In order for Google Analytics to track visitors; both javascript and images have to be enabled in the visitor’s browser.  Most bots, or programs that are written to digest the coding of web pages and collect information, don’t fit that tracking criteria ; therefore, this traffic show ups in web server logs but not in Google Analytics.
Recently there has been an increase in the number of bots that are visiting via real browsers and are able to execute GA code and thereby pollute your Google Analytics data reports.  For me,  these bots fall into four categories:

1. Website Monitoring Services  –  These services continuously check your site to monitor uptime and other things like page load time. (Addressed in this post by a fellow GACP, Blast Media.)
2. Legitimate Bots other than Google: — This is  unexplained bot traffic, but we’ve seen a lot of it recently from Yahoo! Microsoft and Inktomi.
3. Rogue Bots – Lets face it, any 12 year old can probably write a bot to send “visitors” to your site and wreak havoc on your GA data. (Numbers 2 & 3 here are to be addressed in a future two part post.)
4. Google AdWords –  This is the biggest surprise and as I’ll demonstrate in this post, Google is clearly sending either multiple visitors to AdWords customer pages or they are leveraging a bot.

My interest in this topic began after a colleague inquired about seeing  triple the volume of test data expected after creating staged campaigns in AdWords.  This data was visible in the Advertising section of Analytics:

Another colleague experienced something very similar when creating new staged campaigns with a small about of URL testing:

After isolating the traffic via an advanced segment using the campaign name of these yet to be launched campaigns, we were able to view the unique characteristics of these visitors.

Most were from the same geographic area, the united states, but suspiciously, city locations were equal to (not set):

Most used the same browser, resolution, and  flash version:

As you can see above, 100% of this non-testing traffic bounced.

And interestingly, all of these visits shared the same  service provider: google inc..

While we’ve always seen some visitors from google inc.;  the spikes in the last few months are different and concerning as to the number of visits and how they can affect data analysis if not accounted for.  We’re still evaluating why only some clients see this spike of activity and there are some commonalities we noticed; however, it’s too early to say exactly why this is happening.

As we learn more, we intend to update this post and would like to know  about your own experience.  Have you seen AdWords bots in your own reports?

If you want to explore your own data, feel free to use the advanced segment below  to identify your own traffic from  Google.  Disclaimer:  This segment could also identify the traffic from real Googlers (people that work for Google) that share the same identified  service provider.

Google Inc. segment:

https://www.google.com/analytics/web/permalink?uid=PoOkSXfSQuWLt6St9YH5gQ

And here is one to exclude traffic from google inc.

from your reports:

https://www.google.com/analytics/web/permalink?uid=6fLzxhGOTs6-g0e3Y8T7Qw

Shortly after the iPhone 5 release and the iOS6 software update, it was discovered that the default browser (Safari) uses Google’s Secure Search. This means that any keywords being searched for on the iOS6 platform will not be available to those who use Google Analytics to track organic traffic data. This keyword is known as a search referrer. If your website garners a lot of organic mobile traffic, this can be a very daunting issue. No longer will you be able to see what a user typed into their iPhone in order to find your website, if they are using iOS6 and Safari.

For the time being, the issue with Safari is not a big one. However, it speaks to a much larger issue that is steaming full force ahead. This is the line being drawn between privacy and data on the internet. Marketers and business owners are becoming increasingly knowledgeable about who visits their websites. This data is often pulled through site usage and Google search data. Searchers increasingly want more privacy, and business owners want to understand their online users and customers better.

Google is also taking an increasingly conservative view on the stance of search privacy. They are creating more and more scenarios in which a searcher’s keyword can not be tracked in Google Analytics. If a user is signed in to any Google account or they are using a Google Secure Search enabled browser, then their search referrer will not be passed to the website’s Google Analytics account. However, Google garners a vast majority of their revenue from AdWords advertising. They have decided to allow search referrer data to be passed through clicks on AdWords advertisements.

This creates a bit of a paradox. On the one hand Google wants to be more privacy oriented and not pass as much data to website owners who are using their services. On the other hand, if the website owner is paying Google to advertise on their search engine it is acceptable.

It is a two sided battle between website owners who want to cater to their users better and website visitors who want to retain more privacy. No matter your view, many search engines and browsers are beginning to look into privacy protection more seriously. It is becoming increasingly important to use multiple sources to understand your website’s user rather than relying solely on the keyword that brought them to the website in the first place.

Okay, so we all know that Google Analytics (GA) is, as my colleague Joe Teixeira says, “…the greatest program on the face of the earth.’  That said, how do you use Google Analytics to: make more sales, drive more leads, and make the most of your marketing budget for your company?

The answer is contained in many good books on GA that have been written by authors like Avinash Kaushik, Brian Clifton and our very own, Joe Teixeira.  However, you don’t need to read hundreds of pages on GA to begin to make a difference in your organization. 

Getting the most from GA is not a hard and fast path that you take every time you log in.  Rather, leveraging Google Analytics for optimization is a process.  It’s an exercise of asking questions of yourself (and your data) and drilling deeper to find meaningful and actionable information. 

