I'm sure happy I don't work at Google on the Analytics team. So far Analytics is a total bust for me. I am seeing some data - but nothing that has been worth the effort. Zero CPC data - and everything else is pretty but big deal. I have used Netracker and spreadsheets up to now and I was hoping Analytics would reduce the BS. SO far all it has done is cost me time and money with little to show for my investment. They should have stuck a real big "Beta" tag on the front of that feature (maybe even Alpha). Nothing like screwing up big for your largest client base - Adwords.

I have been hearing that the analytics product has not been as sucessful as people had hoped.... the need for support for 200,000 new customers was not thought out too deeply... guess giving it away obviously means no support.... but for a product many are coming to for the first time it really does require some help.

We've been testing it against ClickTracks Hosted version and so far we like Analytics. CT has some unique features, but Analytics has a considerable amount of data that the lower-cost version of ClickTracks doesn't. If Analytics stays free (and they every allow more sign ups) we are considering a switchover.

I have been hearing that the analytics product has not been as sucessful as people had hoped.... the need for support for 200,000 new customers was not thought out too deeply... guess giving it away obviously means no support.... but for a product many are coming to for the first time it really does require some help.
"200,000" is a total overstatement. Google has not publicily confirmed such number.

"no support" is another overstatement. Google Analytics offers 3 levels of support:

1) Help Center: http://www.google.com/support/analytics
Help Center for Urchin Software: http://www.google.com/support/urchin45

2) Discussion Groups: http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help

3) Partner Provided Support (through authorized partners (http://www.google.com/analytics/support_locator.html)): http://www.google.com/analytics/support_partner_provided.html

I was told those numbers...

And when I say support I meant live support.... the rest is just glorified FAQs

If you want live support, just pick an authorized partner (http://www.google.com/analytics/support_locator.html) give them a call and I'm positive they should be able to open up a trouble ticket to solve your issue either on the spot or as soon as possible.

If you want live support, just pick an authorized partner (http://www.google.com/analytics/support_locator.html) give them a call and I'm positive they should be able to open up a trouble ticket to solve your issue either on the spot or as soon as possible.

Nacho I have to say you really have become an unwavering supporter of Google.... did they get you into the Stepford room last time you were there???

I knew that something fishy was going on with the karaoke equipment....

Anyone who thinks Analytics has three levels of support is daydreaming. There are some very limited FAQ's, and I sent an email to Analytics support and didn't even get an autoresponder message. Granted, maybe I typed my email address wrong. I am not seeing any PPC data. They updated the "progress page" December 5 - I hope they update it again soon. Personally, and without writing down everything bugging me - Analytics is a black hole in terms of info so far.

Is anyone seeing discrepancies in PPC data? For me, Analytics shows far less visits from adwords than Adwords is reporting. The sad thing is before this happened, I was using the free 30 day Urchin trial, and everything was reporting fine. Ever since it converted to GA, the data seems to be incomplete, and takes almost 24 hours to appear.

I am not seeing any CPC or adwords data. Could go on about other shortcomings but basically I see a lot of data - but most of it falls into "big deal". God, I wish they would post some real info on what is working and what isn't.

When I logged into GA today there was a message telling me that I can now have up to 5 profiles on my account (it also said that they would eventually enable the stated limit of 50 profiles).

Clicking the more info (https://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=30723&hl=en_US) link also yielded this:

If you use one AdWords account to drive traffic to multiple websites, there is no way to import only some of the cost data. You can either import all the cost data or none. See the above article for more details.

I assume this only applies to cost data (which can be checked via your adwords campaign manager anyway), not keyword/referral/conversion data....which would then make multiple profiles useless.

I've never had a problem with Google's support. I email them about something at least once a week. I immediately get an auto-response, but a genuine message arrives usually before the days end.

The only support I've requested was for AdWords/Analytics.

I am pleased with GA so far, with a few exceptions. GA is telling me I have way more bounce traffic than SurfStats (my installed server log processing stats program). The navigational analysis is almost priceless itself--achieving the same "users went here, then here" data through SurfStats is a nightmare.

I like the search terms report. In conjunction with the Google sitemaps query reports, G is providing me with the top 20 phrases people are using to find my site everyday.

