The real-time data is available in 4 major reports:

• Overview – Includes active visitors on site, pageviews per minute and per second, top referrals, top active pages, top keywords, and top locations
• Locations – Includes active visitors on site by geographical location (e.g. country)
• Traffic Sources – Includes active visitors on site by traffic source (e.g. Organic – Google)
• Content – Includes active visitors on site by active page

Google provides official introduction and interpretation to Google Analytics Real-time Reports.

Google Analytics Real-time Reports in Screenshots

Google Analytics Real-time Overview Report:

Google Analytics Real-time Overview Report (Top Locations Map):

Google Analytics Real-time Locations Report:

Google Analytics Real-time Locations Report (Google Earth):

Google Analytics Real-time Traffic Sources Report:

Google Analytics Real-time Content Report:

New Google Analytics Introduction

The new Google Analytics (v5) has been made available to all users.

Access the new Google Analytics through:

• https://www.google.com/analytics/web/

Google Analytics Report Finder allows you to view reports that are available in the new Google Analytics accounts:

• http://www.google.com/analytics/report-finder.html

The new Google Analytics offers new Overview Reports that each includes 3 sections:

• Timeline
• Aggregate Metrics
• Reports

Google Analytics Dashboards

Google Analytics dashboard can show preview of your most important Google Analytics Metrics.

In the new Google Analytics, dashboard reports are widget-based and highly customizable with 4 types of widgets:

• Metric
• Pie Chart
• Timeline
• Table

The new Google Analytics allows creating up to 20 custom dashboards per profile. For example, you can create a SEO dashboard showing organic search engine traffic sources, SEO keywords, top landing pages from SEO traffic.

Google Analytics Real-time Dashboard Report

The real-time report is available on the dashboard. With the real-time dashboard report, you can:

• Monitor real-time traffic when new online marketing campaigns are launched to ensure campaign tracking is correctly set up.
• Measure the immediate impact of social media marketing campaigns, including new Twitter tweets and new blog posts.

For now, no other Google Analytics reports are available as real-time reports.

Google Analytics Site Speed Reports

Setting up the site speed report in your Google Analytics account will allow you to monitor your website’s loading speed and optimize website page load time for both PPC and SEO.

Google Analytics site speed report takes samples of your site visitors and shows the percentages of visitors who opened your web pages under average load time, more or less the average load time, and above average load time, with goal conversions.

Google Analytics Social Media Reports

Social Media Reports that can track Google +1, Twitter Tweets and Facebook Likes are available in the new Google Analytics:

• Social engagement
• Social actions
• Social pages

Google Analytics Map Overlay Reports

Besides the US, state/province/region breakdowns are available for other countries of the world in Map Overlay Reports of the new Google Analytics.

Google Analytics Multi-channel Funnels

Google Analytics attributes all goal conversions to the last click by default.

Google Analytics Multi-channel Funnels offers 5 reports with insight into the full path to conversion over a 30 day period, from the first click to the last click of multiple traffic sources that have led to conversions.

Kenshoo Search offers path-to-conversion tracking by keyword by traffic sources that is very similar to Google Analytics multi-channel funnels.

Link Multiple Adwords to One Google Analytics

Previously only one Google AdWords account is allowed to link to one Google Analytics account. Now multiple AdWords accounts can be linked to one Google Analytics account, with auto-tagging.

Linking all your Adwords account to your Google Analytics account allows you to track Adwords PPC keyword conversions in the one Google Analytics account.

Google Analytics Custom Reports

New features for the Custom Reports are available in the new Google Analytics:

• The Custom Reports tab
• Building a custom report
• Getting the right data
• Organizing your report with Flat Table report and Explorer report tabs
• Sharing your custom reports
• Finding a home for your old custom reports

Additional new features that are also available in the new Google Analytics:

• Simplified custom report builder
• More metrics and dimensions
• Custom navigation

Google Analytics Premium

Google Analytics Premium is the paid version of Google Analytics:

• http://www.google.com/analytics/premium/

With Google Analytics Premium, you can:

• Avoid sampled data.
• Get to use up to 50 custom variables that will allow complex segmentation.
• Pay 150,000 USD in the US, 150,000 CAN in Canada or 90,000 GBP in the UK per year to use one of the top web analytics tools that are on the same level with the world’s top web analytics tools: Adobe Omniture’s SiteCatalyst and IBM’s Coremetrics.
• Get dedicated technical supports including implementation consultation, tagging audit, live webinar training, and phone and email support.

