Analytics Index have come up with a great widget for iGoogle that allows you to see important KPI information from Google Analytics directly in iGoogle.

KPI’s included:

• New vs Returning Visitor ratio
• Average Visits per Visitor ratio
• Length of Visit
• Goal Conversion rates

Analytics KPI gadget features:

• Color-coded results to highlight trends
• View week on week and month on month data
• Access multiple Google Analytics profiles
• Calculated KPI that may not directly be available in Google Analytics
• The gadget does not require login information, and no usernames or passwords are sent to an outside server. When you are logged in to iGoogle, the browser can access those Google Analytics accounts that you have access to.

Visit Analytics Index to add the Analytics KPI gadget to your iGoogle page.

Do you use any other useful analytics add ons or gadgets?? Please let us know.

At GA-Experts, we also provide PPC Management services through our parent company Omega Digital Media, so we are continually looking at ways to improve the data that Google Analytics provides about a PPC campaign. With this in mind we have developed a new filter that shows exactly the Search Term (i.e. keywords that are searched on) rather than just the Bid Term (i.e. the keywords that triggered a PPC advert).

For example, if a visitor searches for “sony digital camera” and you have an ad configured for the keywords “digital camera” as a Broad Match in Google AdWords, then this search will show your ad. But in your GA reports, the keywords for this search will be reported as “digital camera“. Whilst this gives you good data on your Bid Term, it doesn’t help you refine your keyword triggers because the reports don’t show the actual Search Term.

If you use this Override Bid Term filter then the same search will show “digital camera, (sony+digital+camera)” in any Google Analytics report that shows keywords (e.g. Marketing Optimisation -> Search Engine Marketing -> Overall Keyword Conversion) or any time you cross-segment against keywords.

This data now allows you to fine-tune your PPC campaigns by getting greater detail from your GA reports. In the example above, if the ‘sony+digital+camera‘ search is a frequent one, you might consider creating an Exact Match advert that took visitors to a dedicated Sony landing page. Or replacing the Broad Match ‘digital camera‘ term with a more precise ‘sony digital camera‘ Exact Match to increase your clickthrough rate.

There’s lots that can be done to optimise a campaign using this filter, so please see below for configuration instructions:

1) Create two filters as per the images here:

The Field A regular expression is: (\?|&)(q|p)=([^&]*)

In English, this means:

Look for character immediately following a ? or & (i.e. a URL variable), that is named q or p, and extract the value of this variable.

2) Create a new profile for your existing site. This keeps the detailed keyword data in a separate profile. You can apply this filter to your main profile(s) if you prefer, but a separate profile allows for continuity and top level reporting in your main profile with keyword detail available as required.

3) Apply the two filters to the new profile, in the order Override Bid Term 1 *then* Override Bid Term 2

You can now view detailed Search Term data from any GA report that shows keyword information. Please let us know any feedback via the blog comments.

For further examples of using filters, get a copy of the book Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics published by Wiley & Sons, March 2008 (ISBN: 978-0-470-25312-0).

The Google Analytics reports include data about referrals from organic search results. That is, how many people visited your site from search engines like Google and MSN by clicking on one of the non-paid advertising links that make up the bulk of the search results. Google Analytics gets this data from a list of search engines in the urchin.js file, however this list is not necessarily suitable for all geographic regions because it focuses on .com domains and US search engines such as CNN.com.

Update 08-Jan-2009: Please note, this script is now being maintained at:
www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/ga-scripts

Because GA Experts is based in the UK and serves a European client base, we thought it would be a good idea to try and update this list to distinguish between UK and international search engines, as well as to enable GA to recognise some country-specific SE’s, for example the BBC’s search engine, or Voila in France. So we have developed two separate JavaScript files that can overwrite the default list of SE’s and replace them with a more up to date and relevant list. One is designed to update and replace the existing list with a range of international SE’s, the other is designed specifically for the UK market.

Once this file is in place, GA will recognise and report on a wider range of search engines, including keyword data and campaign source/referrer data.

If you just want to update your current list of SE’s, then use the International file, if you are targeting a UK or European base then we recommend using the UK file. Both files recognise the same international search engines, however the UK list differentiates between UK and international domains, e.g. ‘google.co.uk’ vs. ‘google.com’ and also adds a few UK specific SE’s, such as the Google web search on the Orange homepage. The full list of search engines and installation instructions follow:

Installation:

Simply add one of the following lines to your Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC), *after* the call to the urchin.js file and we will update the file regulalrly on your behalf:
- Many Thanks to Matt Trimmer of iVantage for contributing to this file

<script src=”http://www.omegadm.co.uk/uk_se.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>

or
<script src=”http://www.omegadm.co.uk/international_se.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>

For example:

<script src=”http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js” type=”text/javascript”>
</script>
<script src=”http://www.omegadm.co.uk/uk_se.js” type=”text/javascript”>
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
_uacct = “UA-xxxx-x”;
urchinTracker();
</script>

The following list of search engines is taken from online research and our own data on the most common UK & International search engines. If you think we have missed any or would like to see any other amendments, please let us know – post a comment below.

* AOL.com encrypts keyword data so you will see some strange character strings amongst your other keywords.

Please Note: Use of this JavaScript code is entirely at your own risk. GA Experts have tested this code extensively, however we can take no responsibility for errors, loss of data or any other complications arising from the use of this code