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The thing I'm interested in when using Google Analytics is tracking user path to see the bounce rate in a checkout process for example. You can calculate conver

by slykar 6y ago

The thing I'm interested in when using Google Analytics is tracking user path to see the bounce rate in a checkout process for example. You can calculate conversion rates for different user segments. People who just want to see "how many visits I got" don't benefit from GA. Developers often miss the point of GA, because they do not work in sales.

sdoering 6y ago
Bounce Rate in the checkout funnel? Do you mean the "Exit Rate" at specific steps in the funnel? Just to clarify, because as far as I know from some years in the industry, in every tool I got to know a "Bounce" is defined as a single tracking hit from a user id without further measured activity. Meaning after the first measured page view (the entry to the site) leaving the site couldn't be called a bounce. None the less: If one is interested in a user privacy aware solution to replace GA with a focus on funnels, eCommerce, and such I would probably (up to a certain scale of traffic) recommend to take a look at Matomo (former Piwik). Can be run on your own server, has a lot of the basic functions of GA, a great API, can be used to do goal/path analysis as well as marketing performance reporting. If a company/site reaches a certain scale I would probably recommend to use a paid solution like Adobe Analytics (or paid GA), after having done an evaluation into the real needs of said company/site.
nicbou 6y ago
I run a fairly simple website supported by donations and affiliate income. Even then, Analytics offers more than view counts. Here are a few questions it can answer for me: - Is supporting IE11 financially justified? - Which articles generate the most income, and why? - Which components are useful, and which are just noise? - Where are my visitors from? (it affects how I can help them)
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  > Is supporting IE11 financially justified? Server logs can tell you that. > Which articles generate the most income, and why? Your affiliate partner will tell you which links bring what income assuming you're using unique links. Otherwise the server logs will give you a good page view count. Sure, it'll include bots, but bots that have no interest in the content would tend to be randomly distributed across all articles and thus not skew the results too much. > Which components are useful, and which are just noise? Not sure what you mean by components? If you're talking about different links or forms (like a newsletter) then the forms would also generate log entries on the server and can be counted there. > Where are my visitors from? Server logs and GeoIP. I see nothing here that justifies ratting out your users to Google just to save a tiny bit of effort.
  - Slashbot 6y ago
    yup... to many idiot web developers just jumping google wagon...when they had all the info they ever needed from server logs right from the start.
  - nicbou 6y ago
    > Server logs can tell you that. They can't tell me how much money those users actually bring me. 70% of my content is not monetised. > Your affiliate partner will tell you which links bring what income My affiliate partners go from Amazon to people who fax things around. Their data is not always accurate or complete, if they gather it at all. I used Google Analytics to spot many such problems in the past. > the forms would also generate log entries That would just confirm that a form was submitted. It won't tell me on which pages it performs poorly. It won't tell me that people opened a collapsible, but didn't like its contents. > Server logs and GeoIP The point isn't just to know where users come from, but how to better serve them. Server logs won't answer questions like "are there enough non-EU, Spanish-speaking visitors to warrant translating this page?" > I see nothing here It might have something to do with myopia. Your judgements are based on inaccurate preconceptions of how websites operate.
