This is a 3 part series on cross domain tracking with Google Analytics in non-standard situations:

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3

In this final of our three part series, we’re going to look at adding the Google Analytics query string parameters used to accomplish cross domain tracking to other variables we may be passing.

If we want to append additional query string variables to the end of our destination URL string we might try something along the lines of the following:

<code>

function redirectFunction()

{

window.location.replace(GoogleAnalyticsCookieAppend('http://www.xxx.yyy/
RedirectTarget.html?mookie=pookie'));

}

</code>

If we do this, it’s possible that we might also notice that our cookie passing solution no longer works.

Uh-oh.

If you find yourself in this situation, it might be because of this:

<code>

http://www.xxx.yyy/RedirectTarget.html?mookie=pookie#__utma=
1.283748562613819500.1212185562.1212185562.1212189988.2&__utmb=
-&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1212185562.1.1.utmcsr=
(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)&__utmv=-&__utmk=100666753

</code>

The Google query string parameters were appended at the end of our query string, but with a “#” separator. Not exactly what we were expecting.

A cheap, quick and dirty fix is obvious: replace the “#” with a “&” and be on our way. But keep in mind that a simple replacement may create a problem with existing query string variables if being built dynamically, since we must have a “?” to start the query string parameters and must separate them with a “&” in a URL.

One solution is to extract the existing query string variables first, then call the GA function, then deal with the #/?/& issue,  and then append the old variables at the end.  We update our function to take care of this below:

<code>

function GoogleAnalyticsCookieAppend(uri)

{

//grab existing query string variables

var queryStringIndex = uri.indexOf('?');

var queryString =(queryStringIndex == -1) ? "" : uri.slice(queryStringIndex+1);

var myURI = (queryStringIndex == -1) ? uri : uri.slice(0, queryStringIndex-1);

//Use the Google Analytics function to get GA variables

var c = pageTracker._getLinkerUrl(myURI, window);

//Explicitly check in case GA is using #

c = c.replace("#", "?");

alert(c);

//reappend querystring variables

c += "&"+ queryString;

return c;

}

</code>

And that’s it for this mini-series on exploring the ins and outs of Google Analytics with non-standard tracking across top level domains.  Happy Google Analytics-ing!

Go to Part 1 or Part 2 …

This is a 3 part series on cross domain tracking with Google Analytics in non-standard situations:

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3

When faced with a non-hyperlink and non-form submission crossing of domains, our first thought might be to write a method that simply takes the GA query string variables (generated by our standard solutions) and appends them to the end of our destination URL.

But, Google Analytics is doing a bit more than this in its dedicated functions.  Specifically, it uses a hash function as a checksum in order to make sure that the cookies being passed are from the desired source (this ensures that you cannot maliciously affect someone else’s data using GA cookies). This checksum is calculated on the server side and stored in the _utmk variable.  Having to write your own server side hashing by reverse engineering the algorithm GA uses to do this checksum isn’t our ideal situation.

So what to do?

The first thing we have to do is undersant how the _link() and _linkByPost() functions are working. Looking specifically at some of the ga.js codebase, we see:

<code>

a._link=function(b,e)

{

if(i.I&&b){

a._initData();

a.a[p].href=a._getLinkerUrl(b,e)}

};

a._linkByPost=function(b,e){

if(i.I&&b&&b.action){

a._initData();

b.action=a._getLinkerUrl(b.action,e)

}

};

</code>

One thing we immediately notice is that both functions require a URI to be passed in, and yet take two parameters, the second being “e”…and both then take this and pass it and the target (b for hyperlinks and b.action for forms) along to a _getLinkerUrl() function. Let’s take a closer look:

<code>

a._getLinkerUrl=function(b,e)