I find that GA reports only about 35% of the traffic that may IIS based log reader reports :confused:

There is no denying that analytics are essential.... but having the selling company count your numbers is a stretch.

While the majority of my Analytics reports were incomplete some of them were ok. This morning I went in to look at the week and all data stopped being shown after 12/14 (wednesday). Anyone esle have their reports drop off a cliff 12/15 (Thursday) this week?

I don't know how many people are plowing ahead full-speed on implementing Analytics with blind (but increasingly shaky) faith in Google besides me, but if this doesn't ever work correctly in a reasonable amount of time there is going to be a howling mob outside the Googleplex and I am going to be in it.

Implementing Analytics for a medium size ecommerce site is not a picnic and it ain't cheap in terms of expense. I threw in the towel and got a Google Analytics partner to do some of the heavy hitting. I hope they have access to WTH is going on inside Google's Analytics team.

I think this problem was created by me. I decided to store the script for the "Thank you"page on my server and we had a chron job download the latest version of Googles script every couple of hours in case Google made any changes to the script.

Pulling in the script off our own server (even though it was the exact script that was on Google's server) was a bad move. There is probably a lot more to what happens when you make the call to their server than just getting a script.

Sometimes your decisions only serve as a warning to others. The reason we did what we did were scattered reports of Google's secure server for Analytics not responding and fears it would cost us lost orders if the "thank you" page crashed or timed out.

I'm beginning to feel like a dumb bug being wrapped up in a ball by a spider to save as breakfast for her future new born offspring - and the momma spider is Google.

My missing data from Wednesday suddenly started reappearing from Saturday forward. No explanation for it. Storing the secure script on my server was not the reason why my ecommerce data suddenly disappeared. :eek:

That's a good example of how Analytics inauguration before it was working properly has eaten up a lot of productivity. I'm sure Google will eventually get the bugs out of it, but what a pain.

When all the bugs are out, they start importing cost data from other engines for tracking ROAS/CPA, and they add bidding tools...
Google analytics is going to be one of the most powerful paid search tools out there.

Google analytics is going to be one of the most powerful paid search tools out there.

Keywords "going to". It looks great, but I'm not trusting it yet. GA reports 6 times as much bounce and exit traffic than my other stats programs. I am aware bounces and exits are different things, both numbers are largely inflated.

Keywords "going to". It looks great, but I'm not trusting it yet. GA reports 6 times as much bounce and exit traffic than my other stats programs. I am aware bounces and exits are different things, both numbers are largely inflated.

Bounces are okay being inflated if they are not charging you for them!!!!!

My analytics reports are still useless except to see a bunch of pretty, but worthless data and charts. I've hired a Google Analytics Partner, a pretty smart custom programming company, and I've put a month of most of my time into it also.

Google isn't saying anything new since Dec 5th. To be fair I have seen some improvements, but the net results from all my efforts so far have been no return on my investment in time, money and energy.

It's going to be wonderful someday. Maybe next year sometime. Right now Urchin at 200 a month is a bargain compared to the time and money I've poured into implementing Analytics.

My analytics reports are still useless except to see a bunch of pretty, but worthless data and charts. I've hired a Google Analytics Partner, a pretty smart custom programming company, and I've put a month of most of my time into it also.

Google isn't saying anything new since Dec 5th. To be fair I have seen some improvements, but the net results from all my efforts so far have been no return on my investment in time, money and energy.

It's going to be wonderful someday. Maybe next year sometime. Right now Urchin at 200 a month is a bargain compared to the time and money I've poured into implementing Analytics.

The access and the level of reports etc. has been seen as disappointing.

Since we already use two other programs I have not really jumped in here.

Guess I will need to sign one of my sites and play with it just to see what is what.

We had been using the $200/mth Urchin program for the last 6 months or so to track our site and client accounts. We set up each site with very little hassle and had data flowing in within a day or two. To be certain Urchins support was virtually non-existent and their online help was weak and mixed in with the help files of other products they offered. Even with these downfalls the analytics we now had access to was worth it.

From the visitor behavior funnels to the site referral stats to the keyword cost information GA provides this program has dramatically increased our profitability.

