Unfortunately, creating UTM-coded links can be a pain. Google offers a URL builder to help, but it’s limited to one URL at a time. Sometimes you need to create batches of URLs. And sometimes you need to circulate those batches for review.

Having recently helped a client with that, I modified the spreadsheet we built for them and decided to make it available here. So if you need to create batches of UTM-coded URLs for Google Analytics:

Download this Excel spreadsheet: Google Analytics URL Builder for Multiple Links

Hospitals In-Common Laboratory (HICL) is a private, not-for-profit corporation that has worked in partnership with Ontario hospitals since 1967.

HICL is Canada’s largest and oldest provider of referred-out medical laboratory services, specializing in complex testing and providing support to academic and industry-sponsored clinical tests. Through its referral network, HICL provides more than 500 medical laboratory procedures.

HICL now occupies a market with stiff competition from for-profit labs such as Gamma Dynacare and Lifelabs. In order to differentiate itself from its competition online and appeal to prospective clients, HICL needed to address the following challenges:

• The website, while functional, was outdated and poorly organized, resulting in regular calls to customer service and obscuring HICL’s long-established credibility
• HICL’s function and its key benefits—experienced staff, leading-edge lab technology, high quality testing and commitment to patient safety—were not expressed clearly through the site design
• HICL’s non-profit status—its key differentiator—was poorly explained
• Without analytics installed on the site, HICL was unable to tell which parts of the website were performing well and which needed to be optimized

HICL Website Before Redesign

Solution

As the first phase in a multi-phase website overhaul project, HICL engaged us to undertake a basic site redesign and install Google Analytics. (Content optimization and other site improvements are to follow in future projects.)

Specifically, we:

• Conducted an audit of HICL’s website pages, reference manuals and online database
• Consulted with key stakeholders to determine priority information and frequently accessed documents
• Streamlined the site’s information architecture, making key information easier to find by combining pages into logical sections and highlighting more resources on first- and second-level pages
• Redesigned and updated the site design to reflect a warm, inviting and professional tone
• Installed Google Analytics to track key pages, database use and reference downloads
• Implemented a regular reporting/recommendation schedule to synthesize Google analytics data and provide strategic implementation suggestions

Results

Since engaging Commune in late 2009, the HICL website has undergone many upgrades.

HICL Website After Redesign

Specific results from these improvements include:

• Improved usability

  The new site features easier access to key company information and the potential to add increased website functionality in the future.

• Renewed focus on HICL’s test database

  This key tool for users (and an important selling point for prospective clients) has received increased attention, and plans are now underway to make it more user-friendly. Google Analytics data revealed that many users were receiving an “Unavailable” result when searching for tests, prompting HICL to work on improving its test search capabilities.

• A more contemporary design

  Colour schemes, typefaces and images were all updated, giving HICL a contemporary face that more closely mirrors industry norms.

• Greater understanding of visitor interaction with website

  The ability to track visitor behavior and performance of key pages—right down to the most searched-for lab tests—has given HICL data it can use to launch further improvements to its offering.

1. Improve one-to-many management of client analytics accounts. Google AdWords (in which we do search engine marketing management) makes it easy to manage multiple client accounts. Google Analytics, less so. What would be ideal is one master client-management account for which all associated users could manage all child accounts. Additionally, cross-account reporting could be enabled at the client-management account level.
2. Facilitate easier sharing of custom reports and advanced segments with all users of a profile. Currently, the only way to share custom reports and advanced segments is by sending other profile users a link, which they must click to install a custom report or segment into their Google Analytics instance. This becomes quite cumbersome when you have even a few reports, segments and users. What would be ideal is the ability to share reports and segments with all profile users the way you can share goals, filters and other profile-level configurations.
3. Allow an unlimited number of custom reports to have the same name. Granted, this might cause some problems under the current sharing model, but I find it frustrating that you can’t create a report with the same name, but different features, in multiple profiles. I understand some of the thinking here. A report called, say, “Top Content by Location” might apply in every profile. But once you start configuring reports around, say, goals, all bets are off unless two profiles have the same goals. For example, if a report shows “Top Content by Whitepaper Download,” and the download refers specifically to a goal 1 configured in the profile, then the report is useless in other profiles unless they also have a whitepaper download configured for the same goal. However, they might have a whitepaper download configured for goal 2. Yet under the current model, it wouldn’t be possible to name another custom report “Top Content by Whitepaper Download.”

