Category: Evergreen

Articles fit for re-sharing, even after a long time

Measuring offline store activity with Google Universal Analytics

Hi folks,

Here is another post about Google Universal Analytics, seeing how you seem to like them 😉

Today we’re going to measure the performance of an offline store by testing 2 concepts:

  • measuring customers as they walk in/out of the store
  • measuring cash register transactions

Again, this is a proof of concept but feel free to expand upon it in your own store.

Ready? (Who am I kidding, you’re probably already giddy as a schoolgirl just reading this :D) Continue reading “Measuring offline store activity with Google Universal Analytics”

Gmail activity in Google Universal Analytics

Hi folks,

Yes, you read that title right. As another proof of concept after server-side PDF tracking, in this post I will show you a method for measuring your Gmail activity with Google Universal Analytics.

Not that you *need* it, but it is a good example of the sort of upcoming applications for Universal!

Again, this post is not for the technically faint of heart. Still good to go? Buckle up and see you after the jump 😉

Continue reading “Gmail activity in Google Universal Analytics”

Track PDF downloads with Google Universal Analytics – no Javascript!

In this post, I intend to share a technique / proof of concept for on-the-fly measurement of PDF files  downloads with Universal Analytics. Without Javacript.
Please note that n00bs are now strongly advised to leave this page (I can live with this bounce rate!) or continue at the risk of their own mental sanity.

Most of you have heard about the arrival of Google Analytics Universal.
This new version of Google Analytics is about:

  • revolutionizing analytics measurement with a unified protocol,
  • giving you a better, user-centric view of the customer experience via multiple platforms and devices,
  • giving you access to custom dimensions and metrics,
  • tracking offline activity (although you need *some* connectivity to send data home to the GA mothership)
Continue reading “Track PDF downloads with Google Universal Analytics – no Javascript!”

Unique visitor tracking in Google Analytics

Until Google’s Universal Analytics is rolled out we have little to no capability in Google Analytics for tracking unique visitors. Here is a little trick to capture “visitors” to your website.

Continue reading “Unique visitor tracking in Google Analytics”

Get Google Analytics performance heatmaps in… Excel!

Hey kids,

this post is just a quick tip to better visualize your Google Analytics data in terms of performance.

Sure, there are lots of ways to visually compare and analyze data directly in Google Analytics – or any other digital analytics solution for that matter. But bear with me and I’ll show you a neat trick… in Excel 😉

Continue reading “Get Google Analytics performance heatmaps in… Excel!”

“Recover” (not provided) keywords in Google Analytics

As a follow-up to my post on (not provided) , in this post I give you *one* of the methods I use for capturing “(not provided)” keywords in Google Analytics. Just to be clear this solution is far from perfect and you will remain frustrated. As I said in my previous post, short of a Google Webmaster Tools API, there is no (not provided) silver bullet.

Continue reading ““Recover” (not provided) keywords in Google Analytics”

(not provided) is here to stay – deal with it

Google logo

If you work in digital analytics or SEO, by now you’ve heard about the web tracking phenomenon that is (not provided).

Since the end of 2011, Google has implemented measures to respect the privacy of Internet users on the words and expressions they use on its search engine. Specifically, Google is gradually switching searches to secure mode (SSL / HTTPS) and no longer passes referrer information to the search result website, which means that keyword information is lost.

As of now you can still know the source and medium (Google organic search), but the keyword is replaced with a useless “(not provided)” label.

The impact for marketing and SEO agencies seems enormous. Entire business models based on Google search could collapse.

Or could they?

Continue reading “(not provided) is here to stay – deal with it”

Google Analytics days of the week

June 2013 EDIT: we now have a new Google Analytics dimension for day names:

google analytics days of the week new dimension

I get this question a lot:

Which days of the week are the most profitable for my website?
How can I see Google Analytics days of the week?

You should know that this kind of information is not available as is in Google Analytics 🙁
(Now you know)

However, here is a method you can use to get to that information.

Continue reading “Google Analytics days of the week”