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      > That would just confirm that a form was submitted. It won't tell me on which pages it performs poorly The browser sends you a referer header. You need to do some work with data analysis/transformation to derive insight from this (by comparing the number of visits on the parent page vs the number of form submission where the referer is that parent page) but it is absolutely doable. If you don't want to do something like this I'm sure self-hosted analytics tools like Matomo (formerly Piwik) can do this out of the box. > are there enough non-EU, Spanish-speaking visitors Maybe some people have reasons to not want you to know that they are non-EU and Spanish speaking, and this is something new privacy regulations are attempting to address. > Your judgements are based on inaccurate preconceptions of how websites operate. My judgements are based on not wanting to be stalked on the web (especially by a third-party adtech company like Google), and seems like at least in Europe the law agrees with me. Whether this makes your business unprofitable is not my concern (if your business model becomes unprofitable by a reasonable request like not stalking users without their consent then I'd argue this was never a good business model to begin with). On that note, I guess let's agree to disagree and let the privacy regulators decide for sure (given their current track record I wouldn't worry for another few years).
marcus_holmes 6y ago
OK, so let's pull this apart: > The thing I'm interested in when using Google Analytics is tracking user path to see the bounce rate in a checkout process for example There are lots of ways to get this data direct from the servers, and much, much more reliably and effectively. > You can calculate conversion rates for different user segments. Maybe. You only have data on those people who don't have adblockers that block GA. Which is a sizable segment of the internet. Also that they're not using a VPN, etc. Stats collected via GA are inherently less reliable than stats collected from your own site because GA is easily blocked. Plus, there have been reports since forever that GA's stats are just not that reliable in the first place. I've experienced this myself - I used to admin a WP blog, and the numbers from the site log and GA were around 20% different. If you're relying on GA stats to calculate the results of any a/b testing, then you need to put in at least a +/- 25% error factor (i.e. if the A test converts 10% better than the B test, you have no idea whether that's a real thing, or a product of GA giving you inaccurate data - you'd need at least a 25% swing to begin to think it might be a real customer preference). > Developers often miss the point of GA, because they do not work in sales. Yes. But have you listened to their objections, rather than dismissing them as "not working in sales"? Developers do have some knowledge of this subject. And there are lots of ways of getting this data that doesn't increase page load and compromise security like GA does.
- cameronbrown 6y ago
  > Maybe. You only have data on those people who don't have adblockers that block GA. Which is a sizable segment of the internet. Also that they're not using a VPN, etc. Stats collected via GA are inherently less reliable than stats collected from your own site because GA is easily blocked. You'd be surprised how many marketers don't understand this key point. Those that do just don't care. I'd argue it's part of why the internet is being dumbed down (because people without adblockers are the only ones with a voice).
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    Interesting point. "our audience is all older people with little education, we should cater to them" -> no, actually that's just the only bit of your audience who let you track them, and you're annoying the younger, tech-savvy people who'd like your product if you stopped being technically ignorant ;)

