Google's search and content networks are both great sources of profitable traffic, but they are very different from one another. And in the same way that you wouldn't want unrelated keywords grouped together in your account, you're going to want to keep search and content in their own distinct campaigns.

But what is it that makes them so different?

Audience:
Traffic from the search network is coming from an active group of prospects. This is exactly what makes paid search advertising so unique: you get to show your ad to a prospect at the precise moment that they are seeking your product or service (depending on your keyword list of course).

On the other hand, traffic from the content network is much more passive. You're getting your ad served at a moment when their attention is elsewhere, focused on the content of the site they're on.

Performance:
This variance in user behavior between search and content leads to a large difference in performance. Due to the high level of motivation found in search traffic, the search network tends to have a much higher CTR than content. However, the number of impressions available on content tends to be vastly greater than available search impressions for a given keyword theme since AdSense can be found on so many sites throughout the web, so you can still pick up plenty of clicks from content despite the low CTRs.

Search traffic also tends to convert at a higher rate than content for the same reason. Searchers are pursuing your product or service so they are more likely to become customers after they hit your site than traffic from the content network. Because of this, click prices on the content network are often much lower than search. So, even though conversion rates have a tendency to be lower for content, if the average CPC and conversion rate drop by the same proportion when compared to search, then both networks will be equally profitable.

Targeting:
When considering keywords for search, each keyword is a unique entity that you bid on with its own separate performance from all other keywords in your account. With content however, Google takes a look at all of the keywords in an ad group and applies that ad group a theme that it will use to serve your ads across the content network.

For this reason, search and content ad groups need to be organized differently. There are a lot of keywords that you'll want to throw into content ad groups to round out overall themes that you wouldn't want to put in a corresponding ad group.

An example of this would be adding the keyword "cheese" to a content campaign focusing on Gouda. Also, Google only uses up to 50 keywords from an ad group to determine a theme, so any keywords over 50 in an ad group is always a waste for content.

In Summary:
Due to the major differences between search and content, you would be remiss to try targeting both in the same campaign. They require different keyword organization, ad copy, and analysis for optimizations and targeting both networks in one campaign makes it impossible to do.

Make sure to utilize both networks though, as they both have the potential to be very profitable for your company; just make sure to split them up in your account.

For more profitable AdWords account pointers click here.

So there you are - you're all ready to put more oil in your car, or maybe you're trying to fill your sugar jar. Maybe you're all set to do some ironing, but you need to put some water in the iron. Whatever the reason, it immediately hits you that you'll be needing a funnel - but... OH SNAP!

You don't have one. Or you can't find it. What do you do? You improvise of course!

Quickly and with a MacGyver-like moment of inspiration, you grab a 2-liter bottle from your recycling bin and cut the top off. Phew - that was a close one! Now you won't have oil on your driveway, or water all over your bedroom carpet, and you can go about your day feeling like a secret genius.

Now, a funnel would have still been the best tool for the job, but sometimes it's just not available. What the heck does this have to do with Google Analytics?

Well, Google Analytics has a great built-in Funnel Visualization report, but the problem is that it only works if you have the foresight to build it ahead of time. Funnels are never retroactive - they will only start working the moment you create them. What if you have multiple landing pages? Moreover, what if you only want to look at AdWords traffic? Well, you would need a separate profile in addition to a properly set up funnel, and all of this has to be set up ahead of time.

The problem is that often you won't know what kind of funnel you need until it's too late. Having 20 goals in Google Analytics is great, but you could have a million and it wouldn't make a difference.

The good news is there's hope. That hope is called Advanced Segments. Here's how you do it:

Step 1: Define the funnel.

This part is pretty straightforward. Lay out the path you are trying to get information on, along with any other parameters (AdWords only, US only, etc.), like this:

Step1: /consumer/special/index.html (Landing Page)
Step 2: /order.html
Step 3: /cart.asp
Step 4: /checkout.asp
Step 5: /bonus.asp
Step 6: /order-receipt.asp

Step 2: Create a new Advanced Segment.

First, make sure you change the calendar so that you're looking at the date range you want to analyze. Then click on the 'Advanced Segment' link in the left navigation:

Then click on 'Create custom segment' in the top-right:

Now you're ready!

Step 3: Results!

Let's start with just the landing page. I recommend doing a few things to the segment. First, use 'Page instead of 'Landing Page' and 'Contains' as the match type. Give your segment a name, and then click the 'Test Segment' button:

Make a note of that number - I usually do this in a spreadsheet (see below), although I have plans to use the Google Analytics Data Export API for this.

Next, by adding a second page, we can then see how many people looked at both in the same visit. You can do this one page at a time. Let's use the /checkout.asp page as an example:

Once you've done this for all of your pages, you'll have your improvised funnel report:

Finally, if you want to further segment the funnel, you can repeat the process with an additional condition. Here's the same segment we did before, but just for AdWords traffic:

By doing this analysis, you will get a real feel for how your actual funnels are performing and be able to take better benchmarks before running tests. Plus, you can feel like a secret genius.

Everyone's new at some point right? Well if you're just starting out with Google Analytics, here are a few things you can watch out for to stay ahead of the game.

1. Missing Page Tags
Probably one of the most common mistakes that can cause problems in your Google Analytics data is missing page tags. Yes, the Google Analytics code needs to be on all pages of the site. It doesn't matter that someone in sales told you that "all we need are metrics from one or two pages." You're setting up Google Analytics already, so you might as well do it right and get accurate data. If any of your sites pages are missing the Google Analytics Tracking Code, you'll start seeing self referrals (where the real source information is overwritten with your site information) and a variety of other issues will occur as well. Comb through the site a few times and make sure you aren't skipping any pages and that every page will register with Google Analytics.

