Following Krista’s excellent post on using secondary dimensions in Google Analytics, this post will explain the GA represents your data using its internal data model and why it’s important to understand this. You’ll see that certain combinations of metrics and dimensions don’t mean what you might think, and that some are actually completely invalid. We’ll…
Author: Krista
Testing with a Rapid Optimization Plan
If you’ve ever set out to A/B test a whole site redesign, you must have come across the question of ‘What do we do if the new site, that we’ve spent so much time and money on, doesn’t win?’ That’s a fair question. A very fair one. In fact, if you are not asking yourself…
Segments – An Analyst’s Best Friend! Part 2: Secondary Dimensions
In part 1, I wrote about the details of Advanced Segments. They are incredibly powerful and will help you take your analysis to the next level. But as I mentioned in that article, when I think about segmentation, it comes in two forms in Google Analytics: 1. Advanced segments a. Out of the…
Segments – An Analyst’s Best Friend! Part 1
Advanced Segments are quite possibly the most powerful slice-and-dice tool available in Google Analytics. Recently, however, it came to my attention that even some of our biggest and most advanced users are not using/under-utilizing advanced segments! When I think about segmentation, it comes in two forms in Google Analytics: 1. Advanced segments Out of the…
2015 Travel by the Numbers
Happy New Years! Looking back on this past year, 2015 was another big year in travel. Once again, I’ve taken a look back at my 2015 travel numbers and with the help of TripIt have pulled together the stats to paint a story of my year. If you missed last years, you can see my 2014…
Data Driven Design
Designing a new website is a big task. You must take many things into consideration: ease of use & functionality, mobile responsiveness, content, flow, graphics, etc. On top of that, you need to ensure that all of the analytics tracking is properly setup and collecting the necessary data for you to report on success. With…
Podcast Guest: Jumpstart with Jeffalytics
A few weeks ago I had the chance to sit down (virtually) with an industry friend, Jeff Sauer, who is an expert in all things Google Analytics & AdWords and who has recently kicked off a podcast series he’s calling ‘Jumpstart with Jeffalytics’. I had the distinct honor of being guest #2 (after the Wizard…
Three Google Analytics Features You Should Be Using Today
I run Google Analytics training workshops that take users from ‘never seen it before’ through to ‘grown up GA practitioner’. A key success metric for me is how many people answer ‘Yes’ when I ask if a certain piece of functionality is new to them. If folks are learning new things, this is good! I…
Three Google Analytics Views You Should Use Today
I often get asked for recommendations and best practices for setting up a new Google Analytics property. How many views should we have? What are the best practices for types of views? You can have as many views as you want (ok not really, the cap is 25 views per property unless you have a…