Google Analytics Premium allows:

• Up to 1 billion hits per month.
• Faster, intra-day data report processing.
• Data collection up-time of 99.9%, reporting up-time of 99% and on-time data freshness of 98%.

• Social Engagement report
• Social Action report
• Social Pages report

The Social Engagement report lets you see how site behavior changes for visits that include clicks on +1 buttons or other social actions. This allows you to determine, for example, whether people who +1 your pages during a visit are likely to spend more time on your site than people who don’t.

The Social Actions report lets you analyse the number of social actions (+1 clicks, Tweets, etc) taken on your site, all in one place.

The Social Pages report allows you to compare the pages on your site to see which are driving the highest the number of social actions.

Google Analytics Help explains how Social plug-in tracking works.

Google Analytics metrics including visits, pageviews, and bounce rates are displayed in the social reports.

Google Analytics Social Reports Setup, Track Social – Facebook Likes, Twitter Tweets, Google +1

In social, you want to track social activities that include Facebook Likes, Twitter tweets and Google + button recommendations.

If you have added Google + buttons to your website, Google Analytics tracks Google + button activities by default.

To set up Google Analytics Social Reports to reflect/track Facebook and Twitter social activities of your site, add the following line of code to your Google Analytics asynchronous tracking code:

_gaq.push([‘_trackSocial’, socialNetwork, socialAction]);

Google Code officially explains how to set up Facebook Likes, Shares and Twitter Tweets.

New Version Google Analytics

Google has released the new version of Google Analytics to all users. New reporting features that have launched alongside the new version Google Analytics:

• New Google Analytics Overview Reports
• Mobile Reporting Improvements
• Improvements in Map Overlap Reports
• New Analytics Intelligence
• Site Speed Analytics Reports to Measure Page Load Time
• Custom Reports in new Google Analytics

Social reporting is now also available in Google Webmaster Tools.

Page Views

Page views are the number of times a web page is viewed. Additional page view counts can be triggered via visiting the same web page multiple times by the same visitor, when the visitor:

• Reloads after reaching the web page.
• Navigates to a different web page and then returns to the original web page.

Pageviews is one of the useless web metrics.

Unique Page Views

Unique page views are the total number of unique visitors to a given web page during the same session (visit).

• If a visitor views the same web page 3 times during the same visit, then it will count as 3 page views and 1 unique page view.
• If the same visitor exits your site, comes back after 30 minutes (session expires) and views the same web page again, it will count as 3 page views and 2 unique page views.

Additional page views will not be counted during the same session for the visitor:

• If the visitor reloads the web page.
• If the visitor navigates to a different web page and then returns to the original web page within 30 minutes (before session expires).

Entrances vs Unique Page Views

Unique page views and entrances are different.

• Unique pageviews are the number of unique visits that view specific pages which include visits that land on landing pages (or entry pages) of your site.
• Entrance is a Google Analytics metric that has to do with visitors and landing pages (or entry pages) of your site. Entrances are the number of visits that land on specific web pages as landing pages.

Example to differentiate unique page views and entrances:

• Your site contains 3 web pages. A visitor enters your site through page A, then page A gets 1 entrance and 1 unique page view. Then the visitor views page B which counts as a unique page view for page B, but does not count as an entrance. The result is 2 unique page views and 1 entrance.

Google Analytics Top Content Report

One of the Top Content reports is Google Analytics Top Content Report, which:

• Lists each web page that receive traffic
• Shows each web page as request URI (the part of the URL after the your site’s domain name)
• Shows your site’s home page as a forward slash (“/”), e.g. / = www.gordonchoi.com

Navigation Summary, Entrance Paths, Entrance Sources, Entrance Keywords

Click on one of the web pages (request URIs) while looking at the Top Content report, you will be taken to the Content Detail page. In the Content Detail drop-down box, you will find 4 reports available:

• Navigation Summary
• Entrance Paths
• Entrance Sources
• Entrance Keywords

Google Analytics Navigation Summary Report

Navigation Summary report shows you which web pages the visitors were from before viewing the specific web page, and which web pages the visitors went after viewing the specific page. The specific web page may also be a landing page (entrance page) and/or an exit page.

