Google Data » Nick

An Easy Way to Upgrade to Universal Analytics

Nick — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 17:35:00 +0000

Last year we launched Universal Analytics, a new technology that allows you to measure customer interactions across platforms and devices. As we announced at the 2013 Google Analytics Summit, we’ve been working on a solution to help you upgrade your existing properties to the new infrastructure without losing any historical data.

Today, we’re announcing the Universal Analytics Upgrade Center, an easy, two-step process to upgrade your existing properties from classic Google Analytics to Universal Analytics.

Once you complete the upgrade process, you can continue to access all of your historical data, plus get all the benefits of Universal Analytics including custom dimensions and metrics, a simplified version of the tracking code, and better cross-domain and cross-device tracking support.

Getting Started

You can upgrade your classic Google Analytics properties into Universal Analytics properties by following these two steps:

Step 1: Transfer your property from Classic to Universal Analytics.
We’ve developed a new tool to transfer your properties to Universal Analytics that we will be slowly enabling in the admin section of all accounts. In the coming weeks, look for it in your property settings.

Step 2: Re-tag with a version of the Universal Analytics tracking code.
After completing Step 1, you’ll be able to upgrade your tracking code, too. Use the analytics.js JavaScript library on your websites, and Android or iOS SDK v2.x or higher for your mobile apps.

Universal Analytics Auto-Transfer

Our goal is to enable Universal Analytics for all Google Analytics properties. Soon all Google Analytics updates and new features will be built on top of the Universal Analytics infrastructure. To make sure all properties upgrade, Classic Analytics properties that don’t initiate a transfer will be auto-transferred to Universal Analytics in the coming months.

Upgrade Resources

To answer common questions, we’ve put together the Universal Analytics Upgrade Center, a comprehensive guide to the entire upgrade plan. This guide includes an overview of the process, technical references for developers, and a project timeline with phases of the overall upgrade.

We’ve also included FAQs in the Upgrade Center, but if you need more information, you can also visit the new Universal Analytics Google Group to search for answers and ask more specific questions.

We’re excited to offer you this opportunity to upgrade, and hope you take advantage of the resources we’ve created to guide you through the process. Visit the Universal Analytics Upgrade Google Group to share your comments and feedback. We’d love to hear what you have to say!

Posted By Nick Mihailovski, on behalf of the Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #25 – The Silver Anniversary Show!

Nick — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 15:32:00 +0000

Welcome to the analysis ninja show, aka Web Analytics TV! Web Analytics TV, as you well know by now, is powered by your amazing questions. In this awesome episode we had questions from Dubai, India, Germany, Sweden, France, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, and the US.

If you’re new to this show, our process is simple.

Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions. Vote on next week’s questions using this Web Analytics TV Google Moderator site.

Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer them. :-)

In this episode we award the “Ninja of the Episode” and award it to Eric from Ontario for a great question about calculating the economic value of conversions in Google Analytics. Eric, just email us and we’ll send you a signed copy of Web Analytics 2.0.

OK. Here is the list of last episodes questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

(2:42) Reasons for self referrals on mobile websites
(5:13) Where to find keywords for (not provided)
(7:14) Reporting when the same user completes a sequence of tasks
(8:38) How is social media determined in social reports
(10:18) What happens when you send more data than the monthly cap
(12:24) How paths show up when opening up new tabs or windows
(13:23) How converting on multiple goals are reported in goal funnels
(15:12) Why sampling occurs on profiles that filter out lots of traffic
(16:50) Tracking purchases across domains
(19:46) Can social referrals be tracked using campaign tracking parameters
(20:53) How advanced segments work when applied to landing pages
(23:00) The difference between the visitor and unique visitor metric
(24:50) When will the mobile SDK be updated to have non-interaction events
(25:50) The difference between product revenue and revenue
(27:52) What are good tactics to find the economic value of goal conversions

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

Smarter Data Analysis of (not provided) post by Avinash
How visitors and unique visitors are calculated in Google Analytics
Identify website goal [economic] value post by Avinash

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you’re there don’t forget to vote for your favorite questions. Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics team

New Google Analytics Easy Dashboard Library

Nick — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:19:00 +0000

Many developers save time by using the Google Analytics API to automate Analytics reporting tasks. For example, you can use the API to create a dashboard to report data across multiple profiles. The Google Analytics App Gallery includes many 3rd party solutions that do this.

What if you want to build something quickly that’s custom-tailored to your business? You would typically have to spend time learning the API, figuring out how to handle authorization, then deciding how to integrate this data with a visualization library. You could build a custom solution, but it took a lot of effort – until now, thanks to the Google Analytics Easy Dashboard Library.

Four months ago we started a project with a team of University of California Irvine students to simplify all of these steps. As part of this project, together we built the Google Analytics Easy Dashboard Library. This library makes it easy to use the Google Analytics API by distilling the process into three easy steps:

1. Register with Google APIs Console.
2. Copy and paste the JavaScript code.
3. Configure this code to query your data and choose a chart type to visualize it.

So now you can create custom Google Analytics dashboards very quickly, with minimal code.

Here’s a quick example. Say you want to create a line chart plotting visitors and visits for the last 30 days. Besides including the library, the only code required is:

Using the code above will create this chart.

It’s that easy! To find out more about using the Easy Dashboard Library, read our Getting Started guide.

While the current library is very useful, we think we can add more features and make it even easier to use. To reach this goal, we’ve started working with another group of UC Irvine students, this time for three academic quarters. This new project’s main goal will be to further simplify the library. We want the students we’re working with to engage with you and implement your feature requests, if possible. If you use this library, we'd love to hear how you think it can be improved. Feel free to send any feedback to through our new GA-easy-dash-feedback google group.

We hope this library saves you time and helps you get more out of Google Analytics.

Posted by,
Jeetendra Soneja and Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team

Web Analytics TV #24 – The Ninja Show

Nick — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:42:00 +0000

Welcome to the ninja show, aka Web Analytics TV! Web Analytics TV, as you well know by now, is powered by your amazing questions. In this awesome episode we had questions from Dubai, India, Germany, Sweden, France, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, and the US.
If you’re new to this show, our process is simple.

Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions. Vote on next week’s questions using this Web Analytics TV Google Moderator site.

Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer them. :-)

In this episode we award the “Ninja of the Episode” and award it to Joe for a great question about the difference in data between the Visits to transactions report and the multi-channel funnels path length report. Joe, just email us and we’ll send you a signed copy of Web Analytics 2.0.

OK. Here is the list of last episodes questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

(0:28) Determining what caused your visitors to become return visitors
(2:25) Calculating click though rate on site visits
(3:43) Best way to report on internal user traffic to your site
(5:23) Does sampling use a random set of sessions
(6:20) Differences in visits to transactions and path length in multi-channel funnels
(9:20) Using events in a goal funnel
(9:46) Best ways to debug iOS and Android apps
(10:37) Calculating number of events happen per session
(11:40) Best practices for tracking duration in a video
(12:43) Differences in how JavaScript and Android libraries persist visitor info
(13:35) Differences in unique visitors and repeat visits
(14:43) Impact of setSessionCampaignTimeout on multi-channel funnels
(15:45) Importing conversion goals from AdWords into Google Analytics
(16:48) Viewing Google Analytics on an i-device
(17:53) Using outbound link tracking to track exit links

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

YouTube video demoing how to debug Google Analytics in Android applications

In the fourth question we answer if sampled (fast access mode) data uses a random set of sessions. Just to recap, in most reports, Google Analytics pre-calculates report data and there is no sampling. But in some cases, like when you apply a secondary dimension, the report data needs to be calculated on the fly. In this case, Google Analytics might only process a subset of sessions so that it can return the report in a timely manner. Here’s how the subset of sessions is determined.

Currently fast-access model (sampling) can be controlled via a slider and the default is to process 250,000 sessions. This means that in the date range, only 250,000 sessions will be used in the report calculation. In Google Analytics, visits count sessions. So say a site received the following 3 days of visits.

