Event Tracking Best Practices

Event Tracking is a feature of Google Analytics you use to track different actions visitors take on your website, such as clicking a button or downloading a file. It is useful for tracking actions on your website that don't take the user to a new page (such as clicking play on a video player).

Since we launched Event Tracking in October of 2007, we have made some changes to improve it. These changes aren't always captured in online tutorials, so we wanted to give an official update on Event Tracking best practices.

From "Double Call" to "Single Call"

After the initial launch of event tracking, we realized that the two-step process of implementing event tracking in Analytics could be simplified to a single call using the _trackEvent() method. In the initial version of event tracking, your implementation involved two steps:

1. Setting up the object to track and giving it a name
2. Tracking actions, labels, and values on that object using myObjectName._trackEvent(action, label, value)
   

With the newer version of event tracking, released in spring of 2008, two important changes occurred:

• Simply use pageTracker._trackEvent() to create a named category and track actions, labels, and values in one step, not two
• The term Objects was changed to Categories to better reflect the concept of tracking a category of page elements, such as "Video Player"

Example: Tracking Interaction with a Video Player

To illustrate, suppose you have a video player that you want to track. In order for the player tracking to show up in your reports under the "Categories" section, you need to provide a category name. We'll use myVideos as an example. If the video has a "Pause" button that you want to track, we can accomplish this by attaching the following call to the "Pause" button on the video player for the Snoopy movie:

pageTracker._trackEvent("myVideos", "Pause", "Snoopy");

When users click the "Pause" button for the Snoopy movie, an event for that category/action combination is triggered.

If your movie player is Adobe Flash based and you use ActionScript 3, check out Google Analytics for Adobe Flash. It provides an intuitive environment for event tracking if you are an Adobe Flash developer.

Additional Resources

• Event Tracking overview
• October 2007, Event Tracking announcement
• Google Analytics for Adobe Flash

What do you use event tracking for?

Posted by Patricia Boswell, Google Analytics Team

Seminars for Success - San Jose & Denver: Get Trained!

San Jose, February 11, 12, 13

Are you attending Search Marketing Expo West in Santa Clara, CA? If so, here's a chance to acquire some hard skills as part of your trip to the conference. If not, you can still sign up for one or more days of professional Google Analytics and Website Optimizer training in San Jose.

If you’re a marketing professional, web designer, analyst, business owner or anything in between, these three courses will help you to efficiently measure and improve your online strategy.

Landing Page Testing with Google Website Optimizer - Wednesday, February 11
This hands-on course in Google Website Optimizer will take you through the process of testing your site to deliver an experience to your users that will take your conversion rates to new heights. Experts on Website Optimizer will present an overview, testing best practices, and then give you hands-on experience to better understand and run A/B/N and multivariate tests on your website and key landing pages.

Google Analytics – Introduction & User Training- Thursday, February 12
Are you new to the world of Google Analytics? Have you been using it for a while but have yet to really get beyond the dashboard? This course starts you off from the beginning with an overview of web analytics and by the end of the day you’ll have learned how to turn the sea of analytics data and reports into actionable information that can help drive your business decisions.

Google Analytics – Advanced Technical Implementation - Friday, February 13
If you already have the basics down and want to see what Google Analytics is really capable of, the advanced and technical implementation course is for you. This training is ideal for the tech-savvy, but equally valuable to those wanting to understand what’s possible. This course covers the inner workings of Google Analytics, configurations, filters and setups as well as advanced installs and implementations, new features and best practices.

Seats are limited, so register today!

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Denver, Feb 24, 25, 26

Can't make it to the San Jose session? Try Denver instead.

Google Analytics – Introduction & User Training- Tuesday, February 24
Google Analytics gives you visibility into every aspect of how your website is used to accomplish the goals you had in mind when you designed it. The first of these three Seminars for Success courses will start you off with a high level overview of web analytics. By the time you leave you’ll be ready to take a mountain of data and endless reporting options and transform them into actionable information that can help drive your business decisions.

Google Analytics – Advanced Technical Implementation - Wednesday, February 25
After you have the basics down from day one or if you are already working with Google Analytics but want to know how to take it to the next level, the advanced and technical implementation course is for you. Day two of the Seminars for Success gets into the inner workings of Google Analytics, configurations, filters and setups as well as advanced installs and implementations, new features and best practices.

Landing Page Testing with Google Website Optimizer - Thursday, February 26
Your users are the reason you have a website. Google Website Optimizer is the tool you need to deliver an experience to them that will make your conversions take off. Experts on Website Optimizer will present an overview and testing best practices, and then give you hands-on experience to better understand and run A/B/N and multivariate tests on your website and key landing pages. This is invaluable information to see those conversions jump.

Seats are limited, so register today!