We attempted to implement a similar product from Overture at the start of 05 with disastrous results. I won’t go into details, but that was a money and time sink. I have been re-assured that Y!'s offering is being greatly improved and will be integrated with their other services to make a "new DTC" as others here have suggested.

GA: Although we assumed this was the direction Google was heading in, we were not given advanced notice that Urchin would be converted into GA and then offered for free. This caused a significant amount of embarrassment when our clients were being asked to create new Google accounts to access their analytics data provided by us/urchin! I hate when a client catches me off guard and clueless!

Fortunately with one phone call to Google's support and an excellent representative all our individual accounts and past data was immediately transferred into the new interface. We did need to explain all this to our clients then create a variety of new google accounts and adjust our adword accounts which was a tad tedious and confusing, however after a day or two we had it all sorted out.

Perhaps we received special treatment or had a logistical advantage since we were already current customers with numerous accounts on Urchin? From the state Urchin was in before it merged into GA suggests to me that they were no where near ready for prime time. This is probably why many who are new to GA/Urchin have experienced problems.

To these folks I say, hang in there. The data is worth it.

If you are new to Adwords and Web analytics do not just go ahead and create an adwords account and tag all your pages with no rhyme or reason, especially if you have multiple websites. You need to employ a very specific strategy to make sure your reports make sense and have data integrity. Perhaps I will elaborate in a future post. In short though everything should be a direct 1-1 relationship. 1 Google account to 1 Google analytics account.


Discovery

You had a very fortunate experience with Analytics compared to the norm out there. I haven't called my account representative - but we only spend 70K a year on Google so I doubt if I would get the support you did.

I am hanging in there, but I know there is a very high level of frustration even among Google Analytics Partners. Count your blessings. We'll see how January goes - right now some of it works, some of it doesn't and I do not have a clue why. I believe I have implemented everything correctly, it is reporting my clicks ok, but it isn't reporting keywords correctly, it cannot connect clicks with orders or goals, and it is very weak in terms of properly identifying referral sources . Simply put it cannot connect the clicks to the income stream so it can't compute ROI.

If it ever works after all my gripping I'll be the first to sing their praises. If I had any inkling Google's Analytics program was bummed up I would have held off. When Google offers something I assumed it worked. It never occurred to me that Google would release a half-baked product.

Like I said - count your blessings. I wish I had your obvious clout with Google and your prior Urchin experience.

Don't forget about the Google Groups for Analytics: http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help

Fulton:

GA reports 6 times as much bounce and exit traffic than my other stats programs.

Are your other programs log analysis or tag-based?

I've been a vocal critic of Analytics horrible startup for quite some time on the forum. In my last post I said I would be the first to sing their praises when they got it properly working. Drum roll: Yeah Google!

I actually got a reply this week (from an email to support I had sent in mid-December) with insightful assistance on completing my analytics installation that was very helpful on a couple of issues. They were also kind enough to confirm that Analytics was working properly for my account.

My ecommerce site uses a highly customized shopping cart program. I asked for help from one of Google Analytics Partners (ewebusa.com) and they have worked closely with our custom programming firm (triangleresearch.com) implementing modifications to our custom shopping cart software and tweaking my analytics installation.

I am extremely excited about Analytics potential to help me grow my business and manage all my PPC campaigns.

Up to now I have used Netracker to slice and dice PPC data, but it has been tiresome and involved. Netracker will still be the tool I use for log analysis, but mostly when I want to zero in on some highly specific data - not PPC keyword ROI calculations

In a nutshell, Analytics is the greatest thing since sliced bread. That's the best singing I can do for Analytics and Google! :)

Tonerman:

Sounds like you are really happy and I'm glad to hear someone voice positive comments about GA. I have been puzzled as to why many people have gotten so upset about Google Analytics having problems, limited signups, etc... The press looks for ways to criticize Google about it, users get upset, the speculation flies, and so on.

I think more people need to look at the bright side of this. Google has given a really good analytics product away for no FREE. Yet people get upset?? Even the best paid products can have technical glitches and may take time to get running smoothly. And you're paying for both consulting and usage fees. I just don't understand it.

Thanks again for the positive comments.

Because now all my competitors will have access to the same powerful tools we do!

I wish GA commanded a $500/month price tag because this would be well worth the money to keep my cheap competitors out!

