Google Analytics: "Customize" button to tweak standard reporting to a more customized approach!

With a new "Customize" button in the action bar on all tabular standard reports, Google Analytics has allowed users to tweak standard reporting to a more customized approach. The Customize option will take Analytics users to a custom report builder that according to Google, can be used in certain cases as:

1. "New metrics, familiar reports – The best metrics are the ones that provide actionable insights into your business. Try adding different metric groups to your favorite reports to see if how it impacts your view of conversion rates.
2. Drill down into your data – Sometimes, the best route to a particular piece of data is a drilldown not found in any standard report. You could customize the Language report to drill into search terms for a language-by-language comparison of your organic search traffic.
3. Filter to find insights – Ad campaigns can span many networks. Try customizing the AdWords Campaigns report and applying a filter for Ad Distribution Network matches "Google Search" to see your performance on only Google Search." 

Google has also clarified that all standard reports cannot be turned into custom reports. In fact only the reports where you can spot the ‘Customize’ button can you turn the report. Google Analytics help center has more details on customizing a report.

Adwords is an efficient way to target potential voters!

PPC advertising on search engines is an extremely efficient and highly customizable way to directly target potential voters. Ads are triggered by certain keywords, in this case primarily the names of the contenders and the advertiser pay only if a user clicks on the ad. Ads can be targeted geographically, by state, county, city as well as by language (English/Spanish).

Ad campaigns can also quickly and efficiently test different slogans and messages before applying them to the entire campaign. Google AdWords lets advertisers assign numerous ad variations to the same set of keywords

And Just Ahead of the Iowa Caucuses, Google Launches its U.S. Election Site,  which provides voters and journalists with up-to-date news about the campaigns, as well as easy access to Google's own tools for those directly involved in the political process (Google+, YouTube, AdWords, for example).

Maybe the most interesting aspect of the site is the real-time dashboard, which displays recent search trends, Google News mentions and YouTube video views for all the candidates. The recent surge of Rick Santorum's campaign, for example, is nicely illustrated by this tool.

Unsurprisingly, Google today also launched a Google+ page for its elections site.

Adwords ‘Dimensions’ Tab to Increase Conversion Rates!

Since the launch of Google’s  PPC (‘Pay-Per-Click’) advertising network, ‘AdWords’, countless reporting features have been added to the platform to give advertisers as much insight as possible into exactly what kind of traffic they’re getting. One of the more recent features to be added to the platform is the “Dimensions” tab.

In a nutshell, the ‘Dimensions’ tab allows users to break down their traffic data in various ways such as the time of day their ad clicks occurred, which search queries triggered their ads to show, the geographical location of their visitors and much more. This sort of transparency is what separates AdWords from most other marketing channels, and the information provided can be used to make intelligent changes to your campaign which results in significant increases in conversion rates.

Now you can download all your search queries!

Google announced a new application, a Python script that lets you download all your search queries available from Google Webmaster Tools.

Google is offering this for two reasons:

(1) They don't have the ability to download search query data via the Google Webmaster Tools API - yet.

(2) They removed about 10% or so of the search queries that show in your analytics when moving to SSL search.

To see details on how this script works, please go to the Google Webmaster blog.

Google introduced some new changes in Google Analytics !

Google announced  some more changes in Google Analytics. The new changes include mobile ad performance metrics along with all AdWords reports having new visual toggle showing ads.

As Google is quoted, “Starting this week, some of you will see enhanced Analytics reports with mobile ad performance metrics. All AdWords reports in the new interface will be gaining a new visual toggle as shown below for “All”, “High-end Mobile” and “Tablet” ads.”

The new Google Analytics interface has these features, and will come in handy by letting webmasters sort out the increasing numbers of mobile and tablet users. These reports will be a huge help for businesses in understanding the requirements of mobile customers better.

Google plans to make further changes like email scheduling and PDF export functionality, as it announced recently. You will be able to see these changes in the new interface within a couple of weeks. Standard and custom reports will all have the email scheduling option:

Google said. “The old Google Analytics interface as well as all existing scheduled emails will be sunset starting in January 2012.“We believe that the new Google Analytics interface provides significant advantages over the old version, including access to Real Time Analytics, Multi-Channel Funnels, Social Plug-in Analytics, & Flow Visualization. And hope you'll find enough value in these new features that you'll switch to the new version well before then.”

Coming Soon to Google+ : Updates For Pages, Mobile, AdWords and More !