Posted by Eva Woo, Google Analytics Team

Mission: Alignment

So. I have been asked to give a Generational Marketing presentation next week to a group on the east coast. It's exciting! I LOVE giving presentations! I get all giddy about it! But I digress...

I have been informed that the average age of the group's customers (OK, well, actually members) is over 55 so that's where I should focus my presentation.

Now I am thinking to myself, "Well, that's a pretty typical problem and why focus attention on a segment you already have...shouldn't we be working on the segment we WANT to have?"

To that end, as I put the finishing touches on this presentation that will span ALL generations, I am incorporating some family pictures from the wedding we all attended in August. And it I think this was the smartest thing I have done all week...See, my cousin Bob is 42 and is technically part of Generation X (although he calls himself a "tweener"). My brother was born in 1980 and is the youngest of the same generation. There is no way that you can market to all Gen X'ers the same way. My brother is thinking about paying off student loans and starting a family while Bob is putting his daughter through college and thinking about paying for her wedding (the picture is Bob and his daughter).

So, here's my point. Generational marketing is not just looking at the age ranges and calling it a day. We need to look at not just demographic values and understand what they need and when, but also how they need it and how to communicate that you have it. Confused yet?

What I am saying is that not all 42 year old people have the same needs. Nor do all Gen X'ers have the same needs. I think generational marketing is the process of understanding the historical events that have shaped the perceptions of the various generations, evaluating the lifestyles of your customer base (and potential customers), examining the uniqueness of your marketplace and aligning your institution, staff and efforts with these attributes.

I could talk about this all day... but instead, I want to hear from you. Are you leveraging any generational or life cycle marketing techniques? Where have you had success? Or have you not tried and have no idea where to start? And to reference Nick's blog from Monday, "Inquiring minds want to know!"

A new approach could be extraordinary for you.

Jenna

Do more with less -- Part 3 of 3

In last week's post we discussed how to use Conversion Optimizer to get more conversions from your existing AdWords campaigns and keywords. This week, in the final installment of this series on doing more with less, we'll show you how you can tightly focus your AdWords campaigns on the areas that are converting the best, uncover the hidden traffic gems you're missing out on, and expand on what you already know is working.

If you want to refocus your existing budget on your highest performing product areas, or reach potential customers that you are missing, the secret is in the keywords. The Search-based Keyword Tool, a new, free tool from Google, looks at the content of your website and matches it against Google search queries (entered by Google users) providing you with a list of extremely relevant, actively searched keywords. The list of suggestions is then filtered to remove any keywords that you're already advertising on, so every single keyword you see is a new one.

Helping your bottom line
Other than giving you new relevant keywords, how does this help your bottom line? Say you sell two product lines - widgets and gizmos - and you know that your widgets product line is selling much better than your gizmos product line. You can use the tool to identify high-potential widget search terms that you're missing and expand that campaign, applying more of your budget on the campaigns that are most effective.

Focusing your campaigns
The Search-based Keyword Tool is equipped with a number of powerful filters and features to make it easy to find keywords for the parts of your website and business that provide you with the greatest ROI.

• Looking for bargain terms? In the 'more filters' section, sort by 'low-competition' or pick a bid you're willing to pay and sort by 'suggested bid'.
• Only looking for keywords in a particular product area? The tool automatically groups keywords by categories, so simply select the category you want on the left-hand side of the results.
• Can't find the category you're looking for, or want to find terms for a specific page on your website? Click on 'more filters' and enter a term into the 'url contains' field.

The tool also offers additional information on each keyword so that you can choose the best ones for your campaigns. Each suggestion shows the average monthly searches for that term, how competitive placement on that term is, the estimated bid to place your ad in the top three positions, your Ad/Search share for the term, and the page on your site the term is most related to, which you might chose to select as the landing page (destination url) for that keyword.

Getting started
Get started with the Search-based Keyword tool in 4 easy steps:

1. Go to http://www.google.com/sktool
   
2. Sign-in to your AdWords account
3. Enter the url of your website
4. Click 'Find Keywords'

For more information on the tool, please visit our support site. And remember, you can find other helpful Google tools at www.google.com/domorewithless.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Brand Essence In Just Six Words

“Stop interrupting what people are interested in, and be what people are interested in.”                                                                                    - J. Walter Thompson

It's hard to write a story in six words.  But Ernest Hemingway did.                                                       “For sale, baby shoes, never worn.”

It’s a powerful statement.  It instantly creates a myriad of images and emotions in our mind.  If I say, “Maiden voyage…Iceberg…Not enough lifeboats,” the Titanic comes right to mind.  The six-word story has become a bit of a phenomenon with Smith and Wired magazines, encouraging people to write their six-word life story and share it.

Why don't we apply the same principles to brands?  Can you write your brand story in six words or less?  It's a good test of how clear and unique the positioning really is against the background noise.