Day 1 : 500,000
Day 2 : 250,000
Day 3 : 500,000

So, a total of 1,250,000 visits occurred in the date range. To determine which sessions are selected in the fast-access sample, Google Analytics first calculates a multiplier by dividing the total visits in the date range with the number of visits selected on the slider.

multiplier = 1,250,000 / 250,000 = 5

Then for each day, the total number of sessions is divided by the multiplier and only that number of sessions is randomly chosen from each day to be processed.

For Day 1 : 500,000 / 5 = 100,000. So 100,000 sessions are randomly chosen from day 1 to be processed to generate the report data for that day.

For Day 2: 250,000 / 5 = 50,000 sessions are used
For Day 3: 500,000 / 5 = 100,000 sessions are used

Once Google Analytics has determined which sessions to use, the sessions are all processed into a report. Then the report values are then multiplied by the multiplier to scale the final results.

Whats nice about the new fast-access mode slider feature, is that you can use the slider to change the number of sessions used in the processing. And by comparing the number of sessions used, you can see the impact of sampling on your data.

Ok great question.

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you’re there don’t forget to vote for your favorite questions. Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Thanks!

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics team

Web Analytics TV #23 – The Holiday Episode

Nick — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Welcome to the holiday episode of Web Analytics TV! Web Analytics TV, as you well know by now, is powered by your amazing questions. In this merry episode we had questions from France, Australia, Sweden, India, Germany, The Netherlands and the US.

If you’re new to this show, our process is simple.

Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions. Vote on next week’s questions using this Web Analytics TV Google Moderator site.

Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer them. :-)

In this episode we award the “Ninja of the Episode” and award it to Maggie in Bulgaria, for a great question about the difference between the days and visits to transaction report and the time lag reports in multi channel funnels. Maggie, just email us and we’ll send you a signed copy of Web analytics 2.0.

OK. Here is the list of last episodes questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

(0:35) Working with changes in various country’s cookie policies
(1:56) Recommendation for tracking bounces on content sites
(4:32) Tracking exit links from your website
(7:00) Tracking and reporting customer lifetime value
(9:47) Days to purchase vs time lag reports in multi-channel funnels
(11:48) Cross domain and sub-domain tracking using a GACP
(13:01) Funnel visualization via the API
(16:03) Interaction hits and impact on quota
(16:41) Tracking internal referrals / campaings / house ads
(17:51) Why visits and entrances are the same for page level custom vars
(19:54) Comparing mondays, week over week
(20:42) Time between setting profiles filers and seeing data in reports

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:
Funnel visualization using paditrack
Vote on developer issue in our issue tracker
Justin Cutroni explains how to use internal site search to track internal campaigns
Use Excellent Analytics, GA Data Grabber, Next Analytics to extract data into excel
Check out the Google Analytics App Gallery for great tools
As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you’re there don’t forget to vote for your favorite questions. Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Thanks!
Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #22 – The Automation episode

Nick — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:09:00 +0000

Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer them. :-)

In this episode we award the “Ninja of the Episode” and award it to Niklas in Sweden, for a great question about the difference between events and custom variables. Niklas, just email us and we’ll send you a signed copy of Web analytics 2.0.

OK. Here is the list of last episodes questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

(0:23) Best practices for rollup reporting across multiple sites (See answer below)
(0:53) Reporting secure search in Google Analytics
(3:27) Troubleshooting funnel navigation reports
(4:31) Comparing using event tracking and session level custom variables.
(6:28) Measuring how visitors who interact with a video influence conversions
(7:35) When data in Google Analytics updated
(9:55) Representing multiple date ranges by column
(11:04) Best practices for tracking widgets
(11:40) Exporting greater than 500 rows from Google Analytics
(13:43) Comparing days to purchase by medium
(15:20) Using multiple tracking codes on the same page (see answer below)
(16:25) Best practices using custom variables to track multivariate test information
(18:10) Reporting across multiple currencies in Google Analytics
(19:10) Segmenting 'serious' visitors by loyalty and engagement metrics
(21:32) Measuring click to call buttons in your mobile websites
(22:45) The best and most time efficient way to put Google Analytics data into a powerPoint
(23:47) Tracking cross-sells or up-sells on a product page
(26:05) Tracking multiple ids or paths per page
(26:45) Why single page website show time on site metrics
(28:27) Using the reverse page path report for analysis
(30:21) Do profile filters impact site search reports
(32:39) How to get fast traffic in your reports

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

There was one question asked which we needed to get more information.

“What is your recommendation to simultaneously track data for a local site & having a roll-up profile to track aggregate data across all sites of a company.”

What we learned was that there are 25+ sites on different domains split across 2 business units. A simple solution is to pull out data using the API to create any rollup reports you need. Another option is to have multiple tracking codes on the same page, and have one code be the same across all the sites. That way all the data is sent into a single report which you can view.

One thing to keep in mind, is that each site will track visitors separately. So visitor numbers will not be accurate across all the sites.

So hopefully this helps you out. As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you’re there don’t forget to vote for your favorite questions. Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics team

Web Analytics TV #21 – Short, Sweet, Delicious

Nick — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:19:00 +0000

Welcome to another delightful episode of Web Analytics TV! Web Analytics TV, as you well know by now, is powered by your amazing questions. In this wonderful episode we had questions from Australia, Denmark, India, Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands and even Cleveland Ohio.

If you’re new to this show, our process is simple.

Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions. Vote on next week’s questions using this Web Analytics TV Google Moderator site.

Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer them. :-)

In this episode we award the “Ninja of the Episode” and award it to Scott in Cleveland, Ohio for a really great question about verification steps in funnels. Scott, just email us and we’ll send you a signed copy of Web analytics 2.0.

OK. Here is the list of last episodes questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

(0:53) Setting up a funnel for a process which requires a verification step
(3:21) The impact of using profile filters to remove internal IP addresses
(4:05) Using regular expressions to match on event goals
(5:15) Grouping multi-channel funnels by landing pages
(6:24) Tracking site links with Google Analytics
(9:27) Manual campaign tracking with links that use anchor tags
(11:15) Best practices for tracking sites with different language sections
(14:00) Getting a report with 3 dimensions
(15:40) Tracking bounce rate to many product pages as one page
(18:45) Seeing reports that have unique visitor utma ids

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

New Google Analytics SDK for iOS Version 1.3

Nick — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 19:59:00 +0000

Today we are releasing a new version of the Google Analytics for iOS SDK. We’ve added several features similar to those added to the Google Analytics for Android SDK version 1.3 earlier. New features include:

General Campaign Tracking
This new feature is probably the most exciting one for this release. We now support the ability to set campaign referral information. To learn more about this feature and how to use is, see our documentation.

AnonymizeIp
To provide more privacy to your users, use the anonymizeIp property in the GANTracker class, which removes the last octet of the IP address prior to storage. More details can be found in the documentation.

SampleRate
If you are getting a large volume of traffic, you can set the sample rate to be something other than 100% and we’ll decide based on visitor ID whether to send hits. This will allow you to control the sampling of your report data rather than having on-the-fly sampling occur. Check out the documentation for more details.

We're continuing to enhance the Google Analytics Mobile SDKs to add features, fix bugs and make them better overall. We hope you are just as excited as us with this latest version of the Google Analytics for iOS SDK.

Posted by Jim Cotugno and Neil Rhodes, Google Analytics Mobile Team

Introducing two new versions of the Management API

Nick — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:07:00 +0000

Today we are releasing two new versions of our Management API into public beta; a brand new version 3.0 and a backwards compatible version 2.4. While the data the API exposes is the same, both versions migrate the Management API from the existing Google Data Protocol to Google’s new API infrastructure. This impacts the way you request and handle data from the API.

With this change, we are also announcing the deprecation of the legacy version 2.3 of the Management API. It will continue to work for 2 months, after which all v2.3 requests will return a v2.4 response.

The biggest changes in switching to the new versions are that developers need to register their applications via the Google APIs Console and use a developer token. Also the URL endpoints have changed, which influence how you request OAuth authorization tokens.

