Click Forensics will open a program Friday to audit impressions in display ads. The program tests the ability to filter ads and identify invalid traffic in real-time.

Taking a cue from its existing platform to monitor and score billions of clicks, now the company will use the technology to score impressions, as well as determine fraud and validity. The effort to ease the ad industry’s growing pains and increase transparency into ad-buying and conversions could prevent marketers from wasting ad dollars and gain better return on investments.

“We’re looking at all the data being purchased through media sold or purchased,” says Paul Pellman, chief executive officer, Click Forensics, Austin, Texas. “We do machine learning and predictive modeling against that data to identify anomalous patterns and traffic sources that we have proven invalid in the past.”

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Last fall Google announced the release of the much anticipated Custom Variables in Google Analytics. Previously the only out of the box way to segment visitors on your site using custom metrics was to use the User Defined variable. While the User Defined method was useful for segmenting traffic into members vs non members, and for things like Michael’s Exact Keyword Tracking script, Analytics users requested more options, customizations, and more control. Well, Google listened.

Web Analytics: An Hour a Day

Unlike the User Defined variable, the Custom Variables allow you to determine the scope of the visitor engagement. Basically that means in addition to setting just a visitor level segment, you can also set session level segments, which will persist while the visitor is active on the site, and page level segments, which correspond to pageviews and events on the site. This allows you to get much more detailed with the information you’re gathering and storing in the custom variable. For example, you could separate different sections of the site by using the page level scope, or you could track if a visitor has completed a particular action during their session with the session level scope.

read full article here.

Funnels on the Fly in Google Analytics

So there you are – you’re all ready to put more oil in your car, or maybe you’re trying to fill your sugar jar. Maybe you’re all set to do some ironing, but you need to put some water in the iron. Whatever the reason, it immediately hits you that you’ll be needing a funnel – but… OH SNAP!

You don’t have one. Or you can’t find it. What do you do? You improvise of course!

Quickly and with a MacGyver-like moment of inspiration, you grab a 2-liter bottle from your recycling bin and cut the top off. Phew – that was a close one! Now you won’t have oil on your driveway, or water all over your bedroom carpet, and you can go about your day feeling like a secret genius.

Now, a funnel would have still been the best tool for the job, but sometimes it’s just not available. What the heck does this have to do with Google Analytics?

Well, Google Analytics has a great built-in Funnel Visualization report, but the problem is that it only works if you have the foresight to build it ahead of time. Funnels are never retroactive – they will only start working the moment you create them. What if you have multiple landing pages? Moreover, what if you only want to look at AdWords traffic? Well, you would need a separate profile in addition to a properly set up funnel, and all of this has to be set up ahead of time.

The problem is that often you won’t know what kind of funnel you need until it’s too late. Having 20 goals in Google Analytics is great, but you could have a million and it wouldn’t make a difference.

The good news is there’s hope. That hope is called Advanced Segments. Here’s how you do it:

Step 1: Define the funnel.

This part is pretty straightforward. Lay out the path you are trying to get information on, along with any other parameters (AdWords only, US only, etc.), like this:

Step1: /consumer/special/index.html (Landing Page)
Step 2: /order.html
Step 3: /cart.asp
Step 4: /checkout.asp
Step 5: /bonus.asp
Step 6: /order-receipt.asp

Step 2: Create a new Advanced Segment.

First, make sure you change the calendar so that you’re looking at the date range you want to analyze. Then click on the ‘Advanced Segment’ link in the left navigation:

read full article here.

via ROI Revolution

Everyone’s new at some point right? Well if you’re just starting out with Google Analytics, here are a few things you can watch out for to stay ahead of the game.
1. Missing Page Tags
Probably one of the most common mistakes that can cause problems in your Google Analytics data is missing page tags. Yes, the Google Analytics code needs to be on all pages of the site. It doesn’t matter that someone in sales told you that “all we need are metrics from one or two pages.” You’re setting up Google Analytics already, so you might as well do it right and get accurate data. If any of your sites pages are missing the Google Analytics Tracking Code, you’ll start seeing self referrals (where the real source information is overwritten with your site information) and a variety of other issues will occur as well. Comb through the site a few times and make sure you aren’t skipping any pages and that every page will register with Google Analytics.

2. Mixing urchin.js and ga.js code

For those of you inheriting Google Analytics projects, you may be faced with the task of maintaining or updating a site that was previously tracked using the urchin.js version of the tracking code. Although Google states it is possible to use both the urchin and ga versions of the code as long as they aren’t on the same page, my suggestion is to update the entire site to the new ga.js version of the tracking code. Mixing the two can cause some complications that are better left avoided. Save yourself some future headaches and update everything at once. Plus you’ll get some cool new features with ga.js anyway, so why wouldn’t you want to upgrade?

3. Not setting up ecommerce correctly
I’ve had numerous people come to me asking why they aren’t seeing any ecommerce or revenue information within the Google Analytics reports. Aside from enabling ecommerce reporting in the Profile Settings, there is actually a separate script you’ll need to setup on your site in order to get ecommerce working. Just grab the code and have your developers work their magic to get the dynamic transaction level variables passed into the ecommerce code for Google Analytics. Can’t get all those fields? Read more about which variables are required and how to set up ecommerce.

Recommended book for all Web Analytics Professionals – Web Analytics An Hour a Day.

read full story here.