I fear that this has now become a rant, largely because a tiny percentage of Google Analytics users will even understand what I’m talking about, and I haven’t quite provided the description or graphics necessary to broaden accessibility.

But the bottom line is this: if Google is serious about creating an ecosystem of analytics consultants (and it appears to be quite interested), we need more features to facilitate the kind of work that entails. Beginning with some improved sharing features.

Unless I’m completely off the mark here. Anyone have suggestions for addressing these challenges (besides, of course, lobbying Google)?

The projects have been—ahem—educational.

For one thing, we’ve all mastered a whole lot more French vocab than any of us learned in high school. “Accueil,” for example, means “Home” (in a website context, that is). And “homepage” is “page d’accueil.” Now we know.

We’ve also discovered that most school boards in Ontario—English and French, public and Catholic—have websites. But their ability to track visitor behavior and online marketing ROI varies wildly, from sophisticated analytics configurations to no apparent tracking ability at all.

But we’ve come to another, more far-reaching realization as well.

It isn’t only businesses that benefit from tracking website performance and keeping tabs on online marketing ROI. Public organizations—even ones, like school boards, that might not appear to emphasize marketing and sales—need accurate, customizable, comprehensive reporting tools.

And although this post has “school boards” in the title, the benefits of analytics tracking applies to any organization that wants to improve its marketing effectiveness and maximize its online ROI.

So, with that in mind, here are the top five ways school boards (read: any public organization) can benefit from Google Analytics.

1. Justify online marketing expenditure to trustees and other stakeholders

By capturing more robust return-on-investment data—which promotional campaigns are working to drive qualified traffic to the site, for example—trustees and other decision-makers can make informed decisions about prioritizing marketing budgets.

2. Determine whether the website is communicating effectively with parents, students and staff

Analytics data can tell you whether you’re effectively communicating key messages. For example, checking pageviews and bounce rates for a page about school closures will help determine whether the page is being used to its maximum effectiveness, and provide some context for improvement.

3. Gain understanding of qualified traffic sources

One school board discovered that, although government sites weren’t sending large amounts of traffic, they were referring highly qualified visitors, indicating that further partnerships with government sites would be in the board’s best interests. Analytics information helps you avoid unfruitful partnerships and see exactly where your ROI is coming from.

4. Tracking key activities that have direct impact on ROI (like downloading registration forms)

By tracking registration form downloads (something that hadn’t been previously done), one school board was able to gather data that will ultimately inform navigation, design and site architecture optimization to encourage more conversions. Websites are living entities—by keeping tabs on how your visitors use your site, you can encourage them to take significant actions.

5. Determining areas for potential expansion

Using Analytics’ map overlay tool allowed one school board to determine that they had a small contingent of foreign visitors to the site—providing key information for promoting the board’s offering to a small but significant secondary market. You may have interested prospects in places you never would have predicted—and analytics data can help you pinpoint where they are.

What’s your experience using Google Analytics for public organizations or non-profits? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Well, here’s a secret. When we provide web analytics services, we know that one of the biggest wins is simply configuring goals and goal funnels. By doing this, you can evaluate metrics according to objectives, giving you insight rather than just information, such as which traffic sources and content are most valuable for your business. In fact, by assigning actual values to goals, you can even sort content according to its revenue value—guiding you to add, optimize and delete content according to its measurable worth (not just how “cool” that guy in the cubicle next door thinks it is). Something like this:

Setting goals in Google Analytics adds functionality such as dollar-index value that adds insight into your return on investment

Setting goals is fairly straightforward (and obvious) for people like us who spend more time with web analytics tools than with family members. But if your life’s more balanced, and you haven’t set them up, here’s a quick step-by-step guide:

1. Define the business objectives for your website. Sounds like a no-brainer. But you would be surprised how many people haven’t clarified the why for their website. Is your site supposed to generate leads? Reinforce existing relationships? Start with the end in mind.
2. Map a sales funnel to your objectives. What happens on the web at each step towards your objective? For example, if your objective is to get people to visit your contact page, how do you get them to your website? And how do you get them from their to your contact form?
3. Establish a conversion page or action. How do you know if someone completes your desired objective? For example, if you want to track contact form submissions through your website, you’ll want to set up a conversion page (or, if you want to get nifty, trigger virtual page views through JavaScript as on our contact form). With new features from Google Analytics, you can now also configure non-page conversions such as time on site.
4. Determine the value of your conversion. How much is your desired action worth? For example, if 10% of people who submit a request through your contact form become a customer, and the average sale is $500, each contact form submission is worth $50.
5. Input your sales funnel, conversion action and conversion value into your analytics tool. If you’re using Google Analytics, here’s help setting up your goals and funnels.

It sounds complicated, but often the hardest part is simply clarifying your objectives. Far too many people, when you ask, often respond with means rather than ends, such as “get more traffic.” Once you know your objectives, the rest is just following instructions. And if you’re really struggling, or have complicated goals and funnels, feel free to contact us for web analytics service. We’ll happily track that conversion and help you out.

The Conseil scolaire de district Centre-Sud-Ouest (CSDCSO) manages the French-language public schools in the central southwestern region of Ontario. Currently, the board oversees 38 schools in a territory that stretches from Windsor and Sarnia in the south to Barrie and Penetanguishene in the north. Over 7,000 students attend CSDCSO schools.

To support French language education throughout its territory, the CSDCSO needed to increase registrations. To achieve this in a way that was both cost-effective and compelling, the board had to determine its most effective marketing channels. To do this, it needed to monitor the performance of its website and determine where its marketing dollars would be best spent.

In 2006, the CSDCSO began to upgrade its existing website, recognizing that, even in a time of tight budgets and reduced spending, the potential for using the site as a communication and marketing tool to both new and existing students justified the investment. Although the CSDCSO had run both on- and offline marketing campaigns (aided by community partnerships and government-sponsored initiatives), the board still needed to address some very real challenges, including:

• Determining which marketing channels would bring the highest return on investment and avoiding investment in initiatives or partnerships that might not yield results
• Justifying marketing spend to trustees and other stakeholders with concrete, tangible results
• Focusing on its regional marketing efforts and assessing its penetration throughout its territory to determine key areas for targeted student and staff recruitment efforts
• Assessing which sections of the website were best serving student, parent and staff needs and deciding how to optimize under-performing pages
• Tracking key website activities that had direct relevance to return on investment—such as downloads of registration forms—rather than just generic metrics like “hits”
• Gathering accurate website performance data through the installation of web analytics tools that, despite prior investments in website upgrades, had yet to be added

Solution

Although the CSDCSO was headed in the right direction, the board needed help to create an end-to-end reporting plan to ensure future marketing decisions would be firmly rooted in hard data and based on past successes. To assist, we implemented a comprehensive system, enabling the board’s marketing team to determine which web marketing initiatives were realizing a robust return on investment.

Specifically, we:

• Conducted an audit of the CSDCSO through personal interviews to fully understand the board’s objectives—and how well its web marketing efforts were supporting them
• Created a strategy defining key website metrics relevant to the board’s objectives and our plan for installing and configuring an analytics platform to measure and report them
• Installed Google Analytics in the CSDCSO’s website content management system and customized tracking code to measure key performance goals such as registration form downloads
• Configured profiles in Google Analytics, filtering irrelevant data and ensuring that the data the board received was relevant and actionable
• Educated key stakeholders in interpreting analytics data, ensuring the tool was usable and useful and helping to establish a culture of data-driven decision making

Results

Installing Google Analytics in mid-2009 has already given the CSDCSO relevant, actionable data to optimize marketing performance, including:

