{"id":311,"date":"2009-11-27T13:43:43","date_gmt":"2009-11-27T18:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techwrites.https:\/\/techwrites.joncaptures.com\/?p=311"},"modified":"2009-11-27T13:43:43","modified_gmt":"2009-11-27T18:43:43","slug":"measure-your-metrics-google-analytics-alerts-the-start-of-a-complete-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techwrites.joncaptures.com\/?p=311","title":{"rendered":"Measure Your Metrics – Google Analytics Alerts: the start of a complete view?"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Awesome Post i found through @danmartell & watchingwebsites.com about the power of google anayltics and alerts
\nGoogle Analytics Alerts: the start of a complete view?<\/a><\/p>\n

Google Analytics recently added a new feature, called Alerts. At first glance, it\u2019s an elegant way to show someone when a KPI on their site has changed significantly from what\u2019s expected. It\u2019s baselining, applied to all KPIs \u2014 even the ones you\u2019re not looking at.<\/p>\n

\"Daily<\/a><\/p>\n

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This is a great idea for folks who forget to check their analytics data, because now they can find out about significant events. It tricks you into being a better analyst. It encourages baselining, segmentation, and thinking about your business. But we think it\u2019s the start of something bigger, once it incorporates the things Google and others know about your online presence.<\/p>\n

Details, and some juicy UI mockup speculation, after the jump. <\/span><\/p>\n

Baselining, even when you didn\u2019t know you should<\/h3>\n

Beginner web analysts treat analytics as accounting. They use it to report the news, not make the news. It\u2019s only the more advanced analysts that see analytics as a means for optimization, using things like A\/B testing to learn whether a change made things better. And to do that, you need a baseline.<\/p>\n

The new feature learns what normal is, then shows you deviation. This encourages experimentation: \u201cI tried something new today, and I can see the results.\u201d Google\u2019s already introduced comparative rankings, showing you how you\u2019re doing against others; now, they make it much easier to identify significant<\/em> changes to your site, even if you don\u2019t know where to look.<\/p>\n

Imagine, for example, that you change your website. You don\u2019t see an appreciable shift in traffic volume, so you decide it didn\u2019t have an effect. But hidden in those traffic numbers is the fact that there was an increase in European traffic at the expense of US traffic. The new functionality would show you this, allowing you to tailor content to specific geographies.<\/p>\n

Making segmentation easy to try<\/h3>\n

The new functionality tries to find chunks of traffic that have \u201cbroken away from the pack.\u201d It does this for known metrics and segments \u2014 such as geographic regions \u2014 as follows:<\/p>\n

\"Alerts-create<\/a><\/p>\n

Notice that little \u201ccreate segment\u201d at the end? It makes it easy to carve out a slice of traffic you should care about, which then means you can start to play and experiment with it. Segmenting traffic is a sign of web analytics maturity, but until recently, it\u2019s been something few people play with. Now, Google Analytics is essentially telling you, \u201chey, dummy, have a closer look at this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Segment<\/a><\/p>\n

You can use custom segments in lots of cool ways\u2013for example, as the analysis above shows, I now know that returning US visitors are more likely to download content from the site, but first-timers aren\u2019t. Once you\u2019ve seen a segment that Google found for you, you\u2019re more likely to create your own because you understand how they work.<\/p>\n

Thinking about your business<\/h3>\n

You can also set up custom alerts within the system to tell you when something\u2019s gone out of kilter. We know lots of companies who use revenue or transactions per second as the first sign that something\u2019s wrong on the website \u2014 this is a great top-down approach if you can manage it, because it means everyone in the company is focused on what actually pays the bills.<\/p>\n

The new functionality lets you look for specific occurrences even before they happen. Consider @alexbfree\"\"<\/a>\u2019s recent post on Twitter Retweeting\"\"<\/a>, which got picked up by Dave Winer\"\"<\/a>. You can set up an alert to see if Dave sends you traffic:<\/p>\n

\"Winermention\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Overall, these are excellent enhancements to the product. They\u2019ll improve engagement \u2014 because the system will tell you when things are happening, rather than waiting for you to log in. They\u2019ll encourage good behaviors like baselining and segmentation. And they\u2019ll also satisfy the less business-centric, more hobbyist segment that just wants to know when the world is thinking about them.<\/p>\n

What I really want: a holistic view<\/h3>\n

It\u2019ll be more useful (and in keeping with the Complete Web Monitoring philosophy) when it includes other kinds of data:<\/p>\n