Let me illustrate by providing some insights on how to get more from one of our favorite reports:  Top Landing Pages.   The Top Landing Pages report in GA is truly powerful.  With a quick glance you can see which of your pages, well…ahem… stink.  How?  Well look at that metric right there on the right, “Bounce Rate” 

Bounce Rate is a measure of visitors who come to your site and take absolutely no action.  Bounce Rate is rare in that it’s a number which has value to every site owner.  I can’t think of any organization, company, e-commerce site, marketing manager, etc. who would want a visitor to come to their site and take absolutely no action. 

With the Top Landing Pages report, you can see very quickly which of your pages are performing or not performing in terms of their bounce rate.  So how do we dig deeper and find a way to take action to improve our site?

1. Segment your traffic.   That’s right, all data in aggregate is practically useless.  Segment by something.  If you are running paid search, then why not start by using the “Paid Search Traffic” segment that is predefined in GA.   Now you can see bounce rates for your paid search traffic.  
2. Change your view.  By default, you will be looking at the table view.  That’s nice, but how do you know if your bounce rates are out of line?  Answer: Compare it!  On the “Views” selector, click on “Comparison” then select “Bounce Rate” next to “compared to site average”.   Bingo!  Now you are looking at your paid search landing pages as compared to the average of all pages on your site.  See a nice green line to the right?  Good, that page is performing.  See one in red and moving to the left?  Bad. Time to drill down further!
3. Select a page.   At this point in your analysis, there are many different ways to get to relevant data.  For most marketers and small to medium site owners, the best next step is to click on the link of the offending page in the Top Landing Pages report. (If you have enough data here, I also encourage to experiment with the advanced filtering tool to get to your most relevant data sets.) 
4. Content Detail.  That’s right, your analysis path has now taken you from a list of landing pages and their relative performance to all the information that you could want on the underperforming landing page.  Now click on a relevant drilldown to begin your analysis.  I would recommend “Entrance Sources” Why?  We’re analyzing your paid search performance and if you’re working many channels, you’ll want to see if all sources are bouncing equally.
5. Analyze.  Okay, if you have multiple sources here (Google, Bing, LinkedIn, etc.) are they all performing poorly?  If you have one loser, why?  Time to drilldown.  Click on the dropdown for your secondary dimension and select something.  If you are running search campaigns; I would recommend “Keyword”.  Do they all perform poorly?  If so, then pause the entire channel and re-evaluate.  If it’s a few keywords, then pause those words and move on.

See, that was easy!  Now that you’ve saved all of that money from your under-performing campaign or landing page, reallocate it into one that is working and… Boom!  You’re on the way to being an analytics superstar!  Just remember that this is not a one time exercise.  Like they say in shampoo; lather, rinse and repeat.  Once you have enough data on your new campaigns, it’s time to start all over again.

Last week, Google announced a new set of reports within the AdWords interface called Search Funnels, which are rolling out to all AdWords accounts within the next few weeks. With search funnels, advertisers will be able to obtain a truer sense of value and attribution for keywords that help in the conversion process.

Currently, AdWords assigns credit to a conversion to the first click’s keyword, ad, ad group, and campaign up to 30 days after that first click occurred. For example, suppose I perform a search on Google for the term brown shoes on March 29th. I click on the ad, view a couple of pages, but I don’t convert. Two weeks later, say, April 11th, I search for brown dockers shoes, click on another ad, and this time I convert. AdWords will assign the credit for the conversion to my original search term of brown shoes (provided the advertiser is bidding on that keyword).

Now, with the new search funnels report section, I’ll be able to see which AdWords keywords helped my original keyword convert, as well as a funnel (hence the name) of each keyword that led to a conversion in succession. This new search funnels report section is going to have nine different reports like “assisted conversions”, “last click analysis” and “top paths” to perform deeper conversion analysis than possible before.

Why it’s “the right step” toward proper attribution
Before this product launch, you had two possible options for assigning credit to a keyword for a conversion. You could log-in to AdWords and view the reports in the interface (first-click attribution), or, you could use Google Analytics to view the keywords that matched goals (last-click attribution). If you were an advertiser, you would, over time, start bidding more for the converting keywords that either AdWords or Analytics were displaying, and less for the “non-converting” keywords. As it turns out – and as the more experienced marketers long ago deduced – other keywords lend a big helping hand along the way, but never received the proper credit. What would happen is that advertisers would either shut down those keywords that didn’t appear to convert, or change their bidding philosophy to such an extent that these assisting keywords become irrelevant over time. The result: the number of conversions would struggle to climb, leaving advertisers scratching their heads.

Now, we can assign importance and value to those assisting keywords, and not automatically cast them off as losers or rejects. They are an integral part in the conversion cycle; keywords that assist in the conversion process should remain active and managed intelligently for optimal campaign success.

Why it’s only “a step” at this point
It’s not an end-all, be-all solution, but it’s a great start. Search funnels in AdWords does have a few limitations. First, you must import your Google Analytics goals into AdWords, which is not a big deal for an administrator, but still something that must be done.

