Breaking: Email Reports and PDF Export (in Beta) Now Available in Google Analytics v5 [Screenshots]

March 21, 2012 By Glenn Gabe

OK, I’ve been waiting for this functionality to hit the latest version of Google Analytics for some time, and I’m excited that it’s finally here! From what I gather, this is rolling out gradually (in beta), so not everyone is seeing what I’m seeing. About 10 minutes ago, my Google Analytics session froze. Upon refreshing, I noticed an “Email” button on the action bar with a beta label, along with a new option in the “Export” dropdown. You can now email reports as an attachment (in csv, tsv, tsv for excel, and now PDF!) That’s right, you can email pdf’s, as well as export them separately. You can also schedule emails by frequency (daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly), so you can automatically send reports.

Below are screenshots of the buttons in action:

Email Button in Google Analytics:
Email report functionality in Google Analytics v5

Export to PDF in Google Analytics v5:
Export to PDF functionality in Google Analytics v5

As of now, Google Analytics hasn’t officially stated this is rolling out, but I’m seeing it.

Let me know if you have any questions. I’d be happy to provide more information until you receive the update!

[Update] Now that I’ve had some time to play with the new functionality, I wanted to explain more about export to pdf and the advanced email functionality in Google Analytics.

1. Export to PDF
From any report, you can easily click the “Export” dropdown in the action bar to export that report as a pdf. There aren’t options for tailoring the report, and it will be exported immediately. As with other reports, you can increase the number of rows exported by altering the table.rowCount parameter in the URL. For example, changing it to “50” will export 50 rows versus the default 10. The report in pdf format includes the trending graph, aggregate metrics for the report you are viewing, and the rows of data with associated metrics (based on the view you are currently in). For example, Site Usage, Goal Set 1, eCommerce, etc.

Sample PDF Report in Google Analytics v5

2. Email Reports (With Scheduling)
The second piece of functionality I’ll cover is the new Email Report functionality. As I explained above, you can also find the “Email” button via the action bar. When you click the button, you are presented with a set of options, including choosing the format of the report. You will notice that “PDF” is now an option. You can also set the frequency for the scheduled report, including once, daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly. If you choose weekly, you can then choose the day of the week that the report will be emailed. If you choose monthly, you can choose the day of the month. Last, there is an arrow labeled “Advanced Options”, which enables you to choose how long the scheduled report should be active for. The dropdown list includes 1-12 months.

Scheduling Reports via Email in Google Analytics v5

Wrapping Up – The Power of the PDF
Once your account receives the update, you should test the new functionality for exporting pdf’s. I think you’ll like it. This is something that’s been much needed for some time. Now let me go schedule some more reports. :)

How To Create a Custom Report in Google Analytics by Customizing a Standard Report [Tutorial]

March 20, 2012 By Glenn Gabe

Custom reports in Google Analytics are incredibly powerful.They enable you to tailor reporting, based on your own business, your own conversion goals, key metrics, etc.The problem is that custom reports can be confusing to create. You have metric drilldowns, dimension groups, report views, filters, etc. If you aren’t familiar with creating custom reports, the interface could be daunting. That said, you shouldn’t give up trying to create custom reports! Again, they can be very powerful for analyzing traffic.

In this post, I’m going to walk you through creating a custom report that displays organic search traffic from mobile devices. The report will also enable you to view those visits by location. It’s a nifty custom report for any local business. The report lets you quickly view top keywords leading to your site via organic search (mobile traffic), but also lets you view how many of those visits are from potential buyers (people located near your business).

In addition, Google recently released functionality for customizing a standard report versus having to create every custom report from scratch. This is a great option if you are new to custom reports and want to tailor some of the existing reports in Google Analytics to fit your needs.

Creating a Custom Report from a Standard Report
As I mentioned earlier, we’ll start with a standard report in Google Analytics and tailor it to meet our goals. Since we are going to create a report showing organic search from mobile devices, let’s start with the Mobile Overview report and customize it to display:

Organic keywords leading to the site (mobile traffic).
The region those visits are from (i.e. states).
The cities within those regions that visits are coming from.
The mobile operating system from those visits (android, iphone, etc.)

