Adding “bing” to Organic Search in Google Analytics

A while ago I wrote blog post on how to add Twitter searches to appear in organic searches. The same principal can be applied to include Microsoft’s new search engine “bing” which is not yet recognized by Google Analytics as a search engine. Till Google Analytics recognizes it as a search engine, you can capture the data in organic searches by a simple one line of code.

GA provides the following function to allow you to add your own search engines to the list of search engines that are already tracked by GA.

_addOrganic(newOrganicEngine, newOrganicKeyword)

You simply call this function right after var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXXX-X"); to track any custom search engine.

NewOrganicEngine is the words that identify the search engine; in this case we will use “bing.com”

newOrganicKeyword is the query string that contains that keywords, in this case it will be “q” as “bing” uses “q” as the query string that contains the keyword.




Here is how your final code will look like

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXXX-X");
pageTracker._addOrganic("bing.com", "q")
pageTracker._trackPageview();

Questions? Comments?

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Google Analytics Motion Charts Overview with a PPC Example

Most people look at click through rates, clicks or visits when analyzing their keywords. Some people will go a step further and look at the conversion rates. If you have a content site with no end conversion you might look at bounce rate to figure out what keywords are working or you might look at the page views/visit or look at some other form of engagement metrics. To look at all the data points you need to do full analysis, which requires you to look at a few reports and maybe use excel to pull all that data together in one view. Google Analytics Motion Charts make it really easy to visualize several data points in one screen.

In this post I will show:

1. Step-by-step overview of how motion charts work.


2. An example of how I used Google Analytics motion charts to figure out which keyword to spend money on.
   Note (I could have got similar information from a few reports in Google Analytics, but motions charts just made it easier and faster).

Let’s get started

To access motion charts,

1. Click on your report (keywords report in this case).


2. Select the date range that you want to analyze.


3. Click on Visualize button on the top. This will bring the motion chart (see below).

In the motion charts interface you can choose up to four dimensions that you can plot your data point against and see it in this graph. The four dimension areas are circled in the image below. Two dimensions can be plotted on the chart on X-axis and Y-axis, one using the color and the fourth using the size of the bubble that represents the data point.



For the dimensions on X-Axis and Y-Axis you have the option to plot the data either on “Linear” or “Log” scale. I chose linear in this case. (Note: You should choose log when your data points have too much variations in their values from one day to another. Using a linear scale will make it hard to draw them on one chart but log scale will make the chart much cleaner.)



You can select the dimensions by clicking on appropriate section (see below)



After you have selected your dimensions and chosen the scale (log or linear) you want, click on the data points (bubbles in the middle of the chart) to show the name of the data point. Also, those data points are will be tracked when the “Trails” option is enabled (discussed below).



Once all your selections are done you can check the “Trails” check box to track the progression of each data point on each of the dimensions you selected over the time period that you selected. Even though “Trails” is optional, I have found it to be an important feature to explore the full power of motion charts.
Note: if you select too many bubbles (keywords in this case) along with “Trails” then the motion charts become very crowded. You should limit selection to no more than 3 bubbles at a time.

In this case I chose two keywords, Keyword A and Keyword B since I wanted to see how they compare to each other on the dimensions that I chose. (Actual keywords are disguised for this example).

So why did I choose those two keywords? I actually chose a lot of keyword combinations. I was trying to find the keywords which I should buy on search engines to drive more traffic. Since the budget is limited (isn’t that the case everywhere?) I had to pick the keywords that will give us the biggest bang for our buck.

This site had two main site goals:

1. Convert visitors to registered members (Registration).


2. Drive more page views/visit to increase the ad inventory and hence ad revenue.

Based on these goals we needed to see following metrics:

1. Conversions driven by keywords


2. Visits Driven by Keywords


3. Page views/Visit


4. Bounce Rate

Since both the keywords had about same conversion rate, it was not important for us to plot it on X and Y-axis and it was chosen to be represented by the bubble size. I plotted metrics 1 and 2 (see above) on Y-axis and X-axis respectively since I wanted to see how the traffic is driven and how many pages people view when they visit the site. Bounce Rate was chosen to show different colors.

In my option, any critical metrics should go on X-axis and Y-axis. You should play with plotting all different metrics on different axis, color and size to see which one provide you more meaningful view. Plotting them in different ways provide different views and ideas of additional metrics that you might want to look at.

After all the dimension selections were made, I checked the “Trails” option and hit the “Play” button to see the motion chart in action (You can also manually move the slider next to play button).

Here is the final Motion Chart:



Looking at this it is clear that Keyword A is driving more traffic but lower Pages/Visit than Keyword B. The bounce rate is also higher for keyword A. The conversion rate is about the same for both keywords.

It is clear that we should put more dollars behind Keyword B as it helps us achieve goal number 2 better than Keyword A. Goal 1 is about the same for both these keywords.

