Google Analytics is a Web Analytics solution that provides insight on your website and its visitors.  Setup is often down to user preference; however here are our top five best practices.  Please note, they are our preference, if you do things a little differently, please do write a comment at the end of the article, we would love to hear your approaches.

1. Design an account structure that fits your websites’ plans

Perhaps the most difficult of our best practices, at iProspect we believe in simple and clear account structures.  A site should never have more than three tracking codes fire on each page.  If you only own one site then one tracking code should be used, but if you deal with several domains, we recommend two codes – one at site level and a second global roll up.  Creating an effective account structure that provides all of the insight needed can be a tricky task; thought should always go into the level of visibility across accounts that may be needed.  Our top tip is to make sure every site has its own, separate account tracking code that it does not share with another site.  This avoids any trouble with providing access to reports, is best practice for competitor security, and minimises both confusion and mess within your account structure.

2. Apply filters (and always have a master unfiltered profile)

Filters are brilliant.  They allow you to filter out a number of things, for example – your IP address.  Your site experience will not be average as you will probably be testing pages; by applying this filter, you don’t need to worry about your own testing data skewing reports.

Here are some of our favourite filters:

• Exclude [xx] Traffic – This excludes all traffic from developers/agencies/testers
• Include [xx] Traffic – This includes certain domain’s traffic and is used as a best practice to filter out domains that aren’t the live site. This is particularly good to exclude all staging and dev traffic from your testing phase
• Force Lowercase – This stops cases from coming up as difference pages. E.g. Using this filter home.html visits and Home.html visits will be merged together into one home.html
• Add hostname to URI – We like this for many reasons. Everyone has their own approach to applying this filter, but it is really useful if using global roll up reports/ one tracking code on several domains.

3. Set up your Goals

Goals should always be set up, even if not needed in early reports.  At iProspect, whenever we create a new Google Analytics account and provide tracking codes, we ask what the conversion point of the site may be. For most sites, it is obvious – a form or thank you page, downloading a PDF, or simply contacting the company via another means.  If the correct tracking code is in place, these conversions can be set up with the account, meaning they are always there to view.

Test  and audit your goals on a regular basis.  Having a goal set up that doesn’t work because of a minor error, may mean a lot more work in the long run when you have to pull these goal stats manually!  Test the goal by finding the page-path in the content report and view the ‘unique page-views’ to this page.  They should match up, as goals are calculated by dividing the unique page-views of a conversion page-path by the visits.  Once a goal is setup and working correctly, audit the goal once a month or on every site development to ensure the goal and its funnel still works.

4. Know your metrics and think about your reporting

There are two websites pages that are never too far down in my browsing history - Metrics Guide and Dimensions Guide.  These pages list and explain the metrics and dimensions that are used in Google Analytics.  At iProspect we advise our clients and staff to always refer to these pages whenever beginning a new report. They are easy to read, and can be surprising; for example, did you know ‘bounce rate’ only applies to pages you can enter on?  Therefore, you shouldn’t report on ‘bounce rate within a form with pages in which you have to access through a page on the site.

More than just knowing your metrics, the real trick is to know how to use them and what insight they are reporting on.  Reporting on ‘time on site’? What does that actually really mean?  At iProspect, we recommend drilling down site statistics by a particular dimension to provide actionable insight.  For example, drill down ‘time on site’ by traffic medium to see how effective stickiness is by each channel, or by Browser Version to see if a browser is causing visitors to immediately exit the site.  Describe your objectives, translate them into terms Google Analytics understands (like a goal URL or a metric) and then report on these pieces of data

5. Always use naming conventions!

Last but not least, always use naming conventions.  Whether it is an account or profile name, an advanced segment, or a custom report, always develop a convention and keep to it.  This will make meaningful reports for any party.

Here are some of iProspect’s favourite naming conventions:

• Accounts and profiles: we like “Client, Description, (Level)”.  Remember an agency may have several accounts under one username and if they are all called ‘Primary’, it doesn’t make too much sense!
• Advanced Segments + Custom Reports: we like “Client (if applicable), Description, (creator)”.  The most important part here is “(creator)”,  add your name or your company to avoid confusion, and to know who to talk to about its setup.

As we’ve said, these are our best practices, developed over the years, but many are our preference, what are your preferences in your Google Analytics setups? Do you have a naming convention or filter that has revolutionised your Google Analytics experience? Let us know by the comment box.