This does bring up an interesting topic that I'll float over in the GA forum.
If everybody uses GA, will we all start to come to the same conclusions and inflate certain keywords content partners and so on.

Discovery

Discovery,

Good points :), and I'll look forward to further discussions on your topic of inflation.

-Caleb

In many ways we can make the analogy that PPC is like the stock market.

If I go in and bid the hell out of a completely unproductive keyword in my industry I can gaurantee you that I will influence a number of either newbies or niave marketers to follow. It's amazing at how many times I have heard fellow SEMs say, well I saw all my competition bidding really high on xyz term so I outbid them... they must be on to something.

Would it be possible for a major player to sell the market short? Or pump up poor keyword selections in order to divert attention from the best performing?

Certainly you can't fool the experienced SEMs out there who are reporting down to the keyword roi level, but you could really have a field day with the newbies.

Discovery

Would it be possible for a major player to sell the market short? Or pump up poor keyword selections in order to divert attention from the best performing?

I doubt attention would be diverted from the best performing keywords just because of bidding on other junk terms. However, prices certainly can rise for keywords that have poor ROI, but they probably won't stay as high levels for a sustained period because they don't convert. That is where products like Google Analytics comes in to help. The result of better analytics will be a balancing of cost/ROI for keywords that perform well. It will require more than compelling ad copy. The companies with better web sites will enjoy the higher conversion rates that can support a higher CPC on prime keywords.

Really, the winners will be Google and companies who continually improve their businesses, not just their keywords lists and ad copy. "Newbies" probably will suffer, which is potentially bad for the small business but also good for the SEM and Interactive industry in that it will increase the need for our expertise.

Because now all my competitors will have access to the same powerful tools we do!

I wish GA commanded a $500/month price tag because this would be well worth the money to keep my cheap competitors out!

This does bring up an interesting topic that I'll float over in the GA forum.
If everybody uses GA, will we all start to come to the same conclusions and inflate certain keywords content partners and so on.

Discovery

Analytics is cheap to get - expensive as h---- to implement. Your cheap competitors are probably cheap in every respect - including their site, their PPC bids, etc. I am not worried about cheap competitors - it's the smart ones that scare me.

Analytics isn't simple either. I am not totally dumb and I've got two smart consultants and we still haven't gotten it smoothly implemented. Today I noticed that my campaign stats showed 600 clicks and my Analytics stats showed less than 200! Do I have a clue? No. Frankly, Urchin at $200 per month would have been a better decison if I knew then what I know now.

I was being a little facetious about the "cheap" comments. There is no doubt that although GA has made it far easier, it is still a formidable task to get analytics into place. Especially if you're running a complex shopping cart site such as yourself.

I guess it's kind of like golf, you can buy a lot of fancy equipment, but that doesnt gaurantee that you'll be a scratch golfer.

Discovery

My red face thread starter about Analytics unbeliveable breech birth startup has finally turned me into a smiley faced Google Analytics user. Everyone who worked on implementing Analytics on my site (really smart people, not hackers like me) agreed it was one of the toughest jobs they had done. A true female dog!

With our highly customized ecommerce program it took a LOT of server configuration, ecommerce software expertise, and Google Analytics knowledge to get our site to finally work properly with Analytics. All software packages have unique complexities so I won't bore everyone with the bloody details - but in a nut shell it was a wretched project that took almost 2 months. We were all thinking maybe 5-10 hours to do the whole job, but that was consumed before we even knew we were in big trouble.

My cart software is now running in a way I have never seen with our ecommerce package. When it was over I asked a custom programmer who did the software and server modifications "how does this program work now?" I understood it pretty well before, but when he was finished telling me how he did it I had a vague clue, but that was about all. But, boy did it work perfect!

Google support could have never resolved the problems for us - even if they had assigned someone to help us all day everyday. We had fundamental site issues that conflicted heavily with the way Analytics works.

If I hadn't had both a high-level custom Apache server and ecommerce custom software programmer and a Google Analytics Partner working together on the installation it would have never happened.

If you do serious ecommerce selling and PPC advertising on Google, spend whatever you have to spend and get whatever outside expertise you need if you are having serious problems getting Analytics working properly. The results are worth it.

Congrats Tonerman! Happy to hear this. :)