The skills needed in a web analyst in general are:

• Detail oriented with analytical skills to explore data and discover pattern and trends
• Aware of business aspects to transfer business needs to analytics requirements and reflect the data to enhance the business
• Aware of marketing in terms of user behaviors branding tactics and campaigns
• Be knowledgeable of technical matters to act as a moderator between the business and the technical people
• Act as a change agent facilitating conflicting objectives, resources and viewpoints.
• Willingness to learn and acquire new skills

Now let’s dig deep in the issues that you should increase your knowledge about if you are interested in being a web analyst:

To find the Best Web Analyst Jobs, Click Here

The good web analyst should be also aware of the following subjects:

• Traffic issues like traffic generation methods
• Page layout as placement of content elements on the page
• Navigation principles like menu sequencing issues
• Taxonomy issues for example: why users are interested in a certain part of the taxonomy?
• Copy issues guide lines for writing a web copy

Finally, the one book that should be in every Web Analyst’s library is Web Analytics an Hour a Day.

Web analytics tips that improve search engine marketing

via: Search Marketing Gurus

Clicks, CPC, CTR, CPO–the world of paid search marketing is full of acronyms and numbers.  Cutting through the data clutter is key to using analysis to your advantage.

I’ve already talked about ppc analytics when moving data from one agency to another.  In this post, I’m sharing 4 quick tips to use web analytics to generate more money from your paid search campaigns.

#4 – Rank Your Results
Benchmarks are a great way to understand whether your campaigns are performing to their full potential.  The easiest benchmarks to get come from your own campaigns.

Pick the key performance indicator that matters most to you, say cost-per-order, and rank from best to worst.  Now, apply conditional formatting to values.  One option is to setup the formula to color according to a particular cut off point.  I like to have Excel highlight the top and bottom 10% (this is easiest in Excel 2007)

Now, dig into the data and start asking questions.  Why do these campaigns perform best?  Why do these campaigns perform worst?

#3 – Check Your Bounce Rate
It’s obvious that your landing pages matter.  I heartily recommend you invest in multivariate testing (here are some multivariate testing tools).

Recommended reading for all Web Analytics Professionals – Web Analytics an Hour a Day

read full article here.

Directory of Web Analytics Firms

Coremetrics Inc.

Omniture Inc.

Web Trends Inc.

Mondosoft

Unica Corporation

Fireclick Inc.

Lyris Technologies Inc.

VisiStat, Inc.

OneStat

MetriServe

Recommended reading for all Web Analytics Professionals – Web Analytics – An Hour a Day

Here are some kinds of analysis you can do with a Web Analytics Solution/Tool:

(Thanks to Multichannel Marketing by Akin Arikan)

• Marketing Analysis: How are visitors finding the site and how are campaigns performing?
• Content Analysis: What pages are contributing to success?
• Event Analysis: How are visitors behaving within pages
• Visitors Analysis: Who is visiting the site and what are common patterns?
• eCommerce Analysis: How is business? What is in customer’s shopping carts?
• Geo Analysis: In what geographic locations are the visitors located who browse the site?
• Technical Analysis: Are there errors? Are there slowly loading pages?
• Funnel Analysis: Can represent your sales funnel for tracking the process of turning first time visitors into engaged prospects and eventually customers.
• Path Analysis: Also referred to as clickstream analysis, this is the archetypical web analytics report that visualizes, for example, the most common next pages viewed after a selected starting point.

Can I read more about web analytics tools?

Yes, check out Sitepoint, they provides a list of tracking tools. Avinash Kaushik also provides a good blog about what to ask web analytics providers.

First party cookies are cookies set by the site itself. For example, if a visitor visits www.SmartDigitalSpending.com and this website sets a cookie, this cookie is called a first-party cookie.

Third party cookies are set from a different domain than the site that the visitor is currently visiting. If a visitor visits FoneGigsBlog.com and that website contains an ad coming from another domain such as www.AdClicks.com, and that domain sets a cookie, this cookie is called a third-party cookie.

Why is this important to know?

Third party cookies are generally the only way to measure a visitor’s behavior across multiple websites. For example, view-through measurement requires tying behavior on the publisher’s website to behavior on the advertiser’s website. For that purpose, the visitor needs to be identified by the same unique cookie on both sites. That is only possible with third-party cookies. The advertiser can’t read the publishers cookie because, as a privacy and security mechanism, web browers do not permit any one site to read cookies set by another.

Where can I read more about cookies?

OpenTracker provides a good article about cookies. Wikipedia provides a full definition of what a cookie is. WebAnalyticsbook also provides great information about Web Analytics.

Qualities to Look for in a Web Analyst

When hiring a web analyst, it is best to hire someone who has a curious mind but also can see things from a holistic view. What do I mean exactly?

Well, if your web analytics person spends all day pulling valuable information and reports to you that people in Alaska spend 25 seconds longer on your site than the general population, how is this information going to make you change the way you buy media or modify your site?

To find the best Web Analytics jobs, click here.

Actionable web analytics

Web Analytics an hour a day

There is so much information that can be retrieved from Omniture, Webtrends, or Google Analytics that it can lead to frustration. That is why if you are in Upper Management and are just supervising web analytics professionals, you should read Actionable Web Analytics by Jason Burby since it tells you how you can use data to make smart business decisions.

If you are a web analytics expert, then you should definitely read Web Analytics An Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik, but you already knew that.

Smart Digital Spending is currently looking into possibly creating a Web Analytics Tutorial in the future.

To find the best Web Analytics jobs, click here.

Eric Melchor

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