The goal of the report is to know the organic keywords leading to the site from mobile visits, and how many of those visits are from potential customers (people located near your business).

How to Create the Custom Report (from a Standard Report)

1. Open up Google Analytics, click the “Audience” tab, and then expand the “Mobile” link in the left side navigation. Click the “Overview” link to view the Mobile Overview report.

2. Click the “Customize” link in the action bar of the report. This will enable you to customize this report for your own needs (by creating a custom report based on this standard report). Note, not all standard reports can be customized this way. Tabular reports can be customized this way, but you will find other reports within GA that cannot be converted to custom reports:

3. When you click “customize”, the standard report will be loaded into “report builder”. The initial view will show you the current report mapped out already in report builder. Then you can tailor the various elements, based on what you are trying to achieve with your own custom report.

4. You can keep the current metric groups if you want. If you ever want to go back and customize the metric groups, you can by editing the custom report. For example, you definitely want to set up various conversion goals and events so you can better understand quality traffic. Once you do, you can add them to your metric groups so you can view performance by traffic in your custom report.

5. Under dimension drilldowns, you will only see “Mobile” listed. Adding more dimensions will enable you to drill into each level to find more data. As I explained above, we want to drill into mobile traffic to reveal the organic keywords leading to the site. Then we want to view location by region and state. So, let’s add those additional dimensions to our report.

6. Click the “Add Dimension” box in dimension drilldowns and select “Keyword” from the “Advertising” list.

7. Next, add more dimensions to your report. Click the “Add Dimension” box again, and include the “Region” dimension from the “Visitors” list. After adding “Region”, you should go through the same process to add another dimension for “City”.

8. Filter Your Traffic
The last step is to make sure the traffic is only from organic search. We only want to view mobile traffic from organic search, so we need to tell Google Analytics to filter that traffic for us. Click the “Add a Filter” box under the “Filters” category. Select the “Medium” dimension under the “Traffic Sources” list. Then select “include” from the first filter dropdown, leave “Medium” as the dimension, leave “Exact” in the third dropdown, and then enter “organic” in the text box (without quotes). See the screenshot below to follow along. This text tells Google Analytics to include all traffic that exactly matches “organic” as the medium. “Organic” is what’s listed for all organic search traffic.

Congratulations! You just created a custom report, based on a standard report. Click “Save” at the bottom of the report and you’ll be taken to the functioning report in Google Analytics.

You can start drilling into the report by clicking “Yes” in the mobile report, which will reveal all organic keywords from mobile traffic. Then you can click any keyword to view the region those visits are from. If you click the region, you can view the cities within that region. Again, this report can help you identify mobile traffic from organic search, the keywords being searched for, and identify if these are potential customers (based on their proximity to your local business).

Bonus: Access the Custom Report Template
As an added bonus, I have shared the template for this custom report and you can access it by clicking the link below. Once you click the link, you can add this template to a Google Analytics profile and start using the report today. You can also analyze the report setup so you can work through creating similar custom reports. Click the following link to access the custom report for organic search visits from mobile devices.

Summary – Customize It!
I hope this post helped clear up some of the confusion associated with building custom reports in Google Analytics. I love that Google added the ability to customize standard reports, since that’s sometimes all you want to do… If you are new to custom reports, then I recommend starting with a standard report and then customizing that report to fit your needs. Going through that process should help you get more comfortable with working in report builder and could lead to more advanced custom reports. And that can all lead to advanced analysis of your traffic. Good luck.

How To Troubleshoot Authorship Markup When rel=author and rel=publisher Clash [Case Study]

February 21, 2012 By Glenn Gabe

Last year, Google rolled out authorship markup which displays author information (including a thumbnail image) right in the search engine results pages (SERPs). It can be extremely powerful and can absolutely make your content stand out. For example, here’s what a search result looks like for my post about bounce rate and exit rate.

With author details in the SERPs, a thumbnail image shows up for the author, there’s a link to the author’s Google profile (or Google+ profile), and you can link to additional posts from that author right from the search listing. If you are logged into Google+, you can also circle that author right from the search results. This can all lead to higher levels of trust with users, which can lead to higher engagement and click-through. Think about it, if Google is highlighting the author by providing all of the information I listed above, it can bring a higher level of credibility when users are searching for solutions, answers, help, etc.