by slykar 6y ago

sdoering 6y ago

Bounce Rate in the checkout funnel? Do you mean the "Exit Rate" at specific steps in the funnel? Just to clarify, because as far as I know from some years in the industry, in every tool I got to know a "Bounce" is defined as a single tracking hit from a user id without further measured activity. Meaning after the first measured page view (the entry to the site) leaving the site couldn't be called a bounce. None the less: If one is interested in a user privacy aware solution to replace GA with a focus on funnels, eCommerce, and such I would probably (up to a certain scale of traffic) recommend to take a look at Matomo (former Piwik). Can be run on your own server, has a lot of the basic functions of GA, a great API, can be used to do goal/path analysis as well as marketing performance reporting. If a company/site reaches a certain scale I would probably recommend to use a paid solution like Adobe Analytics (or paid GA), after having done an evaluation into the real needs of said company/site.

nicbou 6y ago

I run a fairly simple website supported by donations and affiliate income. Even then, Analytics offers more than view counts. Here are a few questions it can answer for me: - Is supporting IE11 financially justified? - Which articles generate the most income, and why? - Which components are useful, and which are just noise? - Where are my visitors from? (it affects how I can help them)

Nextgrid 6y ago
> Is supporting IE11 financially justified? Server logs can tell you that. > Which articles generate the most income, and why? Your affiliate partner will tell you which links bring what income assuming you're using unique links. Otherwise the server logs will give you a good page view count. Sure, it'll include bots, but bots that have no interest in the content would tend to be randomly distributed across all articles and thus not skew the results too much. > Which components are useful, and which are just noise? Not sure what you mean by components? If you're talking about different links or forms (like a newsletter) then the forms would also generate log entries on the server and can be counted there. > Where are my visitors from? Server logs and GeoIP. I see nothing here that justifies ratting out your users to Google just to save a tiny bit of effort.
- Slashbot 6y ago
  yup... to many idiot web developers just jumping google wagon...when they had all the info they ever needed from server logs right from the start.
- nicbou 6y ago
  > Server logs can tell you that. They can't tell me how much money those users actually bring me. 70% of my content is not monetised. > Your affiliate partner will tell you which links bring what income My affiliate partners go from Amazon to people who fax things around. Their data is not always accurate or complete, if they gather it at all. I used Google Analytics to spot many such problems in the past. > the forms would also generate log entries That would just confirm that a form was submitted. It won't tell me on which pages it performs poorly. It won't tell me that people opened a collapsible, but didn't like its contents. > Server logs and GeoIP The point isn't just to know where users come from, but how to better serve them. Server logs won't answer questions like "are there enough non-EU, Spanish-speaking visitors to warrant translating this page?" > I see nothing here It might have something to do with myopia. Your judgements are based on inaccurate preconceptions of how websites operate.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    > That would just confirm that a form was submitted. It won't tell me on which pages it performs poorly The browser sends you a referer header. You need to do some work with data analysis/transformation to derive insight from this (by comparing the number of visits on the parent page vs the number of form submission where the referer is that parent page) but it is absolutely doable. If you don't want to do something like this I'm sure self-hosted analytics tools like Matomo (formerly Piwik) can do this out of the box. > are there enough non-EU, Spanish-speaking visitors Maybe some people have reasons to not want you to know that they are non-EU and Spanish speaking, and this is something new privacy regulations are attempting to address. > Your judgements are based on inaccurate preconceptions of how websites operate. My judgements are based on not wanting to be stalked on the web (especially by a third-party adtech company like Google), and seems like at least in Europe the law agrees with me. Whether this makes your business unprofitable is not my concern (if your business model becomes unprofitable by a reasonable request like not stalking users without their consent then I'd argue this was never a good business model to begin with). On that note, I guess let's agree to disagree and let the privacy regulators decide for sure (given their current track record I wouldn't worry for another few years).

marcus_holmes 6y ago

OK, so let's pull this apart: > The thing I'm interested in when using Google Analytics is tracking user path to see the bounce rate in a checkout process for example There are lots of ways to get this data direct from the servers, and much, much more reliably and effectively. > You can calculate conversion rates for different user segments. Maybe. You only have data on those people who don't have adblockers that block GA. Which is a sizable segment of the internet. Also that they're not using a VPN, etc. Stats collected via GA are inherently less reliable than stats collected from your own site because GA is easily blocked. Plus, there have been reports since forever that GA's stats are just not that reliable in the first place. I've experienced this myself - I used to admin a WP blog, and the numbers from the site log and GA were around 20% different. If you're relying on GA stats to calculate the results of any a/b testing, then you need to put in at least a +/- 25% error factor (i.e. if the A test converts 10% better than the B test, you have no idea whether that's a real thing, or a product of GA giving you inaccurate data - you'd need at least a 25% swing to begin to think it might be a real customer preference). > Developers often miss the point of GA, because they do not work in sales. Yes. But have you listened to their objections, rather than dismissing them as "not working in sales"? Developers do have some knowledge of this subject. And there are lots of ways of getting this data that doesn't increase page load and compromise security like GA does.

cameronbrown 6y ago
> Maybe. You only have data on those people who don't have adblockers that block GA. Which is a sizable segment of the internet. Also that they're not using a VPN, etc. Stats collected via GA are inherently less reliable than stats collected from your own site because GA is easily blocked. You'd be surprised how many marketers don't understand this key point. Those that do just don't care. I'd argue it's part of why the internet is being dumbed down (because people without adblockers are the only ones with a voice).
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  Interesting point. "our audience is all older people with little education, we should cater to them" -> no, actually that's just the only bit of your audience who let you track them, and you're annoying the younger, tech-savvy people who'd like your product if you stopped being technically ignorant ;)