{

var j=f(b,"#"),t=b,v=a.qc();

if(v)if(e&&1>=j[w])t+=”#”+v;

else if(!e||1>=j[w])if(1>=j[w])t+=(r(b,”?”)?”&”:”?”)+v;

else t=j[0]+(r(b,”?”)?”&”:”?”)+v+”#”+j[1];

return t

}

</code>

Again, we see the “e”, and in order to figure out what’s happening, it’s important to understand some of the features and quirks of Javascript, like:

• Constructors can return values
• No block scope
• Reserved words can be overriden
• Every function returns a value

As objects are essentially associative arrays, they are dynamically capable of adding properties and methods. The key to understanding “e” is found in the following declaration:

<code>

var _gat=new Object(

{

c:"length",

lb:"4.2",

m:"cookie",

b:undefined,

cb:function(d,a){this.zb=d;this.Nb=a},

r:"__utma=",

W:"__utmb=",

ma:"__utmc=",

Ta:"__utmk=",

na:"__utmv=",

oa:"__utmx=",

Sa:"GASO=",

X:"__utmz=",

lc:"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif",

mc:"https://ssl.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif",

Wa:"utmcid=",

Ya:"utmcsr=",

$a:"utmgclid=",

Ua:"utmccn=",

Xa:"utmcmd=",

Za:"utmctr=",

Va:"utmcct=",

Hb:false,

_gasoDomain:undefined,

_gasoCPath:undefined,

e:window,

a:document,

k:navigator,

t:function(d){

var a=1,c=0,g,o;

if(!_gat.q(d))

{

a=0;

for(g=d[_gat.c]-1;g>=0;g–)

{

o=d.charCodeAt(g);

a=(a<<6&268435455)+o+(o<<14);

c=a&266338304;

a=c!=0?a^c>>21:a

}

}

return a},

</code>

So “e” is actually just the window itself.  Now that we know that by passing in the url and the window object to _getLinkerUrl(), we are able to handle both hyperlinks and forms, we can see if it will work for our DIV container example. Let’s give it a try…

<code>

function GoogleAnalyticsCookieAppend(uri)

{

var c = pageTracker._getLinkerUrl(uri, window);

return c;

}

</code>

We can test this and see that our cookies are indeed being passed.  Now, what if we want to pass info with other query string variables?

Continue to Part 3

This is a 3 part series on cross domain tracking with Google Analytics in non-standard situations:

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3

In figuring out how to use Google Analytics on a site that spans multiple top level domains, (i.e. transfer cookies across multiple domains) there are many good resources out there (books, blogs, helpfiles and more). Given the amount of work done on this topic and the frequency with which it occurs on websites, you might not think this would be a difficult problem, and in most common cases, it isn’t.

But while there are well documented and standard methods that specifically deal with hyperlinks and HTML forms, you may find yourself in some unfamiliar territory if your site uses other types of navigation methods (scripted redirects, server side, etc…).

Take, for example, the simple snippet below:

<code>

<a href="" onclick="redirectFunction()">Link across top level domains</a>

function redirectFunction()

{

window.location.replace('http://www.xxx.yyy/RedirectTarget.html');

}

</code>

To address this one, you might write a wrapper function that encapsulates the redirect and inserts a call to the pageTracker._link(<urlToRedirectTo>) function, so we’d do something like the following:

<code>

function redirectFunction()

{

window.location.replace(GoogleAnalyticsCookieAppend('http://www.xxx.yyy/
RedirectTarget.html'));

}

function GoogleAnalyticsCookieAppend(uri)

{

pageTracker._link(uri);

return uri;

}

</code>

Note: You’ll want to make sure to include the “return false” at the end of your call here.

This will work for cases where we have a hyperlink (anchor tag) doing this direct javascript call, as follows:

<code>

<a href="" onclick="GoogleAnalyticsCookieAppend('http://www.xxx.yyy/
RedirectTarget.html');return false;“> This one tries indirectly  </a>

</code>

But what about something that’s not a hyperlink, like a div container?