The Problem with Authorship Markup
Although authorship markup can yield powerful results, there are some problems associated with it. As many webmasters have found out the hard way, adding authorship markup to a website or blog can be confusing. Google lists several ways you can add authorship markup to a website, which is both good and bad. It’s great to have options, but it leaves too much room for error, especially for non-technical website owners.

Also, since you’re never given all the feedback you need to make sure authorship markup is working, it can lead to a flawed (or botched) implementation that goes untouched and unfixed for too long. Google does provide the Rich Snippets Testing Tool, but it doesn’t include detailed instructions for making changes (nor does it always provide clear information).

Since Google doesn’t guarantee it will show author details for all markup implementations, you basically have to wait it out and see how the new markup takes. If it takes, you’ll see the robust search listings I showed you earlier. If it doesn’t take, you’ll see the standard listings (all text).

Again, not every author is eligible for author details in the SERPs. That’s algorithmically determined. Therefore, you won’t know right away if it’s your setup that’s the problem, or if you just aren’t eligible. As you can guess, this can be very frustrating for webmasters.

Yes, It Gets More Complicated, Enter rel=publisher
With the rollout of Google+ business pages, Google added a way to connect your business page with your website (and vice versa). The benefit of doing this is that a company can share +1’s across its website content and business page on Google+. It also makes you eligible for Google+ Direct Connect.

The Google+ Developers Page About Connecting a Website to a Business Page:

In order to connect your Google+ page with your site, you need to add more code. Google recommends adding a snippet of code to the head of your webpages using rel=publisher. The problem, once again, is that webmasters were adding the code, but never knew if it was implemented correctly. In addition, people were confused whether rel=publisher would work with rel=author? Could the two pieces of code be located on the same page? How would Google handle that? And would it screw up authorship markup? These were all good questions, and again, it caused a lot of confusion for webmasters.

Fixing a Botched Implementation
So, based on what I listed above, there are definitely webmasters out there who have implemented authorship markup that aren’t reaping the benefits in the SERPs. I know how frustrating this can be for webmasters, since I just finished helping one site fix a botched implementation. The author was at her wit’s end. And she isn’t alone.

But don’t fear. I’m going to explain what went wrong so you don’t make the same mistakes. I also hope this post can help you troubleshoot implementations that aren’t yielding the desired results. For example, if the SERPs don’t display author information, thumbnail images, etc. Let’s learn more about what was happening.

Some Background Information About The Setup
The site in question had implemented rel=author by linking directly to the Google+ profile for that person (it was a single author blog). According to Google, you can implement authorship markup this way, as documented in their help section about authorship markup. Note: Google just added a new way to add authorship markup, but the original methods are still supported.

With regard to the company I was helping, linking directly to a Google profile from each piece of content is easy, but it’s not what I recommend. Instead, I recommend linking to a dedicated author page on your site using rel=author, which then links to a Google profile using rel=me. Then you would link back to your author page from your Google profile using rel=me to complete the process. This three way linkage seems to work best, based on my experience.

If you haven’t dealt with authorship markup yet, then I’m sure the last paragraph completely confused you. :) Stick with me, though. There’s a good lesson to learn. Back to the site I helped.

So, the site in question was linking directly to a Google profile from each piece of content on the site. Then the Google profile was linking back to the site using rel=me. Using the Rich Snippets Testing Tool, the implementation of authorship markup looked correct. Also, for a short period of time, author information did show up in the SERPs (according to the company). All looked good from their end.

An example of using the Rich Snippets Testing Tool to view authorship markup:

Adding Complexity – Connecting a Google+ Page with a Website
Then Google+ business pages rolled out and Google recommended that webmasters link their websites to their Google+ business pages using rel=publisher (as I covered earlier). So the site did just that, adding rel=publisher to each page of the site (using the code that Google provided), which was included in the Google help documentation.

