Many of our clients have a need to track their web site visitors across domains and sub-domains.

However, Google Analytics does not automatically track a single visitor across different domains or sub-domains using the default set of tracking code, so some customization of the default code has to take place.

All of my past research suggested this should be easy, and like anything it is, if you have all of the information you need.

After many, many, many, many tests, I have come up with the following guidelines.

(Please note this is for the ga.js tracking code, not the older urchin.js code.)

(Read the full article…)

Wow.

I have heard time and time again about how great, awesome, cool, mind-blowing SXSW is. The part of me that is the cynic (90%) was deviously hoping to dispel all the hype by attending SXSW and then giving my own point of view.

Well, I just got back, and I’m sorry to say all of the hype is well-founded.

The Conference

I was not able to attend very many sessions, but what I did attend was eye-opening, and there wasn’t even standing room. The CSS3 panel I checked out was so packed I had to sit in the aisle, and yes, it was worth it. I won’t go into what’s on the horizon with CSS in this post, but let’s just say my jaw dropped. Oh, and by the way, the latest IE 8.x release is finally fully CSS 2.1 compliant. What year is it? But seriously, kudos to Microsoft for this. Now we can all actually start moving forward….

The Music

I play guitar. Well, I thought I did before checking out the local music scene. Friday and Saturday nights I saw guitar players that are truly world-class, and they were playing in local bar bands for tips. If you ever get the chance to take in Austin’s local music scene, take it. I still get chills thinking about it.

The People

The people at SXSW Interactive just seem to get it. I really enjoyed talking to everyone who came by our booth. It was refreshing and very motivating to talk to such forward and positive thinking professionals.

Conclusion

Don’t miss SXSW next year. Don’t miss the top minds in our industry, inspirational people, and nonstop entertainment. It’s a motivation machine.

Conversion Optimization: We love it.

Unlike PPC where you continuously spend money driving traffic to your site hoping to increase sales/conversions, optimizing a page for conversion is a one-time cost with an ongoing reward (assuming it’s done well): increased conversion rate.

So, of course we love it.

Whenever we can come in and permanently increase a client’s conversion rate for a one-time cost to them, we look like rock stars … and it’s fun.

(Don’t get me wrong. The ideal situation for both us and our clients is a combination of PPC and conversion optimization, but I’m just going to touch on the latter.)

Conversion Optimization?

Just so we’re all on the same page, a conversion is anything you define it to be. A conversion for your web site could be a visitor viewing a specific page, clicking on a certain button, filling out a form, or making a purchase.

Regardless of the actual conversion point, conversion optimization is the processes of making design and/or navigation changes to a web page or pages in order to drive specific user actions.

(Read the full article…)

This is Part 2 of a two-part series on Google Analytics Profiles and Filters. Part 1: The Must-Haves, covered what I consider to be the basics. Now we’ll get into some of the more advanced, and interesting, GA filter techniques.

Note: Since I posted Part 1, Google Analytics has released their beta versions of Advanced Segments and Custom Reports. These tools are pretty incredible, and can potentially be used in place of many filters. The decision to use profiles and filters vs. advanced segments will depend on each company’s logistics. It will be a case-by-case basis and is something I will cover in a future post.

Advanced Filters Defined

Advanced filters let you extract data from any of the fields in Google Analytics and manipulate that data.

(Read the full article…)

View related topics: google analytics, google filters, google profiles

Many a blog post out of frustration is born.

I recently pulled out most of my hair while attempting to discern why our FeedBurner email signature (created with the Headline Animator) was broken.

Here’s the quick story, and the solution.

The Headline Animator Problem

Normally, you can create an email signature with the Headline Animator that will scroll through your latest five posts:

I had created this a few months ago, and it worked fine.

This week I tried to implement it in our company’s email. I got this message, “Watch this space for future items!”

So, I did what any other lazy tech-type would do: I ignored the problem and tried to create a new Headline Animator. I went through the motions and hit Save. Here is what I saw next:

(Read the full article…)

View related topics: atom, feeds, rss