With all the online reports provided by Google Analytics, the one that seems to be missing, years after it was pointed out, is the What’s Changed Report. Way back in 2007, Avinash Kaushik wrote in his blog (Occam’s Razor) and his book (Web Analytics, An Hour a Day) about the wonderful value of this report (from ClickTracks, now Lyris). The conversation continued through several of Kaushik’s other writings since then, with other vendors picking up the baton (Juice Analytics, ClickEquations).
Trending Landing Page Visits Over Time
In this week’s Web Analytics TV with Avinash and Nick, Lisa C asked if it was possible to see a trend report for the top landing pages from SEO. Although Avinash agreed “I want this!”, he said this is one of those reports that is only possible through the API today. Since Next Analytics has that API connectivity, I thought I’d show just how easy it is to produce the desired report right in Microsoft Excel.
Why do I get a (401) Unauthorized error?
(a.k.a. how do I find my profile ID?)
One point of confusion for new users is the need to identify a profile ID in our templates and examples. No, it is NOT the UA-xxxxxxx-x number you used in your tracking code. Here’s the scoop…
Segmentation in a Dynamic World
As noted in Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik, as well as his popular books Web Analytics 2.0 and Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, the most important aspect of any web analytics initiative is getting to the actionable insights that drive strategic decisions. He says that from raw data alone, it is impossible to deduce a good strategy. To get any insight into your information, you need to segment it into useful metrics. He also says that default reporting segments are never adequate; you need to draw your own conclusions about your customers. As Kaushik puts it, you have four steps to follow:
• discover what is important from a business point of view
• create a segment tailored for that,
• apply relevant reports to spot key performance indicators, and
• take action
We’d add another step because we are firm believers that nothing stays the same for very long. So don’t build a system that is static or difficult to change. The very nature of business today means that KPIs must evolve.
• iterate
In this article, we’re going to focus on the second step, segmentation, and the challenges of iterating the process.
Advanced Website Visitor Engagement Analysis II
In part 1 of this article, I introduced a new report that shows some of the powerful analytics capabilities of Nextanalytics for Excel – in this case, a full series of tables exploring the relationships between the Recency, Loyalty, Duration and Depth segmentation. This Excel-based dashboard also provides the ability to filter by any of Google’s default segments or your advanced segments. The combination provides an unprecedented visibility into visitor behaviour, all in one screen.
Advanced Website Visitor Engagement Analysis I
Most of the templates and sample reports that I’ve posted simply demonstrate that Nextanalytics can produce all the same web reports you have seen elsewhere. But Nextanalytics can go so much further; we’re not just another quick and easy reporting tool – we can run with the big dogs.
In this example, we not only create segments for Recency, Loyalty, Duration and Depth of Visit (like in the Excel-based Website Visitor Dashboard), but we compare all the various combinations thereof on a percentage of visits basis and use Excel’s conditional formatting to highlight the hotspots.
This is a 2-part blog – in this article, I will describe the technical aspects of the report. See part 2 for the interpretive description.
Analytics Fun – How Big is Your Display?
As I was digging into some web traffic from Brazil, I happened to notice that the most popular screen resolution was 1024 x 768. OK, that makes sense, but it got me thinking…with all the huge resolution desktop screens, wide screen laptops and odd-shaped mobile devices, just what is the most common size/shape of display screens these days. Using Nextanalytics with our Google Analytics connector, I downloaded the screen resolution numbers for our web site visitors to have a look, then I played with analytics and made it visual in Excel.
Web Analytics Dashboard in Excel for GA
Stephane Hamel of Immeria created a sample dashboard in Excel (link) that took off virally, becoming a popular starting point for others (link) (link) to create their own solutions. I applaud his work and his creativity. In the comments to his blog, though, a number of people found the complexity daunting. I am a strong believer in simplicity (and the amazing capabilities of Nextanalytics for Excel), so I took his idea and created a slimmed-down version specifically for Google Analytics users. Using Nextanalytics to download my Google Analytics data and to do some simple math, I created a greatly simplified version that uses basic cell references and formulas along with the usual Excel charts and formatting. Hope you like it!
Excel-based Website Visitor Dashboard
Using the unique capabilities of the Nextanalytics add-in for Excel 2007 (2003 version also available), we whipped up a quick dashboard that combines many of the key visitor-tracking metrics from Google Analytics all on one page, and it’s all yours, in a Microsoft Excel workbook. Use it as-is or customize to suit your distinctive needs. Simply enter your Google Analytics account information and click the Nextanalytics Refresh menu item. Nextanalytics takes care of the rest by leveraging the Google Analytics Data API to download all the information required and performing all the heavy lifting. The workbook uses simple cell references along with Excel charts and formatting – even a casual user would feel comfortable.
Google Analytics Content Overview Report in Excel
Third in the series (see Visitors overview, Traffic Sources overview) of Excel-versions of typical Google Analytics reports, the Content Overview report provides the detail on what web pages are the most popular. Starting with an overall trend chart showing page views totals by date, the report includes high-level counts and mini-trend-charts for both the page views and unique page views (ignoring when visitors click on the same page more than once; hey, maybe it was a navigation page or catalog index). Also included is the Bounce Rate metric – how many people bounced off your site having looked at only one page – a number you want to see drop over time.