2. Mixing urchin.js and ga.js code
For those of you inheriting Google Analytics projects, you may be faced with the task of maintaining or updating a site that was previously tracked using the urchin.js version of the tracking code. Although Google states it is possible to use both the urchin and ga versions of the code as long as they aren't on the same page, my suggestion is to update the entire site to the new ga.js version of the tracking code. Mixing the two can cause some complications that are better left avoided. Save yourself some future headaches and update everything at once. Plus you'll get some cool new features with ga.js anyway, so why wouldn't you want to upgrade?

3. Not setting up ecommerce correctly
I've had numerous people come to me asking why they aren't seeing any ecommerce or revenue information within the Google Analytics reports. Aside from enabling ecommerce reporting in the Profile Settings, there is actually a separate script you'll need to setup on your site in order to get ecommerce working. Just grab the code and have your developers work their magic to get the dynamic transaction level variables passed into the ecommerce code for Google Analytics. Can't get all those fields? Read more about which variables are required and how to set up ecommerce.

4. Goal Conversion Setup
An important aspect of effectively using Google Analytics is to track the conversions that take place on your site. Aside from ecommerce you can set up goals within each profile to receive data on desired actions your visitors make on your site. I've seen some strange things when it comes to goal setups, but one of the most common is repeating the goal step in the funnel. After specifying the goal page, you don't need to repeat that step again in the funnel. Hopefully since Google added the "+ Yes, create a funnel for this goal" expandable selection this will help make this task a little clearer.

Also, be mindful of the match type you're selecting. Even with the helpful example next to the Goal URL field, I still see people that enter in the hostname in addition to the URI. If you're unsure about which match type you should use, the interface provides a link to an explanation of when you would each of the match types.

5. Campaign Tags Missing
If you're doing online (and even offline) marketing, you'll need to make sure you're tagging your URLs correctly in order to see metrics from those marketing efforts within Google Analytics. Typically by default in Google Analytics your paid traffic sources (with the exception of Adwords) will come in as a referral, so you must tag your URLs with the Google Analytics tagging parameters in order to see the correct referral information. To tag your URLs you can use our builder tool to generate the destination URL. By adding the necessary query parameters Google Analytics will attribute the visit information to the correct source. For Adwords users, just make sure Auto-tagging is enabled and Google will do the rest for you.

Tagging your URLs is also useful for other marketing efforts, like auto responder emails, offline campaigns, and banner ads. Without tagging your marketing efforts you'll be missing the opportunity to track the progress of your investments, so it's important that these steps are taken to get your Google Analytics data reporting accurately.

6. The Misuse of Filters
Filters can be applied to the information coming into your profiles to manipulate the final data in your reports. However, having an incorrect filter can severely impact the accuracy of your reports. When filtering out your office IP addresses make sure that you are using the correct regular expression. When creating include and exclude filters think carefully about what you're including and excluding. Include filters act as include only filters and will only include the information you specify into your reports. If your reports suddenly drop off and no changes were made to the site, check the filters that are set up on the profile to see if you are accidentally excluding your traffic. Carefully monitor any new filters because once the data has been manipulated (correctly or incorrectly) there's no going back.

7. Improper setup for subdomains and multiple domains.
Take a closer look at your site structure when you're setting up Google Analytics. Do you have any subdomains? Does the visitor ever cross over to another domain while browsing the site? Although this topic can be fairly advanced, tracking subdomains and multiple domains is arguably the most common mistake made by anyone setting up Google Analytics on their site. Check out the Google help files for instructions on setting up your Google Analytics Tracking Code to work with subdomains and for multiple domains to make sure you're getting it right.

Determining where you want to have your ads show is, surprisingly, often neglected. We often times see when conducting our AdWords account audit and strategy sessions, or when beginning work with a new client that geographic targeting is set up incorrectly. This is primarily due to new Google AdWords campaigns automatically adding Canada as a target country.

If your product or service is not available in Canada, be sure to remove it from your geo-targeting list once your campaign is uploaded.

Now, moving beyond this quick tip, there are a number of slightly more advanced geographic targeting features that are very helpful for advertisers.

In order to focus on specific cities, states, regions, etc you must select which campaign you would like to work on.

Using the new AdWords interface, select a campaign and then at the top of the page select the "edit" link found next to targeting.

On the following screen you will see a link underneath the "Locations, Languages, and Demographics" section that says edit beside locations:

Upon clicking on this link you will be brought to the "Select a Location" screen. Here you can determine your geographic targeting in 4 different ways:

• Search: simply type various cities, states, countries, etc that you would like to target.


• Browse: here you can browse every country that your ad could potentially be served in - it's a longer list than you can believe!


• Bundles: here you can select sizable regions for targeting. For example: all of Latin America or all of Western Europe, etc.


• Custom: this is the feature we primarily use. The most notable feature here is the ability to create a custom area to target by placing multiple pinpoints wherever you want.

Be sure to target the areas that your product or service is available; it's a simple, yet common, mistake we see. Get more helpful AdWords tips.

I write most of my Greasemonkey scripts with the idea that they will be useful to as many Google Analytics admins and users as possible.

But what if you need a script that's very specific to your business needs? Or Maybe you've heard about the Google Analytics API and you'd like to use it to tie your Google Analytics report data with data from your back end. You might even just need some custom modifications to your Google Analytics Tracking Code and general setup to get that one bit of data that can make or break your business.

