Adobe Launch hasn’t been out long, but I’ve managed to break it a few times. Okay, maybe Launch wasn’t broken. I was just doing something wrong and didn’t realize it. Before you get your hands dirty, store this in the back of your head so you don’t experience the same headache I suffered. Before I … Read more
Google Analytics is interesting. It has the lowest barrier to entry of any analytics tool (because it’s free) but is deceptively complex. As analysts, we should understand that no implementation is perfect. You can hire a team of consultants to audit and correct low-hanging fruit of your implementation, but your business isn’t stagnant. It’s fluid. Even … Read more
Wow, that title is a mouthful. Let me get to the point. Cross-domain tracking for Universal Analytics with Dynamic Tag Manager is broken. I think. For those of you using Google Analytics with DTM and your cross-domain just isn’t working out: this post is for you. I spent several hours debugging some cross-domain tracking. What … Read more
Sessions are becoming worthless. You heard it here first, folks! All you can eat fear-mongering! The title of this is pretty sensational because I’m not really talking about ALL sessions. Well, I sorta am. Okay, let’s break things down a bit. Spam bots exist, right? Cool, glad we got that out of the way. But … Read more
It’s embarrassing. It leaves a stain and a foul odor. You finally got yourself checked and then you saw it… Bots. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Other people suffer from Bots, too. Not sure what Bots are? You may already be a victim. It’s the silent killer of bounce rate… germs that make you feel like a million sessions … Read more
Mastering the technical side of web analytics can be pretty daunting – especially given most web analysts rely on developers for implementation, debugging, and sometimes general QA. For those analysts, it would be great to have a short guide that helps debug some common issues. “My bounce rate increased to close to 100%!” This one can be … Read more
Bounce rate too high? It may not be as serious as you think! Let’s start off by defining what “too high” means. For most sites, a bounce rate over 50% is a sign of trouble. For blogs, one can be over 65% simply because RSS feeds lure people into viewing only one page and then … Read more
Really, Google? It was already the #1 keyword in all of my keyword reports. Now you’re saying it’s going to GROW?! Can we at least talk about this? Maybe negotiate a little? No? Okay, well forget you. I’ll figure out my own way to get around this issue. Let’s outline the problem we want to … Read more
Sometimes I’m using Google Analytics and every time I reload the page… the interface changes. Google has now merged what was the “Home” dashboards (Real-Time, Intelligence Events, etc) into what was the “Standard Reports”… or is that vice versa? So everything is consolidated, which makes total sense now. Why should the Dashboards, Real-Time, and Intelligence … Read more
Alright, I don’t intend on making this a regular column – but sometimes I run into an issue that takes a bit of troubleshooting. This is one of those issues. Seeing an unusual spike in traffic in Google Analytics? Bounce rate skyrocketing? It might not be a traffic quality issue! Check your implementation. Follow this … Read more