Appendix B: Useful Tools
The tools I’ve listed here are helper applications that come in two flavors: those that help you perform a site-wide audit of your Google Analytics Tracking Code deployment and browser add-ons that help you use or manage your reports—configuration aids, segmentation help, and so forth. Often these two scenarios overlap, and marketers frequently find themselves using the same toolset as webmasters and web developers. I also list two Windows desktop applications that have helped me over the years. Regardless of your job role, all these tools are straightforward to use.
Tip: Google Analytics maintains an App Gallery of third-party-developed add-ons that extend Google Analytics functionality. At my last count, there were over 140 apps listed at www.google.com/analytics/apps (the editor’s picks are certainly worth a look). Some of these apps are described in Chapter 12.
Tools to Help Audit Your GATC Deployment
The key to being able to improve your website is having good, solid, accurate data that you can rely on. A fundamental step of implementing any web analytics tool is getting the data in—there simply is no point investing in analysis if the data is flawed. After all, garbage in equals garbage out. Maintaining data integrity is key. Adding page tags, the GATC, is therefore not a one-time, “set it and forget it” process. It requires careful deployment planning and regular maintenance checks to ensure that data holes do not appear.
The following are site scan tools that can help you audit and verify the completeness of your GATC:
Web Analytics Solution Profiler (WASP) A Firefox plug-in that detects the setting of the GATC cookies plus 100 other vendor tools. Works on a page-by-page (free) and site-scanning (paid) basis:
www.webanalyticssolutionprofiler.com
ObservePoint Paid Software as a Service (SaaS) vendor. Detects the setting of the GATC cookies plus Adobe Omniture’s cookies. Works as a site-scanning and monitoring/alert tool:
How Often Should I Audit My Google Analytics Implementation?
The main factor to consider here is how often your content changes. If 10 percent of your website content changes each month, then by halfway through the year the majority of your website will have changed. The greater the change, the higher the possibility of errors. Even nonhumans such as CMS, CRM systems, and web servers can, and do, make errors. And because page tags are a hidden pieces of code, errors are not visible by simply visiting the page in your browser. The result is that page tag errors easily go unnoticed and build up rapidly on your website.
In the early stages of a GATC deployment (or redeployment), I recommend that you scan your pages weekly. Assuming there are no holes in your data collection, or they have been fixed, move to a monthly scan after eight weeks. Again, assuming data holes and anomalies have been ironed out, you should be able to move to quarterly scanning frequency by Q3. Maintain quarterly scans until your next major site redesign or a replacement CMS comes online, and then increase the frequency again.
A typical report from these tools would list the URLs scanned and show the following, for example:
- Pages scanned = 5,480 (100%)
- Pages with correctly functioning GATC = 5,220 (95.3%)
- Number of incorrect GATC = 140 (2.6%)
- Number of pages not found (error 404) = 12 (0.2%)
Developed by third parties, add-ons are installable enhancements to your browser. They are available for the Google Chrome and Firefox browsers because historically these browsers have encouraged third-party customization. The vast majority of add-ons are free to use.
More information on Firefox add-ons is available at
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox.
More information on Google Chrome add-ons (known as extensions) is available at
http://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions.
The following add-ons work with the latest version of Google Analytics (v5) and help with your implementation and usage of it. I use all of them:
Analytics Helper (Chrome) This simple add-on displays a green icon in the browser address bar whenever a GATC is detected on a page you browse. Clicking the icon shows the account number of the tracking code, the code type (asynchronous, traditional), and a note on the positioning of code. Developed by Oliver J. Fields of Metronet, Norway. For more information see
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/%22analytics%20helper%22.
GA Copy & Paste (Chrome) An extremely powerful add-on that greatly simplifies the management and administration of goals and filters. Developed by Eduardo Cereto Carvalho of Cardinal Path. For more information see
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/GA%20Copy%20and%20Paste.
Regular Expression Checker (Chrome) Regular expressions are used throughout Google Analytics for filtering, creating advanced segments, defining goals, and configuring funnel steps. This useful add-on helps test your expressions for troubleshooting purposes. Developed by www.simon20.com. For more information see
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/%22Regular%20Expression%20Checker%22.
Google Analytics Debugger (Chrome) This official Google Analytics add-on prints useful information to the JavaScript console about any web page containing a GATC. When you enable the debug version of the GATC (ga_debug.js), the information shown includes error messages and warnings about your tracking code implementation and a detailed breakdown of each tracking beacon sent to Google Analytics. Developed by Google. For more information see
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/%22Google%20Analytics%20Debugger%20%22.
Annotations Manager (Firefox) This Greasemonkey script allows you to copy, delete, and export your chart annotations. Developed by Vincent Giersch. For more information see
https://github.com/gierschv/GoogleAnalytics-AnnotationsManager.
Stats Calculator (All browsers) This clever bookmarklet takes a statistical approach to comparing two e-commerce conversion rates and your overall goal conversion rate. The bookmarklet performs a z-test to show the confidence interval of two selected dimensions. This shows if the differences you observe are statistically significant. Developed by Michael Wittaker. For more information see
http://www.michaelwhitaker.com/blog/2011/11/02/stats-calculator-google-analytics.
Web Developer Toolkit (Firefox and Chrome) This add-on adds a menu bar to your browser with a whole range of useful features for anyone who has an interest in creating web pages. It has an excellent browser error console and DOM inspector as well as quick lookup tools for cookies, source code, and so forth. Developed by chrispederick.com. For more information see
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/%22web%20developer%22.
Firebug (Firefox) Adds debug capabilities for JavaScript, CSS, and HTML live in your browser. For more information see
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843.
Live HTTP Headers (Firefox) Similar to the Chrome add-on Google Analytics Debugger, this add-on enables you to view HTTP headers of a page while you are browsing. All the communication requests sent and received by your browser can be viewed. By filtering the URLs to show only Google Analytics requests (via regexp set to /__utm.gif.*), you can view all the information sent to Google Analytics. For more information see
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3829.
These are scripts that make modifications to your GATC to automate tasks that can otherwise be laboriously manual.
Autotrack file downloads and outbound links Normally, to track file downloads and outbound links, you need to manually modify each link across your site—a painful process for all but the simplest of websites. This JavaScript plug-in scans all your page links for you in the background and automatically adjusts them accordingly for Google Analytics by adding an onClick event handler. There is also the option to modify the bounce rate calculation. For more information:
www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/auto-tracking-file-downloads-outbound-links.
Customizing the SEO list for Google Analytics For digital marketers running SEO accounts where regional differences are important. For example, Americas, Europe, Middle East, Asia, Australia. This JavaScript plug-in separates out 264 regional search engines—for example, google.co.uk, google.com, google.co.nz, and so forth—instead of just “google” as reported in Google Analytics by default. For more information:
www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/custom-search-engine-hack.
WebBug WebBug is a Windows application that allows you to enter a URL and see exactly what is sent to the web server and what response is sent back. This is the information that your browser takes care of when rendering a page. I use this mainly to check a web server’s status code response. It is very useful for tracking redirection issues—a common problem that can result in the loss of campaign variables from your landing page URLs. WebBug is free to use, Windows only, and is available for download from
http://www.cyberspyder.com/webbug.html.
The Regex Coach Regular expressions (regex) are snippets of pseudo code that match patterns within text. In Google Analytics, regular expressions are used for filtering—for both filtering within a report (table filter) and for creating separate profile reports (profile filters), for defining advanced segments, and for configuring goal conversions and funnel steps. In other words, regular expressions are important, and I refer to them throughout this book.
Going beyond the basics, things can rapidly appear complex because regular expression often appear like algebra. Therefore, before implementing your regular expression, validate it through the excellent Regex Coach application (Windows only). Regex Coach is free to use and can be downloaded from