At ROI Revolution, we offer support plans that can be used for nearly any type of Google Analytics project you can think up. You can also use your support time to have us help you effectively configure optimal tracking for your business goals, get a second opinion on that those thorny configuration issues, or just to audit your Google Analytics account setup and make sure everything's working just as it should.

And if you just want your own Greasemonkey script, we can make that happen too.

Learn more about our Google Analytics technical support offerings.

Every company wants to be at the front of the pack, leaving their competitors in the dust.

To beat the competition in PPC advertising, your first instinct might be to outbid competitors and get your ad into the top few positions, often located directly above the organic results.

With your ad gloriously perched atop the search results, surely you're at a competitive advantage compared to all those lowly ads on the right side of the page...right?

Well, not necessarily.

With PPC, you don't always get the gold for being in first place. While having your ad in higher positions tends to yield more clicks and therefore more conversions than lower spots, it doesn't always ensure the best return on investment.

If you have to pay twice as much per click to get your ad to the top position but find that it only gets you a few more sales and ultimately cuts into your profits, then you probably wouldn't want to continue that strategy.

And if you're thinking that you might be able to boost your conversion rate by getting your ads to the premium positions, Google's Chief Economist, Hal Varian, shared on the Inside AdWords blog that conversion rates don't vary much by position. He explained that for the same ad, conversion rate only differs by less than 5% on average across all positions.

This is not to say that you should shoot for 4th position necessarily, or any other specific position for that matter. The important thing is that you test how profitable you are in different ad positions and then bid for the ones that work the best for your unique business.

To learn a few more AdWords tips, enter your name and email to watch a video explaining 3 more strategies.

ROI Revolution is now offering a 3-session training series for PPC beginners ONLY.

Our goal with this course is to really take you step-by-step through the process of creating and managing campaigns in Google AdWords.

Each session goes for 90 minutes including 20 minutes of Q&A.;

The course will teach beginners how to use the AdWords interface to build your Google campaigns from the ground up. You'll learn the essential structures, terminology and all of the many handy facets that can help you better manage, understand and utilize your account's data.

You will learn and gain an understanding of:

• Pay-Per-Click Marketing
• The Google Networks
• Features & Benefits of AdWords
• Key Terminology
• A Proper Account Structure
• The new AdWords Interface
• How to Create a Campaign
• Language & Location Targeting
• Writing Ad Creatives
• Building a Keyword List
• Match Types
• Budgets
• How to Edit Campaign Settings
• How to Optimize Your Campaigns
• How to Create Reports & Understand Them
• How to Use the Many Tools in AdWords
• Bidding
• Other Advertising Options on Google

If you have just started using Google AdWords or would like to grow your business online, but have yet to try, this is just the course for you to get you started.

I manage pay-per-click campaigns on AdWords all day long, every day-of-the-week, so I made sure to cover all of the essentials and give you insider tips to build a well-structured campaign and manage it smoothly.

Please come and join the AdWords Academy boot camp, and get the help you need to make your business soar online or learn more about each training session in detail.

• All three sessions are now available on demand via the All Access Pass.

Learn how to set up your Google AdWords account step by step from the very beginning. We'll go through each step of campaign creation from keyword research to match types, account structure and setting bids. Each one of these steps done correctly results in saved money and time.

The best part is that this course is for the true AdWords beginner; we'll practically be showing you every button you need to click to get the job done. If you've been putting off starting your own Google AdWords account or have paused it because it was losing money, you'll want to be sure to attend this course and learn to do it the right way.

Pay-Per-Click advertising is the most cost-effective way to get your products or services in front of your prospects at the precise moment when their interest is at its peak. Over 60% of all US paid search advertising comes from Google AdWords.

Beginner Google AdWords Academy Online Course dates and times:

• Tuesday, October 27th, 1:30pm ET (This date has passed): Introduction to Google AdWords (available on demand via the All Access Pass)
• Thursday, October 29th, 1:30pm ET (This date has passed): Properly Setting Up an AdWords Account (available on demand via the All Access Pass)
• Tuesday, November 3rd, 1:30pm ET (This date has passed). Advanced AdWords Features(available on demand via the All Access Pass)

Each training session lasts approximately 90 minutes, including 20 minutes of Q&A; at the end of each session.

Online Training Topics

Learn how to set up your Google AdWords account step by step from the very beginning. We'll go through each step of campaign creation from keyword research to match types, account structure and setting bids. Each one of these steps done correctly results in saved money and time.

Pay-Per-Click advertising is the most cost-effective way to get your products or services in front of your prospects at the precise moment when their interest is at its peak.

Session 1: Intro to AdWords	Session 2: Proper Account Set Up	Session 3: Advanced Features
Introduction to Online Advertising What is pay-per-click Features & benefits Google search & content network Account structure The interface Benefits and features of AdWords Cost Timing Flexibility Basic Terminology Keyword Cost-per-click Clickthrough rate Impression Landing page Conversion Conversion rate Ad position Quality score SEO v. SEM AdWords v. Adsense	Creating a Campaign Language and location targeting Targeting guidelines Excluding locations Making custom targeting Writing ad creatives Editorial policies Ad writing exercise Building a keyword list Best practices Match types Broad, phrase, & exact Negative keywords Setting bids and budgets Daily budget Minimum & Maximum bids Using the Traffic Estimator	Optimization Optimize to increase traffic Optimize to increase quality score Optimize to increase landing page quality Optimize for the Google network Reports Creating and analyzing reports Saving reports and report templates Google Analytics Basic linking to AdWords Analytics dashboard Using All Traffic Sources, and Site Usage Tracking goal conversions Tracking keyword performance
Proper Account Structure Account Campaign Ad Group Keywords AdWords Interface Campaign management tab My account tab	Editing Campaign Settings Basic settings Setting start and end dates Budget options Delivery methods + Standard & Accelerated Networds and Bidding Choosing content or search Ad scheduling Multiplying bids Setting times of day that you want your ads to run Ad Serving Setting ads to “Optimize” or “Rotate”	Tools Campaign optimizer, Keyword tool, Traffic estimator, Ads diagnostic tool, Ads preview tool, Disapproved ads, Conversion tracking, My change history, AdWords Editor Bidding Manual bidding Changing bids through “edit keyword settings” Other Advertising Options Image ads Video ads Local business ads Mobile ads Billing cycle and options Steps to setting up an account Starter vs. Standard Choose Currency Create your first campaign