• The number of pageviews of a specific web page in Navigation Summary report match up with the number of pageviews in your Top Content report and Content Detail reports
• Percent (%) Entrances measure how frequently a specific web page is a landing page to visitors (in percentage)
• Percent (%) Exits measure how frequently a specific web page is an exit page to visitors (in percentage)
• Percent (%) Previous Pages track how frequently visitors view a specific web page after viewing other web pages on your site (in percentage)
• Percent (%) Next Pages track how frequently visitors view a specific web page before viewing other web pages on your site (in percentage)
• Percent (%) Clicks are displayed for each of the previous pages and next pages for the web page you are analyzing in Navigation Summary report

Example on how percent (%) clicks are calculated for the Navigation Summary report:

• Say page A received 100 pageviews
• Page A was a landing page for 30 visits
• Page A was an exit page for 20 visits
• Page A was viewed 70 times after the visitors viewed other web pages on your site
• Page A was viewed 80 times before the visitors viewed other web pages on your site

The results:

• Percent (%) Entrances: 30/100 = 30%
• Percent (%) Exits: 20/100 = 20%
• Percent (%) Previous Pages: 70/100 = 70%
• Percent (%) Next Pages: 80/100 = 80%

Google Analytics Entrance Paths Report

Google Analytics Entrance Paths report allows you to analyze post-click traffic of your landing pages and figure out your site’s navigation paths after visitors viewed your landing pages.

• Entrance Paths report shows 2 levels of subsequent web pages after visits to the landing pages: “Then viewed these pages” (first page after landing page) and “And ended up here” (second page after landing page)
• The number of page views shown in Entrance Paths report include all the entrances to the web page and all page views the visitors viewed after entering the web page
• Entrance Sources and Entrance Keywords reports display pageviews, unique page views, average time on page, bounce rate, and percent (%) exit as metrics
• Entrance Sources report: Include entrances from all traffic sources
• Entrance Keywords report: Include keywords with entrances from search engines (Split SEO and PPC keywords with Google Analytics PPC conversion tracking for better reporting)

Navigation Summary Report vs Entrance Paths Report

Pageviews in Navigation Summary Report do not match up with pageviews in Entrance Paths Report:

• Navigation Summary report allows you to see which web pages on your site visitors viewed before viewing the current page, but Entrance Paths report shows you what web pages (up to 2 pages) visitors see after the landing page.
• Navigation Summary report’s pageviews only include page views of the current web page, but Entrance Paths report’s pageviews include page views of the landing page and 2 subsequent pages visitors view after the landing page.

Google Instant Previews

Google Instant Preview feature was launched to show the graphical view of a web page in Google’s search results, before you click on the search result and be taken to the web page.

Google Analytics Over-reports Visits, Pageviews

Google Instant Previews cause Google Analytics to over-report visit and pageview data to your sites:

• A user searches on Google and your web page appears in Google’s SERP
• The user hovers the Preview icon next to your site’s search results and Google Instant Preview displays a graphical view of your web page
• Google Analytics records the visit and pageview

Discussions on Webmaster World forum and Google Analytics forum have confirmed the visit and pageview inflation was caused by Google Instant Previews:

• Search Engine Spider and User Agent Identification – This Webmaster World Forum topic explains Google Web Preview bot not following instructions in Robots.txt and causing violations when visiting webmasters’ sites.
• Google Instant Previews are being tracked as pageviews in GA – A topic on the Official Google Analytics forum says the graphical views of your site’s pages through Google’s Instant Preview feature are reported as pageviews in Google Analytics.

Google Analytics Over-reporting Fixed

Google Analytics is not over-reporting visit and pageview data triggered by Google Instant Previews as the technical issue was fixed. However, Google Analytics would not reprocess your historical, over-reported visits and pageviews.

Wikipedia defines data sampling:

Sampling is that part of statistical practice concerned with the selection of an unbiased or random subset of individual observations within a population of individuals intended to yield some knowledge about the population of concern, especially for the purposes of making predictions based on statistical inference. Sampling is an important aspect of data collection.

Google Analytics Sampled Data

Google Analytics and most top web analytics tools automatically use data sampling to ensure performance, as it is much easier to deliver fast answers from sampled data than it is from comprehensive data. Google Analytics samples data when your requested data size meets one of the conditions:

• Any non pre-computed ad hoc query that reaches 500,000 visits (sessions).
• Any query that exceeds 1,000,000 unique dimension combinations.

For example, Google Analytics may automatically display sampled data with any of the reports and/or segmenting methods:

• Keyword Report
• Top Content Report
• Top Landing Page Report
• Custom Reports
• Advanced Segments

Data sampling leads to inaccurate results when you run Google Analytics reports to segment conversions or do long tail analysis for keywords or landing pages. Your reports will show estimated range of error (with +/- percentages) for each Google Analytics metrics.

To avoid Google Analytics from providing sampled data reports, keep the time periods of your report queries under 500,000 visits (sessions).

Google Analytics Customized Data Sampling

Google Analytics allows client-side sampling by collecting a percentage of your site’s traffic rather than all the traffic:

• Client-side sampling occurs consistently across unique visitors to ensure your site’s traffic trending is correct.
• For large websites with heavy traffic spikes and/or receive hundreds of millions of monthly visitors, Google Analytics client-side sampling ensures uninterrupted report tracking.

To enable Google analytics client-side sampling, include the _setSampleRate() method in your Google Analytics tracking code snippet (asynchronous):

_gaq.push(['_setSampleRate', '25']);

The number you provide in _setSampleRate() is the percentage of visitors by unique ID that will be tracked and included in your sample data. In the example above, the sampling rate is set to collect 25% of your website’s traffic. To get your site’s full “visits” and “pageviews” numbers, compute with:

• Total Visits = Sampled Visits / 0.25
• Total Pageviews = Sampled Pageviews / 0.25

• All Traffic Sources report
• Direct Traffic report

Direct traffic, one of the traffic sources in Google Analytics, refers to visits that arrive at your website without referral information in the HTTP headers.

Google Analytics Direct Traffic Definition

Google provides a simple definition for the direct traffic dimension:

Direct Traffic: How do the people who clicked a bookmark to come to your site or typed your site URL into their browser compare to the “average” visitor to your site? Direct traffic can include visitors recruited via offline (i.e. print, television) campaigns.

Google Analytics Blog defines direct traffic as:

(direct)[(none)] – Visitors who visited the site by typing the URL directly into their browser. ‘Direct’ can also refer to the visitors who clicked on the links from their bookmarks/favorites, untagged links within emails, or links from documents that don’t include tracking variables (such as PDFs or Word documents).

Direct Traffic in Google Analytics Reports

If your Google Analytics setup is correct, visits in Google Analytics reports will show up as direct traffic when users:

• Enter your site’s URL (e.g. www.gordonchoi.com) directly in browsers.
• Visit your website directly from bookmarks.
• Click on untagged URL links (e.g. www.gordonchoi.com) in emails or instant messaging conversations (including MSN Messenger, Skype).
• Click on untagged URL links (e.g. www.gordonchoi.com) embedded in PDF documents, Word documents or Excel spreadsheets.
• Click on untagged URL links (e.g. www.gordonchoi.com) in Android phone applications (e.g. Facebook app, Twitter app).
• Click on a 302 redirect link (temporary redirect link) in which the redirect server returns a blank referrer (direct).
• Click on URL links on secured web pages that are unable to pass referral information through to the URL links’ destination pages.

If your Google Analytics setup is correct, but some of your web pages are missing Google Analytics tracking code snippets:

• When visitors enter your site through landing pages that are missing Google Analytics tracking code snippets, and then click on an internal link pointing to another web page on your site that has the tracking code correctly inserted, visits will be credited to direct traffic.

For the definition of “visits”, refer to Google Analytics metrics.