Here’s a rundown of what’s new:

Version 3.0
Is the latest major version of our API and is not backwards compatible. Features include:

A faster response over version 2.3
An improved quota policy
Integration with the Google APIs console to manage API access and request more quota
OAuth 2.0 is now the recommended way to Authorize users
The URL to make requests is now at https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/management/...
The API response is more compact using JSON
New Google API client libraries, which support many more languages
Support for the Google Discovery API

All future development of the API will be done to this version so we also added some exciting new data only in version 3, including:

Event goals are fully represented
An internal web property id which can be used to deep link into the GA user interface
Profile configurations for the default page and site search query parameters

Version 2.4
This is a minor version upgrade and we tried hard to make it backwards compatible with the existing Version 2.3. New changes include:

A faster response over version 2.3
An improved quota policy
Integration with the Google API console to manage API access and request more quota
Continued support for existing authorization mechanisms; OAuth 2.0 now supported
The URL to make requests is now at https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v2.4/management/...
Supports XML response only
The Google Data JavaScript client library will not work with this version

The XML output from this version is the same as version 2.3 so the existing Google Data client libraries will continue to work.

If You’re a Developer, What You Need To Do
Take a deep breath and get excited ;)

While we typically don’t share our roadmap, to alleviate any concerns, we wanted to give you some insight on where we’re going and how this release fits into the bigger picture. Today’s release adds two new versions to the Management API, v2.4 and v3.0. We also have a Data Export API that provides access to report data, which is still on version 2.3. In the future, we plan to do a similar upgrade to the Data Export API Data Feed by releasing two new versions for it, and deprecating version 2.3. At that time, we also plan to completely deprecate the Data Export API Account Feed.

The future of our APIs is to access all configuration data through the Management API and all processed report data through the Data Export API.

So for now, if you are already using the Management API, we recommend you migrate to the latest and greatest version 3.0.

If you are still using the Account Feed in the Data Export API, we highly recommend you test out the new Management API and start planning your migration. But, you can probably wait to do a full migration until all our APIs are on version 3.0.

If you have any questions feel free to reach out in our Management API developer group.

Posted by Jeetendra Soneja and Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team

Web Analytics TV #20 – The lost episode with a Special Guest

Nick — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:51:00 +0000

Welcome to another magical episode of Web Analytics TV! This time we have a special guest Caleb Whitmore from Analytics Pros, who is also a Google Analytics Certified Partner. Welcome Caleb! If you’re having difficulty implementing Google Analytics, Caleb has built the exceptional GAPE, Google Analytics Pros Engine, solution which simplifies tracking on your website. Check it out!

Ok. We had so much fun doing this episode, you are going to have a blast as well.

Web Analytics TV, as you well know by now, is powered by your questions. In this episode we had questions from Australia, India, Denmark, England, Germany Netherlands and so many other places. Y’all rock!

If you’re new to this show, our process for this show is simple.

Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions. Vote on next week’s questions using this Web Analytics TV Google Moderator site.

Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski answer them. :-)

Here is the list of last episodes questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

(0:37) eCommerce conversion rate in custom reports
(1:05) Pan session analysis
(2:28) Controlling conversion attribution
(4:20) Impact of changing the campaign cookie timeout
(6:19) Tracking users across multiple sections of a website
(7:56) Tracking internal site campaigns in GA
(8:21) Report filters to mimic Custom Variables profile filters
(9:10) Tracking embedded YouTube videos
(10:24) Determining all organic traffic to a particular page
(11:52) Drilling into channel paths in Multi Channel Funnels
(12:32) Excluding traffic from bots
(13:48) Reporting the number of visitors between two sites
(15:08) Using a single vs multiple landing pages to track different campaigns
(17:00) What metrics to use for a single page website
(19:35) Filtering monitoring solutions like Gomez
(20:13) How you can use _getVisitorCustomVar
(21:21) Creating funnels with groups of URLs
(22:08) Why you can see more visits than pageviews (esp in Android tracking)
(23:47) Can you influence the timestamp of requests to GA
(24:05) How to track conversions for non-ecommerce websites
(24:51) Configuring goals that match both on pages and events
(25:55) Why you should change to async tracking
(27:18) How sampling in Google Analytics works

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you are there don’t forget to vote for your favorite questions. Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

New Google Analytics SDK for Android – Version 1.3

Nick — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:18:00 +0000

Today we’re announcing a new and improved version of the Google Analytics SDK for Android. This release is jam-packed with lots of good fixes, improved methods, and most importantly, better campaign tracking! Read on for all the juicy details.

General Campaign Tracking
This new feature is probably the most exciting one for this release. The SDK now supports the ability to set campaign referral information at any time, instead of at installation time. This gives advertisers the ability to now track ads which lead people to user their app. To learn more about this feature and how to use it, check out the new campaign tracking section in our documentation.

Anonymizing Ip Addresses
To provide more privacy to your users, we added a new setAnonymizeIp method in the GoogleAnalyticsTracker class. This removes the last octet of the IP address prior to storage and makes the tracking more anonymous

Configuring The Sample Rate
If you are getting a large volume of traffic, you can set the tracking sample rate to only send a portion of data to Google Analytics. Once configured, the tracker will decide based on visitor ID whether to send hits.

Deprecations
We are deprecating the start and stop methods in favor of the startNewSession and stopSession. The existing methods will continue to be in the library, so your applications will still work when you upgrade, but we highlight recommend you move to these new methods.

Bug Fixes
In this release we were also able to fix three bugs:

1. We’ve fixed a few issues with how the SDK accesses SQLite. As a result you will see less warnings and the SDK now uses less memory!

2. We’ve fixed a bug that might occur if you’re using custom variables.

3. The tracker no longer uses the application context passed to the SDK when starting up. This should avoid memory leaks caused by holding Activity Contexts beyond the life of the Activity.

We hope you’ll find this latest version of the Google Analytics SDK for Android to be a big improvement over previous versions. We also hope you realize we’re committed to making Google Analytics a first class provider of mobile app analytics as well as web analytics.

There’s plenty more coming for the Google Analytics SDKs for both Android and iOS. Stay tuned.

Posted by Jim Cotugno and Neil Rhodes, Google Analytics Tracking Team

Looking for Developer Evangelists

Nick — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 23:38:00 +0000

Do you love Google Analytics? Are you passionate about web technologies? Want to help drive cutting edge Analytics extensions and integrations?

If this sounds like you, then we're looking for qualified and inspired engineers to join our Analytics team to help 3rd party developers get the most out of our product. You'll work with a variety of Google Analytics technologies, including the JavaScript tracking code, Mobile SDKs, and Data APIs. You’ll write sample applications, help partners troubleshoot integrations, and present best practices at conferences. In short, you’ll help to make engineers just like you even more successful!

If you’re interested we’d love to hear from you.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Developer Programs Engineer

New Ecommerce Tracking and Validation in the Analytics SDK for iOS

Nick — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:36:00 +0000

Back in May, we announced Version 1.2 of the Google Analytics SDK for Android.

Today we’re happy to announce that Google Analytics SDK for iOS version 1.2 has been released. This new version supports Ecommerce tracking as well as the new debug and dry run modes, just like its Android counterpart.

Ecommerce Tracking
With Ecommerce mobile tracking, you can capture transaction and product information, send the data to Google Analytics, and then analyze which products performed best. Of course, because this is all within Google Analytics, you can also tie transaction data back to app usage behavior. See the Google Analytics SDK for iOS developer docs to learn how to implement this feature.

Debug and Validation
In addition to Ecommerce, we’ve added new debug and dry run modes to make it easier to validate your Google Analytics implementation.

Debug Mode:

[[GANTracker sharedTracker] setDebug:YES];

With debug mode, all data requests to Google Analytics are sent to the debug console.

Dry Run:

[[GANTracker sharedTracker] setDryRun:YES];

The dry run mode sends all tracking data locally so that you don’t corrupt your production data. Just be sure to turn it off before releasing your app, otherwise you won’t collect any usage data.

Posted by Jim Cotugno, Google Analytics Mobile Tracking Team

Social Plugin Analytics in Google Analytics

Nick — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:59:00 +0000

With our recent Social Plugin Analytics launch you now have the ability to analyse how users engage with any social plugin such as Google’s +1 button and Twitter’s Tweet button. Now it’s time for the lowdown on how to set this feature up to work for you. If you are a developer, you should pay particularly close attention.

