkout process?
- Which page in the checkout is has the highest “abandon” rate?
- Which are the most profitable products?
- Which segment (region, affiliate) is most profitable?
In practice
We recently completed the build of an eCommerce website that is now hosted on our staging server, pending final data and client approval.
It is running the latest Google Analytics code and it is exciting to see the test results showing up every day and to know that our client will have the advantage of knowing exactly how their online business is performing.
The website was developed using the following open-source applications:
• Joomla content management system
• VirtueMart, a Joomla eCommerce plug-in
• Google Analytics Tracking Module, a plug-in compatible with VirtueMart
• External Link Enhancement plug-in to track external links (exit points) on your website
Note:
Watch out! The old code is not compatible with the new one, so make sure you only install one of them on your website.
Old code will be supported for the next year but after that will cease to work. Best to take advantage of Googles’s innovation sooner rather than later – if you need a hand we’ll be happy to help.
For further details on what metrics to track and why, check out our latest ebook Chapter 6: Essential Web Analytics.
Telmo wrote this on 29.02.08 – 4 comments
It's filed in the Business, Development, Internet, Marketing, NixonMcInnes, Our sites, Strategy, User experience, Web analytics, Web technology, ebooks box
On February 29th, 2008 at 1:54 pm, Telmo Carlos responded:
Hi Alex, Thank for your references. I downloaded both plug-ins.
The Semiologic plug-in does not support the latest ga.js code. Wonder if there a new version coming out soon?
Regarding the Joost De Valk plug-in it supports ga.js and I am impressed with its options, in particular the number of search engines and the outbound links (external links from the site) it tracks. I’ll evaluate it the next time we develop a Wordpress site.
Telmo
On February 29th, 2008 at 1:21 pm, Alex responded:
Users of Wordpress and the Google Analytics plugin by Semiologic will be interested in the plugin by Joost De Valk.
It supports the ga.js code and includes more flexible link tracking.
On February 29th, 2008 at 4:09 pm, Alex responded:
I don’t think Semiologic have given a date, which is understandable since it’s a spare time project.
I’m going to switch to the other plugin next time I upgrade WordPress.
On February 29th, 2008 at 5:36 pm, Telmo Carlos responded:
Hi Alex, Great.
GA tracking has made a difference for many of our clients.
If one of your clients have a website and they ask you to re brand it, it would be great to setup a GA account in their existing website.
The in depth analysis of the existing site guides and improves the rebranding.
Have a great weekend, Telmo