As of now, search funnels can only report on AdWords keywords and web site visits. If a user in the conversion process accesses a site directly after previously clicking on an AdWords ad, that user’s direct visit cannot be tracked in search funnels. Not even natural / organic search engine queries are available in search funnels at this time. Also, while the new search funnels reports look like they belong in Google Analytics and not AdWords, they’re actually not available in Analytics yet.

So, true attribution – if there is even such a thing – is not yet within our grasp. But with search funnels, Google has  taken a very large step toward that general direction. I recommend you log-in to your account today, import your goals, and discover which assisting keywords should be optimized for greater campaign success.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and the holiday season is officially here. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads our Analytics and Site Intelligence blog and subscribes to our RSS Feed. You fine folks rock!

There have also been lots and lots of new features in Google AdWords, Google Analytics, and Google Website Optimizer in the past year that I am extremely thankful for. These features have made my job easier, more enjoyable, and have helped a lot of our clients improve their conversion rates, sales revenue, and their bottom lines. Therefore, I’d like to dedicate this post to all of the following features:

1. Conversion Tracking (AdWords):

For years, Google has offered a free conversion tracking script that can be placed on a receipt page, a “thank you” page, or any important page where you ultimately want your AdWords traffic to go to. Recently, the AdWords team has upgraded the Conversion Tracking section within AdWords to include the ability to create multiple conversion actions, new “one-per-click” vs. “many-per-click” metrics, and a verification feature that can detect if the tracking code is properly installed. Way to go AdWords Conversion Tracking team!

2. The Opportunities Tab (AdWords):

The Opportunities tab within the AdWords GUI provides awesome intelligence on how to improve your campaigns. Whether you should be spending more money, using different keywords, or other suggestions, the Opportunities tab can make very good estimates on areas where you could be missing out.  Log-in to your AdWords account and try this amazing feature today!

3. Google Ad Planner (AdWords):

Do you need to see detailed demographic data, domains and sub-domains, keywords, and other traffic statistics for the site or audience that you’re planning to advertise to? Google’s Ad Planner is nothing short of amazing in this department! If display advertising (images, video, rich media) is important for you, you seriously need to sign up for Ad Planner before you do anything else. Any site that you want to run your ads on with Google AdWords should be listed in AdPlanner, as well as the estimated volume of traffic each site receives as well as what types of ads each site supports.

4. Segmenting (AdWords):

Did you know that you can now easily segment your Campaigns, Ad Groups and Keywords in AdWords, much like you can segment any dimension in Google Analytics? This helps you to slice and dice your AdWords campaign data to make better decisions about how you’re spending your hard-earned marketing dollars.

5. Secondary Dimensions and Pivoting (Analytics):

The combination of Secondary Dimensions and Pivoting in any Google Analytics report table makes my job so much easier, faster, and more fun! You can now see up to five separate dimensions all in one report table view, which makes data-mining a far less arduous task.

6. Multiple Custom Variables (Analytics):

No longer are we bound by one label or one bucket for any website visitor. We can now assign visitors multiple labels, thanks to the new Multiple Custom Variables feature in Google Analytics. It takes just a bit of coding to pull it off, but the little bit of technical implementation is by far outweighed by the sheer flexibility and depth that you obtain!

7. Enhanced Mobile Tracking (Analytics)

Mobile analytics with Google Analytics has improved dramatically with this new report section. Found under the Visitors section, site owners can now view the many different mobile devices and mobile carriers that bring visitors to their websites. With a little bit of additional coding, any one using a .mobi site can track their mobile website’s activity in a much smoother and easier way. Oh, by the way, iPods and Nintendo DS Lite’s are counted as mobile devices

8. Intelligence / Custom Alerts (Analytics)

Want to know about significant events that happen on your site, and some guidance as to what to do next? The new Intelligence section is your new best-friend. Google Analytics can now alert you to highly significant events that are happening on your website, who or what are the causes, and what Google Analytics expected to happen (vs. what actually happened). It can also iron your pants and make toast! Well, maybe not yet – perhaps it will be able to soon

You can also create your own custom alerts and have them emailed to you on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Define your own important criteria and observe significant increases or decreases of stuff that’s important to you.

9. Experiment Notes (Website Optimizer)

I’m also very thankful for the wonderful people at Google for their Website Optimizer product. Specifically, I really like Experiment Notes, a brand new feature within the Google Website Optimizer interface. With each new A/B or multivariate experiment, I can write notes about that experiment, such as the start date or important specifics that I need to keep track of, which I can go back to at any time.

10. Over-time charting (Website Optimizer)

Finally, over-time charting in Google Website Optimizer lets me view conversion data plotted daily across a Google Analytics style trending graph, at the top of my experiment report. This lets me observe experiment success / failures over the course of time, and allows me to watch the observed improvements in a cleaner, more graphically-pleasing way.

Those are just some of the many features that I am thankful for. I hope that you have a happy Thanksgiving, a happy “black Friday” and a very happy “cyber Monday”!