If you’ve added +1 buttons to your site and your Analytics implementation is up to date, integration is automatic and you should already see data in your account. You can ensure the +1 integration is working by taking some simple steps.

If you want to integrate with other social plugins, like Twitter, we’ve also made it really easy. The latest version of the tracking code has a new _trackSocial method to capture various aspects of a social plugin interaction. Using the async javascript snippet, the easiest way to call this method is to use:

_gaq.push([‘_trackSocial’, socialNetwork, socialAction]);

And if you’re using the traditional snippet you’ll need to use this syntax:

var pageTracker = _gat._createTracker(‘UA-xxxxx-y’);
pageTracker._trackSocial(socialNetwork, socialAction);

You then want to call this method somewhere where you know the social plugin has been clicked on. We’ve included some example on how this work with Twitter’s plugin API as well as Facebook’s plugin API and you can see a working demo here. Sweet!

If you are building an integration for use by several Analytics users we encourage you to use the code for the async snippet for now. Also, to enable the development of integrations such as these we would like to share with our customers that we are working toward better compatibility between the sync and async tags with the goal of enabling calls such as _trackSocial to work for both version with the same syntax.

Finally, if you are a developer of a content management plugin which adds social plugins to websites, or if you build social plugins, we want to work with you! Ideally we’d love for all users of your plugin and Google Analytics to have seamless social analytics. In the developer community spirit we’re giving out free t-shirts to the first 100 developers who integrate a social plugin, or a Content Management plugin that adds social widgets to sites with Google Analytics. Let us know what you’ve done by submitting your plugin here.

UPDATE: 7/8/11 5:30pm PST, corrected references to the social plugin analytics feature.

Posted by John Jersin, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #19 – The Most Productive Episode

Nick — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:30:00 +0000

Welcome to one of our most productive episodes of Web Analytics TV yet! We had so much fun doing this one, you are going to have a blast as well.

Web Analytics TV, as you well know by now, is powered by your questions. In this episode we had questions from Australia, Brazil, India, Denmark, England, Netherlands and so many other places. Y’all rock!

If you’re new to this show, our process for this show is simple.

Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions. Vote on next week’s questions using this Web Analytics TV Google Moderator site.

Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer them. : )

In this episode we bring back the “Ninja of the Episode” and award it to Aaron from Tasmania, Australia. Really great questions Aaron. Just email us and we’ll send you a signed copy of Web analytics 2.0.

Here is the list of last weeks questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

(1:36) Cookies and laws (and milk)
(2:28) Setting multiple conditions for goals via Advanced Segments
(4:45) Using event tracking and custom reports to track calendars
(6:45) Getting site link data in Google Analytics
(7:37) Tracking conversions for individual products
(9:25) Best practices for setting up Google Analytics for different clients
(10:35) Tracking shopping carts on different domains
(11:54) Tracking internal site search on AJAX-type site search
(13:50) Combining referrals from different sites
(15:30) Implementing cross domain tracking with the async-tracking code
(17:05) How to determine when data is sampled
(19:42) Browser support for page speed reports
(22:08) Getting the name of each configured goal via the API
(23:16) When the GAIQ test will include version 5 content
(24:08) Getting hourly overview metrics in Google Analytics
(25:11) Differences between webmaster tools clicks and visits in GA
(26:18) How much income should you have to employee a web analyst
(30:06) Goal completions by different landing pages
(31:19) Visit duration calculation in Google Analytics
(32:53) Where to find e-commerce city and region data in Google Analytics
(34:02) Stopping other sites from sending fake traffic
(34:55) Virtual page views showing up in custom reports

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

Tracking SEO rankings and sitelinks with Google Analytics by André Scholten
Using setDomainName to set GA cookies to a root domain
Cross domain tracking with async tracking
Goal configuration data in the Management API
Hourly traffic pattern reports in Excel from the API by Next Analytics
How analytics tools calculate Time on Site by Avinash Kaushik
Using a hostname filter to reduce spam by Jason Green

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you are there don’t forget to vote for your favourite questions. Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

New Ecommerce tracking and validation in the Analytics SDK for Android

Nick — Thu, 05 May 2011 18:19:00 +0000

Increasingly, mobile applications allow you to purchase products and virtual goods. For that reason, it’s important to track these mobile transactions in order to understand which products perform well.

So today we’ve added Ecommerce tracking functionality to the Google Analytics SDK for Android.

Ecommerce Tracking
With Ecommerce mobile tracking, you can capture transaction and product information, send the data to Google Analytics, and then analyze which products performed best. Of course, because this is all within Google Analytics, you can also tie transaction data back to app usage behavior. For example, you can now compare the referral that generated an app download by the revenue it generated. See the Google Analytics SDK for Android developer docs to learn how to implement this feature.

Debug and Validation
In addition to Ecommerce, we’ve added new debug and dry run modes to make it easier to validate your Google Analytics implementation.

Debug Mode:

tracker.setDebug(true);

With debug mode, all data requests to Google Analytics are sent to the Android log, allowing you to validate that your app is sending data properly. You can view the Android log using the adb logcat command.

Dry Run:

tracker.setDryRun(true);

The dry run mode sends all tracking data locally so that you don’t corrupt your production data.

See Us At Google IO
We’ll be demoing all this new functionality this year Google IO, so stop by the Optimizing Android Apps With Google Analytics session on May 11, 12:30PM – 01:30PM / Room 9.

Posted by Jim Cotugno, Google Analytics Tracking Team

Web Analytics TV #18

Nick — Tue, 03 May 2011 16:48:00 +0000

Welcome to yet another amazing episode of Web Analytics TV! We had so much fun doing this one, you are going to have a blast as well.

Web Analytics TV, as you well know by now, is powered by your questions. In this episode we had questions from Australia, Brazil, India, Denmark, England, Netherlands and so many other places. Y’all rock!

Our process for this show is simple.

Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions. Vote on next week’s questions using this Web Analytics TV Google Moderator site.

Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer them. : )

Here is the list of last weeks questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

(0:12) Best way to integrate Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics
(1:21) Getting the page title next to the all navigation report
(2:18) Why clicks and visits might not match between AdWords and Analytics
(3:43) Preventing URL tracked with campaign tracking being indexed by Google
(5:04) Is there a downtime using ga.js (tracking code). And the benefit of async?
(7:04) Why you see other in the top landing pages report?
(9:06) Why you see self-referrals in Google Analytics
(10:41) Tracking banners and internal campaigns
(12:45) Combining the search referrers to a group of pages
(13:55) Tracking the number of clicks that happen between domains
(15:48) Is there a Pod cast on iTunes?
(16:20) Google Website Optimizer
(17:22) Differentiating between video click referrals
(18:16) Using matched search query term without auto-tagging

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you are there don’t forget to vote for your favorite questions. Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #16 – Goals and ECommerce Tracking Edition

Nick — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 17:28:00 +0000

Welcome to our first Web Analytics TV episode of 2011!

Web Analytics TV is powered by your questions, in this episode we had questions from Australia, India, Russia, Germany, Israel, Poland, Argentina, Dubai, Cyprus and so many other places. It is amazing to see such an engaged audience from around the world. You all rock!

Our process is simple. Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site. Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski answer them. : )

In this episode our special guest is Sagnik Nandy, Engineering Lead for the Google Analytics back-end team. We are also thrilled to present Alan from Vancouver with the “Analytics Ninja of the Episode” award for his excellent question about sampling in Google Analytics. Alan, just send us an email and we’ll send you an autographed, personalized, copy of Web Analytics 2.0.