Not Direct Traffic in Google Analytics Reports

Visits that will not contribute to direct traffic in Google Analytics:

• A visitor’s first visit to your site was through organic search engines, referring sites, or all other tagged traffic sources (e.g. Adwords ads, Bing Adcenter ads, Baidu Phoenix Nest ads, Facebook ads, Twitter links). Subsequently, the same visitor directly lands on your site (e.g. bookmark) which makes a second visit. As the campaign tracking’s cookie (utmz) of Google Analytics is set to expire in 6 months in the visitor’s browser, the second visit will be assigned a non-direct referrer.
• When Adwords auto-tagging is turned off, and your Adwords keywords and/or ads are not tagged with Google Analytics’ utm parameters, the visits will be credited to organic (unpaid search).
• Other PPC (paid search) campaigns (e.g. Bing Adcenter, Yahoo Search Marketing, Baidu Phoenix Nest) that are not tagged with Google Analytics’ utm parameters will have visits credited to organic (unpaid search).
• Display ad campaigns that are not tagged with Google Analytics’ utm parameters will have visits credited to referring sites.
• Internet browsers that support tabbed browsing (e.g. Firefox, Google’s Chrome) pass referrers’ information to links subsequently opened in all the new tabs.

To track PPC campaigns correctly, refer to Google Analytics PPC conversion tracking.

Set Brand Keywords through Search Engines as Direct Traffic

In Google Analytics, you may re-define keywords through search engine visits as direct traffic.

When visitors reach your website from search engines through your site’s brand keywords (e.g. Gordon Choi, for site www.gordonchoi.com), you may remove keyword “gordon choi” from Google Analytics Keyword Report and assign the visits to direct traffic.

• Use the _addIgnoredOrganic() method to treat a keyword as direct traffic.
• Use the _clearIgnoredOrganic() method to revert the _addIgnoredOrganic() method. The _clearIgnoredOrganic() method will clear out your keyword ignore list and make all search engine traffic to re-appear as keywords again.

This reference describes how you can customize search engine traffic with the _addIgnoredOrganic() and _clearIgnoredOrganic() methods.

Tips from Other Web Analysts

Other web analytics experts offer opinions on Google Analytics direct traffic dimension:

• Excellent analytics tip #18 make love to your direct traffic: Avinash Kaushik offers comprehensive explanations on what direct traffic really is, the importance of direct traffic, and how to correctly track direct traffic with your web analytics tools, including Google Analytics and Omniture’s Site Catalyst.
• Web Analytics Demystified: Avinash Kaushik explains direct traffic can be non-direct due to badly coded redirects or vanity urls or improperly coded campaigns.
• Analytics direct traffic is not what you think it is: Jonny Longden of Actionable Analytics believes direct traffic is not only visitors that enter your website’s URL directly in the browsers.
• Direct Traffic 5 Reasons Why You Should Care: Daily Blog Tips shows why direct traffic is important and how to increase direct traffic.

• Traffic sources, including organic search engines, paid search engines, referring sites (non search engines), social networks, microblogging services (twitter), or emails, that send visitors to your website.
• Web pages (content) that visitors view.
• Geographical locations in which visitors are originated from.
• Ratios of new visitors to returning visitors that visit your site.

To view Google Analytics reports, follow this basic Google Analytics setup guide to track your website’s traffic.

Google Analytics Profiles

Google Analytics profile is a website profile that defines the rules for the reports you can view. Create a Google Analytics profile for your website.

The profile you create will be the interface to display all your Google Analytics reports. A Google Analytics account offers 2 access roles for you to control report access:

• Administrator access: An administrator has full access to all the profiles under the same Google Analytics account and can make all the changes (including access roles, profiles, filters, goals) to the Google Analytics account. The administrator can assign access to and change access roles of other users. The person who creates the account has administrator access by default.
• User access: A user has “view” access to reports under profiles that are assigned to him/her.

Each Google Analytics profile is assigned to track one web property (e.g. a domain, www.gordonchoi.com) or multiple web properties (e.g. a site, www.yola.com and a blog, blog.yola.com). Each profile has a unique ID in the format UA-XXXXXX-YY.

You will require to create at least one Google Analytics profile in your account.