Each training session lasts approximately 90 minutes, including 20 minutes of Q&A; at the end of each session.

• All three sessions are now available on demand via the All Access Pass.

Meet the Academy Instructors

Timothy Seward is founder and CEO of ROI Revolution. Timothy's firm is a charter consulting partner with both Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer as well as a Google AdWords Qualified Advertising Company. Timothy has a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Florida Gulf Coast University. His company serves large and small Google advertisers throughout the United States and Canada and is based in Raleigh, NC.

Mike O'Rourke is a PPC Account Manager at ROI Revolution. Mike joined the company in January of 2008 after graduating with a B.A. in Communication Media Studies from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2007.

See you during the academy!

One pattern we often see when conducting an AdWords account audit and strategy session for an advertiser, or when beginning work with a new client is that there are only broad match keywords throughout the AdWords account.

Ideally, you should bid on all three match types of every keyword you decide to include in your account for Google Search. To see why, read on....

To quickly review:

• Using broad match keywords allows your ad to show on similar phrases and relevant variations. If you are bidding on the keyword: buy flowers, your ad may show on searches such as: flowers, purchase flowers, buy daisy flowers.


• Using phrase match keywords allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase. You are bidding on the keyword: "buy flowers", your ad may show for: I need to buy flowers, buy flowers online, buy flowers for my wife.


• Using exact match allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase exclusively. You are bidding on the keyword: [buy flowers], your ad will only show when someone searches for: buy flowers.

Broad matched keywords are great for capturing a lot of traffic, but as you can see from the example, your ad may show up for many different search variations on Google.com. In the example above, you may be an online flower shop but you do not offer daisies. By only bidding on the broad match, your ad may end up showing for irrelevant searches, therefore potentially being clicked on and costing you money for no return because you simply do not have what the visitor is looking for.

Phrase match is more targeted than broad match, yet still allows flexibility. In the example above, by bidding on: buy flowers, these two words have to always be together and in this order for your ad to display. Clearly, the searches: I need to buy flowers, and buy flowers for my wife are still relevant to your keyword.

Exact match is the most targeted option available. Your ad will only show when a user of Google.com searches for the exact query that you are bidding on as a keyword. This match type guarantees that you get the exact traffic you are hoping to receive from Google.com. The negative impact of using this match type is that it can reduce the amount of traffic to your website, because your ad does not display nearly as often as it potentially could.

You should keep in mind that each of the three match types provides a different way for a Google.com user to interact with you. Broad match will give you the greatest amount of traffic but potentially not the most qualified and action oriented visitors. By using phrase match, and especially exact match, you're ad will show less of the time but will often yield more targeted and qualified visitors who are ready to conduct the action you want - whether that be signing up for a newsletter or making an actual purchase.

By bidding on all three match types, you provide the opportunity to enter a conversation with many different types of visitors, positioning yourself in the strongest way to find success using Google AdWords. You also are able to bid differently based on your ROI for each match type; this especially applies to high volume keywords within your account.

Learn more proven AdWords tactics with our AdWords strategies video.

Every year when autumn rolls around, you'll find the ROI Revolution Analytics Team hard at work planning our strategy. Not for clients (we do that all year 'round, of course) but for the strange and fun activities planned at the annual Google Analytics Authorized Consultant Summit. Last year, it was Rock Band. This year, trampoline dodgeball.

Not all of our time at Google is spent jumping around on trampolines and pegging each other with balls. For four days, Google Partners from around the world convene in Mountain View to talk about the state of analytics and optimization, learn from one another, and push the limit when it comes to supporting our favorite free analytics platform.

Click for a rundown of what we covered...

Day One: Google Website Optimizer

• Dan Siroker, former director of analytics for the Obama Presidential Campaign and founder of the online multiplayer game CarrotSticks, talked about how his team used Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer, and other free tools to help Obama win the presidential election.
• Sandra Cheng, Product Manager of Google Website Optimizer, and Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing Manager of Google Website Optimizer, talked about the future of the free website testing and optimization tool. There's some exciting stuff coming, not least of which were the recently announced over-time charts and the experiment management API.

Day Two: Google Analytics

• The keynote, by Avinash Kaushik, was, as always, eye-opening and in-your-face. We <3 Avinash.
• Phil Mui, senior product manager for Google Analytics, discussed the roadmap. He touched on engagement goals, mobile reporting, and multiple custom variables, all announced a week later.
• What am I most excited? Analytics Intelligence, an algorithmic intelligence engine for Google Analytics to provide automated alerts for significant changes in your site's metrics. We've been using it in beta and we're glad we can share it with all of our clients!
• After all of the announcements, we headed to Sky High Sports in Santa Clara and did our trampoline dodgeball. All of our practice paid off when we were unceremoniously destroyed in the first round.