When testing the pages using the Rich Snippets Testing Tool after rel=publisher went live revealed some strange results. The tool said authorship markup was correct, but the SERP preview showed the business page as the author. Needless to say, that’s not what the author wanted. After the site got crawled again, author details disappeared from the SERPs. Instead, just the typical SERP details were displayed. Note, rankings were unaffected (which you would hope would be the case), but author details, including the beautiful thumbnail image, were gone. Weeks went by and nothing changed in the SERPs.

The Fix
When I got involved, I immediately had a few recommendations:
1) I wanted to remove rel=publisher from each page of the site, other than the homepage. I believed that was confusing Google and could be screwing up author details in the SERPs.
2) I wanted to revamp the way authorship was installed on the site. Instead of linking directly to the Google profile from each page of the site using rel=author, I recommended adding links to a dedicated author page on the site using rel=author. Then, as I covered earlier, the website should link to the Google profile from the author page using rel=me. And last, they should add a link from the Google profile to the author page using rel=me. That’s the three part linkage I mentioned earlier.

The Results & Key Takeaways
After implementing the changes listed above, we needed to let the site get crawled again. This took about 5-6 six days. After which, I was excited to see that author details were back in the SERPs! For each piece of content ranking in Google, you can now see all the beautiful SERP details via authorship markup. And yes, it makes a huge difference for the site and author I helped. The listings just stand out.

So, if you have implemented authorship markup, while also connecting your site to your Google+ page, then beware of a botched setup. If you believe you should have author details showing up in the SERPs, but aren’t seeing them, don’t automatically assume you aren’t eligible. Some of you might be eligible… I recommend double-checking your setup, having someone familiar with SEO check it out, and then making changes, if necessary. Then it’s just a matter of waiting to get crawled again (which varies depending on your specific site).

So don’t hesitate, enhanced SERPs await. :)

Search, Plus Your World and the Power of the Google+ Outlier

January 19, 2012 By Glenn Gabe

Change occurs at a frantic pace in digital marketing, and I love that about the industry. It definitely keeps you on your toes. There are times that small changes occur, and you can barely notice the changes. And then there are times that major shifts occur. Shifts that drastically change how companies need to think about marketing. This month, one of those major shifts occurred in Search, and as you can guess, Google drove the change.

On January 10th, Google announced Search, Plus Your World, which in certain cases, drastically impacts the search results for users. Search, Plus Your World is Google’s big push to tie Search with Social (using Google+ as its foundation). Google+ is growing rapidly, and based on the impact that Search, Plus Your World can have, it’s only going to keep on growing.

What is Search, Plus Your World?
With Search, Plus Your World, the search results are being tailored by your social connections (and weighted heavily by Google+). Personalized results can contain user profiles, posts, shares, images, related people and pages, etc. from your social connections, along with standard search results (the results you have been seeing for some time).

Google now presents a toggle so users can switch between personalized results and search listings without personalized results. In addition, there is an option at the top of the screen showing you how many personalized results are possible (based on your connections in Google+). Clicking this link is a “pure” personalized experience, showing you a full listing of personalized results. And last but not least, autocomplete can now contain user profiles (when you search for people). Talk about having an impact on online reputation management. Thumbnail images showing up in autocomplete is darn powerful. Note, personalized results contain a small blue icon next to the them (shaped like a person).

For example, here are the personalized search results for “android smartphones” when I’m logged in:
Click the image to view a larger version.

And here are the un-personalized results:
Click the image to view a larger version.

And here are the “pure” personalized results (by clicking the link at the top of the search results):
Click the image to view a larger version.

Yes, there’s a big difference between the three screenshots, especially the pure personalized results. Note, the default view is personalized (the first screenshot). Then you can toggle between un-personalized and personalized by clicking the icons in the upper right-hand corner. The pure personalized results can be accessed by clicking the link above the search results (which shows thumbnails of your connections next to the link). See below:

The Search Plus Your World Toggle Buttons:

Your Google+ Perspective Means Everything
As I’ve been reading numerous blog posts about Search, Plus Your World, I think one point is getting lost. What you see in the search results is your own view, based on your own social connections. That view completely depends on the number of people you have in your circles, and what they are sharing. If someone has 1000 people in their circles, they are more apt to see personalized results for a number of topics than someone that has 50 people in their circles. That said, if you are in someone’s circles that doesn’t have a lot of connections already, then you have a strong chance of showing up for searches focused on your niche, location, etc. I cover this in more detail below.

