Webbanalysbloggen

A Google Analytics inaccuracy

admin — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:50:44 +0000

Seems to me that the entry type is stored in the visitor cookie in Google Analytics. But more than that: It seems as if, as soon as the entry type is search, the previous entry type is overruled, and you remain a visitor coming via search, until you delete your cookies.

This has some implications, of course, for the statistics you see in Google Analytics. It would be logical to assume that the different traffic sources you see for a selected period, are the traffic sources used for that same selected period, but that is not necessarily the case: Many of the visits registered with Search as traffic source, can be from visitors entering the site directly (or any other way), but who sometime previously have entered the site via search.

Other tools relate the entry type to the Visit, instead of the Visitor, which of course is much more intuitive. The attached pictures shows the consequence of all this:

Picture 1: Google Analytics says I entered the site using the search term “Digital marknadsföring”, even though I entered the site by typing in the address directly.
Picture 2: comScore Digital Analytix is showing the same visit as a direct entry.

A Twitter oddity in times of real-time data

admin — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 20:02:31 +0000

In times of real time data-collection and real time action on that data, it feels a bit odd that Twitter in parts isn’t real time. When I post a tweet it shows up immediately. But my number of tweets doesn’t change. I have to refresh my browser window for that to happen. And if I remove a follower (Spam…) that doesn’t show right away either. I wonder what it is behind the scenes at Twitter, that explains this. Is it for the same reason that I have seen that “We might be over capacity-whale” so many times?

What Safari Top Sites does to retargeting

admin — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:11:06 +0000

I have been thinking about why a specific company never let’s me go. They are retargeting me everywhere and all of the time. I don’t visit their site frequently, and they should really have set a maximum amount of times to target me, before I am considered to be simply not worth the ad spending.

But standing on my balcony this evening I figured it out. It must be because of Top Sites in my Safari browser: Every time you open the up Top Sites, these bookmarked sites get a pageview as well as visit and visitor if those criterias are met. So in the company´s view, I am repeatedly coming back, and as I haven´t bought anything yet I must be a really interesting prospect.

Imagine also what this is doing to driving statistics for websites: That’s a lot of traffic from people who never even knew they where on these sites. In my case, having 20 bookmarked Top Sites, I generate 20 pageviews on these sites every time I open up a new tab.

How to make buyers go Premium

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:40:18 +0000

Always interesting to see how the services are diversifying between differently priced packages. Optimizely (a brilliant service for A/B and Multivariate testing) offers the CEO’s phone number to anyone who goes Platinum

Always updated with a real time dashboard

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:27:03 +0000

My workspace. A separate screen to the right with a dashboard showing Google Analytics and AdWords data for www.internetintelligence.se. As ‘real time’ as it gets with Google Analytics, and updated every 5 minutes. A great way of keeping myself updated on cpc campaigns and activity on the site.

In English starting … Now

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:16:02 +0000

As part of my social media experiment this blog will now be 100% in English. A bit inconsequent with the Swedish domain, but we will see what I can do about that.

Expiration Date…

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:02:21 +0000

Expiration date 10/15/2011 på min SiteCatalyst certifiering (ACE: SiteCatalyst). Bokat tid för ny test, men frågan är om jag slår mitt tidigare resultat: 88,2% rätt på mindre än halva den tillåtna tiden.

Mina Apple-prospects

admin — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:19:07 +0000

Skickade nyligen ut min första e-mailkampanj. 34% av mottagarna på min maillista öppnar via iPhone och ytterligare 6% via iPad. För att ytterligare visa på Apples totala mailläsardominans hos mina prospects så öppnade ytterligare 23% mina mail via Apple mail 4. Du Outlook, kanske dags att bli lite mer mobil.

Google Analytics må vara gratis…

admin — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 20:50:23 +0000

…men there is no such thing as a free lunch. Jag sätter upp Event tracking på sajten och sätter mål baserade på dessa events, men inget händer. Och undra på det: “Once event tracking has been set up and working on your site for a day, go to the Content section of the reports and view Event Tracking.” For a day! En minuts väntetid hade varit 45 sekunder för länge.

Hur mår du Hotmail…

admin — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 08:22:41 +0000

Det vanligaste meddelandet på Hotmail nu för tiden. Hade föredragit att få andra typer av meddelanden i min inkorg istället…