Here is the list of last weeks questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

(0:34) Detecting new local search engines in Google Analytics
(1:11) Effects of browser Do Not Track features on Google Analytics
(2:50) Is there anything you can do to reduce sampling in reports
(4:56) Measuring visitors who have visited one page for more than 30s
(5:50) Is passing a random visitor id in a visitor level custom var allowed?
(7:03) Tracking Google Places paid ad referrals
(8:18) Using jQuery to track outbound links
(9:18) Ways to filter or segment on the day of week
(10:05) When will Google Analytics work on devices that don’t support Flash
(11:06) How to track e-commerce and goals that happen on a 3rd party site
(12:37) Unique visitor metrics now available through the API
(14:38) Tracking Ecommerce transactions in one web property in different profiles
(15:45) Is it OK to track the name and email address with Google Analytics
(16:23) Can you use events to track outbound links on your site

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

Using _addOrganic link to detect new search engines
General event tracking documentation
jQuery plugins to simplify Google Analytics tracking
Solutions to view Google Analytics on mobile devices

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you are there don’t forget to vote for your favourite questions. Avinash and Nick will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Thanks!
Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

New ActionScript 3 Library For The API

Nick — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:42:00 +0000

We love simplifying access to Google Analytics data though our API. So today we’re happy to introduce a new ActionScript 3 Client Library built by our friends in Russia, DENIVIP Media, for our Data Export API.

This library provides a simple way to access your Analytics Data from both AIR Applications and Flash Player (though a proxy). The library was initially built to power DENIVIP Media’s new TiViCon application, which you can read more about on DENIVIP’s blog. “Given the potential value of this library to many other developers, we decided to make it freely available along with its source code,” says Denis Bulichenko, Director of Business Development at DENIVIP.

So now you have a simple way to access all your data in ActionScript 3.

You can get the open source ActionScript 3 library, a really nice quick start guide, and a sample application all from their website.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team

Web Analytics TV #14 – Just Wow

Nick — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 18:28:00 +0000

Well it’s another amazing episode of Web Analytics TV. In this exciting series with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, you ask and vote on your favorite web analytics questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them.

In this episode we award Darren in Southern California the "Ninja of the Episode" award for his great question about how to track clicks on links that point to the same destination page. Really great question Darren. Just send us an email and we’ll send you an autographed, personalized, copy of Web Analytics 2.0.

Here is the list of last weeks questions. Just Wow!

In this action-packed episode we discuss:

(0:30) Tracking dynamic/variable goal values in Google Analytics
(1:50) How to determine if async ga.js has loaded for outbound link tracking
(4:00) How GA tracks sessions/visits with tabbed browsing
(6:38) Adding event tracking to links without a lot of manual work
(8:26) Best practices for passing campaign data via custom variables
(10:15) Is there a way to export data from an old profile to a new one?
(11:10) Ways to rollup data across accounts for custom dashboards
(12:20) In page analytics with sites that changes content very quickly
(13:30) Reasons why AdWords data in the API is a bit behind the other data
(14:40) Native call tracking with Google Analytics
(15:47) Why transaction and goal metrics might differ for the same page
(17:30) Ways to track different links on a page that point to the same destination
(20:18) Sharing advanced segments and custom reports with others
(21:12) How to link many AdWords accounts into Google Analytics
(21:50) Using autotagging to avoid AdWords-GA integration issues
(22:47) How many visits do you need to determine statistical significance
(25:10) How to track pay pal with Google Analytics
(26:20) How reliable are city level metrics in Google Analytics
(27:53) Good metrics to track the effectiveness of knowledge base articles

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

Async _gat tracking reference and how to use it with _gaq
The Analytics Pros Engine to auto-magically track events
More information about how to set session level custom variables
Google Analytics App Gallery with tools to simplify creating dashboards
Specific dashboard apps like TrakkBoard, Shufflepoint and GA Data Grabber
Google AdWords call tracking
Avinash describes how to calculate statistical significance with analytics data
Integrating a PayPal shopping cart with Google Analytics

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below. And, if you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question and vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Thanks!

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #13 – For the Ninjas

Nick — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 19:49:00 +0000

Well it’s another episode of Web Analytics TV. In this exciting series with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, you ask and vote on your favorite web analytics questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them.

In this episode we introduce our new ninja award program (and ninja chop to go with it). Going forward, we will pick our favourite question and award the person the Analysis Ninja of the Episode award! They will get an autographed, personalized, copy of Web Analytics 2.0.

Our first winner is Sushant from New York for his excellent question on tabbed browsing and it’s impact on session level data. Congrats and please keep the great questions coming (and win!).

Here is the list of last weeks questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

(2:35) Combining (A AND B) OR (C AND D) in advanced segments
(4:03) Is there a way to tell how many people have opted out of being tracked by GA
(6:18) How does tracking Google Analytics and Urchin work together
(7:53) How is tabbed browsing tracked in Google Analytics?
(10:30) Do Website Optimizer A/B tests only track direct traffic?
(11:27) Are there any survey/voice of customer tools that integrate with GA?
(12:47) Does the async code execute faster than the traditional snippet?
(14:40) You can’t track users who have opted out of GA
(15:13) Why table report filters get removed when you navigate away from a page
(16:30) Why are there differences between Unique visitor reports? Which to use.
(18:00) Can Google Analytics track live chat forms?

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

How you can automate requesting multiple advanced segments with the API to get AND precedence with Advanced Segments.
Kampyle - Google Analytics, Voice of Customer Integration
Live Person - Google Analytics, Integration

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below. And, if you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question and vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Post content Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Python Library for the Management API

Nick — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 22:54:00 +0000

It’s been only 7 weeks since we’ve launched the Google Analytics Management API and we’ve heard a lot of great feedback. Thanks!

Since Python is one of our more popular languages, we’ve updated the Google Analytics Python Client Library to access all 5 feeds of the Management API. Now it’s easier than ever to get your configuration data from the API. Awesome.

To show you how simple it is to use the library, here is an example which returns all the goal names for a profile:

import gdata.analytics.client

APP_NAME = 'goal_names_demo'
my_client = gdata.analytics.client.AnalyticsClient(source=APP_NAME)

# Authorize
my_client.client_login(
    INSERT_USER_NAME,
    INSERT_PASSWORD,
    APP_NAME,
    service='analytics')

# Make a query.
query = gdata.analytics.client.GoalQuery(
      acct_id='INSERT_ACCOUNT_ID',
      web_prop_id='INSERT_WEB_PROP_ID',
      profile_id='INSERT_PROFILE_ID')

# Get and print results.
results = my_client.GetManagementFeed(query)
for entry in results.entry:
  print 'Goal number = %s' % entry.goal.number
  print 'Goal name   = %s' % entry.goal.name
  print 'Goal value  = %s' % entry.goal.value

To get you started, we wrote a reference example which accesses all the important information for each feed. We also added links to the source and PyDoc from the Management API Libraries and Examples page. Have a look and let us know what you think!

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team

Bazaarvoice Integration

Nick — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 18:30:00 +0000

We always love to share news about integrations and applications built on the Google Analytics platform. Here’s one from Bazaarvoice.

Bazaarvoice helps e-commerce sites become social by providing a platform for visitors to leave comments and reviews about products. It's user-generated content right on an e-commerce website. With this new integration, Google Analytics users can now see visitor interaction with their Bazaarvoice social content. Here's what Andy Wolfe, Product Manager at Bazaarvoice said about the integration:

“With this integration, Bazaarvoice clients can now see, in Google Analytics, the metrics on things like the number of visitors paginating through reviews, or sharing user-generated content with social networks, or clicking on related products found in reviews. Advanced Segments can then be used to compare the behavior of visits that interact with Bazaarvoice generated content vs. those that don't.”

To illustrate how useful this can be, here’s a screen shot showing the Bazaarvoice integration:

Users are raving about this integration. According to Paul Dempsey, E-Marketing Manager at Alternative Apparel, one of many clients using the Google Analytics - Bazaarvoice integration, “Now, it's really easy to see the influence of user-generated content on our conversion goals. Did they increase now that we've enabled reviews? We can find out.”

And according to Kris Irizawa, Web Analytics Analyst, Logitech, “We love going into Google Analytics and, with a few clicks, segmenting out visits that interact with Bazaarvoice. I can look at all my reports to uncover additional value from user-generated content, such as location based stuff, new vs. returning, keywords, search terms, and more.”

For more information on this integration, check out the Bazaarvoice site.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #12 – The power of the API

Nick — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 19:44:00 +0000

Lo and behold, it’s another episode of Web Analytics TV. In this exciting series with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, you ask and vote on your favorite web analytics questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them.