Although Google+ is growing rapidly, it still hasn’t reached the number of users that some other popular social networks have. The fact of the matter is that there are still a lot of people not using Google+, or not using it regularly. Connecting with these outliers when they join Google+ presents a strong opportunity for current users of Google+ to influence their search rankings. For example, if you are brand, business owner, etc., you have a chance of directly influencing their search results if you become one of their connections. And when I say “influence” their search results, I’m not kidding. Read on.

The Power of The Google+ Outlier
After Search, Plus Your World launched, I received a very interesting email from someone that had added me to their circles. She was new to Google+ and didn’t have many people in her circles. And from what I can gather, I was the most active out of them all. This once Google+ outlier couldn’t help but view a boatload of information from me when she searched Google. Search results-wise, it wasn’t “Search, Plus Your World”, it was more like “Search, Plus Glenn’s World”. And that presents a huge opportunity for businesses looking to get noticed in Search.

When searching for anything related to technology, marketing, advertising, mobile, social, etc., I was there. The standard personalized results had several listings from my activity on Google+. That’s great, but it got even deeper when she clicked on the “pure” personalized results. When clicking the link to view all the personalized results, I was in almost every single listing. That’s incredibly powerful, and could very well be happening to a lot of people new to Google+. You can see a few examples below.

Outlier Example 1: Example of personalized results for “Google Analytics”:
Click the image to view a larger version.

Outlier Example 1a: Example of pure personalized results for “Google Analytics”:
Click the image to view a larger version.

Let’s try a search for a location:
Outlier Example 2: Example of personalized results for “Princeton, NJ”:
Click the image to view a larger version.

Outlier Example 2a: Example of pure personalized results for “Princeton, NJ”:
Click the image to view a larger version.

After reviewing the screenshots above, you can see that I was listed several times in the personalized results, but also dominated the pure personalized results. Google may adjust the level of personalization in the future (as they test this out), but for now it’s heavily weighted by your Google+ connections.

Key Points To Consider:

There are many Google+ outliers now. You should think about the best ways to get in their circles (especially when they first make the move to G+.)
Keep sharing high quality content about your given industry, niche, etc. The more you share on Google+, the more opportunity you have for showing up in someone’s personalized listings. And for outliers that make the move, you might be able to dominate the results.
The sharing effect with outliers won’t be strong (at least on Google+). That said, they might be heavily using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Additional shares might come, but those shares might come via Facebook, Twitter, etc. You can always use Google Ripples to analyze content you are sharing on Google+.
Don’t overlook people that are new to Google+. Who cares if they only have a few connections. You can be one of them, and then show up when they search (a lot).

Summary – Entering “Their World”
If you have been sitting on the sidelines with Google+ (as an outlier), now is the time to jump in. It’s going to be incredibly important for you, your business, your influence, and your rankings. In addition, if you are already on Google+, don’t overlook the outliers that will soon join Google+. Search, Plus Your World provides an unprecedented opportunity to rank for extremely targeted queries. The opportunity cost of sitting on the sidelines is enormous. So start today.

And oh yeah, don’t forget to add me to your circles. :)

How To Use The Contextual Targeting Tool to Estimate CPC and Budget for Google Display Network Campaigns [Video]

December 29, 2011 By Glenn Gabe

When most people think of running AdWords campaigns, they immediately think of ads running on Google.com. Many don’t realize that you can target audiences outside of Google.com with both text ads and display advertising. The ads will run across Google’s Display Network, which includes any website running Google Ads. Note, this also includes Google properties like Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, etc. It can be extremely powerful when set up and managed correctly.

Although there are several different ways to target audiences across the Display Network, setting up targeted themes is often a strong way to go. That’s where you set up ad groups targeting a tight set of keywords, which Google can use to understand the content you want your ads to match up with. For example, if you want your ads to show up on hdtv review sites, you would create an ad group that includes a tight set of keywords around the topic “hdtv reviews”.

