Ophir Cohen - Web Marketing Done Right.

This post will be the first of a series, which will cover Google Analytics Filters.
Google Analytics has become a widely used service. The reasons range from it’s being Free, its ease of use, Google’s amazing distribution channel and perhaps also some of the actual product qualities

There are also quite a few downsides to Google Analytics - which I will cover in a separate post.

So let’s dive into an interesting capability most Google Analytics users are not using, and sometimes not even aware of its existence.

Google Analytics Filters - Lesson #1

Excluding my own traffic from reports

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“Hello,
Thanks for your interest in Microsoft adCenter Analytics Beta (formerly code-named “Gatineau”). Our new web analytics program can help you learn more about visitor activity on your website—where your visitors come from and how long they stay, for example—so that you can measure the success of your marketing campaigns.
Get started now
To begin participating in the adCenter Analytics Beta program today, please do the following: …”

Are’nt you feeling lucky when you’re getting these “invitation” emails for new Beta stuff? I know I do…
Well, even more when it comes from Microsoft, and so much more when it’s for something I signed for months ago (I think 6 months actually). So Microsoft took their time and it appears they sent a bunch of invitations today (I got at least three just this morning), to visit and try out their new product, which was previously named “Gatineau” and is now prodly namesd “Microsoft adCenter Analytics“.

However, I guess my enthusiasm was too early, as after I clicked the activation link and logged in - I got the following message:

Too bad - I promise to follow up and update - hopefully it will work at some point ?!?!?

I had a conversation with Brett Crosby from Google Analytics some hours ago, and it appears Google Analytics is releasing very powerful new features for their free web analytics suite. I must say at first I was not very optimistic, but when our conversation ended, and I was looking at the screenshots - My head was simply nodding unwontedly  - These guys usually roll out great products, but these features I’m about to cover are way more than “features”. These have the potential to actually CHANGE to way we do web analytics, and the significantly change the way we treat the web as a marketing tool!

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Following Avinash’s great post I’ve already mentioned yesterday, I re-read the entire post and more than 3o interesting comments.

The main problem as Avinash explains, is that we can’t actually calculate the time on page and time on site where we don’t have an “exit” mark.

This basically means, that most of our “bounces”, “zero” time on site and “short visits” (depending on your software verbiage) are related not only to those who close their browser right after entering your page, but to those who viewed 1 page, perhaps even for a while - but didn’t go any further.

Well I say delete them!

The problem with zero time on site

The zero time on site is screwing up the entire time on site statistics of your pages.
Here’s an example for a website we manage where the average time on site is 91 seconds. 

Looks fine to the untrained eye: 91 seconds and 2.2 pages per visit - So is this the correct number? (more…)

Avinash Kaushik (see his RSS on my homepage ), the author of “ Web Analytics - An Hour a Day” and “ Occams Razor” blog, wrote an excellent and comprehensive post on the methodology behind “ time on site” and “ time on page” metrics.

For all of you who always wonder how this is calculated and how come sometimes the numbers don’t seem too logic - Avinash exaplains the method from A to Z in a simple and logic way. Highly recommended! (more…)