When will I see statistics on my website after installing the tracker code?

Google Analytics generally updates your reports every 24 hours. This means that it could take 24 hours for data to show in your account after you have first installed the tracking code.

What is a website profile and what can I do with it?

A website profile is essentially a set of rules that define the reports that you see. Generally, a website profile corresponds with a domain. You will have one profile per domain so that you can view reports for each domain separately.

You can also use profiles to track subdomains separately, by setting up filters on the profile to return data only from that subdomain. For instructions on setting up filters, please read How do I track all the subdomains for my site in separate profiles?

If you would like to track sections of a site, you can create multiple profiles again and use filters to return the applicable data. How do I track unique areas within my website separately?

How do I track e-commerce transactions?

(If you are looking for information on tracking visitor movement through your checkout pages, please read How do I use Google Analytics to track a 3rd-party shopping trolley?)

Enabling e-commerce Reporting in the Profile

The first step in tracking e-commerce transactions is to enable e-commerce reporting for your website's profile. To enable e-commerce reporting, please follow these steps:

1. Log in to your account.
2. Click Edit next to the profile that you would like to enable.
3. On the Profile Settings page, click edit next to Main Website Profile Information.
4. Change the E-commerce Website radio button from No to Yes.

Receipt Page Format

The second step is to ensure that the tracking code is included in the receipt page in the standard fashion. This may be done using a server side include or other template driver, or can simply be hand-coded into your HTML code:

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>

<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x");
pageTracker._setDomainName("example.co.uk"); pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview(); </script>

Next, somewhere in the receipt below the tracking code, call the _addTrans() and _addItem() functions. Begin with a call to _addTrans() to establish a transaction. _addTrans() takes the following arguments: Order ID, Affiliation, Total, Tax, Shipping, City, State, Country. For each item purchased by the visitor, call _addItem(). _addItem() takes the following arguments: Order ID, SKU or Code, Product Name, Category, Price, Quantity.

// Quantity ); pageTracker._trackTrans(); </script>

How do I set up goals?

A goal is a website page which a visitor reaches once he/she has made a purchase or completed another desired action, such as a registration or download. Before Google Analytics can calculate goal conversion metrics, you must define one or more goals. A goal is defined with the following information:

• URL for the goal page: Specify a page that can only be reached by achieving a goal. In the case of a registration goal, for example, the goal page might be the Thank You page. If your goal page can be reached by visitors who have not completed the goal, your conversion rates will be inflated.
• The name of the goal: Specify a name that you will recognise when viewing reports. Examples of names that you might use include "email sign-up" and "article ABC download".
• The defined funnel: You may specify up to ten pages in a defined funnel. A funnel represents the path that you expect visitors to take on their way to converting to the goal. Defining these pages allows you to see how frequently visitors abandon goals and where they go. For an e-commerce goal, these pages might be the first page of your checkout process, then the shipping address info page and finally the credit card information page.
• The value of the goal: Google Analytics uses an assigned goal value to calculate ROI, Average Score and other metrics. A good way to value a goal is to evaluate how often the visitors who reach the goal become customers. If, for example, your sales team can close 10% of people who request to be contacted and your average transaction is £250, you might assign £25 (i.e. 10% of £250) to your "Contact Me" goal. In contrast, if only 1% of mailing list signups result in a sale, you might only assign £3 to your "email sign-up" goal.

To set up your goals, Enter Goal Information:

1. Log in to your Google Analytics account and click Analytics Settings.
2. Find the profile for which you will be creating goals and click Edit.
3. Select one of the 4 goal slots available for that profile and click Edit.
4. Enter the Goal URL. Reaching this page marks a successful conversion. For example, a registration confirmation page, a checkout complete page or a thank you page.
5. Enter the Goal name as it should appear in your Google Analytics account.
6. Turn the goal On or Off. This selection decides whether Google Analytics should track this conversion goal at this time. Generally, you will prefer to set the Active Goal selection to On.

Then Define a funnel by following these steps:

1. Enter the URL of the first page of your conversion funnel. This page should be common to all users working their way towards your Goal. For example, if you are tracking user flow through your checkout pages, do not include a product page as a step in your funnel.
2. Enter a Name for this step.
3. If this step is a Required step in the conversion process, select the checkbox to the right of the step. If this checkbox is selected, users reaching your goal page without travelling through this funnel page will not be counted as conversions. Learn more about the Required Step option in a funnel.
4. Continue entering goal steps until your funnel has been completely defined. You may enter up to 10 steps or only a single step.

Finally, configure Additional settings by following the steps below:

1. If the URLs entered above are case-sensitive, select the checkbox.
2. Select the appropriate goal Match Type. (Learn more about Match Types and how to choose the appropriate goal Match Type for your goal.)
3. Enter a Goal value. This is the value used in Google Analytics' ROI calculations.
4. Click Save Changes to create this Goal and funnel or Cancel to exit without saving.

What are filters?

Filters are applied to the information coming into your account to manipulate the final data in order to provide accurate reports. These filters can be set up to exclude visits from particular IP addresses, to report only on a subdomain or directory or to take dynamic page URLs and convert them into readable text strings.

Google Analytics provides you with three predefined filter types as well as a number of customer options.

Predefined filters:

• Exclude all traffic from a domain: Use this filter to exclude traffic from a specific domain, such as an ISP or company network.
• Exclude all traffic from an IP address: This filter works to exclude clicks from certain sources. You can enter a single IP address or a range of addresses.
• Include only traffic to a subdirectory: Use this filter if you want a profile to report only on a particular subdirectory (such as www.example.co.uk/motorcycles)

Custom filters:

• Exclude Pattern: This type of filter excludes log file lines (hits) that match the Filter Pattern. Matching lines are completely ignored; for example, a filter that excludes Netscape will also exclude all other information in that log line, such as visitor, path, referral and domain information.
• Include Pattern: This type of filter includes log file lines (hits) that match the Filter Pattern. All non-matching hits will be ignored and any data in non-matching hits is unavailable to the Urchin reports.
• Search & Replace: This is a simple filter that can be used to search for a pattern within a field and replace the found pattern with an alternative form.
• Lookup Table: (Currently unavailable) Selecting this filter allows you to select a lookup table name that may be used to map codes to human intelligible labels. For example, the phone models table maps abbreviated phone platform identifiers to the model and manufacturer names for phone-based web browsers.
• Advanced: This type of filter allows you to build a field from one or two other fields. The filtering engine will apply the expressions in the two Extract fields to the specified fields and then construct a field using the Constructor expression. Read the Advanced Filters article for more information.
• Uppercase/Lowercase: Converts the contents of the field into all uppercase or all lowercase characters. These filters only affect letters and will not affect characters or numbers.

Custom filters are applied in the order in which they appear in your Profile Settings page. Use the Assign Filter Order link to rearrange the order of your filters.

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