Day Three: More Google Analytics

• Hal Varian, Google's Chief Economist, talked about using Google tools to "predict the present" and glean important intelligence about the current economic situation. Very cool stuff.
• Lots of discussion on the Google Analytics API, as well as some exciting developments in the works for Google Analytics and advertisers. We can't say much yet, but it's really a great time to be using Google Analytics!

Day Four: Urchin

We heard some awesome news from the Urchin team on the development of the Urchin software. Stay tuned to the blog for more news as it comes!

That's about it. In spite of our crushing dodgeball defeat, it was a great time and we were glad to chat with analysts from all over the world. We can hardly wait 'til next year. We're all secretly hoping next year's event is Slamball.

Yeaaaah. Not so much.

Have you ever driven to a store in the evening to make a purchase, only to discover this sign hanging in the window?

Frustrated, weren't you? As a consumer, you just wasted your time and gas money, and now you have to come back the next day during business hours, go to a different store that's open, or just forget about it altogether and go home and watch some primetime television.

And as for the store that was closed at the time, they probably just lost out on your sale. Everyone loses.

So let's say you're shopping online in the evening instead, you click on an enticing ad and then decide that you'd like to speak with a customer service rep to make the purchase because you've got some questions and order specifications. You pick up the phone and dial the business number, only to hear the following automated message:

"Thank you for calling (insert company name here). Unfortunately we are closed at this time. You can reach us during our store hours which are Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm Eastern. Thank you."

Everything in this scenario is the same as the first brick-and-mortar example except for one major thing: the online business just wasted valuable advertising spend on a click that didn't result in a conversion.

Similar scenarios involving PPC advertising occur online every day, especially with businesses who carry out most of their transactions through the phone. Examples of businesses where this is common include ones who sell in bulk, have customizable products, or simply require all transactions be made over the phone.

If your business operates "9 to 5" and most transactions happen over the phone, you might test saving money by using Ad Scheduling to only show your ads during this time frame.

If you're not familiar with Ad Scheduling, it's an AdWords feature that lets you specify certain hours or days of the week when you want your ads to appear.

The Ad Scheduling feature is found under the Campaign Settings tab > Advanced settings > Ad scheduling. Click "Edit" and a window will appear where you can set your ads to run only during your desired hours.

If you click on "Bid adjustment", you can get a little more advanced by adjusting pricing for your ads during certain time periods. For example, if you know that your call volume is highest between 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., you can bid more for impressions or clicks during that period.

Remember: No one likes seeing the "Sorry, We're Closed" sign, so don't be the company that wastes money sending people there.

For more information on ad scheduling, click here and for more AdWords tips check out this video.

We've been using a piece of code for a while that makes it easier to set up multiple Google Website Optimizer experiments. These experiments could be one right after the other, or even several experiments running simultaneously. The only requirement is that you should have a single conversion point for all of your Google Website Optimizer experiments. You may be able to adapt this code to situations with multiple conversion points, but that's likely to get rather complicated. So why use this code? Oftentimes your conversion point is a page that you're not really wanting to edit a lot, or may even be able to edit a lot. Instead of having to update your conversion page every time you set up a new experiment, you just add this code to your conversion page once and forget about it. It will register a conversion for all current and future experiments, and will even accommodate visitors who may be part of more than one experiment. So here's the code:

<script type="text/javascript"> function readCookie(name) { // function to read cookie var nameRegex = RegExp("(?:; |^)" + name + "=([^;]+)"); nameValue = nameRegex.exec(document.cookie); if(nameValue) { return nameValue[1]; } else { return null; } } </script> <script> if(typeof(_gat)!='object')document.write('<sc'+'ript src="'+ 'http'+(document.location.protocol=='https:'?'s://ssl':'://www')+ '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'+'"></sc'+'ript>') </script> <script type="text/javascript"> (function () { try { var gwoTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXXXX-Y"); var utmx = readCookie("__utmx"); var pieces = utmx.split(/(?:^|:)[^.]*(?:\.|$)/); for (i = 0; i < pieces.length; i += 1) { if (pieces[i]) { gwoTracker._trackPageview("/" + pieces[i].substring(10) + "/goal"); } } } catch (err) { } })(); </script>

A few things to keep in mind:

• If you have your own functionally equivalent readCookie function, you can use that instead.
• This code will probably work best if it comes after your Google Analytics Tracking Code.
• If you have any kinds of modifications to your Google Analytics Tracking Code, you'll need to make those same modifications to your Google Website Optimizer code. See Shawn's post on this.
• This code is meant to replace the Google Website Optimizer conversion script that's provided with your instructions.

That's it! I always appreciate suggestions for improving code I put up here. If you've found this code to be particularly useful, I'd like to hear that too.

Be sure to have a "branded" campaign filled with variations of your company name and website.

Not only do you want to ensure ad dominance for your own keywords, but it will help separate these highly performing keywords from everything else, so as not to skew your overall account statistics.

Creating a branded campaign is key to online advertising success as you will want your company to come up when users are specifically searching for your company.

You would want to bid on all versions of your company's name including:

• the correct spelling
• common misspellings
• your company name followed by.com
• your company web address
• your company name with the www. before it

For example, say your company was called Cheesemonger. You would want to bid on the following keywords:

• cheesemonger
• cheesemongers
• chesemonger
• cheesemunger
• thecheesemonger
• www cheesemonger
• cheesemonger com
• www.cheesemonger.com
• www cheesemonger com

Directly bidding on these keywords, means searches are specifically looking for you, so it is important that you don't miss out on this profitable opportunity. Plus, if your company's site is already ranked organically you will show up twice, once in the paid listings and once in the organic listings, which can only help!