In this episode, we are delighted to have Rod Jacka as our special guest on Web Analytics TV. Rod is the Managing Director of Panalysis, a specialist web business analytics company and GA Certified Partner, Rod has experience in every web analytics tools, and if you need any consulting help in Australia then Rod's your man.

Here is a list to last weeks questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

(1:45) Why does you own site show in the Referring Sites report?
(3:15) Is there any way to export more than 5 columns in a pivot report?
(4:15) Getting app integrations migrated to async tracking
(5:55) Is there a way to grant read-only access to Website Optimizer?
(6:50) How to cross IDs set in Custom Variables with other GA data
(8:50) In which report can you find the PPC search terms (not bid terms)?
(10:20) Tracking links from emails that point to sites not being tracked by GA
(12:25) Thoughts about optimizing the async code
(15:15) If a user keeps clicking every 29 minutes, can a session last for 9 days?
(16:50) What could cause advanced segments on reports to have different totals?
(18:28) Why should people use other web analytics products when GA is free?
(20:50) Does GA track transactions in the same session or across session?
(21:08) How to get the goal funnel data through the API?
(22:28) What does “other” mean in the traffic sources overview reports?
(24:18) Is it possible to get segment-able motion charts?
(25:42) Why do product revenue and transaction revenue show different values?
(27:36) Where you can find unique visitor data in Google Analytics
(29:35) Why do advanced segments that match pages return other pages?
(31:22) Is it possible to export data from one account into another account?
(33:08) How to link multiple AdWords accounts to one Google Analytics account
(34:15) How to distinguish website referrals from desktop applications

And here are the links to the topics we discuss:

Google Analytics / Excel integrations built using the API
Get free funnel abandonment data through the API using PadiTrack
The video for the “visualize” button in Google Analytics
Sample code mashup to build your own segment-able motion charts using the API
How advanced segments work in the API

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below. And, if you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question and vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Thanks!

Post content Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Launched: New Google Analytics Management API!

Nick — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Many developers have asked for a faster, more powerful way to access Google Analytics account configuration data through the Data Export API. We’ve listened and today we’re releasing a preview of the new Google Analytics Management API.

The Management API provides read-only access to Google Analytics configuration data. It consists of 5 new Google Data Feeds that map directly to the Google Analytics data model.

Previously, the API returned all the configuration data at once, which in many cases was inefficient if you only needed a subset of data. Now with separate feeds, developers can request only the data they need. For example, it’s now easy to get the Profile IDs for a single account or the Goal configuration data for only a single Profile.

To help you learn more we created a new Management API section in our developer documentation. We also created new reference examples in Java and have a live working demo in JavaScript. Check it out, no coding needed!

The Management API is being launched in Labs as an early preview. The API will change, grow, and get better over time. We recommend developers who aren’t committed to making updates to their applications only experiment with the new API and continue to use the Account Feed as their primary source for configuration data. We will strive to give you at least one month advanced notice of changes to this API.

The Management API represents a significant new piece of the Google Analytics developer platform. We encourage you to come try it out and give us feedback in our new Management API Google Group.

P.S. - Please make sure to sign-up for our notify list to stay up-to-date on all the latest Google Analytics Developer updates.

Thanks!
By Jeetendra M. Soneja, Google Analytics API Team

Web Analytics TV #11 with Avinash and Nick

Nick — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:42:00 +0000

Yay! It’s another episode of Web Analytics TV!

In this exciting series, with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, you ask, and vote on your favorite, web analytics questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them.

This episode was particularly awesome since there were some fantastic questions. Tough questions that made us think hard. But also questions that made us proud of how sophisticated Google Analytics users are.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

Google Website Optimizer and the ga.js async tracking code issue
What is considered Personally Identifiable Information (PII)?
Teaching Google Analytics the location of your local __utm.gif image
Implementing ecommerce tracking with multiple currencies
Goal names in Google Analytics
Similarities and differences between Visitors and Unique Visitors metrics
Lovely opportunities for developers to build products using our API
Reasons why utm_content values show up as (not set)
Best practices for applying segments to specific pages (cool answer!)
Implementing ecommerce tracking if you don’t have an order id
Using advanced filters in the connection speed report
Why the value “other” shows up in your reports
Tracking how a visitor finds a site the first time for attribution
Correlating business data with Google Analytics data

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

Setting the __utm.gif path using _setLocalGifPath
How Mikael T. built a business using the Google Analytics API
Troubleshooting the tracking code

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partners.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

If you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question and vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Segment Your Funnels Through The API

Nick — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:13:00 +0000

Say your website has a check out lead generation process and you want to understand funnel abandonment by new vs. return visitors. You can do this through the Web Interface using many segments, filters and exporting data. But who has time for that?

Enter the free, shiny, new Conversion Tracking Application from PadiTrack. Built on the Google Analytics API, it’s all about insights and action. You simply register with the site, use secure oAuth to access your data, and you’re off, creating useful funnels like this - notice the black box with “415 new” denoting the number of new visitors in the funnel:

According to Claudiu, CoFounder of PadiCode, the company that built PadiTrack, "We wanted to make accessible conversion funnel tracking, one of the most important analytics reports, to any web business out there. It has always amazed us how many websites don't have conversion funnel tracking defined in their web analytics accounts. We were challenged by that reality. Since we've built PadiTrack, we've been using it daily for all of our projects. We love it. It saves time, offers instant insight and helps us focus on what really matters for us: how many people convert."

With PadiTrack you can almost instantly visualize the conversion funnel for any major event. It works for sales, sign-ups, downloads, contact inquiries and anything else you can think of. The setup takes 3 or 4 minutes, conversion funnels can be created on the fly and and you don't need to wait to gather data: it is available retroactively. The product is available to all Google Analytics users and to them only.

“We played with a couple of web analytics APIs so far but the Google Analytics one has been the most powerful. It gave us the power to work with data and pull out reports that we couldn't get otherwise. We spent much more time building the interface than getting the reports out of the Google Analytics. The API is really easy,” says Claudiu.

We’re really excited about what the PadiCode team has built and are featuring it in our App Gallery. Have a look and let the PadiCode team know what you think.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team

Web Analytics TV #10 with Avinash and Nick

Nick — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:37:00 +0000

It’s the 10th Anniversary of Web Analytics TV! Happy Birthday to us!

In this exciting series, with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, you ask and vote on your favorite web analytics questions via our Google Moderator site for Web Analytics TV and we answer them.

Here is the list of last week’s questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

Tracking un-subscriptions with negative values
Best practices tracking social media
Sources of keywords outside of Paid Search to help site optimization
Custom reports sorted by date
Tracking form validation with Google Analytics
Why Exit Rate is 0% in the Google Analytics navigation summary report
Tips to avoid sampling on landing pages
Configuring Google Analytics to track test and production environments
Comparing Google Analytics and Webmaster tools
Best practices for tracking PDF downloads
Getting the full referring URL in Google Analytics
Sharing custom reports with advanced segments
Best way to find keywords from mobile traffic
Tracking dimensions over time in Google Analytics
Tracking the impact of interactive TV

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

Best practices for creating custom alerts
4Q/Google Analytics survey integration
Google Webmaster Tools
Google Analytics Event Tracking Overview
Obtaining the full referral url in Google Analytics
Taking screenshots in OS X and Windows
Migrating to Async Tracking
Tracking Online impact of Offline campaigns

If you found this post helpful, we'd love to hear your comments, please share them via the comment form below.

Thanks!

Posted By Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Building A Business With The API

Nick — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Do you like web analytics data? Do you like number crunching in Excel? Get ready to drool once you click on the images below to look at them up close. But don't jump ahead just yet! A little background on a great story...

When we released the Google Analytics Data Export API, we were excited to see what developers would build - but it’s even more exhilarating to see developers profiting from all their hard work. One developer, Mikael Thuneberg, has succeeded in doing just that, by starting a new business consulting around our API called AutomateAnalytics.com.

