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Wanna be Impressed? Check out Google Analytics!

AustinMash! has been live for about 4 months now. From the beginning I included code in each page of the site that recorded every time the page was loaded into a browser, along with the user’s IP address and the current date. This was primarily set up to support the live site stats on the PixelList page, which shows in real time how many unique visitors visited the site today, this week, this month, and the total since launch (over 2400 people now – whoop!). It also shows the same stats for ad clicks. I also created a small desktop utility so I can watch the numbers climb (way fun!) and I have a private report page set up that shows the raw data in an easy-to-scan format.

Although this setup worked great for its intended purpose, it left a lot of unanswered questions related to what users were doing on the site. For example, I started to see, in the report page, a large number of page views from the same person. I mean, page views in the 60-90s in the same day, and again the next day, and the next. Since there are only about 40 pages in the whole site, this was pretty weird. I can appreciate someone being so mesmerized by my site they keep re-reading everything, but come-on, over 200 page views in 3 days? I had to go dig into the server log files to see that this user was not going through all the content at all, all requests were the same, for the blog home page! The logs also showed all the requests were being referred to from BlogSlides . Aha! I had recently added my blog to their index of blogs, and their unique feature is that they automatically cycle through a series of blogs in the same browser window, hence the name BlogSlides. Sure enough, the logs showed this visitor loaded the main blog page at regular intervals all day long. Ok, so this minor mystery turned out to be someone who left his BlogSlides window running, and by doing so created a bunch of bogus requests for all the blogs in his slide show, not just mine, providing another example of the unintended consequences of someone trying something new. Anyway, I found my answer through tedious scanning of my log files, not through my automated visitor counters. This would have been a lot easier with dedicated Web Site Analysis software.

So, I knew my hit and click counters were not good at providing the kind of deep analysis you can get from web analytics software, they were never intended to be, and creating such a system was never a reason for AustinMash!’s existence. All along, I’ve thought that if detailed visitor stats ever became important to me, I would have to shell out several hundred dollars for a decent and robust solution, something like WebTrends .

Then, a little while ago, an interesting e-mail appeared in my inbox – it was an invitation from Google to try out their new Analytics solution, which was, of course, free! Apparently I had asked for an invitation some time ago, probably when I set up my AdSense advertising account, and then forgot all about it. So, here was Google, one of the most impressive software developers of today (Google Maps, Google Finance, Google Spreadsheet, need I go on?) inviting me to try their latest creation. Guess how long it took me to add their tracking code to my pages? Not very, I’ll tell you that right now.

The hardest part in adding their code (about 4 lines of JavaScript) was in deciding where it should go. In my case, since I have made the commitment to have the Skyline appear on all publicly accessible pages, it made sense to put the Google code next to the code that generates the Skyline Ads area map. Although Google says it may take a day, within a few hours of uploading the new code to the site my personal Analytics page was showing visitor data, and a few minutes after that, I was once again impressed with Google’s software and user experience prowess.

Screenshot 1 - Default View

Now that the tracking code has been active on the site for a few weeks, there is enough data to take a good look at most of the features Google Analytics offers. Screenshot 1 shows the default view when you load the application, the “Executive Overview” Dashboard view. This screenshot shows the overall page layout for the reports within Google Analytics, with collapsible report links on the left, a date picking calendar below that, and the reports on the right, with help text below them.

Screenshot 2
Three Dashboard Views

Screenshot 2 shows the three pre-configured dashboard “views”, which seem meant to be specific to the role of the person using Analytics. Ok, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here. I should mention that Analytics supports the ability to monitor multiple web sites (you set up “Website Profiles” to define them), and that a user with administrator privileges can set up additional users who can access specific profiles only, or all profiles. You can set up more than one profile for the same web site, each with its own set of available reports, which is how you restrict users to seeing only the reports they should be seeing. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes power in Analytics, with features to help small to mid-sized businesses make the most of their online efforts.

Fully expanded Nav bar,
showing all available reports

Now, I am not going to sit here and bore you with a frame-by-frame description of every feature of Google Analytics. I took a lot of screenshots which pretty much speak for themselves, so look them over and you’ll get a sense of the kinds of data this program gives you access to. However, I will mention a few things that are not apparent in these static pics.

Visitor Location Map - Austin has the biggest marker!

First: Browser Compatibility. My own experience is that you pretty much need to be using IE for Google Analytics to work properly. The pages will load in Opera, but all charts are empty, no data gets loaded into them. Firefox support is better (as you can see in Screenshot 1) but other pages do not work, such as the site overlay reports. I switched to IE for the rest of the screenshots.

