7. Referring: sites that aren’t search
Search: organic and paid engines
Direct: untagged or no source known
8. Referring: sites that aren’t search
Search: organic and paid engines
Other: campaign tagged traffic,
not cpc or ppc
Direct: untagged or no source known
9. Direct traffic
• Watch out: it might include untagged
campaign traffic, or point to other tracking
errors
• Should be direct typing or bookmarking
• You *can* attribute brand searches to
direct traffic
• Rather, use the two reports together
10. Direct traffic: diagnosing errors
• Advanced segment*: direct traffic
• Landing page report
• Do the URLs make sense?
11.
12.
13. Search traffic
• Shows both paid and non
-paid, incl tagged* cpc/ppc
• You can add additional
search engines should
you wish to
• When it comes to the keyword report, you
can easily filter for brand terms vs non-
brand terms
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19. Referring sites: marketing opportunities?
• Sites which aren’t search engines which
send you traffic
• Watch out for self referrals – this points to
tracking problems
20.
21. Other: remarkably underused
• Traffic where the
medium is not cpc,
ppc, none, organic or
referral
• It’s all your tagged*
campaign traffic
(email, banners, etc)
22. Campaign tagging
• Appends tracking parameters to URLs
• Use Google’s tool, a spreadsheet, or build
your own
• Allows you to identify campaigns you
control sending traffic to your site
• Use for email, banners, social campaigns,
feedburner, etc
25. Referral information is stored in _utmz
It is stored for 6 months
It is overwritten with each new campaign
(i.e. organic / direct don’t overwrite
adwords / banners etc do overwrite)
28. We can instruct the cookie NOT to override
previous campaign settings
• Use &utm_nooverride=1
http://www.site.com/index.htm?utm_nooverride=1
http://www.site.com/index.htm?src=go&utm_nooverride=1
30. NB test to see if tracking breaks your URLs,
and consider #
• If you are already using query parameters,
campaign tracking might break the URL
• You can use # to start the campaign
tracking string
• Then, you MUST update your code to
include
pageTracker._setAllowAnchor(true);
35. Making metrics meaningful
• Use the metrics that matter
• Date or metric comparison > trends
• Use segments to compare to each other
• Use segments and filters to drill down
37. Digital Goals
• Awareness
– Site visitors
– Traffic sources
– Social media fans
• Engagement
– Conversions
– Time on site – Social interactions
– Pageviews/visit – Clicks
• Loyalty
– Returning visitors
– Sharing
– Inviting
38. Digital Goals
• Awareness
– Site visitors
– Traffic sources
– Social media fans
• Engagement
– Conversions – Social interactions
– Time on site – Clicks
– Pageviews/visit
• Loyalty
– Returning visitors
– Sharing
– Inviting
39. Ideally, let’s look at our goals and KPIs
• Why does your website exist?
• What do you want people to do?
• How do you know that they are doing it?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jblndl/45769316
40. Comparisons to make metrics meaningful
• Week on week or month on month
• This year vs last year
• Try to match days
46. Segments
• Any user can create and use these in
reports
• Can be applied historically
• Very easy to set up (so test your profile
logic here)
• Not available in all reports, e.g. funnels
• Compare up to four segments in a report
47.
48.
49. Filters
• Created by administrators
• Applied to profiles
• Cannot be applied historically
• Use to include or exclude information from
reports
50.
51.
52.
53.
54. Why use a filter?
• To remove traffic permanently (such as
internal)
• To report on different parts of the site
(logged in, etc)
• To limit access
• To segment at a granular level
55. Advanced Segments Profile Filters
Modify incoming data at the pageview level to create
Modify a report view at the visit level.
separate profiles (reports).
Applied only to new data from the time the filter is
Applied to current and historical data.
created.
Instantaneous results—once they’re created, you can Aimed at longer-term usage where once set, the
view segmented data in your reports immediately. segment is unlikely to change.
Allow the use of conditional values on metrics, for Only text string matches can be included—no numerical
example, greater than, less than. conditionals are available.
Set up by report users, making them safe—no data can Set up by administrators, because data can be
be lost. permanently deleted.
Test facility available. Take 3–4 hours for data to populate reports.
Combine statements to meet multiple conditions.
Set on a per-profile basis, therefore access to
Set on a per-user basis—segments can be shared with
segmented data can be controlled separately form
other report users, but cannot be used to hide data.
other data.
Regular expression statements are not limited, though
Regular expression statement limited to 255
the total combined for a segment with multiple
characters.
statements must not exceed 30,000 characters.