Hope this post was helpful in demystifying Google Analytics Motion Charts.

For any questions on Motion Charts and Google Analytics please visit Ask an Expert section on my site.

Comments? Questions?

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Google Analytics: Creating Advanced Segments and an Issue

Last month Google Analytics released Advanced Segmentation functionality. I am very impressed with it so far, however this functionality is still in beta, which means it could potentially have some issues. In this post I will show you how to create an advanced segment and one issue that I found with it.

Business Problem: I want to see all the data for visits that originate from Google.

Solution: Create an Advanced Segment that will have all the visits that has the source as google.

Let’s see how to create such a segment. (Not this is a very simple segment but the same steps can be used to create more complex segments).

Creating an "Advanced Segment"

1. Click on the "Advanced Segments" link on the left navigation bar under the “Settings” section.
   
   




2. In the next screen you will see all the "Advanced Segments". In this screen you manage all the advanced segments. Google Analytics has predefined some of the segments and they are grouped under "Default Segments". The segments that you create will be listed under "Custom Segments". To create a new segment, click on the “Create new custom segment” link on the top right hand corner.
   
   
   



3. The next screen is where you create the segment. The segments can be created by using one or more dimensions and metrics. On the left hand side you have 2 sections "Dimensions" and "Metrics". I chose a dimension of "Source" listed under "Traffic Source" as I wanted to see all the visits which originated from Google (i.e. the source was Google). I chose "contains" as the condition as I wanted to get all the visits that originated from anything that contained Google in the source. Finally I entered the word "google" in the value.
   
   
   



4. Click on “Test Segment” button to do a sanity check and see if the segment size is as expected. Once you are satisfied with the segment, give it a name in "New Segment" filed and click "Save Segment" to Save the segment.
   
   



5. Once you the save the segment you will be taken back to "Mange Segments" where your new segment will appear. See below, a new segment called "Google Visits" show up. The new segment is now ready to be applied to various reports.
   
   
   

So far so good. However, I found one potential issue with the data.

The Issue

I applied this segment to one of the pages in my Content Report (see below) and chose the date as Nov 3rd.




As you can see my "Google Visit" segment is reporting 328 pageviews while my "All Segments" is reporting only 175 pageviews. That does not seem right. Similarly Unique Views is 112 for "All Visits" while 201 for "Google Visits". As you can also see from the graph, "Google Visits" are higher than "All Visits" on several dates not just November 3rd. Has anyone else seen something similar? Am I not reading these reports correctly?

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Goal Attribution to Organic Keywords - Google Analytics Tips and Tricks

In April I wrote a blog post to show you why some of your keywords show 0 Visits and 0 page views in your Google Analytics Report. In this post I am going to show the attribution of goal to the search engine keywords, when a user searches multiple keywords on the search engines to visit your site (all within the same session) and converts from one of the keywords.

Note: The past post and this one are both based on the Organics keywords searches and clicks.

I conducted two following two experiments

1. Converted on the Last Keyword
   
   
   1. Searched “1 page no register seattleindian” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com/ , viewed one page and existed the site by typing Google.com in the browser address bar
   
   
   2. Searched “2 pages no register seattleindian” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com, viewed 2 pages and then exited the site by typing Google.com in the browser address bar
   
   
   3. Searched “4 pages register seattleindian” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com , registered on the site (converted, Goal 1), viewed total of 4 pages and then exited the site by closing the browser
   
   
   4. All of the above was done within 30 minutes and using the same browser session
   
   
   
   Visit and Page View Attribution
   
   As you can see my visit resulted in 3 keywords, total of 7 page views and 1 visit (visit time out is 30 mins and all of it was done in 30 minutes). As I showed you in the last post, 1 page view is shown and attributed to 1st keyword. The other keywords do not get visits or page views attribution (Figure 1). The total pages are accounted and counted in the keyword report even though 6 pages were not attributed to any particular keyword (Figure 2)
   
   
   Figure 1 (click on the image to enlarge it)
   
   
   Figure 2 (click on the image to enlarge it)
   
   Goal Attribution
   
   In this scenario, the Goal is attributed to overall search engine keywords but not to any particular keyword.
   
   
   Figure 3 (click on the image to enlarge it)
   


2. Converted on the First Keyword
   
   
   1. Searched “SeattleIndian 4 pages register test 3” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com , viewed 4 pages, registered on the site (converted, Goal 1) and then exited the site by typing in Google.com in the browser address bar
   
   
   2. Searched “SeattleIndian 3 pages no register test 3” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com, viewed 3 pages and then exited the site by typing Google.com in the browser address bar
   
   
   3. Searched “SeattleIndian 1 pages no register test 3” on Google, arrived on http://www.seattleindian.com , viewed 1 page and then existed the site by closing the browser
   
   
   4. All of the above was done within 30 minutes and using the same browser session
   
   
   
   Visit and Page View Attribution
   
   In this case I converted (Goal 1) when I arrived via the first keyword. When I look at the Site Usage of keywords, the first keywords is credited with 1 visit and 4 pages, the other two keywords did not get any credit of the visit or the pages that were viewed as a result of click on those keywords. So the 3 pages are not attributed to any keyword. This is what I showed in my last post.
   
   
   Figure 4 (click on the image to enlarge it)
   
   
   Figure 5 (click on the image to enlarge it)
   
   Goal Attribution
   
   In this scenario when the conversion happens from the first keyword, the goal is properly attributed to that keyword.
   

Conclusion

When a user searches multiple keywords to arrive to the site,

1. The visit is attributed to the first keyword only


2. The page views directly related to the first keyword are attributed to that keyword and other keywords show 0 visit and 0 page views


3. Total page views from all the keywords are counted in the overall keyword report


4. If the conversion happens as a result of the first keyword then it is attributed to that keyword


5. If the conversion happens as a result of any of the keyword other than the first one, then the conversion is not attributed to any of the keywords


6. The conversion from any keyword is counted in the overall keyword report

What’s next? I will be testing how attribution works when a user clicks both Organic (SEO) and Paid PPC (search result) within the same visit.

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Tracking TV Campaigns on Google AdWords using Google Analytics

Today Google announced, that the advertisers who run TV Campaigns via Google AdWords can track the online impact of those TV ads using Google Analytics.
According to Google AdWords blog, you can track website metrics, such as visits, conversion rates and revenue, alongside metrics from your TV Ads campaigns such as:

• Impressions delivered


• Number of ad plays


• Cost


• CPM paid

• Impression Delivered is Total impressions delivered -- an impression is defined as an active television that is tuned to and displays your commercial for 2 seconds or more.


• Number of Ad plays – I am not sure what this means but this probably refers to total number of active televisions that viewed the entire ad. I will provide more information as I get more detials.


• Cost is the total cost that was paid for the campaign


• CPM is the cost per thousand impressions delivered

So now you can start to see online, radio and TV ads all in the same reporting. Pretty cool!!

Here is a screen shot of the report that you will get.

Google Analytics: Tips and Tricks – Why do some search keywords show 0 visits

Question 1: A visitor goes to Google searches for a keyword, come to my site views few pages then goes back to Google does another search and comes back to my site all within 30 minutes (same visit). Which keyword will get credit for the visitors activity?

Question 2: I see a lot of keywords with 0 visits and 0 page views in my Google Analytics keyword report. What does that mean?

Answer:
Google Analytics, assigns the visitors activity to the first keyword that drove visitor to the site and assigns only those pages to the keyword that were a direct result of the first keyword. Note: This test was done on Organic results only, I will look at the impact of paid search (PPC) in my future tests.
Let’s look at an example. I used SeattleIndian.com for this test.
Here are the steps that I took

1. Did a search on “SeattleIndian.com 0 pages” and landed on SeattleIndian.com via a click on search results.


2. Bounced back (viewed only 1 page) and went to Google (by typing in Google.com)
3. Did a search on “SeattleIndian.com 1 pages” and landed again on SeattleIndian.com via a click on search results.
   
4. Again bounced back (viewed only 1 page) to Google (by again typing in Google.com)
   
5. Did a search on “SeattleIndian.com 4 pages” and landed again on SeattleIndian.com via a click on search results


6. Viewed 4 pages and left.

Below is the Google Analytics report showing the activity.



As you can see one page that I viewed from 1st keyword “SeattleIndian.com 0 pages” get assigned to that keyword and it also gets the credit for visit. The other 2 keywords do not get the credit for the visit or the pages views. The other 2 keywords will show 0 visit and 0 page views.

So where do the page views associated with the other keyword go? Well, I don’t have an answer for that yet. I am still researching and will blog once I have an answer.

In next article I will discuss which keyword gets the credit for conversion if a visitor uses multiple keywords to come to the site and converts with one of the keywords. Is it the first keyword, 2nd keyword or the 3rd keyword that gets credit? (Assuming visitors used 3 keywords).

Google Analytics: Tips and Tricks - Show Visitor Behavior from Specific Countries

Problem:
We need to see the online behaviors of visitors from USA and Canada using Google Analytics. In other words we need a profile which only has traffic from USA and Canada.

Solution:

1. Create a profile in Google Analytics in which you would like to capture visits from USA and Canada.
2. Create a filter that includes visits from USA and Canada only (described below).
3. 
   
4. Apply the filter to the profile that you would like to show the data in. (The filter is automatically applied to the profile that you use to create the filter).

Creating the filter to include US and Canada Traffic Only

1. Filter Name: Give a Name to your Filter.
   


2. Filter Type: Select “Custom Filter” and select “Include” in the radio button. We are creating a custom filter to include US and Canada Traffic Only.
   