• More robust return on investment data
  The CSDCSO has done some on- and offline promotions, and there are government-funded programs designed to highlight the board’s offering. With analytics data, the board now has details on which initiatives are working and which aren’t. For example, while government websites aren’t driving a large amount of overall traffic, they’re top referral partners for visitors who download registration forms, and have the highest conversion rate of any referral site. This important source of traffic would be missed with a simple focus on hits or page views.
• Greater understanding of qualified traffic sources
  Too often, website success is measured simply in terms of visits or impressions, without thought to where visitors are coming from or how they engage with site content once they’ve arrived. With specific goals for the website—such as encouraging registration form downloads—the CSDCSO now has data about where qualified traffic comes from, allowing the board to optimize its website and marketing not just for traffic, but for performance that actually matters to its objectives. For instance, one referral source with a high conversion rate is a government site providing information for new immigrants, giving the CSDCSO a prospective new partner.
• Potential areas for expansion
  As with referral partners, analytics data also revealed differences between top cities for website traffic and top cities for registration form downloads. These differences provide information for geographically targeted student recruitment campaigns that are likely to be most effective. And while the vast majority of visitors are from Canada, there are small contingents from France, South Korea and Belgium, all of which indicate some level of foreign traction, and an opportunity to reach a powerful secondary market for foreign students.
• More information on site usage
  After the home page, a website page illustrating the board’s territory and listing its schools is the most popular choice for external visitors. Such information allows the board to create linking and promotional strategies to drive registrations from high-profile pages. The board can also determine which content items are under-performing to avoid investing in content that fails to engage visitors.
• More detailed data to inform website capabilities
  One interesting observation is that many visitors to the board’s French site use Google Translator and other online tools to convert key pages into English. As well, 38% of visitors had their browsers set to English, indicating that more comprehensive English resources on the website would be a worthwhile investment.

That said, we still clash with the occasional lonely naysayer, who cites the lack of customized reporting or the limit of only four goals per profile as a reason not to go with Google.

But after today’s announcement from the Google Analytics team, the critics have a lot less to carp about. Clearly, Google has listened to its audience and, in turn, has unveiled some impressive new features that should elicit cheers from even the “power users” (Google’s term for Analytics users who want “fine-grained control over their site tracking and who have a burning desire to understand and manipulate the behavior of Analytics”).

Here’s a quick rundown of what the latest version of Google Analytics brings to the table.

Engagement goals

Once restricted to tracking the loading of specific pages, the Goals report now lets you set customized thresholds for key metrics like Time on Site and Pages Per Visit.

More goals per profile

Ever had to decide which four goals were most important to your site’s success and jettison the rest? Google Analytics now lets you set up to 20 goals per profile—which is a wise move, considering that engagement metrics can now be designated as goal completions.

Improved mobile reporting

Have a mobile-friendly site? A new code snippet (yet to be released) will let you gather data from all web-enabled devices—not just those that support JavaScript.

Advanced table filtering

No one drools over reams of data, but with the addition of Advanced Table Filtering, you can filter thousands of variables in a table according to the specific metrics and percentages that you deem radar-worthy.

Multiple custom variables

You could already track your visitors according to customized segments beyond Google’s preset categories. But with Multiple Custom Variables, you have even more power. Set multiple segments to track according to visitor attributes (are they a member?), session attributes (did they log in?) and page-level attributes (did they view a specific page?) for in-depth reporting with increased flexibility.

Increased sharing

Share a special URL link with anyone who has an Analytics account, and you can automatically import custom templates and segments to their profile.

Automatic intelligence and custom alerts

The above updates are powerful stuff, and most were expected. They’re the necessary culmination of where the market is headed—and what GA users (and detractors) are demanding. But what’s really rousing our interest is the unleashing of Analytics Intelligence. Because more than any other improvement, this one is a potential game changer.

Still in beta, Analytics Intelligence uses an algorithmic-driven engine to automatically record significant shifts in your data and organize them in a new Intelligence report.

Even better, you can customize the major changes that matter to you, and you can use new Custom Alerts to receive automatic notifications with every drastic change. Wondering whether a salacious tweet sent droves of targeted traffic to a goal-centric page? Analytics Intelligence will let you know.

Add to this the option to tweak the level of intensity of your alerts (you can assign a percentage to changes you deem worthwhile—there’s even a nifty slider!) and you’re guaranteed to spend significantly less time sifting through data to see what’s working and what isn’t.

Yesterday, Google announced a Forrester study, “Appraising Your Investment in Enterprise Web Analytics” (PDF), that helps clarify the situation.

One important finding—particularly for a Google Analytics consulting company like us—is that Forrester recommends spending more money on analytics services than platforms:

Enterprise companies must ask themselves if they are paying too much for capabilities that they simply do not need. In some cases, gaining fewer seldom-used capabilities is a worthwhile tradeoff if funds can be reallocated to hire more resources necessary for analysis.