Mikael started working with the API in June 2009, developing a set of VBA functions to import data into Excel (VBA is Excel's built-in scripting language). His free solution has many benefits:

It does not require installing plug-ins
Reports are simple to share with others
The functions can be used just like any of Excel's built-in functions like SUM or COUNT

Check out the getting started guide to learn how to use this free tool to generate the jaw-dropping reports below - click images to enlarge:

Click images for larger versions

Because the solution is free and easy to use, Mikael quickly got requests from companies to build custom reports. As he discusses, ”All of these customers have excellent skills for analyzing data, but have asked for help in automating time-consuming manual work, like data retrieval and building custom visualizations.”

One of these came from Sanoma Games, the online gaming unit of Sanoma Group, one of the largest media companies in Europe. Sanoma owns dozens of popular sites, and so it was taking huge amounts of time for their analytics team to keep track of KPIs, let alone gather data for in-depth analysis.

Mikael built an Excel tool for them that fetches and processes the data they need in a matter of seconds. Now Sanoma's analysts can spend their time analyzing and taking action, instead of manually copying the data from one place to another.

Mikael eventually got many requests for customized reports from leading Internet companies, which led him to create AutomateAnalytics. As Mikael says, “I’ve always wanted to run a business. What I thought would be a fun project led into an amazing business opportunity. The Google Analytics API really helped me realize this goal.”

We’re really impressed with what Mikael has done and thrilled to share his story!

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, The Google Analytics API Team

Web Analytics TV #9 with Avinash and Nick

Nick — Wed, 26 May 2010 16:58:00 +0000

This is the 9th exciting episode of Web Analytics TV with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, where you ask questions about web analytics via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them. We had lots of fun putting this episode and we hope you get a kick out of watching it. Here is the list of last week’s questions.

In this action-packed episode we discuss:

How to track each referral source overtime for visitors
How to share custom segments and reports with other people
Getting transaction data for only one referral source
Is there a place to share Google Analytics code snippets and regular expressions?
Cross domain tracking when users right-click and open in a new window
How you need to think about Page Speed and Google Analytics
Using the comparison report with two date ranges (and hypercube space)
Sending historical or futuristic data into Google Analytics
Why eCommerce reports do not match an eCommerce backend system
Tracking commas instead of decimals for revenue in eCommerce
Tracking pigViews (just watch the video :-)
Reporting on content consumption (like pageviews) by keywords
Setting the visible number of rows in reports
How to normalize keywords to replace underscore with spaces
Best practices on upgrading to async tracking code
Best practices to report on cities in a particular state

If you found this post helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Or, please submit a question or vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site and Avinash and I will answer the newest batch in a couple of weeks with another video.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Updates To .NET Library For The Google Analytics API

Nick — Thu, 13 May 2010 21:07:00 +0000

We’re incredibly proud of the diversity of applications and tools making use of the Google Analytics Export API. We also know that several of you have been asking about our .NET client library and requesting sample code.

So we’re happy to announce we’ve updated the .NET Google Data client library to support all our recent features.

In addition, we’ve added 2 reference examples for both the Account Feed and Data Feed which show how to pull advanced segment, custom variable, and goal data from the API. As you can see from the examples, this client library makes pulling data from the Export API incredibly easy.

Now that the .NET developers among you have this library, what will you use it for? Fancy visualizations? Automated reporting? Extreme data mining? Let us know in the comments, or bounce a few ideas off your peers in the Google Analytics Data Export API group!

By Alexander Lucas, Google Analytics API Team

Web Analytics TV #7 with Avinash and Nick

Nick — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:45:00 +0000

This is the 7th edition of Web Analytics TV with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski! In this series you ask questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them!

Here is the list of last week’s questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

● Test your tracking implementation without waiting for the data to appear in reports.

● How GZip compression works for the tracking code.

● Retrieving the value for visitor level customer variables.

● Adding annotations via the API.

● Why do searches from Google Image Search appear as referrals in Google Analytics?

● Why do I see self-referrers to my site (my site referring to itself)?

● How to detect new search engines in Google Analytics?

● Fixing site overlay to not distinguish two links pointing to the same page.

● How to exclude internal users now that _setVar is deprecated.

● Why does (not set) appear as page titles in reports?

● What is the best way to begin with web analytics? How do you focus?

● Why do longer date ranges return different results?

● How can you use the Motion Chart bar graph?

● Best practises for setting up conversion goals for e-commerce sites.

Here are links to resources we discussed in the video:

● Validating and Troubleshooting your Google Analytics tracking code.

● Speed up your site, get better data, use asynchronous tracking.

● Use _getVisitorCustomVar() to retieve previously set visitor level custom variables.

● The open feature request to add annotations via our API; please vote and add use cases.

● Override the page referral using _setReferrerOverride().

● One possible solution to tracking Google Image Search.

● Use _addOrganic() to detect new search engines to in Google Analytics.

● Need help with Google Analytics? Have tough questions? Check out these 4 wonderful resources for help:

○ Hire a Google Analytics Authorized Consultants

○ Google Analytics Help Center

○ Google Analytics Code Site for developers

○ Google Analytics General Help Forum

● How sampling works in Google Analytics.

● Rock out with the Motion Charts Anthem (super cool!).

Special Notice: We also have a Custom Variables Webinar coming up on Wednesday, March 24th at 10:00 am PT. Space is limited, sign up before it’s too late!

If you found this post helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. If you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question or vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Thanks!

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV Episode #6 with Avinash and Nick

Nick — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:09:00 +0000

This is the sixth edition of Web Analytics TV with with a dash of Nick and Nash! In this series you share your most burning questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them! And, here is the list of last weeks questions.

We love hearing from you and thank all the folks who rated last weeks comments.

In this episode we discuss:

What you can do if you get spammed pageviews in your Analytics Account.
How to collect ecommerce tracking variables on 3rd party shopping carts.
Issues with maintaining campaign information with 3rd party shopping carts.
How do links from competitors show up in your referring sources site?
How to find Singapore in the Google Analytics map overlay.
How to see referring URLs in the campaign report.
How Google Analytics treats conversions from multiple sources in the same visit.
Why certain referrals like search can have a number of pageviews but 0 visits.
Computing page influence to conversion and the Google Analytics $Index metric.
How events effect and sometimes lower the bounce rate.

Here are links to resources we discussed in the video:

Google Analytics Authorized Consultants (GAACs) whom you can hire to solve problems with Google Analytics implementations.
Tracking transactions in Google Analytics with 3rd party shopping carts.
Tracking across domains with Google Analytics.
Sebastien describes how to see the full referral URL in Google Analytics.
Patrick Altoft describes one way to track first click attribution in Google Analytics.
Link to the Data Export API.

If you found this helpful, we'd love to hear your comments.

If you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question or vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another Nick and Nash video.

Thanks!

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Web Analytics TV #5 with Avinash and Nick

Nick — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:49:00 +0000

This is the fifth installment in our Web Analytics TV series in which you share your most burning questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them.

Here is the list of this week's questions. You all are keeping us on our toes!

In this episode we discuss:

Tracking online conversions and success for small, local, businesses
Tracking the number of times a visitor converts in one visit
How the e-commerce conversion rate can be greater than 100%
How you can change the duration of Google Analytics campaigns
How you can differentiate between paid and organic search in Google Analytics
What is the recommended % balance between branded and category terms
Why is time spent 0 for visits with 1 page/visit
Why unique visitor numbers are higher than visits
How visits and unique pageviews are calculated
Would survey and qualitative help measure "engagement" ?
How to best track mailto: links on your site
What are the best practices for using virtual pageviews, event tracking and custom variables?
How to see dimensions and metrics by location
Where to find custom variables reports Google Analytics

Here are links to resources we discussed in the video:

You can change how long Google Analytics attributes visits to a referral source by using the _setCampaignCookieTimout() javscript tracking method. When you set this to 0, the cookies becomes a session cookie and will be deleted once the user leaves the site. Using this method will make Google Analytics attribute only the first click of a campaign to a visit.
How to link your Google Analytics and AdWords campaigns to differentiate between paid and organic search
Help Center article: How do I link my Google Analytics account to my AdWords account?
Help Center article: What is Autotagging?
Help Center article: How to manually tag your referrals.
Avinash's Blog: How to Monetize The Value of The Long Tail.
Avinash's Blog: Calculating Time on Site & Time on Page.
Caleb's Dimensionator plugin that exposes DMA and other data in your Google Analytics reports.