3. Filter Field: Select “Visitor Country” as the filter field. Visitor country is populated based on the IP address of the visitors.
   
   
4. Filter Pattern: This is where you enter the country names. The small trick is with the format and finding out what to enter as the country names. In this case where I needed the visitor behavior from US and Canada, I used United States and Canada as the countries and my filter was
   (Canada|United States). () is required to group all the values together and | is used as on OR.
   So what this filter patter is telling is to match either one of the 2 values (Canada and United States) in the Filter Field (Visitor Country).
   
   
   Here is the final view
   
   
   

   Now the question is why did I enter United Sates and Not United States of America of USA or US?
   You need to enter what Google Analytics captures the country name as. To find out what you should enter in the country name, go to a profile that does not have any country filters. Go to Visitors --> Map Overlay and scroll down to see the names of the countries. Use the name exactly as it shows in this list.
   
   
   

More Google Analytics Tips.

Comments? Questions?

Google Analytics: Tips and Tricks - Show Visitor IP Address in a Report

Problem:
A user of web analytics yahoo group asked if there is a way to show visitors IP address in Google Analytics (GA).

Solution:
Visitors IP address is shown in one of the out of the box reports of most of the web analytics tool or can be easily configured by few clicks. That’s not the case with Google Analytics. I had not tried to create this report in Google Analytics but thought this should not be difficult considering Visitor IP was one of the options available in Google Analytics filters. But after few tries (and finally an email from Brian Clifton, head of Web Analytics at Google EMEA, confirmed that Google Analytics does not allow you to show visitor IP in any report. In fact they do not store Visitor IP because it is considered a Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and storing it in GA is against Google's Privacy Policy. If you are interested in knowing what I tried (because I thought that it will work) continue reading else you have your answer:

Google Analytics does not allow you to see Visitors IP in any report.

What I Tried:
I created a Custom Filter to grab Visitor IP and put it in “User Defined” visitor attribute. “User Defined” attribute is then shown in “User Defined” report (Figure 1 and Figure 2). This attribute can also be used to segment some other reports (Figure 3).
Figure 1


Figure 2


Figure 3


How to create “Visitor IP” Filter

1. Click on “Edit” next to the profile for which you want to create the filter for.
   


2. Click on “Add Filter” on the next screen
   


3. On Next Screen
   
   
   1. Choose “Add New Filter for Profile” radio button
   
   
   2. Enter a description name for filter in “Filter Name” field e.g. “Show Visitor IP”
   
   
   3. Select “Custom” from “Filter Type” drop down
   
   
   4. Choose “Advanced” radio button
   
   
   5. Select “Visitor IP” from “Field A -> Extract A” field drop down and enter (.*) in the field next to it. What this is telling GA is to select Visitor IP and extract all of the content into a temporary variable called A.
   
   
   6. Skip the next line “Field B -> Extract B” as you don’t need any other value
   
   
   7. Select “User Defined” from “Output To -> Constructor” and enter $A1 in the next field. What this is telling GA is that take the first value from A (hence $A1) and put it into “User Defined” variable. This will then show up in “User Defined” report.
   
   
   8. Select “Field A Required” as Yes
   
   
   9. Select Field B Required” as No, since there is no Field B
   
   
   10. Select “Override Output Field” to Yes because you want the new value to replace anything that might be there (also note that “User Defined” attribute can have only one value).
   
   
   11. Select “Case Sensitive” as No
   
   
   12. Click “Finish” button (not shown in the screen above)
   
   
   
   

The above steps create the filter and will be automatically applied to the profile that you created it for.
Since GA allowed me to choose Visitor IP and create a filter my first reaction was that it should work (not knowing that GA does not store IP). I should have got a hint when I did not see any results and went back to edit my filter. The filter screen had wiped out my selection of Visitor IP in field A (see below).
I thought it was a bug but now I think GA was telling me that “It Won’t Work”. Lesson Learned. Remember what Thomas Alva Edison said” I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

So why I am writing about Google Analytics? Well earlier this month, I wrote in my 2008 Web Analytics prediction that

Google Analytics will mature further and start taking customers from other analytics tools like Omniture, WebTrends, Clicktracks etc. The configuration will become little complicated (and hence need for Google Analytics Expertise will grow) and Google will also expose more APIs to allow companies to pull and merge different kinds of data with Web Analytics Data.

Considering, if what I predicted will indeed come true then it is time to start writing about the lessons I learn while configuring Google Analytics and share my experience so that others can learn from my success and mistakes and also share their experiences.

Have you done custom configuration in GA? Would you like to share your custom configurations? How you created them, what worked what did not etc. If yes, please send me an email and become a co-author on this blog. I will be doing a series on Google Analytics configuration and the lessons I have learned.