thanks

Have a Great Day Everyone - see you on the boards ! 

@Justin Thank you very much for sharing some insights with us and I look forward to your future chats here on All Analytics !

Thanks Justin!

Have a great rest of your day, everybody!

Thanks again everyone, this was great! Have a good week.

And with that, we thank you all! (And, yes, Justin, let's think chats for the future!)

Another great one, mohitdxb. Thanks!

It seems to work for Virtual page views but I have doubts about the virtual events. But I'll give it a try. Thanks for your help.

@ mohitdxb: Make sure your virtual pageview includes the directory that you've specified in the filter. 

Justin -- think you can squeeze in one last answer for mohitdxb?

@ I hear ya Shawn ! : ) 

I have Directory Include filter on GA in one of the profiles. I want all the Virtual Events which are fired under this Directory to be saved in this particular profile. I am not sure but I think this data is stored in primarly profile and not in the sub-profile.

You'll be seeing more of me soon :) I'm going to be doing more G+ hangouts. As for AllAnalytics, I'll leave that up to Beth. But I'm always happy to chat :)

mohitdxb -- did you have one last question?

i think the idea of just starting a simple blog to test out GA functions is a great one. I'd highly recommend it!

@Justin any chance you'll do this again, similar to your Google+ hangouts with Daniel Waisberg?

Thanks Justin for advice

You guys are awesome! Keep in touch. Let us know what you like about GA and what you hate. We're always working to make it better.

@Justin Awesome - thanks for the advice - will do !  : ) 

One last from me..

Hello to all :)

So we're approaching the hour mark. Any last questions from our participants (active or silent)? And, Justin, any last thoughts from you?

Thanks @Justin @Shawn. This session rocks.

@Louis: Hate to say it, but no. I really think you need to be using the tool. It's like becoming a good cook just by eating :) With that said, start a blog, or some small site, to practice.

Great info, Justin. And gtreat question, mohitdxb!

http://cutroni.com/blog

@Justin Do you think it is possible to become knowledgable at GA without an active site to monitor ? 

No shame in plugging your blog, Justin. Share the link?

Shamreless plug for my blog, which I think has some good resources for custom variables :)

Question about multi-session analytics. My favorite way to do this is using Custom Variables. You can create cohorts and store them in a Visitor scored custom variable. This data will be stored in a cookie, so whenever the visitor comes back to the site you'll be able to identify them.

Regardin GA Premium: If you generate a LOT of data, like more than 10,000,000 hits per month, then you might want to think about Premium. Remeber, a hit can be a pageview or an event. GA Premium can collect and store more data. Premium also comes with an SLA, so if you need garuntees for uptime or data processing you might want to check it out. As for features, GA Premium has a new Attribution modeling tool. So if you need to do more advanced types of attribution modeling you might think about it.

@Justin What is the best way to tackle multi session analysis in GA? I have a website on which conversion happens several times during multiple visits. It's a gaming site for kids where kids needs to play a series of games to complete whole adventure. They do it multiple times. What you recommend?

So you mention GA Premium -- give us a quick rundown. Who needs GA Premium or, perhaps another way of saying it is, How do you know you're ready to move to the Premium version? Are there certain analytics requirements that trigger that move?

@ngibietis: We have one, generic data API. It's actually more robust than the reports in GA. You have access to an expanded list of dimensions and metrics.

With ten minutes to go, I'm also wondering if anyone in the audience has some more real-world questions, especially from your own experoience, about using GA for marketing, etc.

I'm hoping the new version of my book is out in late June. The update will cover a lot of new things, like Social, Multi-channel Funnels, GA Premiu. Plus there are a lot of things that are not public yet :)

Justin do you have APIs for text analytic tools like Clarabridge?

@Justin lol  Hang in there !  You are doing a great job !  : ) 

@Justin, early you said you were updating the O'Reilly book, Google Analytics. When's the new version expected, and what's the most important update, you think, you'll be talking about?

My fingers hurt!

Great point Shawn! I think most businesses are running two types of social campaigns: audience building and drive direct revenue campaigns. They're building an audience by creating content and engaging people on social sites. To measure those activities businesses are looking at off-site data. That's where the data hub comes in. But when it comes time to measure real value and direct conversions they can use the Conversions report which has the direct and assisted metrics.

