| Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics | 
 enlarge | Author: Brian Clifton
Publisher: Sybex
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $21.37
You Save: $18.62 (47%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (17 reviews)
Sales Rank: 7203
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0470253126
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.3
EAN: 9780470253120
ASIN: 0470253126
Publication Date: March 31, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Are you getting the most out of your website? Google insider and web metrics expert Brian Clifton reveals the information you need to get a true picture of your site's impact and stay competitive using Google Analytics (GA) and the latest web metrics methodologies. Which marketing campaigns work best? How do you quantify their success? What indicators should you track? Packed with techniques and insider secrets not documented elsewhere, this book has the expert guidance you need to enhance your brand and increase your site's ROI.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
THE Complete Guide to Google Analytics January 4, 2009
I've used WebTrends for some time. Used a very early version of Urchin circa 2005. Started with Google Analytics in 2008. Google Analytics has come a long way since Urchin. WebTrends is definitely more potent with a lot more features. But well .. you're paying for it. Google Analytics is free. The only shortfall is that it retains data for the last 25 months, so if you want to compare with the last 4-5 years, that will be difficult. You could pull out data to your local system and workaround this or use Urchin which has a more diluted reporting capability.
All that aside. This is a fantastic book. A deserving 5 starrer.
The flow of this book has been well planned. Clifton starts with what reports can be procured from Google Analytics, giving everyone a quick insight into what kind of information gathering is possible. A really good way to tell you how potent this tool can be. The next section deals with the implementation and how pages can be tracked. Discusses in detail some of the implementation issues like:
Using the same analytics account to monitor diff websites
How to create a local copy of the analytics info
Also includes Advanced Implementation how-to's for E-Commerce websites, online campaign tacking, event tracking. There's also a chapter on hacks. These sections are the most relevant and covers the first 211 pages.
The last section of the books starts with KPI's and discusses the topic in detail with examples related to e-commerce sites, Marketer's KPI's webmaster's KPI's and more. The last chapter also discusses Google Website Optimizer and is a good introduction for newbies.
This book is extremely comprehensive and does a very good job of introducing Google Analytics to both new users as well as experienced one. Javasript code shows up at various places and is definitely helpful as a reference for making quick changes to your website tags.
If you have a website that uses Google Analytics, just go ahead and buy the book. If you're using other analytic tools, this book is a good introduction to what Google Analytics has to offer.
A few standout features of Google Analytics:
Two click integration with Google Adwords. (Two reports : Adwords Campaign, Keyword Positions)
Can be used to track paid search, organic search, links from pdf's, videos, email campaigns etc
Site overlay report (something like a heat map. WebTrends calls this the click density report)
Map overlay report (shows which geographies people are coming in from)
Cross referencing (eg how many visitors from california, which keywords folks from california use)
Site search reporting (From which pages do visitors initiate a search. And which page do they go to. This needs some setting up.)
Event tracking of video files and load times, interactions in the file etc ..
(About Google Urchin: Urchin is a down loadable tool. Its a hybrid tool since it tags as well as processes log files. It can provide bandwidth reports, error page/status code reports, visitor history reports.
Benefits:
Can run behind firewall. Useful for intranets.
Data stored in house, so can be used beyond 25 months.
Google Analytics can analyze a max 5 million pageviews a month. Urchin doesn't have this restriction.
The Disadvantages pertain to the hardware and manpower needed to set up a server, maintain and backup.)
Other References
Companion site for the book: http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/
Scripts are at: http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/ga-scripts/
Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=34674820494
Support: http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/
Advanced topics and methodologies: http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/
Blog: http://analytics.blogspot.com/
If you want to see pics of what some actual Google Analytics Reports look like, you can check them on my website Pune360.com:
http://pune360.com/Editorial/2009/01/04/googleanalyticsbookreview/
Best Book available on Google Analytics January 2, 2009
There is so information out there to read and review. Brian is a credentialed expert. I respect his modesty and level of engagement. This recently published web analytics book is fantastic....explanations are clear, concise, organized, authoritative and thorough. The visuals are also very helpful. I find it useful to have definitive information effectively and efficently compiled in a single source for many reasons.
This is the best book I have encountered on this vast topic.
Advanced Web Metrics completely satisfied my needs, effectively answered many questions and provided invaluable insights. I read voraciously. Many technical authors tend to write way too much or too little about the topic. Actionable insights are very important in the internet marketing industry.
The bible of Google analytics December 7, 2008
I am in the process of building a new web site and this book showed me everything I needed (and much more) on Google Analytics. It is written by Europe's Google Analytics leader and it takes even the novice user (like myself) into incredible depths. If you need the ultimate guide, this is it.
 Good overview October 5, 2008
This book is intended to read cover-to-cover, not really a browse to the topic you're looking for type of book. Still really good read, and after you have a great understanding on GA overall.
Great book, great writer, expert knowledge September 26, 2008
Like some of the other reviews I considered myself to be quite familiar with Google Analytics, and I was very impressed with Brian's book. I learned A LOT that will be very valuable to our company, many items I've already put into action. (ere's a list of what I learned http://blog.dogster.com/2008/09/25/get-more-out-of-google-analytics)
Brian also does a really good job of building up the what the tools are, why you want to use them and then how. It's a very modular book that doesn't force you to constantly refer to other sections. It builds well and give good examples w/o digressing into obscurities.
If you are using Google Analytics at all for your business, you'll want this book.
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