It’s been an awesome summer, with temperatures soaring in the global warming range throughout our northern country. The heat has given me ample reason to not be near a computer, but now it’s time to mine some JavaScript wisdom again. Here’s the second part of my JavaScript for Google Tag Manager series. The first part focused on GTM specific tips and tricks, and I hope that while reading it, you were treated to another grand example of the flexibility of this wonderful tool.

Continue reading

I created a new Chrome Extension: Internalize for Google Analytics. This is its very first version. It only works on websites with Universal Analytics. Click here to download Internalize for Google Analytics v1.0 The idea is that with the extension you can push a custom dimension value to your currently active session. You can then use a profile filter in GA to block traffic with this custom dimension value. It’s useful when blocking internal traffic with more traditional means (IP address or various GTM workarounds) won’t work.

Continue reading

Content Grouping is a nice new feature from the good folks at Google Analytics. Basically, it allows you to group your content according to a logical structure. You can create up to five Content Groupings, and you can have as many Content Groups within these groupings as you like. The difference between a Content Grouping and Content Group is hierarchy. The second is a member of the first. Read Justin Cutroni’s post on Content Groupings to get you started.

Continue reading

(Last updated March 2014) This post is the final chapter of a trilogy. The ultimate refinement, if you will. It all started with my foray into the murky waters of context, when I tested how weather data could be used to provide extra information about site visits. When I wrote that post, I had two trepidations: 1) does sending the API call with every single page view affect site performance negatively, and 2) does forcing the page view call to wait for the API call to complete affect the quality of visit metrics.

Continue reading

There is a new version of this post for GTM V2 here. While going over my previous post about using weather conditions to segment data in Google Analytics, I started thinking about performance issues. Since I’m using a visit-scope custom dimension, it seems futile to have it send the weather details with every single page load. The odds of the weather changing drastically during one visit are slim (unless you live in the UK), and I have yet to come up with a good reason to change my on-site behavior because the weather changed from a drizzle to a downpour.

Continue reading

I’ve had such a blast in the Google+ Google Analytics community. Not only are the people super-duper-nice, but I have the wonderful opportunity of helping people with their Google Analytics problems without feeling obligated to invoice them or ask for compensation for my troubles. I do it because I love to help, because I feel like I have a lot to share with the community, and because I’ve always believed that the more knowledge you share the more you accumulate.

Continue reading

There is a new version of this post for GTM V2 here. [Last updated June 2014] I’ve fallen in love with Universal Analytics and Google Tag Manager. Together they form an incredibly powerful tool for marketing professionals. In most cases, I no longer need to post recommendations to my client for yet another page template revision, since with the tag manager in place, I can just add custom code via the admin panel.

Continue reading