Initially you may think, why should I pay for my own keywords if my site is already in the organic listings, but if you show up twice, people will most definitely find your company. Plus, you don't want competitors snapping up your traffic because they are bidding on your branded terms and you are not.

Not to mention, if you are having trouble getting your site to rank on the first page of the organic search results, bidding on your branded keywords is a surefire way to show up.

Typically your branded campaign will get you the cheapest conversions out of any of your campaigns because clearly you must be the most relevant choice if you actually are that company, so you will be paying the least amount for your own terms.

Lastly, you will want to have these terms isolated in a separate campaign so that you can strategically bid for these less expensive terms. If you have your branded terms mixed in with other general terms, you may end up bidding these terms higher than is necessary.

In essence, if people are searching for your specific company name, they want your exact product or service, so missing out on this easy way to make money would just be foolish. Go out and make yourself a branded campaign today!

Every browser is different.* Ask any web designer about their craft and you'll eventually get them talking passionately about these differences. How Internet Explorer 6 renders CSS pseudo-elements (badly) and handles padding and spaces (randomly). How IE7 ignores CSS drop shadows. How floating divs never seem to work the same way in any of the browsers. These peculiarities have driven many a developer to strong drink.

When it comes to testing new webpage designs in Google Website Optimizer, speed can be essential. You want to get the experiment out the door as soon as possible so you can get preliminary data. Sometimes this means that things slip through QA. Browser testing is exceptionally finicky and time consuming. Not every office has a spare Mac sitting around, and with three different versions of Internet Explorer still in wide use—and no easy way to install all three versions on a single PC—it's no small feat to make your page variations all work perfectly in every popular browser.

With just a few Google Analytics Advanced Segments in your arsenal, however, you'll be able to see whether or not your new pages are functioning fine in all the right browsers. Hit the jump for details.

First, you'll need to create a new Advanced Segment for each landing page in your experiment. Check out Segment 1 and Segment 2 for more detail.

Next, apply both segments to your reports and head to the Browsers reports. This report defaults to the pie chart, but I like to switch back to the data table:

Now check out each browser and pay attention to the Bounce Rate column for each Landing Page segment. If one particular browser has a Bounce Rate that seems particularly out of whack, drill down and check out the versions. Then, using your findings, test the page live (if you can) or use a site like Browsershots.

What other browser testing tips or tricks do you have to help ensure that your site is fit for all visitors? Share them in the comments.

* "No two browsers are not on fire."

Strategy: Using Google Analytics, you can see which cities and states are performing well, and you can create separate PPC campaigns for those areas with higher bids. Conversely, you can see which cities and states underperform, and you can isolate and bid them down or eliminate them altogether.

Google Analytics can reveal so much invaluable information about your online (and offline) marketing efforts, and uncovering where the majority of your traffic and customers come from is just one of the many important pieces of the marketing pie. Using different reports and segmentations in Google Analytics can shed light on where you should be focusing your marketing.

The Map Overlay report under the Visitors section (illustrated below) allows you to see number of visitors, revenue, goal conversion, and many other metrics for your website coming from anywhere in the world! You are able to click on a region and drill down further to see many different metrics within that region.

Another tip for finding out where your most valuable traffic or your trash traffic is coming from is to view any report and change your dimension targeting to Continent, Sub Continent Region, Country/Territory, Region, or even City.

Once you are able to pinpoint where you would like to target or exclude your traffic, you can alter your Google AdWords geo targeting to reflect what you've found.

Allowing your ads to display only in the areas that are most profitable for you and adjusting your campaign budgets to reflect where the best traffic comes from, can't help but boost the return on your AdWords investment!

We've got a few additional strategies to make your AdWords advertising drive more response & profit. Our CEO, Timothy Seward, has prepared his top 3 "undercover" tactics that we consider the cream of the crop. (Hint: there's a large-screen eight minute AdWords training video when you opt-in).

Get the three free AdWords strategies here!

The Copy Profiles GreaseMonkey script now allows you to copy filters from one Google Analytics account to another. Simply go to the Google Analytics account that has the filters you want to copy. Go to the Filter Manager. Check off the boxes for the filters you wish to copy and hit the "Copy" link located in the column header.

Once you've done this, navigate to the Google Analytics account that you want to paste the filters into. Go to the Filter Manager again and click the "Paste Filters" button.

Now sit back and watch it go.

Again, this script is actually an addition to the Copy Profiles script. If you already have the Copy Profiles script, you'll want to download it again to get the filter copy feature. Here are the steps for everyone else:

1. Get Firefox
2. Get GreaseMonkey
3. Get the Copy Profiles script

Both this post and the previous post will give you the same script. For those who haven't been following along, this script is a separate script from the GARE, at least for now.

That's it! I'm fresh out of scripts. If you think of an improvement to this script or find a bug, let me know. I wouldn't mind hearing from you if you've just plain found this script useful either :)

Typically when someone decides to use Google Analytics on their website they grab the code and paste it on the site without thinking too much about what they're doing. Many of those who are new (and even some not so new) to Google Analytics don't understand how site structure will affect Google Analytics. If you are thinking about installing Google Analytics or if things aren't quite working like you expected, consider mapping out your site architecture to see where you can simplify things before you get in too deep.