@Beth: Yes, and we have a Mobile section of Google Analytics. It's under Audience > Mobile. It groups devices by service provider, input type (touch sreen, keyboard, etc), brand, OS, version, etc.

@Justin Ah I see....yes I find it a very interesting option, something that will be interesting to monitor going forward.

Got it. But I think it's the different kinds of data available from these different kinds of sites that people find particularly challenging, especially when measuring campaign results. How do you recommend people combine these different kinds of data to get something meaningful?

@Justin -- is traffic from mobile devices as easily identifiable? 

@Louis: The social reprots are just 3 or 4 weeks old. So far, so good. I think what people like the most is the fact that we're automatically identifying social traffic. 

@Shawn: The social data hub, is actually a feed of data that social networks send us. They get to define all of the data based on their site. So the data stream for Blogger will be different than the data from from Read It Later of Del.icio.us. We work with site operators to make sure that the data makes sense. And this data is totally different than standard web metrics. It's not visits, time, etc. It's more "shares", "bookmarks", etc.

@justin I supposed Google tracks how many are using what feature of GA.  How many are using the social media options currently ?

@Justin there is nothing specific I can see in my reports after I segment the data. What coudl be other reasons for this and how to prevent? 

Justin. On the subject of the number of sites, you're right, there sure are a lot. Facebook and similar sites used to be referred to (and maybe still are referred to) as walled gardens. I'm wondering if GA can get the same level of data out of these social networks as it can from, say, a Blogger or WordPress document. In other words, is there better Google data on some social sites than on others?

@mohitdxb: Interesting question about bounce rate and virtual pageviews. I haven't actually seen that before. I would try segmenting the data by traffic source or Network to get a little bit more information about what is generating that traffic.

@Beth - Absolutely. To me, that's the most important part of the new social section.

@justin, all good additions on the social side. I can see the assisted conversions report being of particular interest, though, as people look for some sort of hard metrics on social media value

And the last thing we did in the new social reports is add in an Assisted Conversions report. This shows how many direct conversins came from social and how many assisted conversions came from social. This is similar to the Multi-Channel funnels. It helps users see that social is often an upper funnel activitiy.

The second thing we did with social is automatically identified over 450 social media sites and grouped them together into Google Analytics. These sources would normally be grouped with other referring websites. So we hope this helps people take a 'long tail' view of social. There are a ton of social sites out there!

Hi Justin I want to know why I see bounce rates for virtual page views in Google Analytics? Technically these are the pages no one can visit directly and hence no chance of bounces.

First, we created the Social Data Hub. Any social network in the universe can send Google data about activity that happens on the social network. This is really useful becuase it gives business owners a look at off site activity.

Ah, OK. I believe you. And we'll see what sort of percentage increase comes out in Q2?

To answer @Beth's question about social. Our objective with the new reports is really to help everyone understand what social is and how it adds value. We tried to do this in a few ways.

Re: the TechCrunch number, that's the number we released during our Q1 earnings call. so it's from us. Not an estimate from TechCrunch. And I'm sticking to it :)

While Justin's looking over/answering last few questions, anybody out there who's got a burning question but hasn't had a chance to write it up yet? Don't miss your chance!

@Justin, lots of folks are certainly struggling to understand the value of social. How, in particular, is GA helping them?

And I think you'll see us continue to follow this approcah. We're going to make sure that businesses have the tools to measure what's happening now.

In addition to tracking almost anything, we've tried to stay current and solve problems marketers are facing. That's why we have features like Advanced segments (for almost unlimited segmenting), Multi-channel funnels (to help marketers understand attribution), Social reports (to understand the value of social) and a lot of customization (so people can make reports that are exactly what they need).

@Justin, you cite TechCrunch's 10M estimate -- did it get it right? Or roughly, at least?

Both are intimately related. From the technology side. Google Analytics has evolved into an analytics tool, NOT a web analytics tool. We have trcking code for iOS apps, Android apps, server side code. We can track almost any device.