Can you name this brand from just six words:  Mint With A Hole. Fresh Breath.

Here are some examples in six words or less:

-       “We bring good things to life.” (General Electric

-       “You’re in good hands with Allstate.” (Allstate Insurance)

-       “The World’s Local Bank.”(HSBC)

-       “Bank of Opportunity” (Bank of America)

-       “The Power to Sell” (Richardson)

-       “The Ultimate Driving Machine” (BMW)

-   "Focus. Momemtum. Results" (MarketMatch)

Try writing the essence of your brand in six words or less.  See if the results surprise you.  Might your competitor say the same?  Would customers recognize you, and you alone?

Every brand has a six-word story?  What's yours?  

Please feel free to respond to this blog with your six-word brand story.

Remember to have a great day (six words),

Nick Vaglio, CFMP

Advanced Segments & E-Commerce

Imagine that you are the online marketing manager for a successful E-Commerce business. It is Friday afternoon and your CEO phones with a request. "I've seen our sales numbers, but I need more data. How many of our website visits and sales relate to men's products versus women's products?"

"Sure, I'll have it for you next week," you reply cheerily.

Your CEO almost sounds apologetic and explains that she needs the information tomorrow. "Of course," you reply, and hang up the phone wondering how you are going to pull this off.

After considering it, you realize that this may not be so hard after all. All you need to do is:

1. Find out if there is a unique URL identifier that distinguishes men's and women's products
   
2. Create two advanced segments based on the unique URL identifier: one for men's products, and one for women's products
3. Apply these segments to the reports to compare metrics/trends for each product category

That's it - it's as easy as 1, 2, 3!

Step 1 - Review your website URL structure

For this website, the men's product section and pages have an identifier called "bysex=1" in the URL, whereas the women's product section and pages have "bysex=2". You might want to double-check with your webmaster and/or web developer to identify all identifiers for each category. For this site, there are two additional identifiers, "CatID=1" and "men" as well as "CatID=2" and "women." Jot all this information down and then get ready to create your advanced segments.

Step 2 - Create Advanced Segments in Google Analytics

Within your Google Analytics report, click on one of the "Advanced Segment" links (see images below) and then click on the "Create a new advanced segment" link. If you need more details on the concept of segments and advanced segments, check out this video or read this post on how to create advanced segments.

In the above image, you'll see what information you need to create the advanced segments. You select the "Page" dimension, set the condition to "Contains" and set the value equal to the identifier you jotted down earlier. Since we had two more identifiers, you would want to include other pages that have these two identifiers, namely "CatID=1" and "men." You save this segment, give it a meaningful name such as MenCategory, and then create another segment for the women products category and use its identifiers, "bysex=2," "CatID=2" and "women," and follow the steps we used for the men's advanced segment.

Step 3 - Apply GA Advanced Segments and Analyze

After creating and saving your advanced segment, apply this new segment to your reports (by clicking on the "apply to report" link), and let the fun begin!

A few tips: apply the segments together so that you can compare (use the "Advanced Segments" dropdown in the top-right corner of your reports to apply segments). Here, we're comparing the All Visits segment (which is always selected by default) with the WomenCategory and MenCategory segments. While the results do not indicate if the visitor is a male or a female, the advanced segmentation provides insight into which clothing line category is currently driving more visits. You're now able to start some deep-dive analysis and provide some actionable insights to the CEO.

A few quick notes about your segments:

• The visits will never add up because the "all visits" segment includes visits to other categories and bounces off of the homepage.
• Similarly, the pageviews will not add up, because you could visit both the men's and women's categories in one visit or even visit neither category.
• You can see that the specific categories seem to be of more interest to the visitor. A much higher pages per visit, much lower bounce rate, and a higher average time on site. You could act on this by directing traffic (paid, banner, e-mail) to a specific category instead of dumping them on the home page.
• Such a large amount of traffic makes the site an excellent candidate for Google Website Optimizer!

Congratulations! You've proven yourself yet again to your CEO (and you'll still keep your Saturday for yourself :))

Additional Resources

• A deeper look at Advanced Segmentation
  
• Introduction to Advanced Segments video
• Content Grouping in Google Analytics (for advanced users)
• Advanced Segmentation help topics
  

Do you run an e-commerce site? Post a comment and tell us how you use Advanced Segments.

Posted by Feras Alhlou of E-Nor, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant

Google TV Ads Summit Recap

Last week, we hosted the 2nd annual Google TV Ads Summit in Google's New York offices. This event brought together over 200 industry professionals, thought leaders and executives from the world of TV advertising and media. We've posted a highlight reel and photos to give you an inside look at the event. Exciting conversations and themes that emerged from the event focused on doing more with less, using data to make decisions and utilizing new media to connect with audiences beyond television. Read more about this event on our Traditional Media Blog.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew