Monday Back to Basics Series

Since the experts on the economy recommend taking a "back to basics" approach this year, we're going to take their advice literally and apply it to the Analytics blog. Every Monday our posts will focus on basic concepts, terms, tips and common questions. We hope it will help new users learn more about Analytics, while maximizing our long-time users' experience with the product.

For more advanced tutorials and concepts, be sure to check in on Tuesdays, where we'll cover both advanced analysis and advanced configurations. As for the rest of the week, we'll be mixing things up as always.

Monday: Check out the back to basics series for info on core concepts.

Tuesday: Read advanced topics that range from code customizations to case studies to features.

Wednesday/Thursday: We're keeping these days open for whatever's new and exciting.

Friday: Look for links to other great Google Analytics resources on the web, or read posts about business insights and Analytics by surprise guest writers.

New features and launches will always take precedence any day of the week! Looking forward to a busy 2009.

Posted by Sebastian Tonkin & Christina Park, Google Analytics Team

Meet our Product Management Director and Product Evangelist at SMX West Santa Clara

Have you ever wondered who actually works on innovations for Google AdWords? Have you wanted to talk to them, give them your feedback, and ask them questions directly?

This week, you can chat with us in person at the SMX West conference in Santa Clara, CA. Two leading members of our AdWords team will be at the conference to share some insights about our recent releases and to answer your questions.

On February 12th at 10:00am, Nick Fox, Business Product Management Director on the Google's AdWords team, will be participating in the Up Close With Google AdWords Quality Score Panel, in which he'll share his thoughts about Google ads quality and how Google thinks about online search marketing. Nick will also be taking questions from the audience at the event, so if you're attending the conference, please stop by.

Later in the afternoon, you'll also be able to meet Fred Vallaeys, AdWords Product Evangelist. Fred will be on the Ask The Paid Search Reps Panel on February 12th at 1:30pm. This will be a moderated Q&A panel with representatives from the major search ad networks. Fred will be there to answer any questions you have about Google AdWords. Make sure to stop by and bring your best questions with you, or ask them ahead of time using Google Moderator. He'll also be at the Google booth right after his session.

We truly enjoy the opportunity to meet our AdWords advertisers in person and hope to see you in Santa Clara this week.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

It's Raining Opportunity!

Chicken Little….. is alive!

You know the old story…. “the sky is falling, the sky is falling!” Chicken Little said. Warning everyone, everywhere he went. In reality, the sky wasn’t falling but it didn’t really matter. He was certainly creating havoc wherever he went and making everyone question the truth.

Our current financial industry crisis is playing out in similar ways, don’t you think? The reality for most banks is that there is no crisis. In fact, most community banks and credit unions didn’t get involved in subprime lending practices. They are experiencing challenges only as the fallout from the major banks is wreaking havoc upon them from the recessionary economy and housing crisis. Community banking has never had a greater opportunity!

Right now, people on the street are questioning their financial partners and their financial decisions now like never before. The “Chicken Little effect" is taking its toll on us all in this noble industry. There is “money in motion”. Many people are wanting to know where they should take their money and their relationships. The "money in motion" could be in motion toward your bank...but you need to be known, be heard, and be proactive!

And I think the many financial institutions who are solid performers and are well-positioned to take advantage of the “fallout” of the “money in motion” in markets everywhere, need to be carefully crafting messages and positioning themselves as leaders -- IE be proactive and lead the market! Local leaders who make sound lending decisions, who care enough about their customers and clients and their financial success, to not “lead them into temptation” – by offering loans they shouldn’t take, credit card limits they can’t afford, or car deals that can leave their valued customers “upside down” and penniless.

This is a very tricky message however. As an industry, we are all guilty of not giving the kind of financial counseling to our customers that we could. So we must be very careful in how we try to put ourselves on any pedestals. Placing an ad that says “we’re the good guys” may appear shallow and empty to the now cynical financial customer. How can they believe “us” anymore?
I believe that a well-crafted public relations program, designed to build each piece of the pedestal we want to stand on, can be a good way to highlight the strengths of your institution… to gain a position in your existing and prospective customers’ minds about who you are, what you stand for, and why you are different than the “problem” children in our industry.

A word of caution. The local president, who writes an article for the newspaper, may think he is an “expert” in this field. But in today’s ever-changing society, can quickly find out he had no credibility in what he said, simply because he said it. PR experts are built of years of experience of what works and what can bite you in the butt and cause greater issues than you had before. Collaborate with an experienced PR communicator on this one and you can find avenues to build your pedestal that will have true credibility and meaningful impact on customers looking for a new financial partner. Need help? Call us...

Get your fair share of the “money in motion” in 2009. In fact, get more.

Cheers...

Sharon Lovejoy
The newest member of the MarketMatch team!

Urchin 6.5 is now available

After months of intensive development, we are excited to announce the release of Urchin 6.5, which contains a much asked-for new feature: AdWords integration. That's right -- Urchin can now automatically pull your AdWords cost-per-click data and integrate it into your reports, giving you the same kind of powerful search marketing analysis found in Google Analytics. No more manual downloading and processing!

How does it work?

Simple. Log in to Urchin 6.5, enter your AdWords account information and save it. Urchin will tap into the AdWords API on a daily basis, process your data, and build your reports. The cost data and ROI metrics you need to optimize your AdWords spend will be ready in Urchin anytime you need them.

Anything else new about Urchin 6.5?

Yes, there are lots of new features and bug fixes. Among these, Urchin 6.5 features improved geo-database functions, a improved configuration-manager utility, and updated Help Center articles. Urchin 6.5 also recognizes the latest browsers and platforms like Chrome and Android.

How do I get it?

As always, Urchin is exclusively licensed through our network of authorized distributors. The software itself, which can be run in demo-mode for up to 30 days, is available at www.urchin.com.

So, what is Urchin, again?

For those of you who grew up on Google Analytics (so to speak), Urchin is the run-it-yourself software-based version from which Google Analytics was originally born. The products are not identical, but are similar in scope and function. The primary differences are (1) Urchin runs on your own servers, so you keep all your data in-house, and (2) Urchin is not free -- it costs US$2995, which includes reporting for up to 1000 domains.

What's in Urchin's future?

More exciting features and an improved user interface, plus more ways to analyze your search engine marketing data. Stay tuned!

Posted by Scott Crosby, Urchin Team

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!

---

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