Facebook’s IPO filing yesterday made the headlines with the new millionaires – and some billionaires – to be made when the social network floats. The company’s earnings statements, though, also shows how social and casual gaming has exploded in the last two years. Advertising  revenues continue to grow – from $655m in Q4 2011 to $943m in Q4 2012 – but perhaps surprisingly , they make up a slowly decreasing percentage of Facebook’s total income. Almost 99% of revenue came from ads in Q1 2010, yet last quarter that had fallen to 83%.

The difference is being made by a growing revenue stream from Facebook Payments – $188m in the three months to December 2011. Payments encompasses the system via which real world pounds and dollars can be converted into Facebook Credits, the online currency accepted by developers for in-app purchases of virtual goods and services. The vast majority of that is being generated via casual games like Popcap’s Bejewelled Blitz, and most of all by social games, the most famous (or infamous) of which is Zynga’s Farmville, the online social farm sim which has spawned a thousand imitations and broken more than a few relationships.

It’s no accident this stream has taken off, as Facebook themselves explain, “Facebook Payments became mandatory for all game developers accepting payments on the Facebook Platform with limited exceptions on July 1, 2011. Accordingly, comparisons of payments and other fees revenue to periods before this date may not be meaningful.” Facebook’s leadership and soon-to-be investors will hope that last line is way off.

As of 10 a.m. yesterday twitter launched their new look brand pages from the UK twitter office. These brand pages are currently only open to advertisers that have spent money through the twitter platform so will be in fairly limited numbers for the time being considering the minimum spend to advertise on twitter is £25k a quarter.

The main features of the page are:

1. A fixed, non clickable, JPG banner that is 835 x 90 pixels
2. A static content box on the right hand side. This can contain as many tweets as you want and they will cycle through in turn.

The above clearly demonstrates the new brand pages for the new film ‘Chronicle’ by 20^th Century Fox. As you can see from the above, we advised that the tweet in the static content box have a YouTube link as this will automatically appear in the static box and create a richer experience for the user.

We feel that any advertisers that have advertised through the twitter platform should make the most of this opportunity to help your brand stand out and have a unique appearance. Overtime it looks as though this layout will become the norm for brands however it is not confirmed if these will be rolling out to all users on twitter or whether twitter are looking to creating a tiered structure to its users; one tier for Joe Blogs and another for authenticated brands.

Move over, Facebook. It’s time to look at what big, bad Google is doing with my information now.

Google announced this week that it was undergoing a nip and tuck, with its 60 odd privacy policies consolidating into a single overarching one. The new policy, I quote, “covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google”.  After the violins stopped playing, my initial thought was that this should come as a blessing (given that personally I’d rather extract teeth Tom Sawyer style, before reading through one of these, let alone 60, and hey, more relevance!). But hold on… my experience with you has been pretty beautiful till date, so how did you manage that? Ah, you’ve been doing this for a while but this just spells it out clearly. Enter rioting Internet audience.

So why exactly is Google doing this given that privacy is an issue people are becoming increasingly precious about (ironically, a large subset of which have posted at least one dodgy photograph to the Internet that they wouldn’t want their Mum to see)

Google’s take summarised:

1)      We aim to provide you with advertising that’s as relevant as possible. This helps us help you.

2)      By integrating information across products, we can provide you with a more targeted service.

3)      User’s personal information will not be sold or shared outside the company except in rare cases (such as court orders).

4)      If you’re not logged in, you’re immune to us monitoring your activity.

5)      Users will be able to turn off Google ads altogether though this doesn’t stop us from collecting your data…you know, just in case you change your mind.

6)      This shouldn’t exactly come as a surprise to you. (Analysts support this argument given Google’s constant commitment toward providing relevant advertising)

OK, thanks Google but I still hide my money in my mattress so could you direct me to the opt out button please.  There isn’t one? Oh.

Now given that as a company, we recognise the importance of search and the massive impact this has on RoI for any client’s business, providing even more relevant advertising for our clients is key.  For most in the advertising space, this is hence, a good thing.  It’s the audience that we’re targeting that is affected, given the varied mindsets.  Given Google’s dominance in search due to mass testified relevance and a limited amount of worthy competitors, options are limited in the absence of said opt out button. So while social media indicates that a few people have decided to throw in the proverbial Google branded towel, most of us probably won’t be running to the local library to look up a dictionary, the next time someone says diaspora.

That being said, as a user, I’m comforted by the fact that Google thinks I’m a 65 year old male with an interest in jigsaws and gas so they’re obviously not making too much of at least, my search patterns. (Check out what you look like to Google here) .

The changes will take effect on March 1, and Google said it was starting to inform users about them via email and a homepage notice.

Google’s single privacy policy could simplify consumer consent and reduce cross-device attribution issues

Last week, the search giant revealed plans to unify the multiple privacy policies across its products, including YouTube and Google+, into a single policy. This means it can collect data from individual users across its entire portfolio into a single profile (nma.co.uk 25 January 2012).

Many believe the search giant is far more transparent about its data than Facebook.  Others are excited by the potential the changes will have on tackling issues with cross-device, cross-channel attribution.

Aegis-owned iProspect MD Ben Wood agreed that the unified policy could help untangle the “massive challenge” of attribution across devices.

“There’s currently no synchronisation of data across devices so if Google can deliver a single profile, it will be of huge benefit to cross-device, cross-channel attribution,” he said.

Read the full article here.

Aegis-owned agency iProspect’s head of search and performance media Mark Fagan said brands must start engaging with their consumers via their Google+ page and creating SEO strategies that span beyond tradition methods such as link building, and optimisation.

“The implications of Google + Your World for brands are potentially huge, with results pages being highly personalised based on who is in your circles, as well as brand’s Google+ pages getting much more visibility in the search engine results,” he said.

“We believe that the authority metric Google looks at for ranking is shifting more from purely links to include connections and sharing (from all sources including Twitter),” he added. “We are monitoring the effects on PPC with the loss of real estate across certain keywords but we have yet to see anything conclusive.”

Check out the full article here.

This is a huge win for the group and dually significant for iProspect UK who currently manage GM’s paid and natural search as well as providing lead generation services across Europe. For Aegis it represents the single biggest win in Aegis history – and certainly one of the biggest advertising wins ever. Last night our 1,000+ staff located at Regent Place, London celebrated by raising a glass of champagne to toast this monumental win for the group.

General Motors are a top three global ad spender and this win highlights Aegis’s credentials at being able to take on large global business with a market leading integrated offering. Analysts have even referred to it as a “game changing” for the UK media buying business.

Jerry Buhlmann, Aegis’s chief executive, said:

“It’s a huge boost for our business and we’ll be focused on making sure it’s a huge boost to their business. Our strategy has been very much about highly-integrated media offers. That has resonated with them.”

Nigel Morris, Chief Executive Officer of Aegis Media Americas, said:

“This is a defining moment for our business and the market. We have designed our organization for convergence and globalization. We have a clearly differentiated operating model that is focused on reinventing the way we work with our clients and their brands. From the outset it was evident that the GM team was looking for a transformative approach with innovation at the core. They have a powerful vision and powerful brands and we are looking forward to it being a powerful partnership.”

First of all, what is SOPA? I thought it would be fitting to take the Wikipedia definition following their recent black out to drive awareness of this very subject  ‘The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a United States bill to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Provisions include the requesting of court orders to bar advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with infringing websites, and search engines from linking to the sites, and court orders requiring Internet service providers to block access to the sites.’

Secondly, it’s important to realise that this has become a truly global news story. Compare this to the tiny murmurings that the EU Cookie Directive has been receiving and you can see that there are big players involved (ranging from high powered senators and corporation lobbying committees to the largest internet companies globally) and that it really does affect us all, not just as media professionals, but more importantly as everyday internet users.

If you’re asking would this really impact the big hitters such as Google, Facebook and Twitter then the answer is a firm yes if the law was fully enforced. For example, one tweet with a link to copyrighted material could easily shut down all payments to the site until the situation is resolved. One errant Facebook post could lead to advertising revenue being blocked for the entire network, should one complaint of infringing content be filed. This is an extreme situation, however the important point is that it would be possible under the law.

Supporters of the act say that it is crucial in protecting entire industries e.g. Movie Studios, Record Labels etc. and thus it will save jobs and billions of dollars of lost revenue. Those against claim that it effectively threatens free speech and will lead to a new era of censorship of the web.

There’s always going to be huge amounts of controversy around this with parties waging war over the rights and wrongs. However, I think this comes down to a simpler and slightly more technology based argument. If SOPA was to pass then it would allow law enforcement agencies to block websites at a domain level rather than just at the level of the allegedly infringing site. DNS is at the core of the internet and thus allowing agencies, potentially swayed by corporations, to tamper with this framework will tilt the shift of internet power away from a platform for all to one which could potentially be altered and changed by a few. Surely this would be a negative in anyone’s books!

In a Jerry Springer style final thought it is worth mentioning that even just a few days after the black outs on Wikipedia and the Senate delaying the SOPA vote, that the United States government unsealed an indictment against the people behind Megaupload, one of the largest file sharing sites on the Internet. Four senior Megaupload officials were arrested in New Zealand on Thursday, and officials seized millions of dollars in assets. It seems that with or without SOPA that they may already have the power to act as judge, jury and executioner.

During Google’s poorer than expected Q4 performance announcement last week, there was a disclosure that CPCs fell 8% thus causing concerns amongst investors. Google’s executives received six questions during their conference call relating to the CPCs falls, when Google’s focus was meant to be its new products. With six questions on this one call focused on the CPC falls, investors were clearly worried. Consequently, share prices fell 7.7% at the start of the next trading session. On the day, Google blamed unfavourable exchange rates, changes to ad formats and the growth in cheaper mobile advertising for this.

At iProspect, we saw similar changes with our average CPCs in the UK dropping by an average of 7%*in Q4 year on year comparing accounts with relatively similar structures for both periods. Given that our comparison is for the UK alone, the slight difference with Google’s drop suggests that the impact played by foreign exchange here isn’t large. Given the number of innovations this year in bid technology, competitor monitoring and ad formats, reduced revenues were not wholly unexpected especially given the increased awareness of the need for these in the search space. Another factor that bears significance is stark changes in the skew of spend of top advertisers given the CPC differences (a travel client’s CPC would typically be at least half that of a business service provider).

While clicks grew an impressive 34%, additional concern was drawn from the fact that Google’s YoY revenue growth increased to just 27% QoQ compared to 25% for the same quarter the year before though undeniably, the figures are still strong. Wall Street has already called the drop  an overreaction.

At iProspect, CPCs have been a focus of our Paid Search team as a very powerful metric for cost savings. CPC volatility has risen as a breed of new advertisers gain the insights and tools open to agencies. Our campaigns reduce CPCs by careful structuring, ad copy writing and continual bid amendments to optimise to the changes an account sees everyday in reaction to market fluctuations. By combining our experience since 2004 with computer and human optimisation, bidding and account management, our accounts are fit for the new increasingly technology driven world that Google finds itself in. As clients see CPCs falling for Google, bid technology will no longer be limited to use on a small number of keywords, or for implementing human bid strategies but will be used for an increasing number of accounts in more depth.

This will be a tough year for Google where bid technology will be further trusted to deliver optimisation strategies and where increasingly these strategies will be suggested rather just implemented by computers. Wall Street investors would find their affection again for Google should world economic growth increase sufficiently that advertisers use bid technology to chase higher positions over lowering costs. We expect to see more terse comments from Larry Page as CPC concerns prevail.

*= overall average for Q4 2010 compared to Q4 2011”

Google have recently come into the market in the UK with plans to expand into a ‘truly global affiliate network’.

Sounds exciting.
We all know affiliate for the networks is a saturated market, with any real opportunity for ‘new’ networks winning any significant business pretty limited. The big networks rightly dominate the space and have made some good in-roads to making their networks truly multi-market. So what will distinguish Google as a network that’s worth putting the time and effort into moving your activity over to them?

Well, for one thing – integration in some capacity with their current products and search algorithm. From the limited stuff I’ve seen, there is certainly some interesting development going on:

• Searching for ‘new’ affiliates via AdSense and the Google algorithm – type a keyword, get a list of sites to approach as a partner
• Integration with Blogger – blogger users can tap into Google’s affiliate clients to serve CPA ads on their blog
• Merchant Centre powers all product distribution

Now this is interesting… Some of what Google are developing is still earmarked for 2013 unfortunately, because I’d love to see this stuff in action now.

I’m hoping Google can win enough EU business this year to justify continuing their R&D in the channel, as they’ll truly make some great things happen. It is a bit of an uphill battle however – I’ve not seen Google enter an industry where they have had such a challenge.

One question does remain then – how will they deal with their opposition? They effectively killed the CSE market with the panda update, coinciding with the wider launch of Google Shopping – will something similar happen to knock affiliate networks down a peg or two?