Google+ is reportedly slated to undergo major renovations in 2012, most of which were revealed by Google Head of SEM/Platform Channel Partnerships, Tae Kim, during his keynote at CrushIQ on Google+ Pages for Businesses.

According to Kim, Google+ will look very different in six months after it becomes better integrated with the entire suite of Google products. Additionally, several of the achievements early Google+ adopters have been able to accomplish through the platform - including meeting new people and connecting users with those they might already know - have been claimed as intentional use of the network by Google.

Here’s what you'll be able to expect from Google+ in the near future.

• Multiple administrators, an in-demand feature for Google+ Page users, will be enabled in the first quarter of 2012.
• Better Circle management tools are being integrated.
• In order to become a verified brand on Google+, the G+ badge must be placed somewhere on your website, and you must have a wealth of followers.
• Google is more focused on presenting its Google+ product as is rather than waiting to be perfect for release.
• AdWords will definitely be coming to Google+, though monetization is not a priority, and will somehow include Ripples.
• There is a heavy focus on mobile for Google+, with the goal being 100% functionality.
• Google+ is prioritizing its Android app over iOS due to limited resources, but will update its iOS application as soon as it is able.
• You will be able to search with the "+" button through Google to find either Pages or people.
• There are now over 250 companies with Google+ Brand Pages, a number that  that continues to grow

Kim also confirmed that AdWords ads will eventually be shown on Google+, but that Google is in no hurry to do so. Monetization, he said, is not a priority right now. He added that AdWords on Google+ will make use of the Ripples feature.

Share This and Add This Integrated With Google Analytics!

Recently Google Analytics has officially announced integration with social sharing services ShareThis and AddThis. Now webmasters can get the social analytics sans the code implementation.

As Google Analytics says, “To enable the integration for all of your AddThis buttons, you are now just one line of code away, and ShareThis users don’t have to do a thing. If you have Google Analytics installed, and you are using a ShareThis widget, simply login into Google Analytics and check out your new social reports!”

So now with a simple code, webmasters can collect content interaction metrics from sharing tools like Google+, Facebook, Twitter and others. This integration allows for the integration of the other sharing tools except Google+ (which is tracked automatically).

Google+ is now with Real time search and Hashtags support!

Google+, the social platform has now launched Real time search as well as hashtags support. So, people can keep track of live events as well as contribute to them too.

This feature is designed to keep you up to date with the latest news or updates on an issue that you are following or searching for. This means that when you will search in Google+, there will be a message sent to you about new posts the instant they're available. To get the relevant posts in real time, as soon as they are made, you have to click on this message, or select 'Most recent' updates.

And Hashtags are used for the purpose to link updates or post with certain topics. So, when you will use a hashtag with your post, you will be linked to search results.

On the other hand, from the marketing point of view, now you can monitor your brand, keyword, what is being said about them in real time. Send out messages and updates to link with the keyword/brand name updates.

'Our Mobile Planet' – New Free Smartphone Data Analysis Tool from Google!

Mobile user’s data can now be analyzed in a much better and accurate manner. Google has rolled out a new data and analysis tool – Our Mobile Planet, that will provide access to anyone to the data and research on smartphone usage.

This site has an interactive tool that lets people create custom data analysis charts from Google’s “Global Mobile Research: The Smartphone User & The Mobile Marketer” report, that came out early in 2011. This new tool lets webmasters do extensive research on consumer behavior with regard to search, video, social and more.

The tool will let you sample data based on-

• Penetration of consumer adaption of smartphones (The reach)
• The reason for which people are using these devices (The Why?)
• In what way are consumers are using these devices (The How?)
• What activities are people taking up on their smartphones. (The Activities)
• What is the purchasing patterns on smartphones (The Commerce)
• How are people responding to promotions (The Advertising)

You can get highly specific on any research, as every data set has subsets.

Webmaster Tools integration with Google Analytics!

Earlier in June Google released a limited beta of Webmaster Tools integration with Google Analytics, where you can view search query data from Webmaster Tools directly in Google Analytics.

Yesterday, Google announced this feature is now available to everyone!

You can find the new reports under the “traffic sources” > “search engine optimization” section of the new Google Analytics. The new reports there include:

• Queries: impressions, clicks, position, and CTR info for the top 1,000 daily queries
• Landing Pages: impressions, clicks, position, and CTR info for the top 1,000 daily landing pages
• Geographical Summary: impressions, clicks, and CTR by country

Following is a sample screen shot: