Just a quick note about our upcoming Google Analytics Training in New York City — we are going to have three days of training so that we can reach all the right levels. We’ll be having:

• Google Analytics 101, on June 8. This is for the true beginner (I get so many emails that read, “Robbin, no one knows less than me. Just teach me what I don’t even know how to ask.”)  We’ll teach you how to log in, how to find your own profile, how to look at the various reports, find the data you need, and other basics for those of you who are either new to analytics or new to Goolge Analytics.

Google Analytics 201, on June 9.  This is an all-day seminar for those who are pretty good with the reporting in GA, and really want to take their analytics capabilities and GA capabilities to the next level. This is another request we get a lot (“So much data, so little insight”) and so the focus will be on advanced usage and analysis.  This day also includes a strong introduction to Google Website Optimizer.

Google Analytics 301, on June 10. This is a techie day. From filters and profiles to events and ecommerce, learn all the techie tricks and a few that you hadn’t even considered.

This will be our fourth training in NYC – we’ll be at the New York City Seminar and Conference Center again (map it) There will be free wi-fi for all (so if you can bring your laptop, do so, and if not, you’ll be ok.) We include breakfast and lunch and slides for all, plus Google goodies. You can read the agenda or register here.

Robbin

Today, we got a phone call from a potential customer, who had been recommended by another customer. I took one look at his site and was fairly certain that he had paid no attention to SEO, had no analytics, and had no calls to action.

“So,” he challenged me, “Why should I use your company?”  Well, I answered, maybe you shouldn’t use our company. I don’t recommend that everyone spend their money without having strong goals. Maybe you should start by telling me what your needs are.

The man on the other end of the phone said that all his company’s sales had been face-to-face or by referral up until now.  They had a little site, but did they really need to spend money? Did I know if people really found his type of services through the internet?  In fact, his needs weren’t so much SEO or PPC or GA or GWO.  He needed to be persuaded that those alphabet soup of internet services and tools were worthy of his budget dollars.

It is one thing to sell someone on the value of, say,  Google Analytics.  It is something else entirely to take someone who doesn’t have a strategic or emotional commitment to the work we do and convince them to spend their money there. I guess that’s a game I don’t want to play.  I feel like, you decide that you care on your own time, them come to us (or to another consulting company.) Consulting on the Internet is hard enough when your point of contact is committed (because s/he may have other priorities, may have to answer to his/her boss, may get moved around the organization.) Imagine how hard it would be if the person writing the checks really isn’t sure that the Internet matters.
Robbin

1) Just wanted to remind everyone that our Google Analytics Training is going to be on December 8 and 9 in DC (Analysis day on the 8th, techie day on the 9th.) Prices start at $199 to attend half a day on the 8th; some people need to attend both days in full, and that price is $650. You can see the Google Analytics training microsite and register here. Tuesday the 8th (analysis) is at the American Institute of Architects, and the 9th is at the Mathematical Association’s Carriage House (Dupont Circle.)

2) Separately, I just wrote an article on “How Bounce Rate can help you Pinpoint Site Problems.”  It’s on Dr. Ralph Wilson’s website, Web Marketing Today. (In the course of writing the article, I found out that this is their 15th anniversary. Just think, to be at this for fifteen years, you had to start in 1994. )  Enjoy!

Robbin

First of all, for those that can’t keep up with all the latest and greatest features that Google keeps rolling out, a brief explanation of Google Sidewiki is in order. Sidewiki is a new feature that lets users who have installed the latest version of the Google Toolbar add and view comments on any page on any website they visit. The comments show up right alongside the page. Here’s a quick look at what one of those cutting edge users will see if they visit the LunaMetrics Blog page:

A couple of things to note:

• anybody can leave a comment on your website (can we say reputation management nightmare?)
• the comments can include links (with the commenter’s choice of anchor text)

It’s that second point that piqued my curiosity – what would happen if someone clicked on a link in a Sidewiki comment to your website? Well, with some help from Analytics Ninja John Henson we dug deep to find out the details.