Site overlay - Each link has metrics data
(very small bars for my site, small data sample size still)

Second: Visitor Counts. Google Analytics gathers visitor information by running JavaScript in the user’s browser when they load a page (client-side method). Although this allows for capturing a wealth of data (such as length of visit, connection speed, and screen resolution) that would not otherwise be available, this collection method inherently leads to lower visitor counts than a server-side method, such as my own hit and click counters. This is because JavaScript must be running in the user’s browser! There are two sets of visitors that are not counted in Google Analytics: automated spiders, or robots, that don’t use a browser at all, and users who switch off JavaScript while they surf.

Visitor Source Pie,
with two slices highlighted

Whether the exclusion of spiders from your Analytics data is a good thing or not depends on your need for that information, and whether you can get it some other way. Of course it’s there in your server log files, but going through them is pretty tedious. In my case, those visits show up in my hit counter data report, and I can trace a particular visit or set of visits to a specific search engine, or I can deduce I’ve been visited by a badbot based on the origin, network used, or pattern of requests. Knowing that I get regular visits from Google, Yahoo, Bloglines, Pluck, IceRocket, and other legitimate search and aggregation sites lets me know my latest content is available for others to find.

An example of a powerful
cross-segment report. Here,
we see the breakdown of
screen resolutions for Firefox users.

You may be wondering how many people really go around the internet with their JavaScript turned off. I didn’t think there were too many of them, but early on I started getting complaints that the blog page layout was all messed up for some folk. It took a little while and exchanges with several complainants for me to realize the problem was they had JavaScript turned off, and since I was using JS code to position the sidebar to the right side of the page, of course it looked terrible for them. I’ve since modified my templates so they don’t rely on JavaScript to position the sidebar, but this experience demonstrated there are a fair percentage of visitors who will not be counted by a client-side data capture method. This is not that big a deal for me, because I am not using Google Analytics for total traffic counts, and I am assuming this exclusion will not skew the report percentages too much. Also, since it’s impossible to buy pixels without JavaScript running, these visitors wouldn’t be in any of the e-commerce related reports anyway.

Visitor Location Pie
with pulled out slice

Finally: Impressions and Opinions. The default date range is the past 7 days when you first load Google Analytics. This range is easy to change via the calendars to the lower left. You can quickly select a standard week, month, or day; a column of days (for example, all Tuesdays in the month); or you can specify an ad-hoc, custom range via the “Enter Range” icon. When you click that icon, two calendars expand into being next to it, where you merely click the start date in one calendar, and the end date in the second one. When you click “Apply Range”, the two new calendars collapse away. Any time you change the date range, the currently displayed report or dashboard is automatically redrawn for the new date(s). From that point on, all reports will use the newly selected date range, unless you change it again. This immediate and “sticky” response to your changes is intuitive and makes it easy to get the report you want. The tool does its job quickly and efficiently, so you can too.

Date Range calendars expand
and collapse on the page - nice

Notice I said the date range calendars “expand into being” and “collapse away”. They do not merely pop into existence all at once, or even more ghastly, open in a new browser window. No, they very pleasantly expand from and collapse into nothingness on the page, a very nice touch. As a web developer, I can appreciate the extra work that goes into implementing such niceties, and although it is arguably just eye candy, little touches like this go a long way towards enhancing the user experience. Likewise, all charts draw themselves over a very short time interval (line graphs trace a path across the grid, and bar graph columns grow from their base to their final length), another nice touch. Ok, pie charts do pop into being all at once, but you can pull out a slice of the pie by clicking on an item in the legend.

Some of the search queries
that led someone to AustinMash!

A couple of gripes: The dashboard and certain reports lack one-click drilldown capability, and the login process could be better integrated with other Google services. When you first load Google Analytics, for example, you may see you have 25% of your visitors being referred to your site by “other”. It should be possible, right there, to click on that pie slice and see the data for “other”. As it is, you have to go to the detailed report (Marketing Optimization/Visitor Segment Performance/Referring Source), and set the display list size to something greater than the default 10 lines. A drilldown click from the dashboard would have been much nicer. Also, Google does not have a single login and authentication mechanism for its various services. Maybe this is by design, but it seems inconsistent with the company’s otherwise user-centric implementations. Perhaps it is a consequence of trying too much, too fast, as various divisions race to provide new applications on their own. One would hope Google will make the effort to tie everything together, from a user account perspective, at some point in the future.