Domains:
If you can help it, one domain will make the Google Analytics setup and tracking much easier. By increasing the number of domains, you will complicate the tracking process. Because Google Analytics uses first party cookies, each time your visitor travels to another domain, you have to pass along all the information about who they are and where they came from. Doing this again and again could potentially result in a loss of data and your referral information might not make it to the final destination. That means that if you are running paid advertising campaigns you won't be able to attribute the sale or conversion to its correct source, which might make it look like you're losing money when actually your paid campaigns are very profitable. By simplifying the number of domains on your site you will not only save yourself some headaches with the Google Analytics Tracking Code, but typically it will make for a much better user experience since the user will know where they are at all times.

Subdomains:
I've given subdomains its own category because tracking them with Google Analytics can be much less painful than tracking separate domains. Let's assume your site has one domain and two subdomains: my.widgets.com and shop.widgets.com. A simple code modification will make the tracking seamless. But add in a few other domains to the equation and you begin to see a web of confusing data. Stick to subdomains instead of additional domains whenever possible. This not only makes the tracking easier, but it's much better for SEO and quality score to have a single domain to drive traffic to.

In-house applications vs. 3rd party applications:
If you have the option always choose applications that give you the most control. Using 3rd party applications, shopping carts specifically, will cause additional complications with Google Analytics tracking. Typically 3rd party shopping carts are on another domain and they don't allow you to paste your own javascript code on the shopping cart pages. When someone goes from your domain to the 3rd party's domain there's no way to pass along the visitors information without Google Analytics code on the pages. Even if you use the utm_nooverride=1 method to maintain the referral information, there's still the issue of whether you will be able to get the transaction level variables on your domain's receipt page in order to pass the information into Google Analytics.

Not all 3rd party applications are bad. There are 3rd party applications that have made efforts to integrate with Google Analytics, so you can consider using an application with a plug-in for your tracking needs. There are also customizable shopping carts and CMS' that will allow you to track Google Analytics effectively.

When it comes to having a successful Google Analytics setup, the simpler your site architecture is the better. Draw out your site's architecture on paper before installing Google Analytics. Is there anything you can simplify? Making all the necessary changes up front will save you a lot of time in the long run.

I've written a few articles before about the power of integrating Google Website Optimizer with Google Analytics, but the landscape has changed considerably in the past few months. I thought it would be a good idea to provide an update as to how you can view Google Website Optimizer and other kinds of experiment data within Google Analytics as it has become much easier with the addition of a magnificent feature called Advanced Segments.

As the title implies, this article will focus on finding data quickly and easily for A/B (or A/B/C/D, etc.) experiments, whether they be Google Website Optimizer experiments, or just some testing that you're doing on your own.

First, why would you want to do this? Doesn't Google Website Optimizer (or AdWords, etc.) provide you with Conversion Rate already? Sure it does! But I maintain that an aggregated Conversion Rate (for a single goal no less) is simply not enough. I demand more from my experiments, and by looking at my experiment data within Google Analytics, I can get a great idea of how the experiment is working for different segments of visits and for every goal on my site. What's even better is that by using Google Analytics, I'll also have access to transaction and revenue data, along with any powerful customizations that I'm already using to get the most out of my tracking.

Here are some of the benefits to using Google Analytics to measure your A/B experiment results:

• Segmenting the data
• Seeing statistics for more than one goal
• Looking at transaction and revenue data
• Excluding internal traffic
• Flexibility and the ability to customize data
• Custom reports, emailing and exporting reports, all of the other fun features in Google Analytics

I hope you'll agree there these are some pretty massive benefits. So enough of my gabbing, here's how to do all of this for an A/B test in two simple steps:

1. Create your Advanced Segments

This is the step that has made examining A/B tests within Google Analytics a joy instead of the awkward wobbling toddler of a process that it used to be.

Fortunately, now that Google Analytics has put on its big boy pants, creating these Advanced Segments is a relatively simple task. You can access Advanced Segments from one of two places. The most common place is in the top-right corner of the Google Analytics interface:

You can also access Advanced Segments from the link on the left-hand side of the interface:

Once you choose to create a new Advanced Segment, you'll be taken to a screen that looks like this:

Since we're looking at the efforts of landing pages here, you'll want to select either Page or Landing Page from the list of dimensions on the left. You can simply type in 'Page' into the search bar to find them a little more easily.

Once you've done than, you can start typing the name of the page into the input bar and a list of the pages that match your string will pop up, allowing you to easily select the page you are looking for. If your site uses query parameters or URL variations, you may want to change the match type to 'Contains'. You can even use Regular Expressions if you have more advanced needs.

Once you've created both segments, you're ready for step 2.

2. Apply your Advanced Segments

The easiest way to apply the segments that you created is to use the dropdown menu in the top-right of the Google Analytics UI. You'll see something like this:

Simply check the new segments that you've made and click on the Apply button. The report that you are looking at within Google Analytics will change to feature the new segments:

As you can see, there is some pretty powerful information here. The above report is an example of the AdWords Campaigns report that's been enhanced with our Google Analytics Report Enhancer tool. As you can see, sometimes a page may be winning in one campaign and losing in another.

Also, you can see how conversions are faring for multiple steps in a single funnel, and you can segment the data even further by Ad Group, keyword, ad version, geographic location, and anything else you may need. You can even set the report up to show up in your inbox every morning!

The other great thing about looking at this data within Google Analytics is that you'll have a record of the entire test's performance over time. You can see how overall fluctuations in the marketplace, or snags with your server's load times have impacted your test over time, and can exclude irrelevant data. I really can't stress enough how powerful this kind of analysis can be.

That's all there is to it! Please feel free to try this method out and leave comments - I'd love to hear your feedback or if you've found a better way to do this.