First of all, you’ll notice that links in the Sidewiki comments initially link to something like

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2007/08/08/regular-expressions-for-ga-bonus-iii-lookahead/&usd=1&usg=AFQjCNEJnC7BWykRg1GKn52tQTpdd0RmQw

I’m not sure what “usd” and “usg” represent exactly – bonus points to anyone in the audience with ideas on this in the comments.

So what happens when we click on the link and it takes us to that URL? Google is 302 redirecting to the actual page. “Interesting,” you say, “but how will it appear in my analytics?”

It appears that, along with the 302 redirect, Google is setting the referrer to

google.com/sidewiki/entry/106935257806183022682/id/65RQs-s3d9nGKlxKN-7XTSvgaHI

So, if you go into your Google Analytics, you can see visits from links within Sidewiki comments by digging into your Traffic Sources > Referring Sites, clicking on google.com and looking for /sidewiki/…

Bonus tip:

You can easily find out who left the comment with a link to your site. See that number after /sidewiki/entry/ (in the example above, it’s 106935257806183022682)? Take that number and add it to the end of www.google.com/profiles/[enter numbr here]

Here, I’ve made it easy for you – www.google.com/profiles/106935257806183022682

As you can see, the number is the ID for my Google Profile page (because I left the comment). In fact, if the person has created a “friendly URL” for their profile page (like www.google.com/profiles/jim.gianoglio) then instead of a number after /entry/ you’ll get their Google Profile page name. Pretty nifty, eh?

Other Observations

Google is indexing these Sidewiki pages. That’s right – when you leave a comment, it’s not just an addition to an already existing page – you’re actually creating a unique page. Need proof? Go to Google and do the following search: site:google.com/sidewiki/entry

So far, about 1,210 Sidewiki comments have been indexed. If you visit a sidewiki page with the Google Toolbar installed, you get redirected to the page on the actual website (with the Sidewiki comments opened up). But if you visit a Sidewiki page without the Google Toolbar installed, it takes you to the Sidewiki URL – you can still see the comment and the actual page, but you’re not on that website, you’re still on Google. They also prompt you to “Share your own insights as you browse the web. Download Google Toolbar with Sidewiki.”

What does this all mean?

How can this information be used (aside from impressing all your friends at the next party)? For starters, you can use this as part of your online reputation monitoring. Granted, you’ll only see anything if someone links to you in their Sidewiki comment, and if someone actually clicks on that link. Nonetheless, if enough people start using Sidewiki, this is something you’ll want to monitor.

If someone is linking to you in a Sidewiki comment, maybe they’ll also link to you on their blog/website (link building opportunities, anyone?). Being able to see who’s leaving the comments (by tracking them back to their Google profile page) is a good start.

We’re still looking at ways that this data might be useful. What are your thoughts? How would you use this information? (Please share your expert opinion in the comments!)

Of course, it’s easy to see how spammers might try to use this to litter the web with links for viagra, porn and poker. It will be interesting to see how Google deals with this.

The Summit (more correctly known as the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit) is coming to Washington, DC, during the week of October 19, 2009.  Recently, I interviewed Jim Sterne, Summit Organizer Extraordinaire and Analyst to learn Why This Summit is Different from All Other Summits.

The first thing I learned was that this Summit will be more practical, real life stuff. “You mean, how do I make it with just one guy doing analytics (and he has to do SEO too) instead of three full time analysts?” I asked Jim. The answer was, yes, some of that, but “We aren’t hitting the bell and saying, times are terrible,” Jim said, “We did that last year.”  Now, he pointed out, there will be really concrete ideas.  To that end, there were will very few consultants speaking and many more practitioners.

Also, Jim pointed out that, “The tracks that we have are more focused. Instead of trying to do many things at the same time, there will be only three tracks, and they will be different every day. The first day will be multi-channel data, voice of the customer, and search analytics. Day two: Gov’t and non-profit, ecommerce and data-delving,”  (Not quite data diving, he noted.) Day three will be Marketing management (i.e. how do you organize corporate culture? How big should your staff be? How do you set up a global analytics dept?), BtoB marketing and  Emergent Media (socia, video, mobile, “all the new stuff.”)  Jim told me, “We are offering a one-day pass to the third day and is called “Bring the Boss day,” because this is the stuff that the senior managers care about more.”