Google Analytics Filters

Google Analytics filters can be applied to a profile for restricting data from showing up in Google Analytics reports in the profile. Create filters for your Google Analytics website profiles in one of the 2 ways:

• Predefined filter: Exclude traffic from a domains, exclude traffic from the IP addresses, or exclude traffic to sub-directories
• Custom filter: Exclude Pattern, include pattern, search and replace, advanced, or uppercase or lowercase

To track a single domain with sub-directories, no filter is required. Set up Google Analytics filters if your profile needs to track website traffic for:

• Multiple sub-domains
• Multiple domains
• Multiple domains and sub-directories
• Multiple domains and sub-domains

Google Analytics Conversion Goals

Google Analytics goals can track conversions for your site, including:

• Member registrations
• Newsletter sign-ups
• Purchase confirmations
• File downloads
• Views of a page

Create conversion goals from 1 of the 3 goal types that Google Analytics offers:

• URL Destination
• Time on Site
• Pages/Visit

To track keyword conversions of search traffic, Google Analytics reports keywords with conversions for SEO traffic by default. For Google Analytics to report PPC traffic including Google Adwords, Bing Adcenter, Yahoo Search Marketing and Baidu PPC, refer to the setup guides:

• Google Analytics PPC conversion tracking
• Track Bing Adcenter PPC keyword conversions in Google Analytics

Google Analytics Tracking Code Snippets

Google Analytics records each visit to your site through a Javascript-based code snippet.

• Get the asynchronous tracking code snippet from your Google Analytics account.
• Install/Insert Google Analytics tracking code into every pages of your website. The tracking code snippet should be inserted within the header area of the HTML pages.

Customize the tracking code if your Google Analytics profile needs to track website traffic for:

• Multiple sub-domains
• Multiple domains
• Multiple domains and sub-directories
• Multiple domains and sub-domains

Google Analytics Reports

Refer to the definitions of Google Analytics metrics when viewing Google Analytics reports, including:

Visitors Reports:

• Map Overlay
• New vs Returning
• Visitor Trending
• Visitor Loyalty
• Mobile

Traffic Sources Reports:

• Direct Traffic
• Referring Sites
• Search Engines
• All Traffic Sources
• Keywords
• Adwords

Content Reports:

• Top Content
• Content Drilldown
• Top Landing Pages
• In-Page Analytics / Site Overlay
• Site Search
• Adsense
• Event Tracking

Goals Reports:

• Total Conversions
• Conversion Rate
• Goal Verification
• Reverse Goal Path
• Goal Value
• Goal Abandoned Funnels
• Funnel Visualization

Official Google Analytics Installation Guide

Google offers this official installation guide for Google Analytics.

Set Up Adcenter Keywords’ Visit and Conversion Tracking

Google Analytics can track 5 campaign variables: source, medium, campaign, term and content. To set up Adcenter keyword visit and conversion tracking, append all 5 campaign variables with assigned values to each keyword destination URL:

• Source (utm_source): e.g. bing
• Medium (utm_medium): e.g. cpc
• Campaign (utm_campaign): e.g. google analytics campaign
• Term (utm_term): e.g. google analytics tips
• Content (utm_content): e.g. version1

Generate your full tracking URLs through Google’s URL Builder Tool:

The URL Builder Tool automatically appends all the tracking variables to your Adcenter keyword URL:

http://www.gordonchoi.com/cat/google-analytics/?utm_source=bing
&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google%20analytics%20campaign
&utm_term=google%20analytics%20tips&utm_content=version1

Update Adcenter PPC Keyword Tracking

Append Google Analytics keyword tracking variables to each of your keyword’s destination URL (or the param1 parameter) through Microsoft Adcenter Desktop Tool, or Adcenter’s interface.

When adding multiple new keywords to Adcenter, use the “Add Keywords” box and ensure param1 consists of your destination URL with Google Analytics keyword tracking variables.

Review Bing PPC Traffic in Google Analytics Reports

In Google Analytics “All Traffic Sources” report, Bing Adcenter traffic will be reported as Bing / cpc under “Source/Medium”.

Adcenter Conversion Tracking

To keep Adcenter’s keyword conversion, click and cost data reports all in one place (Adcenter), track Bing PPC’s keyword conversions through Adcenter conversion tracking.

• Visit
• Pageview
• Unique Pageview
• Pageview per Visit
• Visitor
• New Visitor
• Returning Visitor
• Bounce Rate
• Exit Rate
• Time on Page
• Time on Site
• Click

Visits vs Visitors

Google Analytics measures visits and visitors to your site.