Here at the ROI Revolution blog, we usually strive to provide you with helpful how-tos and the best examples on making your Google Analytics accounts lean, clean, and useful. Today, we're going a different route in the hope that instead of teaching by example, we can show what not to do.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you our top five Google Analytics FAILs. These are real life examples that our intrepid Google Analytics support staff have encountered in the line of duty. They are not pretty. You have been warned.

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1. There Can Be Only One: utm_nooverride=1

We've talked at length about utm_nooverride before. We're big fans of using the utm_nooverride query parameter to make sure that branded and email traffic doesn't overwrite more important long tail referral data.

But there's really only one parameter value to use in this situation. One. It's one. The only one is one. Does that make sense?

No? Ok. Well, see the screenshot to the left? That's what you shouldn't use.

First of all, you should never see the utm_nooverride parameter in your Google Analytics reports. Secondly, you should spell it correctly. Third, don't pass "2" as a value. It doesn't work. Just follow Shawn's instructions in his three-part series on using utm_nooverride and you won't FAIL.

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2. You Are Not Selling Medium Green T-Shirts

At the very least, you're not selling only medium green t-shirts, right? Well, maybe you are. Who am I to judge?

The example provided in the Google Analytics Help Center article on e-commerce is just that: an example. But I'd be lying if I said that I hadn't seen people cut and paste that example script right onto their receipt pages, then called it a day.

Google Analytics can't figure out what you've sold unless you tell it. You need to roll up your sleeves and find the variables that contain a visitor's transaction data. Then pass that data to Google Analytics. It's like a relay race, except you're passing product names and revenue figures.

Place a test order. If you view your receipt page's source code and you don't see the correct order total or the products you purchased (or if your code says you bought a medium green t-shirt), then you've got more work to do.

You'll probably also want to check out the values you're passing. We've seen some pretty hinky stuff show up in the Google Analytics e-commerce reports because someone threw too many numbers into the revenue or shipping fields (see left).

Start by checking out Caitlin's article about de-stressing your Google Analytics e-commerce setup. If you're still mired in FAIL, you can always hire us.

Hit the jump for three more epic Google Analytics FAILures.

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3. Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics Aren't That Close

Yeah, we know that Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer renewed their vows last year and that you can view A/B experiment in Google Analytics. But they're not inseparable. They like their space. They are their own individuals. It's a healthy marriage.

So don't go mistaking your Google Analytics account number with your Google Website Optimizer account number. They may look similar, but you should always be sure to differentiate.

If you get them mixed up, you'll start seeing some pretty odd pageviews in Google Analytics (see right) and your Website Optimizer experiments will tank.

And while GA and GWO live their own lives (are you as sick of this metaphor as I am?), they want to be treated equal. So if you're using a customized Google Analytics script, you may need to make a few changes to your Google Website Optimizer script. Shawn talks about these modifications in detail in his article on installing Website Optimizer if you use Google Analytics, and Jeremy's world-famous Google Analytics Report Enhancer script lets you customize your Google Website Optimizer scripts in the browser before plugging them into your source code. It makes the whole process FAIL-proof.

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4. Let Your Visitors Come As They Are

Be a gracious host. If your website's visitors are coming to a page with a redirect, be sure to let Google Analytics figure out where they came from. Otherwise you're going to miss out on the referring site, any keywords they searched for, and whether or not they clicked on one of your ads.

The way that you redirect your visitors will impact how they get tracked. If you use 301 (permanent) redirects, then the HTTP referrer—essentially, the URL of the webpage that linked to your site—gets passed on to the new page. This means that Google Analytics can figure out how the visitor got to your site. 302 redirects or JavaScript/meta redirects don't do this.

But there's another issue. If you're using Google Analytics link tagging and the query string doesn't move along in the redirect, you're losing valuable intelligence. Make sure the query string shows up on the new page after the redirection. Otherwise: tracking FAIL.

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5. You Want to Track Your Website

It might seem pretty obvious to most of you, but when it comes to adding a Google Analytics tracking code to your site, it's very important that you actually track that site's traffic.

Check out the tracking codes below for a site called cheesemongr.com. The site's fake, but these are all FAILs I've actually seen before. Can you figure out why these tracking codes FAIL? Leave a comment and tell us how to fix them.

<script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'></script>")); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-1234567-1"); urchinTracker() } catch(err) {}</script>
<script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'></script>")); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-1234567-1"); pageTracker._setDomainName('onlinecheesestore.com'); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script>
<script type="text/javascript"> try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-1234567-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script>
<script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'></script>")); </script>

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Wouldn't you like to know how to optimize your product listings on shopping engines? With today's economy every little bit helps. If you're not already listed on comparison shopping engines such as Amazon and Shopping.com, we'll cover the basics and for those of you who are listed, wouldn't you like to get more out of it?

On Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 4:00 pm Eastern (1:00 pm Pacific) Timothy Seward, CEO of ROI Revolution, Inc. will host with guest presenters John Kleven, CEO of Versafeed.com (pictured left with his Senior Feed Engineer, Andy Hund) a 45 minute presentation detailing how to get your products optimized and listed on comparison shopping engines and marketplaces.

This webinar is ideal for online retailers looking to expand sales. Every day, thousands of consumers visit these popular shopping portals to search for products. Don't miss out on this source of income.

Topics include:

• Best sites to list on (some are free!)

• How to give your inventory listings to shopping sites

• Methods to optimize your product listings

• Monitoring ROI

Listen in to find ways to increase your visibility while decreasing your costs. We'll also discuss data feed optimization, a proven technique to help your products rank above your competitors.

This webinar will be conducted live, so no recording or replay will be available.

Reserve Your Spot for this Complimentary Webinar