I asked about auxiliary sessions — i.e. sessions on the Monday and Friday before and after the Summit, and there will be plenty. A GA session, a couple of sessions on predictive analytics, a landing page session.

Also, I was told, “We’re expanding the clinics and labs. We’re asking vendors to show us real life situations, how a client did a thing. Coremetrics, Hitwise and Google are going to do labs to show how a customer had a problem and it got fixed.”

Well, there you have it. The early bird registration ends on September 4.  You can get a 15% discount by using our code, LUNA09, or just by using your WAA discount.

This coming Tuesday, June 2 2009, LunaMetrics is doing a two-track, one day training in NYC on Google Analytics. Two tracks so that marketers/analysts can enjoy one track and techies can do the other track.  (Some attendees prefer to do a little of each track, and that’s ok, too.)  $285/person, includes continental breakfast, lunch, Google goodies and all the slides. Click here for more information and/or to register, or just check out the agenda here.

Robbin

“But our paid search vendor won’t give me access to our keywords and ads,” complained an attendee at our GA training in DC.  (I promised her that I wouldn’t use her name.)

“Hmm,” said I, “That seems a little awful.  You would think they would keep you locked up as a customer based on how wonderful they are, not based on your inability to get at your own data.”  In fact, I mused out loud to her, I wonder if that is a violation of the paid search terms and conditions….

…. so I did a search for Google AdWords Terms of Service, and I found this:

6     Agency. Customer represents and warrants that (a) it is authorized to act on behalf of and has bound to this Agreement any third party for which Customer advertises (a “Principal“), (b) as between Principal and Customer, the Principal owns any rights to Program information in connection with those ads, and (c) Customer shall not disclose Principal’s Program information to any other party without Principal’s consent.

So, I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that if the customer is an agency and advertises on behalf of a Principal (a real company), then the Principal owns the data. I don’t see that it says, the Principal must have access to the data, but hey, if you own it, you should be able to look at it, no?

And before I close — if you are in the NY Metro area and are interested in learning some actionable insights for your Google Analytics (techie or marketing), come to our GA Training Day, June 2 in Manhattan ($285 per person.) Learn more here.

Robbin

An old friend, Jeff Turner (of Blogbeat fame, the package that was purchased by Feedburner, which itself was purchased by Google), called me the other day. He and his business partner asked me to do some user testing on a new product they are developing called Pointomatic.

I’m not supposed to give too many details away, so I will just say that it is not a full-service analytics package, but rather, a product that focuses on visitor loyalty/engagement. Some of the things it can do with ease are very cool. If you are interested — especially if engagement is a very high priority for you — you can contact Jeff and get into his free alpha/beta. You can send him email or follow Jeff on Twitter.

Robbin

Our Google Analytics training on May 12, 2009 in DC is packed. We are not accepting any more registrations for individuals who want to do configuration and implementation (techie) since that room will be filled; we can only take new registrations for those who want to learn about marketing/analysis.

However, we still have space for everyone at our NYC Google Analytics training on June 2, 2009.  It will be identical to the DC training:  one day with a marketing/analysis track and a techie track, $285/person, breakfast and lunch included as well as slides, answers to all your questions and Google goodies.

You can read about the training in either city and start the registration process here.

Robbin

I was afraid that with the recession, training wouldn’t be all the rage this year. But one of our Google Analytics training sessions is half-filled already, with six weeks to go.

So I rushed through all my work today in time to write this post, about our Google Analytics training in NYC, June 2, 2o09. It feels like a lifetime away, with the weather just starting to get warm (in this hemisphere. No nasty comments from Australia or S. Africa, thank you.) It’s a one-day training with two tracks. There’s a track for analysts/marketers to learn everything from GA 101 to Actionable Insights to on-sight search and Advanced Segments.  And, there’s a configuration/implementation track for techies, where you get to study cross- and sub-domain tracking, profiles, advanced filters and goals, event tracking and more. You can see the schedule here and register here.

It’s $285/person, and will be at 23rd and 5th Avenue, easily accessible by the PATH and subway.  The day includes breakfast, lunch, Google goodies and copies of all the presentations.

Robbin

Here’s the main link to the event.