Also, according to the study, “sixty percent of decision-makers agree that investments in web analytics people are more valuable than investments in web analytics technology.”

Some other interesting findings:

• 53% of enterprises surveyed use a free technology solution as their primary web analytics tool, and 71% use free tools in some way
• 66% of enterprises using a paid tool would consider switching to a free one
• 52% of practitioners fail to effectively use more than half the features of their tools—whether they’re free or paid
• 71% of enterprises surveyed report that web analytics data plays a significant role in decision-making
• Nearly two-thirds of enterprises would abandon their current web analytics provider under the right circumstances

I’m looking forward to digging more deeply into the report, which you can download free by following the link above.

And if your enterprise is considering a switch to—or start with—Google Analytics, or wants to make better use of its current Google Analytics implementation? Let’s talk.

As you probably know, you can track Flash events in Google Analytics. This gives you more robust site statistics—you can, for example, track how users interact with Flash video players, even how much of a video they watch.

But the integration can be a challenge. A few weeks ago, for example, we worked with a client’s Flex developer to integrate Google Analytics into a Flash-based weight loss assessment. Users reached the assessment after clicking a link on an HTML website. After planning and implementing a search marketing campaign to drive traffic to the site, we found that Google Analytics wasn’t properly reporting conversions to their source. Comparing results to AdWords conversion stats, things didn’t add up.

Users appeared to start a new session every time they began their assessment. And that made it exceedingly difficult to know which traffic source had the best return on investment. After working through a list of potential issues, it came down to the equivalent of having an unplugged cord. Looking at the code to embed Flash into the site, we found this culprit:

<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />

Because of the way Google Analytics functions, this line of code should have been the following:

<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" />

It’s a slight difference, but one that will improve your data’s reliability and usefulness—and prevent you from destroying a perfectly good computer in frustration.

Knowing, for example, how many more (or fewer) visitors you’re getting. And how much longer (or shorter) people are engaging with your content.

If someone sent a brochure for that service, you would probably read every word. And maybe even sign a check.

Well, put your checkbook away. Because Google, quite quietly, has made this service available absolutely free with Google Analytics.

According to the official Google Analytics blog:

Industry benchmarking is a commonly requested new service that enables customers to see how their site data compares to sites in any available industry vertical. We believe this data will provide actionable insights by providing context for users to understand how their site is doing. For example, if you have a travel website and you get a spike in traffic on Mondays, you may want to know whether other travel sites get that same spike on Mondays.

Sounds great, right?

Well, we decided to test it out.

And being quite thrilled with the results, we thought you might want to give it a go.

Interested? Here’s how:

Step one: Get started

First, you’ll need a Google Analytics account, which is completely free.

You’ll then need to set up your website profile. (Which is, obviously, beyond the scope of this post, but quite simple. You can find help on the Google Analytics site.)

Once you have that, log in and click the link that reads "Edit Account and Data Sharing Settings." It’s here:

Step two: Share your data (anonymously)

Benchmarking goes both ways. So, to see data, you need to share data.

Google affirms that the data is aggregated, anonymous and stripped of any identifiable features.

Here’s the box you need to click:

Step three: View reports

Once you’ve shared your data, click to view reports as you normally would. Just hit this link beside the appropriate profile on your start page:

Step four: View benchmarking

Once viewing reports for a particular profile, you can navigate to the benchmarking tab.

You’ll find this under the "Visitors" link in the left-hand navigation:

Step five: Choose industry

To see benchmarking data, you now have to select an industry.

To compare against competitors, choose your own industry. For a broader perspective, you can also compare against any industry.

Simply choose like this:

Step six: Compare statistics

Once you choose an industry, you can compare statistics.

And now the fun begins.

You can see how well your site stacks up against the competition in such areas as unique visitors, page views, bounce rates and average time on your site.

For example, according to the benchmarking service, visits to this website compared to other marketing service industry websites looks like this for March (ours is blue, theirs is gray):

Of course, there are caveats.

The data depends on which sites are using and opting in to Google Analytics.

But with features such as benchmarking at no cost, the number of such sites should only go up.

So, is Google Analytics benchmarking in your site’s future?