Visits (or session) are the unique sessions initiated by all the visitors. Google Analytics’ time-out period for a visit is 30 minutes.

• If a user leaves your site and returns within 30 minutes, the user’s subsequent activities on your site will be attributed to the original session.
• If a user is inactive on your website for 30 minutes or more, the original session will be terminated.

A visit consists of one or more web site page views.

The difference between a visit and a visitor in Google Analytics’ definitions is:

• The initial session by a user regardless of date range is an additional visit and an additional visitor.
• Any future sessions from the same user during the selected time period are counted as additional visits, but not as additional visitors.

Pageviews vs Unique Pageviews

Google Analytics reports visits and visitors to your site.

Pageviews are the number of times a web page (an analyst-definable unit of content) is viewed. Additional pageview counts can be triggered via visiting the same web page multiple times by the same visitor, when the visitor:

• Reloads after reaching the web page.
• Navigates to a different webpage and then returns to the original webpage.

Unique pageviews are the total number of unique visitors to a given web page during the same session. A unique page view is the number of sessions during which the page is browsed one or multiple times.

Visits vs Pageviews

Visits are the number of times your visitors has been to your website, while pageviews are the number of times web pages are viewed.

Visits and pageviews form the pageviews per visit metric: The number of page views divided by number of visits in a given time period.

New Visitors vs Returning Visitors

Google Analytics can identify new visitors and returning visitors.

• A new visitor is a user that visits your site for the first time.
• A returning visitor is a user that has previously browsed your website.

Bounce Rate vs Exit Rate

Google Analytics records bounces and exits.

What are exits, exit pages and exit rate?

• Exits are the number of users that leave your site.
• Exit page is the last page on your site accessed during a visit.
• Exit rate is the percentage of site exits that occurred from a webpage or set of webpages. Exit rate will always be identical to the number of visits when applied over your entire site.

What are bounces and bounce rates?

• Bounces are the number of single-page visits to your site, regardless of the number of times the page is viewed.
• Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits to your site – Visits in which the user leaves your site from the entrance page.

Time on Page vs Time on Site

Time on Page is the time a visitor spent on a particular web page or set of pages. It is calculated by subtracting the initial view time for a particular page from the initial view time for a subsequent page. So time on page does not apply to exit pages of your website.

Time on site is the time a visitor spends on your site.

Clicks vs Visits

Clicks are the number of times a user has clicked on your ads, for example your Google Adwords ads. In Google Analytics reports, often the number of clicks do not match the number of visits.

Google Analytics reports more visits than Adwords reports clicks, when:

• AdWords automatically filters invalid clicks (due to Adwords click fraud), but Analytics reports all visits to your website.
• A visitor clicks on your ad, and then during a different session returns to your site through a bookmark or visits your site directly. Google Analytics reports multiple visits as the referral information from the original visit is retained, but Adwords reports one click.

Adwords reports more clicks than Google Analytics reports visits, when:

• A visitor may click your ad multiple times during a session, AdWords records multiple clicks but Google Analytics reports the separate pageviews as one visit.
• A visitor may click on your ad, but closes his browser before your web page fully loads, Google Analytics does not recognize the visit, but Adwords records the click.
• A visitor with either javascript or cookies disabled clicks on your ad, Google Analytics cannot record this visit, but AdWords reports this click.
• Redirects in landing pages prevent Google Analytics tracking code from loading, but Adwords records the click.
• Adwords auto-tagging is turned off and the destination URLs do not contain manually tagged campaign tracking variables, the visits (that come through Adwords) are recorded as Google Organic visits instead of Google CPC visits.

Adwords auto-tagging was explained in Google Analytics PPC Conversion Tracking.

Other Resources to Google Analytics Metrics Definitions

Google officially explains the web analytics metrics definitions of visits, clicks, visitors, page views, unique page views, bounce rates, exits, new visits, time on page and time on site.

Google’s Solutions for Southeast Asia blog offers tips to troubleshoot discrepancies between Google Analytics visits and AdWords clicks.

Set up Google Analytics to track and report either PPC campaign data or PPC keyword data by using Google Analytics campaign variables.