@Justin, to your point "we may see a drop in traffic because we kill things that are just not working" -- that's interesting. I think many of us have been trained to think the more traffic the better (unless from nefarious sources, of course). But here you're suggesting a drop in traffic might suit a company's purposes?

Great question about how GA has changed. It's clearly evolved quite a bit. We need to stay current with two trends: changes in technology and changes in marketing. 

Good question , Shawn!

There was a question about the underlying technology... Not going to get into that too much. But we have a very robust system that scales. It was recently noted in TechCrunch that we have ~10,000,000 sites using GA.

@Justin, I'm unearthing another question here, this one from NSong, who says/asks, "I am very interested in the example you gave to use GA with other resources, such as CRM. Can you give an example about it? Thank you." Your thoughts?

To repeat a question that's gotten burried, I'm wondering if you can give us an idea of how GA has changed over time in terms of functionality, features, or in any other way, and also, maybe, give us an idea how it's been changed by the nature of the Web in general

@Beth: We tend to see a better ROI when we're done. We may see a drop in traffic because we kill things that are just not working.

One final thing about Keywords... We've got a fairly new feature called Multi-Channel funnels. It's a series of reports that show how different marketing channels create conversions. These reports link all of the visitors sessions together so yo ucan see which channels are early in the buying process and which are later inthe buying process. Use the Assisted conversion reprot to understand how your organic and paid search influence conversion. Which keywords are early in the buying process and which are later? I like this because you can adjust your ad spend accordingly.

A few other thoughts on Keywords: segment your branded keywords from non-branded. You can do this using an advanced segment. You can also use the site search reports to look for more PPC opportunities.

@Justin, following up on the keyword discussion, in your experience what sort of improvements do you tend to see once you've helped a client, for example, use GA to better understand and leverage keywords, organic or paid?

As for Google AdWords, make sure you've got your AdWords and Analytics accounts linked. You get much better data, and more of it. The thing I like about the AdWords reports is that they not only show the performance of the campaigns, but they also show some AdWords specific reports. For example, there is a Matched Search Query report. This is really helpful for analyzing broad match keywords. You can look at the exact search term for all traffic from broad match. That's really actionable because you can then refine those campaigns in AdWords.

I'll also look at the organic search from Yahoo!/Bing to see if there are any opportunities to broaded my Yahoo!/bing campaigns.

Hi Shawn  Thanks !

Then I'll try to figure out why a particular Yahoo!/Bing keyword is not working. This is the bounce rate comes into play. If it's high I'll try to change the landing page.

If you're evaluating PPC from Yahoo!/Bing then the analysis is fairly straight forward. I like to start in the Camapigns report and see how much revenue/conversions I'm getting from my campaigns. Then I drill into the keywords and look for things that are good and things that are bad.

@Shawn - It has certainly gotten a lot better in terms of functionality and features over the past year!  Curious to hear Justin's take on how it has been changed by the web though too.

Hi sdong! Hi Louis! Welcome!

@Justin: I have heard about users being banned from using GA. Can you tell us when this happens?

Great question about GA and Keywords. There are a lot of things you can do here. Let's split this into two things: Organic keywords and Paid keywords. I'll begin with Paid keywords.

Also, going along with Beth's earlier question, Justin, I'm wondering if you can give us an idea of how GA has changed over time in terms of functionality, features, or in any other way, and also, maybe, give us an idea how it's been changed by the nature of the Web in general.

@Justin: Thanks for the clarification. 

What is the underlying technology use? Statisctical, Word Count, and NLP engine, etc.?

@TAanderud: We've got a really, really big database on the backend :)

@Justin, TAAnderud asked earlier, and so now buried, a question that is likely on lots of people's minds, so I'll point it out here again: The Keyword Search is the most useful feature in Google Analytics - how can I better leverage that information?  

Hi Beth Thanks !

Hi All, hi Justin. I am very interested in the example you give to use GA with other resources, such as CRM. Can you give an example about it? Thank you.

Regarding Accuracy and Precision: GA does a pretty good job. If we're talking about web tracking then we face some of the same challenges as all tools. We rely on JavaScript and Cookies. There's no way around that. A lot of people ask why GA might differ from other tools, and it's usually due to the settings. Make sure you're filtering the data correctly from all tools. Also, make sure all of your pages are tagged. I see a lot of implementaitons where an entire section of the site is not tagged. But overall, GA is reliable and accurate.

Hi Louis, and welcome.

hello everyone !  Sorry I am late 

What is the GA backend?  Hadoop?

That seems a fairly unbiased assessment. Thanks Justin. ;-)

@Beth - It's getting a lot better! As you mentioned in your previous blog post, there are a lot of people using Google Analytics. That's driven more and more people to understand how GA works. Those people then share their ideas, which are good! Here at Google I think we're doing a pretty good job of pushing out accurate information.

Good question Hospice ... I run two services and GA always seems about 10% lower.  I've wondered why since both say they only capture "human" traffic.

Ah, maybe Justin understood the question implied that I didn't. Nevermind technologist!

@Justin: How would you rate GA accuracy and precision?

Technologist -- re the interest you describe below, is there a question in there for Justin as you think about this from the Google Analytics or general Web analytics perspective?

@technologist: Great question. Silos are hard to navigate. A lot of the clients that I've worked with are just starting to integrate their web analytics data into other sources, mostly CRMs, and are starting to analyze the behavior based on traffic source. And it's mostly cohort analysis.

Hi everyone, Hi Justin. 

Justin, I have a general question that came to  mind as I read your background below. You say that in the early days there wasn't a whole lot of  accurate information about GA out there. What about today? Getting out accurate information must be one of your primary goals -- how about a self-rating. How are you faring so far? 

Sure, quick thought about the books. If you're a GA nerd then you'll probably like the O'Reilly book. It's more about how GA works and can be hacked. I'm actually working on an update right now. The Performance Marketing book is better suited to new users and marketers. 

Justin: The Keyword Search is the most useful feature in Google Analytics - how can I better leverage that information?  

Justin. Maybe we could start with a bit about your book which you just mentioned.

I'm always interested in how organizations attempt to discern useful patterns of behavior out of large amounts of disparate data and how to extract that data where we are not eliminating the extremes (and being able to determine extremes that are valid/as opposed to noise)

Hi everybody. Thanks for joining our e-chat today. Justin is online, and if you scroll down a bit you can see his brief background -- then, feel free to toss in your questions. Justin will do his best to get to as many as possible!

Hi all. Looks like we've already kind of gotten started. :)

I wrote a book called Google Analyitcs published by O'Reilly. Creteive title, huh ;) I co-authored Performance Marketing with Google Analytics.

Oh what is the book?  I only know about the one by Avinash Kaushik (which is great).

Hello all

analytics at google, that's pretty cool

Hello all :)

Sure.

I've been working in analytics for almost 8 years. I got my start supporting a product called Urchin. Google bought Urchin in 2005 and the startup I was working for became one of the first Google Analytics partners. I've worked with large and small companies in almost every vertical over the last 8 years.

In the early days there was not a lot of accurate information about Google Analytics out there. So I started a blog. I turned that into a couple of books.

In January I got an offer from Google to join the GA team. I wear a few hats here. I spend some time helping marketing (doing things like this and speaking at events).  I spend some time helping our education team and driving how we're going to educate users. And I spend some of my time helping the product team, talking about features.

Hi Justin and welcome

Hey Tricia, good to see you here!

Alright Justin utilize those analytical skills.

Hi Justin ... anxious to pick your brain.   

Justin, we'll get started at 11 ET. But, while we're waiting for folks to join in, why don't you fill us in with a bit of background and tell us how you landed at your current position as analytics advocate at Google?

Hi Justin, and welcome!

I'm here and ready to chat.

Looking forward to chatting with everyone! Bring your questions and we'll try to get everything answered.

I'm looking forward to today's e-chat with Justin Cutroni, analytics advocate at Google. No doubt he'll have great advice to share on using Google Analytics to its utmost.

Here's where we'll chat with Justin Cutroni, who recently joined Google as "analytics advocate." Cutroni, who writes a blog called Analytics Talk, speaks widely about the value of analytics and will be on hand during this e-chat to share his tips and tricks for making analytics -- especially Google Analytics -- more useful.