We hope you found episode helpful, and we'd love to hear your comments and have your questions. Please use the comment form below.

In case you missed them, here are our previous videos:

Episode #1
Episode #2
Episode #3
Episode #4

If you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question or vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with another video. We can't wait!

Please add your thoughts about the Q&A via comments below. Thanks!

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Episode # 3 – Rapid Fire Web Analytics Q and A with Avinash and Nick

Nick — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:35:00 +0000

This is the third video in our recent Rapid Fire series where you share your most burning questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them!

Generally we want to focus on your questions about key metrics and analysis techniques, but this week we get a little technical.

In this episode we discuss:

How to group referrals from common sources
How to setup Google Analytics to track multiple web sites and view all the aggregate data in one profile
Strategies to track websites that support different languages
The value of using Google Analytics on You Tube partner channels
Troubleshooting discrepancies in Google Analytics Data
Best practices for implementing E-commerce tracking for E-commerce sites
Simplifying customizing the date range in GA
How to track segments of users who interact with internal referrals/cross sell campaigns
Tracking Social Media campaigns

Here are links to resources we discussed in the video:

If you found this helpful, we'd love to hear your comments.

Please add your thoughts about the Q&A via comments below. Thanks!

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Calling All Ideas!

Nick — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:21:00 +0000

The Google Reader team often looks to you, our users, for feedback on the changes we've implemented as well as for help determining our priorities for the future. In that spirit, we're excited to announce the launch of Product Ideas for Google Reader: a tool that allows you to submit your best ideas directly to the Google Reader team and to other Google Reader users.

Have you ever had an idea that would make Google Reader better, more efficient, or just more fun to use? Using Product Ideas, you can submit your idea as well as read suggestions from other users - and best of all, you can vote on the ideas submitted and browse the highest-ranked ideas. We'll get a chance to see and respond directly to the ideas that you, our users, are most excited about.

In addition to submitting product ideas, you can also post links to your own favorite custom bundles and Send To links as well as browse links submitted by others. Using Product Ideas, you'll easily be able to see (and subscribe to!) the highest rated bundles and Send To links as well as expose your own content to a whole new group of Reader users just like you.

Give it a try! Submit some suggestions and your favorite bundles and Send To links and, as always, let us know what you think.

Meeting friends of friends

Nick — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:59:00 +0000

About two months ago we enabled commenting on your friends' shared items. Today, we're happy to introduce some changes to how commenting works, including the ability to start sharing with any of the people who comment on your friends' shared items.

Have you ever read a comment on a friend's shared item and wondered who that person was? In the past, there hasn't been a way to interact with these people besides reading their comments on your friends' shared items. Not anymore!

By hovering over the name of an unfamiliar commenter you can see their profile picture and the links they've added to their Google Profile. Furthermore, you can click the "Start sharing" link to start sharing your shared items with that person!

This is a great way to add new people to your friends list. When that person next logs in, they'll see an option to view your shared items as well as the option to start sharing with you. If they reciprocate, you'll have a new friend in your Reader.

We've also made comments more visible and more flexible from within Reader. Now, you'll be able to see comments on shared items while viewing All items. You'll also be notified when new comments are made by the small speech bubble icon in your left sidebar, even when your Friends' shared items module is collapsed. While making comments, your options for formatting have been increased. Try using asterisks or underscores to spice up your comments with bold and italic text.

Note: You can stop sharing your items with someone at any time by visiting the Sharing settings link in your left sidebar. Also, if someone chooses to share with you, your shared items are not visible to that person unless you consent. Finally, the "start sharing" link in profile cards will also only appear to those users sharing with friends, and not those sharing only with chat buddies.

Google Reader for Beginners

Nick — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:30:00 +0000

Have you ever had a friend or family member who you know would love using Google Reader? Have you ever had trouble explaining to that same friend or family member just how using Reader could make their lives easier (and more fun)? We sure have, so if you're anything like us then we have some useful tools in store for you.

The Google Reader Team is proud to introduce several new help resources designed specifically at introducing beginners to using Reader: Google Reader Help Videos and the Google Reader Getting Started Guide, both accessible directly from our Help Center.

Feel free to let us know what you think by commenting on the videos or by leaving feedback in our Help Forum. Although the videos are aimed at beginners, we're hoping to eventually cover even more advanced and lesser-known features in the same visual and step-by-step manner.

Now get watching, Readers! And don't forget to send the link along to your favorite beginner, newbie, or visual learner!

One word to describe Google Reader…

Nick — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:15:00 +0000

Over the past two weeks, some of you may have noticed (and might have even clicked on) a link to a satisfaction survey while using Google Reader. We're always interested in learning more about how you use Google Reader and what features you'd like to see next. We'll certainly be sharing what features and fixes emerged from your input in the coming weeks.

We asked all of you to describe Reader in one word and, well, here's what you said:

(Responses as of October 6th, 2008) | Word cloud created at http://wordle.net

Try clicking the image to see a zoomable version that allows you to get close and see some of the less frequent, yet often equally insightful/amusing, words you used to describe Reader (you can also turn your own images into zoomable maps here).

We were really happy to hear that the great majority of respondents thought very highly of Google Reader, but we also acknowledge that there's a lot of work to be done, as some of you described Reader as:

Meh
cpumemoryhog
adequate
clunky

Finally, we didn't know quite what to make of some of your descriptions, but enjoyed them thoroughly nonetheless:

Wunderbar
Cromulent
creamy-goodness
Pineapple

Thanks again for your helpful (and highly amusing) feedback!

Blogger now schedules future-dated posts

Nick — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:40:00 +0000

Scheduled post publishing, which we talked about testing on Blogger in draft last month, is now live for everyone. If you set a post’s date into the future, Blogger will wait to publish until that time comes.

Have you ever wanted to announce something on a certain date but knew you wouldn’t be at a computer to make a post? Or you wanted to keep posting regularly but knew you’d be on vacation for a few weeks? Scheduled post publishing is here to help you out.

Scheduling a post is easy to do: on the post editor page, click the “Post Options” toggle to show the “Post date and time” fields. Then, type a post date and time that’s in the future. When you click the “Publish” button, your post will become “scheduled.” When the date and time of the post arrive, it will be automatically published to your blog.

“Scheduled” posts appear in your Edit Posts list alongside your drafts and published posts. To un-schedule a post, simply save it as a draft any time before it gets published.

One quick note: If you want to give a post a date in the future but have it appear on your blog now, you’ll need to add in an extra step. First, publish your post with the current date and time. This will make it appear on your blog. Then, edit the post to change the date into the future and publish it again.

We don’t re-schedule posts that are already published, so the post will stay on your blog but sort to the very top. The same is true of future dated posts you’ve already made, so there’s no need to worry about your existing posts disappearing, or having your blog assaulted by unplanned entries in, say, 2027.

P.S.: Thanks to everyone who tested this out on Blogger in draft and posted comments! We appreciate your time and effort.

Blogger Help Videos

Nick — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:50:00 +0000

For all you visual learners who want to add features to your blog, but don't have the patience to browse our help articles, we've created the new Blogger Help YouTube Channel. There you can find videos that show you step by step how to use Blogger features.

There are only a few videos at the moment, and we've decided to start with the basics:

In the coming months we'll be adding more videos. If you have a suggestion for a video you'd like to see, let us know by posting in our Help Group. In addition, you can give us feedback on each video's comment form. We're always trying to find new and better ways to help you use Blogger and we appreciate the feedback - thanks!

Blogging from YouTube

Nick — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:18:00 +0000

As you videobloggers already know, you can upload your videos directly to Blogger. But for the rest of the video watchers out there, did you know you can just as easily post YouTube videos to your blog?

All you need to do is set up your YouTube account to post videos to your blog using the "Share" button. You'll enter your Blogger information once, and from then on it's one-click sharing from any YouTube video page!

See our help article for full instructions.