Most visited content, with bounce and exit data

On a happier note, a technically interesting aspect of the reports is the seamless way flash animations are integrated into the page. All the pie, line, and bar charts, plus the geo maps, are Macromedia Flash mini-applets, while the textual data, navigation, and help text are just that, regular HTML text on the page. The calendars are HTML as well, yet all the pieces are interact with each other and are integrated into a well-honed, solidly built web app machine. I like that. Actually, as far as I can tell, this entire application, with all the reports and various date and range picking controls, are really all on the same HTML page. All that happens when you click on a report is that different chart mini-apps get loaded and fed the proper data in the report area of the page, without the whole page refreshing in the browser. Very slick, and in my opinion, the way all web apps should work from now on. Yes, I know Google Maps and Google Finance, as well as numerous other “Web 2.0″ sites (like Flickr) use the same approach. Google just seems to have mastered the art and they are not shy about showing it off. Kudos!

You can compare data from
two time ranges, to measure the
effects of a marketing push, for example

But wait, there’s more! Not only does Google dress to impress, it is also a well behaved, soft-spoken host, which only serves to enhance its popularity in the increasingly crowded internet party scene. After exploring the available reports, it becomes apparent why Google spent the resources to buy the company that developed the core technology, and to enhance and distribute this remarkable tool for free. It’s all there in the “Content Optimization” and “E-Commerce Analysis” sections. As a Google Analytics user, you have the ability to track the effectiveness of various AdWords campaigns, and to analyze the effectiveness of your site in converting visitors into revenue-generating sales. You can define “goals” (such as showing a customer the payment receipt, successful transaction page) and “funnels”, which are paths a visitor would take through your site to reach a “goal”. Then, the reports help you understand how and why visitor landings translate into income. This helps you make more money, some of which you will then spend in more AdWords advertising (with a greater knowledge of what works and what doesn’t), which of course is good for Google.

Another cross-segment report
Where are my Google visitors
coming from?

It seems clear Analytics is one way Google hopes to address its primary weakness, which, as numerous analysts have pointed out, is that despite all the cool technology it produces, Google has very little ability to “lock in” users. In one sense, Google is like the genius kid who enters a hyper-competitive graduate program way too young. Because his peers, such as Microsoft and Yahoo, and Amazon and eBay to a lesser extent, are entrenched and have a built-in ability to keep its users coming back, Google has to be that much better at everything it does so that people will prefer to hang out with it instead of the older kids. So far it has been able to do this, but at the cost of running full speed everywhere it goes, trying to be Mr. popular in all circles to make sure its parties are always well attended. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to relax a little and not worry about everyone running out the door when the cool new frat house throws its first party? Or worry that folks will get tired of the music and beer and just drift back home to Yahoo and MSN? You bet it would, and if Google’s customers come to rely on Analytics to manage their business, there is much less chance they will eventually migrate away from AdWords or any other revenue-producing service that may be offered – such as the new Google Checkout service.

Some reports help you visualize
how visitors navigate through your site

So, even though Analytics can be considered strategically important to Google, and the AdWords integration is what makes it so, the user experience was not compromised to put these features front and center. Much to Google’s credit, the default views and reports were chosen based on what the users would find most useful, not on what would further the company’s goals. The genius kid doesn’t go around shouting how great it is, it merely does what it does very well, confident that it will pay off in the long run.

I believe that it will – how many Web 1.0 startups when nowhere because they neglected to put the user first (RealNetworks, for one, comes to mind)? Google absolutely needs tools like Analytics to become ingrained in its customer’s business processes, but it seems to understand that providing super-easy, hyper-helpful user experiences is the way to go about it. Despite the muscle under the outfit, Google’s charm and graciousness exudes a confident and understated vibe. This is my kind of party!

Most of my Texas visitors
are from Austin!

Some notes on the data in the screenshots: These of course are actual reports generated from real data about AustinMash!. The spike in traffic on June 15th was due to my blog posting on the recent ROT Biker Rally here in Austin. Since Google Analytics has just started gathering data, most of the visitors are “new” to it and not “returning”. You will note there were some visitors referred to my site from MySpace, I will be talking about my experimentation with that site in a future posting.

Finally, I am gratified that the bulk of my visitors are from Austin. While it’s great to see people in Russia or Saudi Arabia are checking out AustinMash! (and because the data gathering is client-side, I can be fairly sure these are real people and not robots), it has always been my intention to make this site primarily for Austinites. I am very pleased to see my promotional efforts are on-target, that I am doing the right things as far as reaching my intended audience. Very cool indeed.

Most reports include the ability to further graph a metric over time. Here, we see the time distribution of the 23 visitors using Dialup access during this report period.

The browsers people use, and their operating systems. The purple up-arrow icons create new floating graphs with Data-Over-Time, To-Date Lifetime, or Cross-Segment reports. Very powerful stuff.