PPC Campaign Level Tracking

To create PPC campaign level conversion tracking for your Yahoo Search Marketing account, append the 3 compulsory campaign variables with assigned values to each keyword URL:

• Source (utm_source): e.g. yahoo
• Medium (utm_medium): e.g. cpc
• Campaign (utm_campaign): e.g. google analytics campaign

Example URL with campaign level tracking:

http://www.gordonchoi.com/cat/google-analytics/?utm_source=yahoo
&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google%20analytics%20campaign

PPC Keyword Level Tracking

To create PPC keyword level conversion tracking for your Microsoft Bing Adcenter account, append all 5 campaign variables with assigned values to each keyword URL:

• Source (utm_source): e.g. bing
• Medium (utm_medium): e.g. cpc
• Campaign (utm_campaign): e.g. google analytics campaign
• Term (utm_term): e.g. google analytics tips
• Content (utm_content): e.g. version1

Example URL with keyword level tracking:

http://www.gordonchoi.com/cat/google-analytics/?utm_source=bing
&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google%20analytics%20campaign
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Google Analytics URL Builder

Google offers the URL Builder Tool to help you generate your tracking URLs.

Google Adwords Auto-tagging

Google Adwords has an advantage over other PPC search engines when tracking conversions through Google Analytics. Turn Auto-tagging on in your Adwords account and Google Analytics will track and report your Adwords account’s conversions down to the keyword level, without having to append any of the utm parameters to your URLs.

Auto-tagging automatically associates a parameter with the click on your ad which then allows Analytics to report the details of the click, including which AdWords keywords brought a visitor to your site, which campaign that keyword was from, and how much that click cost.

PPC Traffic in Google Analytics Reports

In your Google Analytics account, PPC traffic will be reported as “Source/Medium” under the “All Traffic Sources” report:

• Google / cpc
• Baidu / cpc
• Yahoo / cpc
• Bing / cpc

Alternatively, use “Advanced Segments” and select “Paid Search Traffic”.

Google Adwords Conversion Tracking

If Adwords Conversion Tracking code snippet has previously been installed onto the confirmation/thank you pages of your website, you can also run Google Analytics PPC Conversion Tracking which will not conflict with Adwords Conversion Tracking.

The benefits you get for your Adwords account include:

• You can correlate your Google Analytics data (e.g. goals, transactions and pageviews) with your Adwords ad clicks.
• With both Google Analytics data (goals and transactions) and Adwords Conversion Tracking data available for consideration, Adwords Conversion Optimizer will be able to automate your keyword bidding more accurately.

You will not have to separately tag your Adwords destination URLs, but only have to ensure automatic Adwords URL tagging is enabled. The only prerequisite is that you will have to opt into one of the two data sharing options:

• Share your Google Analytics data with Google products only (recommended)
• Share your Google Analytics data anonymously with Google and the benchmarking service

To import your Google Analytics goals into your Adwords account:

• Link your Google Analytics account to your Adwords account, if you have not yet done so
• Ensure you have previously set up a goal in one of your Google Analytics profiles
• Select one of the two data sharing options within your Google Analytics account
• Click the “Link your Analytics goals and transactions” link in Adwords account

Prior linking to your Adwords account, your Google Analytics account is subject to a limit of up to 5 million pageviews per month. By linking your Google Analytics account to your active Adwords account, the pageview limit will be completely removed.

Note that Google Analytics and Adwords record conversions differently, so you tend to see discrepancies.

• Clicks vs. Visits: Adwords conversions (1-per-click) are usually lower than Google Analytics conversions per visit
• Invalid clicks can be filtered out by Adwords but not by Google Analytics
• Cookie expiration: Adwords cookies are set to expire 30 days after the ad click, while Google Analytics cookies by default are only expires in 6 months
• Data processing delays between Adwords and Google Analytics that cause mis-matched statistics

By integrating your live chat statistics with the powerful Google Analytics reporting engine, you can measure how your marketing activities translate into chats, as well as the impact of those chats on your online sales and lead generation.

A wealth of Google Analytics statistical reports puts vital data at your fingertips. For instance, you can:

• Measure how your marketing activities translate into chats, as well as the impact of those chats on sales
• Track the market segments of visitors who chat and make purchases
• Classify visitors according to the pages they visit on your site

Liveperson also provides a tool called Campaign Viewer, which allows the tracking of each visitor on your website in real time.