<code>

<div id="mydiv" onclick="redirectFunction();return false;">

Content for this container

</div>

</code>

This is neither a hyperlink nor a form, and our attempts at solving this problem with pageTracker._link() and pageTracker._linkByPost() just don’t seem to work…

Continue to Part 2 …

Ready to set up goals on your website? This 7 minute video walks through the steps required to create conversion goals in Google Analytics. You’ll learn about different types of goals, how to calculate goal values, when and where to use different match types and more. With goals configured in your Analytics profiles you’ll be on your way to understanding how your visitors interact with your site from the perspective of conversions:

Today Google announced the release of some interesting additions to Google Analytics, the free website analytics offering from the search giant. Almost as many times as the topic of Google Analytics comes up, we’re asked whether or not Google is poring over your private data and sharing it among its secret circles in dark caverns. While the answer to this question has always been a resounding “no”, today’s beta releases provide a case for the positives of data-sharing within Google Analytics.

Ever wanted to know if other online stores selling the same products as you also saw a record February? What days of the week other sites like yours experience traffic spikes? How about knowing if people stay on your pages longer than they stay on your competitors’ sites? With the industry benchmarking feature, you can answer these questions and more.

Understanding how your website performs against other websites in your vertical can shed some bright light on your online marketing plans, and even looking at data across other verticals can provide valuable insights that you can turn into action items for your online success.

So how does Google Analytics get all this data on your vertical? Well, the bottom line is that for this to be an effective tool, we all have to share it. The second feature released today is the beta of the “data-sharing settings” page, where Google Analytics users can opt in to sharing their data. To dispel the paranoia that is sure to result from this option, Google is NOT making your individual data available to your market (and your competitors). When you opt-in to data sharing, your Analytics data is aggregated with everyone else in your industry vertical anonymously.

So why stop there? Google is also letting you opt into sharing your Analytics data across other Google services you may be using. Have you tried the Conversion Optimizer from Adwords yet? If so, you’re probably frustrated that you have to set up separate conversion tracking for this feature when all that data is right there in your Analytics account. Cross Google services data sharing is the first step to allowing us to solve problems like this, and we at WebShare are excited to see where this leads.

Webshare is a Google Analytics Authorized consultancy and can help you make the most of this new feature and the wealth of data available to you via website analytics. From website analytics training to Google Analytics consulting, WebShare can help you with all your website analytics needs.

Are you ready to set up Google Analytics on your website? If so, then you’ve found the right place. In this 7 minute video, you’ll learn how to create a Google Analytics account, install the new GA.js tracking code, and be on your way to a wealth of information about how people find and use your website:

Webshare is a Google Analytics Authorized consultancy and can help you set up, configure, and analyze this invaluable data. We offer customized analytics training as well as Google Analytics consulting for any project.

Google Analytics has just put in place a new feature that will be formally announced very soon – comparison graphing for your reports.

For those of you that have grown accustomed to the tireless examination of your key Analytics reports day after day, this new feature is a welcome addition to Google Analytics from a usability standpoint. Whereas we have been seeing key metrics compared to site averages for quite some time now (displayed in red or green, in parentheses next to key numbers), we now have the ability to graph two metrics or two date ranges.

Ever wanted to quickly see things like:

Has all of our work paid off and did we get more traffic this holiday season than last?
Just head to your favorite traffic report and drop down your date selection box and select the two date ranges you’d like to compare. Black Friday 2006 to 2007 or any period you’d care to see.

Are more visitors looking at our December Discounts page after we highlighted it on our major landing pages last week?
Find the page in question in your content reports, set your date ranges to compare and enjoy the view!

Did that string of newspaper ads in San Francisco and L.A. get us more traffic from the state of California? More e-commerce transactions? Better conversion rates?
Just navigate to the Map Overlay report for California, set your comparison date ranges and have a look, city by city. You can use the tabs at the top to compare traffic, conversion, and e-commerce numbers over your date range and any geographic location.

