GTM - Auto Event Tracking!

Google Tag Manager Matures!

During the Google Analytics 2013 Summit they released a volley of features that I look forward to greatly! One of these being a listening tool for GTM (Google Tag Manger) I posted about it on my Tumblr and G+ and I have had my ear to the ground regarding its functionality. What many users have been doing up to this point is utilizing jQuery to target their events, but with this new functionality it is supposed to be even easier!

GTM.click

The GTM.click event is what enables the tag manager to listen for clicks on any web page. By hooking in the GA event tracking rule you can easily create event tracking that records the various parts of the <a> tags or buttons with macros. The element URLs, the page URLs, classes and IDs are all accessible. It is easy to create rules that have logic to track when a user clicks on an outbound link. +Justin Cutroni  made a very useful instructional guide on Youtube which I shared at the bottom of the page.

Top Ten Google Analytics GAIQ Certification Resources

10. Conversion University

Starting out is fairly simple, you know what Google Analytics (GA) is you have probably created an account or been granted access to a profile. You should learn the basics from the Google Analytics conversion university which exists on googleanalytics.com. They have in-depth videos and presentations that teach you about the various layers of data that exist within the GA platform such as accounts, properties, profiles, filters, and goals.

Link
http://www.google.com/analytics/iq.html

9. LunaMetrics

LunaMetrics is one of the foremost websites as it pertains to troubleshooting GA. You will find as you learn how to manage your account that their articles will be a guiding light - they may not be as much of a study guide as a safety net.

Link
http://www.lunametrics.com/blog

8. YouTube

YouTube is great for learning everything, GA is no exception. I found that YouTube was especially useful for questions about implementation. Furthermore there are always webinars from marketers that will give great insight and can help new users develop that strategic edge that is necessary to understand not only what is happening on your web property, but how to activate users and accomplish your goals.

Link
https://www.youtube.com/user/googleanalytics

7. Google Analytics Social Accounts

GA has verified accounts on twitter, Facebook, and of course Google+. Connect with them on these channels to stay appraised of upcoming changes to the platform. GA is constantly rolling out new updates to their products some of these changes may effect the questions on the GAIQ certification exam. In my own experience I know when I expect a change in the interface I feel excited rather than frustrated.

Link
https://plus.google.com/+GoogleAnalytics/posts
https://twitter.com/googleanalytics
https://www.facebook.com/GoogleAnalytics

6. Google Analytics Blog

The GA blog is a great source of information from product updates, to cross promotion for other services that can tie into your GA account such as tag manager and AdWords. The posts here are very informative and can help new analysts develop their goals.

Link
http://analytics.blogspot.com/

5. LunaMetrics Regex Book

This PDF makes regular expressions very accessible, I consider it the Cat in The Hat for regex. Understanding regular expressions is critical to being able to create filters and advanced segments and it is probably one of the most daunting disciplines of the platform.

Link
http://www.lunametrics.com/regex-book/Regular-Expressions-Google-Analytics.pdf

4. Google Analytics Prep Test

This website has a 200+ question prep test that can be customized to cover virtually any subject matter and scenario a new analyst may experience. I suggest starting off with a ten question examination every day, and working through the material until you feel confident enough to drop the 50 bucks into GAIQ exam.

Link
http://www.googleanalyticstest.com/

3. Google URL Builder

Campaign tracking is critical to tracking email based visits engagement information in GA. The URL builder makes it so it is no longer necessary to manually enter URL parameters when you are creating links in your email. The value of this tool is essential for comparing email sends to each other.

Link
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en

2. Google Analytics Solutions Gallery

Google has gone through the exercise of developing some commonly useful custom reports, dashboards, and advanced segments to help users ask the right questions as they develop their analytical skills. In addition to the standard intelligence reports this makes it easy for users with no marketing experience arrive at some useful insights.

Link
http://www.google.com/analytics/learn/solutions-gallery.html

1. Google Analytics

People learn by doing, in order to be successful at analyzing GA and providing insights to your employer you need to feel comfortable with the tool. When you answer a question in a prep test make sure you are verifying it on your own accounts. Create a test profile, learn how to implement event tracking and create custom dashboards that contain the information that you clients and colleagues are interested in and push it to them through scheduled emails. In the words of Mark Zuckerberg "move fast, break stuff".

Link
http://www.google.com/analytics/

New Admin Interface for Google Analytics Places Everything in One Screen

Analytics - The Beastly Shape Shifter

Part of Google Analytics' Nature - for better or for worse, is that it is in a constant flux. Each iteration has brought out more features, or greater usability. Unfortunately GA hobbyists are often surprised by the changes and frequently frustrated by the lack of education that accompanies it. With Google Analytics most recent change, I think there will hopefully be less of an issue.

Doing Big Changes Right

Educating the User

The new administration page is now a smorgasbord of delightfully easy to identify tools. Everything is now in one place and easy to access. Gone are the days of drilling down into the administration menu in search of your tools! The new menu starts everything off with an educational alert that provides a link to more information about the account structure. 

Speeding Up Navigation

The account, property, and profile can be changed on the fly from a drop down menu above each column, this improves the entire admin user experience greatly over the previous breadcrumb method that GA implemented.

Maintaining Familiarity

My Favorite part of this new change is that Google used icons to accelerate the site usage by creating visual hallmarks, some of which had been used already in previous incarnations which makes them even easier to understand.

Track Googles Frequent Updates

The best way to feel comfortable with Google's changes to Google Analytics is to stay ahead of the curb, my number one suggestion is to subscribe to updates for The Official Google Analytics Blog via RSS like Feedly, or through Twitter. This way not only will you anticipate and look forward to Analytics Updates, but you will also learn invaluable information about the robust reporting suite as well!

Google Universal Analytics

Google Universal Analytics is the new face of GA. Gone are the days of exclusively web based reporting as GA evolves into a universal reporting platform.

GUA Status

The current universal tool is in beta, it will take some time for all the features to be implemented but so far it is already an improvement by moving many options that used to be specified in the tracking snippet into the administrator interface. With the new tools for adjusting campaign timeout and keyword exclusion, it has become a little easier to manage your properties.

Dimension Widening

It is now possible to create your own dimensions, which will allow new metrics like walk-ins, and loyalty card swipes. A great example of the power of GUA is the caffeine tracker that Loves Data put together.

Phone Tracking

Do you have an automated phone system in place for your customers? Now you can report on that information through GA and gain some keen insights on how customers are moving through your phone services.

Implementation

To start experimenting with the new Google Universal Analytics it is necessary to create a new property as a Universal Analytics web property and run it parallel to your current GA tracking code. Don't worry! It won't mess up your data! But it may be a good idea to consult your clients before installing anyway.

Why Worry About it Now?

It is a good idea to be proactive when it comes to GA because of the non-transferable, non-historic nature of the beast. Google has made no guarantees that it will offer a migration feature so it will be a good idea to start collecting history as of now.