Mohsin's Blog » Google Analytics

Custom Variables in Google Analytics

Mohsin — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 16:31:43 +0000

The new “_setCustomVar” method is a major upgrade of “_setVar” method that allowed advanced visitor segmentation. Now with this improved method we are not longer bound to “Visitors” rather we are now able to segment our analytics data based on “visitors”, “sessions” and “pages.”

The major difference between “_setVar” and “_setCustomVar” can be understood by the following chart:

To get most out of new custom variables method, it is recommended that you first understand how visitor interacts with your content/site over a period of time and how Google Analytics measures this. The point is made clear on the Google Code Site, under the heading “Overview”, I suggest you to read that passage first to clear up the concepts. A complete usage guide is also available there with complete examples and is good way to get started. Check out the article

Benefits of using “Custom Variables”:

The very first and basic advantage lies in the categorization of content pages, even if the urls are do not include category information. This scenario is most used in content rich sites and blogs for SEO purposes to provide clean and short URLs to Search Engines. But this kind of practice creates difficulties for Web Analyst as he will not be able to analyze which areas of the site perform better/worse than other.
Similarly using Custom Variables also allows us to analyze the interaction of single user, whether logged in or not, and how they make use of our site/content.

For practical example I recommend viewing the latest webinar recording on this topic, although the audio quality is very poor, but it contains very useful information. Also, if you can’t bear the audio long enough you can skip to the “Case Study” part, it starts from the 30^th min of the webinar, although the rest of the webinar is very useful, but just in case you want to have an idea of the implementation, you should see the last 10 mins first.

How to install Asynchronous Tracking in Google Analytics

Mohsin — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 11:15:03 +0000

First Time Installation of Asynchronous Tracking:

Following are steps if you are installing Google Analytics Code on your site for first time and you want to use Asynchronous Tracking.

Insert the asynchronous snippet at the bottom of the section of your pages, after any other scripts your page or template might use.
- According to Google the optimal location for the asynchronous snippet is at the bottom of the section, just before the closing tag.
Modify the _setAccount method with your web property ID. (check screen shot below)And you are done!
You can get the Asynchronous Tracking code from this post or from Google here.

Migrating or Upgrading to New Asynchronous Tracking:

If you want to migrate/upgrade to the new asynchronous snippet from traditional tracking :

Remove your existing tracking code snippet and any customizations you have made.
To reduce errors, it is recommended that you remove the existing tracking code snippet from the include file or mechanism that injects it into your web pages. [TIP] You can paste your existing tracking code snippet in a text file to keep track of any customized methods you use.
Use the steps defined above to install new tracking code.

To make customizations to your new Asynchronous Tracking code like you have done to your old code, check out this usage guide and side by side comparison from Google.

What is Google Analytics – Asynchronous Tracking

Mohsin — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:37:20 +0000

Quite recently Google has upgraded its Web Analytics Tracking Code, and the new version is called Asynchronous Tracking. This code is different from the previous GA code, below is an introduction.

Asynchronous Tracking in Google Analytics:

Asynchronous tracking is an improved way to track website visitors with Google Analytics. Asynchronous tracking optimizes how browsers load ga.js so its impact on user experience is minimized. It also allows you to put your Analytics snippet higher in the page without delaying subsequent content from rendering.

Although asynchronous tracking uses a different Analytics snippet and a different syntax for tracking calls, it supports the exact same tracking customizations as the traditional snippet. In fact, the asynchronous tracking syntax is also more flexible than the traditional snippet.

The following snippet represents the minimum configuration needed to track a page asynchronously. It uses _setAccount to set the page’s web property ID and then calls _trackPageview to send the tracking data back to the Google Analytics servers.

To use this on your pages, copy the code snippet above, replacing UA-XXXXX-X with your web property ID.

Check out the tips to install Google Analytics – Asynchronous Tracking.

Google Certified Analytics Professional

Mohsin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:08:52 +0000

I am happy to share with my friends and readers that I have just passed my Google Analytics Certification exam, so I am pretty much excited. It was not very tough but the at the same time not so easy. The questions were MCQs with focus on concepts. I will advise reading the Google Analytics Course and reading the various questions and problems in Help Center before attemting the exam. The exam had 70 questions and the time allowed was 90 mins. Check out the various resources for preparation at: http://www.google.com/analytics/education.html

You can search for more Pakistani Google Analytics Certified Professionals, here on Google.

How to exclude specific country or region from Google Analytics

Mohsin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:50:00 +0000

Here are the quick and easy steps to implement, if you want a report of website traffic, excluding a specific country or territory.

However,it should be noted that, it is among the best practices to create new test profiles when you are testing our filters or other advanced analytics setups. The reason is that it is not unusual that some of your experiments might turn out to be wrong or do not meet your specific requirements, if you have multiple profiles, then you can safely delete the newly created one without loss of critical data. You should have one untouched raw analytics profile, always.

Having said that, lets move towards our setup, I have already created a new profile for the same website and name it “Filtered Traffic”

As soon as you create the new profile, click the edit button and scroll down to see the “Add New Filter” option.

Kindly note that Google Analytics have 2 types of Filter Setups,i.e. Predefined and Custom, we will select the Custom Filter.

Now select the Visitor Country option to mention the excluded region.

Now in the “Filter Pattern” box, enter your desired value or values.e.g. Filter Pattern: brazil|Argentina

Note:The pipe symbol | allows for multiples within the same pattern. Thus, you can mention one or many countries in the same pattern.

Another way is to put country names you want to exclude separated with | sign, and enclose it with ( ) in Filter Pattern field. For example if you want to exclude traffic stats from China, Australia and India the filter pattern will be(China|Australia|India) . And that’s all, now save this filter by clicking “Save Changes” button.

Kindly note that | and () are regular expressions, they have many uses, read about them at: Google’s Help Page

I am setting up analytics for my new projects and hence my future posts will around this topic. If you like to be informed about future posts, kindly subscribe to RSS of this blog. Also I have taken help and inspiration for this post from WasimAsif’s blog, thanks to him.