That’s great, but how do you estimate the cost per click (CPC) and budget for Display Network campaigns? Is it even possible to gauge CPC’s for various themes you are targeting? Yes, you can do this, and I’m going to show you how to do it today. I’ve created a five minute video below that walks you through how to use the contextual targeting tool in AdWords to find estimated CPC’s by theme. Check out the video below to learn more.

Video Transcription:
Hello, everybody. This is Glenn Gabe from G-Squared Interactive. I just wanted to take you through a quick video tutorial today. What I’m actually going to go through is the contextual targeting tool and how to estimate CPCs and budget based on the themes that you set up. For those of you that aren’t familiar, the Display Network enables you to target an audience outside of Google.com. It could be extremely powerful, but you do need to understand what a rough CPC and what the rough budget will be. That’s what we’re going to go through today.

There are various ways to target an audience across the Google Display Network, but the way that we’re going to work through today is by targeting themes, very tight themes that Google will interpret and then provide your ads against targeted content. It’s contextual advertising.

In order to get started, what you’re going to do is log in to your AdWords account. You’ll probably be under your Campaigns tab. What I want you to do is actually go to Tools and Analysis, it’s a tab up top, click the dropdown, and then click Contextual Targeting Tool. That will take you to this screen right here.

The first thing we’re going to do is actually map out some themes for a specific category. So it’s that time of year. It’s the holidays. A lot of people are buying electronics and TVs. So let’s use HDTVs as a test for us. What I want you to do is go up into the search box and actually type “HDTV” and then hit Search. What Google is presenting now are themes based on HDTVs. You have about five or six different suggested ad groups with about five to seven different keywords in there. Again, very tight themes.

What this is going to tell Google, if you choose a specific “suggested ad group”, which you won’t for every one, I mean, some of these are not going to be targeted, like “HDTV antenna” probably isn’t one that you’re going to run, but for the ones that you’re going to run, you’re telling Google to present your ads against content that is relevant to the specific themes. And that could be very, very powerful if used properly.

What’s worth noting here is that if you go to the far right, you’ll see Suggested Bid based on the ad groups that are suggested here. Suggested Bid is based on historically competitive bids on the sites that are relevant to the keywords you entered. So Google is taking a look at what bids were on sites that matched these themes and giving you an estimated CPC.

Moving back to the left here, you’ll see two icons for each of these suggested ad groups. One is a plus symbol, another is an ellipsis. If they’re grayed out, you cannot drill into them. If they are active, you obviously can. The ellipsis represents predicted placements. These are websites that Google is saying that your ads can show up on based on the themes that you’ve set up. If you click the ellipsis, you are actually going to see all of those websites, and more importantly, you are going to see an estimated CPC like we saw before. So this is a bid suggestion, which you can use to estimate clicks, costs, obviously clicks times estimated CPC. You can start to back out conversion numbers. It’s just a great place to start based on the themes that you’re creating.

So that’s predicted placements. Let’s pop back to the results here. We clicked the ellipsis before. Now what I’m going to do is click the plus sign. Again, it needs to be active. If it’s grayed out, you cannot drill into it. Let’s go into HDTV deals. If we click the plus icon, what you’re actually going to see are more themes based on HDTV deals. So now you’re going deeper into the themes, sub-themes within HDTV deals. This is something that you definitely would want to do if you’re researching this for a specific project.

Back to our CPCs for a minute. If you go to the right here, you’ll actually see again suggested bid. Again, this is based on each of the historical bids that Google has found for each of the themes that you’ve created. Of course, like we did before, you could actually click the ellipsis icon to drill into predicted placements. You could click the plus sign to expand links to the websites so you could actually check those out. Again, you do have bid suggestions up top for estimating your CPC. This is the way that you would drill into specific themes, figure out estimated CPCs, and then start to gauge what your rough budget would look like.

This concludes the tutorial. I hope you feel more comfortable using the Contextual Targeting tool to estimate CPCs and budget. Again, it’s a great way to actually map this out and export it directly to your campaigns. So head over to my blog at GSQi.com, post a comment, ask questions. That’s totally fine, and you could email me directly from the blog as well. Good luck with the Google Display Network and happy bidding.