Are visitors from my banner ads staying on my site longer after I made my landing pages better a month ago? Are they converting better as a result?
Have a look at the time on site column of the campaign report where you track your banner ad visitors. Conversion and e-commerce numbers are just a click away!

Does my G1 conversion rate trend in the same way as my G2 goal over time? What does it look like for Chicago visitors that came from a geo-targeted Adwords campaign?
Head over to your All Traffic Sources report, drop down the graph options, select “Compare Two Metrics” and pick the goal conversion rates you’d like to compare. Get even more detailed by finding the cross segment of a specific Adwords (or any other) campaign while in the Map Overlay report. Now drop down the graph options and pick your two goal conversion rates!

The answers to all of these questions can be quickly graphed right in the Google Analytics console now, and there are myriad ways to use this new feature and quickly see a snapshot of date range comparisons.

Webshare is a Google Analytics Authorized consultancy and can help you set up, configure, and analyze this invaluable data. We offer customized analytics training as well as Google Analytics consulting for any project.

Everyone who has a website and a search marketing plan knows just how indispensable solid analytics data has become. While solid analytics packages were only available at a premium not long ago, the introduction of Google Analytics has given the power of information to any website owner for a very competitive price: free.

Google Analytics has continued to mature since its release, undergoing a large scale change to the enhanced version 2 earlier this year, and the Google Analytics team didn’t stop there. Recently a number of new features have been announced, and we caught up with Brett Crosby, Senior Manager at Google Analytics to talk about the latest and greatest:

Webshare is a Google Analytics Authorized consultancy, and can help you get the most out of your analytics. We offer a wide range of services, from Google Analytics training to Google Analytics consulting, and can work with projects of virtually any size.

Microsoft’s Project Gatineau is now in beta and being tested by the public. On October 29th they began inviting certain users to sign up for the beta, although you do need to be an adCenter user to be granted an invitation. At this time it is not known when Microsoft will release it for all customers to use.

Gatineau is Microsoft’s “answer” to Google’s Analytics, and they state that it won’t be exactly the same as Analytics (and of course they say it will be better). Ian Thomas of Microsoft’s Digital Advertising Solutions group has a blog specifically discussing Gatineau, and in it he states, “We think there’s room in the market for another service of this nature; plus, we have some stuff up our sleeves that we hope you’ll like and which will differentiate us from Google’s and others’ offerings.” He went on to note that “we have more resources than DeepMetrix did (development team has more than quadrupled since the acquisition, for example), so hopefully we won’t disappoint you.” Microsoft’s attainment of DeepMetrix tipped off the internet community that the software giant was looking to get into web analytics. Gatineau is the name of the Canadian city where DeepMetrix was based for a number of years.

Ian goes on in his more recent blogs to give us just a taste of something we may see from Gatineau, and I’ve tried to capture some differences between this and Google Analytics. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Gatineau is that it has the ability to track some demographic data (such as usage statistics between men and women) for users that have a Microsoft Live ID and are logged in as they browse the web. Another feature is the ability to map the document hierarchy from your content management system into the tool and see this in Gatineau’s reports. The tool also includes similar things that Google Analytics already does but in a different way, including funnel reports, outbound link tracking, inbound referrals, ROI reports, goal analysis, and client system reports.

At this time, Gatineau is not getting much attention, but we’ll be watching to see how Microsoft’s entry into the Analytics game unfolds. It is also likely that the features introduced with Gatineau could be incorporated into the market’s current offering of web analytics tools, but we’ll let time tell. We at WebShare are evaluating Gatineau and its capabilities to understand where it shines and where it lacks, and will continue to communicate on this new service from Microsoft and let you know how it might (or might not) benefit you.

WebShare, LLC is a full service Internet Marketing firm specializing in Search and Conversion Marketing. We offer a variety of services to help you make the most of your search marketing efforts, and get an edge on your competitors.

Are you using the best tools for your search marketing and conversion marketing programs, and are you using them to the best of your advantage? There are a variety of applications offered by various vendors, however Google leads the pack with three applications in particular: Analytics, Adwords and Website Optimizer. It may not be perfectly clear as to how the Google applications work together and what the function of each one is. So let’s demystify the situation. Below we highlight a few Google applications, and each one can be used to help you create, manage and implement your search and conversion marketing program. Best of all, these applications are free or are available at very reasonable costs. As an added bonus, these applications are web-based, which means you don’t have to host them on your server.

Information is power, and from that perspective Google Analytics, Google Adwords and Google Website Optimizer together are a nuclear power plant! Together, these three applications can help you answer more than just how many visitors were on you site yesterday. They can help you answer as specific of a question as, “How many visitors from Chicago who speak Spanish clicked on my pay-per-click advertisement and actually converted?” And “Which version of the specific advertisement I showed them was more effective?” Furthermore, the tools can help you use the information from those questions to identify and create tests with your site to further improve your conversion rates. Now, that’s powerful stuff!

Google Analytics houses all of the information collected about your site’s visitors, and allows you to view it in hundreds of different reports. It costs nothing (other than your time) to open a Google Analytics account for your website. Think of Google Analytics as a giant database that allows you to collect loads of data about your site’s visitors, and perform highly specific queries to slice and dice visitor data in just about any way you desire. Google Analytics can be even more powerful when used in conjunction with another Google application (Adwords or Website Optimizer) to help you manage your search and conversion marketing programs. If you’re serious about increasing your site’s traffic and conversion rate, you should be incorporating Google Analytics into just about everything you do.

Google Adwords is Google’s Pay-Per-Click (PPC) program, and its interface allows users to manage the campaigns that drive traffic to Web sites on a cost per click basis. Opening an Adwords account is easy, and only requires $5 and a few minutes. In Adwords, users can implement new PPC campaigns, edit keyword lists, change ads, and manage their PPC budget. Additionally, Adwords gives you access to a number of tools than can give you insights into everything from seasonal trends across industries to keyword research. Adwords also provides a number of reports to view your PPC campaign statistics and progress, and your Adwords account can be linked to Google Analytics to give you even more data about your ads and paid traffic. The data available in Adwords are certainly extremely useful, but any organization serious about improving their search and conversion marketing program should be exploiting the wealth of information that a solid analytics package (like Google Analytics) provides in addition to the Adwords reports.

Google Website Optimizer allows users to conduct statistical tests on their site’s pages to determine which variables will improve the probability that a visitor will convert on the website’s goals. Website Optimizer is free, but as it is accessed through the Adwords interface, it is only available to users who have an Adwords account. So technically Website Optimizer costs you the $5 you need to open an Adwords account. The variables you can test are virtually unlimited - they can range from changing the page background color, testing different ad copy, different images, different headlines, different positioning, and different layouts and designs to the combination of size and location buttons, trust logos, affiliation links, and anything in between. Website Optimizer offers two statistical analysis methods (A/B split testing and full factorial multivariate testing) to help you design and implement tests that will determine what changes on your site affect the probability of visitors converting on your site’s goals. Website Optimizer uses Analytics-like tracking code to run the tests, and you can use Google Analytics to see the long term trends that result from your Website Optimizer testing. If you’re not converting 100% of your visitors, then you should be testing your website right now.

Still not sure where to begin? WebShare offers consulting and training services to help you make the most of your search and conversion marketing programs. Webshare is one of a handful of companies in the world that is an authorized consultant for Google Analytics, Adwords and Website Optimizer as well as a certified consultant for a number of other tools including Yahoo! Search Marketing. Without a doubt, Google Analytics, Adwords and Website Optimizer can be intimidating, and they do take time to master. However, if used to their fullest potential these three applications can help you improve your search and conversion marketing programs by leaps and bounds.