I recently had a discussion with a client around adding a Google Translate feature to their website. Something we then wanted to split test to see if conversions could be increased. So before briefing the developers, we wanted to track how often users currently translate our website.
What is a page translation Currently, some of the major browsers have built-in tools to translate a page into a given language. Both Safari and Edge automatically detect if a page is in a language other than the users' default language settings. Read more →
Did you ever feel that the Website Retargeting in the LinkedIn Campaign Manager is just too simple? And have you wished for more advanced targeting options based on your first party data?
I, for one, have long wished for targeting options like those in Facebook’s Ads Manager. When it comes to website retargeting, Facebook lets you define audiences based on not only URLs, but also any custom events you might want to use. Read more →
Why is it that such a simple thing as external link tracking in Google Analytics is almost always done wrong? Just today, I even saw a tweet from the official @googleanalytics account promoting a post on external link tracking:
How to measure outbound clicks from your site using Google Analytics and Tag Manager https://t.co/U8jLdCIaSv /by @ThomasPetracco #measure pic.twitter.com/AaP8rGsfnI
— Google Analytics (@googleanalytics) May 13, 2019 And the post has it wrong. Read more →
I’ve previously written a post on how to track clicks on internal links and call to actions. It’s really useful to measure which call to actions are actually clicked. But in some cases we might need more details. Such as knowing how long time it takes for our users to place that click. If users are taking a very long time before clicking a primary call to action, we might be able to help them by tweaking the text or our headers. Read more →
Updated November 20th, 2018. I updated the script to support newer iPhone models up to the iPhone XR and XS Max. Also rewrote the script to make it easier to maintain. Ever since the iPhone 4 came out, I’ve been a bit annoyed with the way mobile (Apple) devices are tracked in Google Analytics. While we get plenty of device information for other brands, Apple has (perhaps intentionally) made it difficult to detect and track iPhone models. Read more →
Do not use UTM tracking codes on internal links! I just wanted to get that out the way. And if you don’t read anything else in this post, that should be your main takeaway. But if you would like to know how to properly track internal links with Google Analytics, then read on!
Why track internal links? Well, first: What are internal links? Internal links are just that. They are links on your website that point to other pages on your website. Read more →
Implementation and auditing of Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager is essential when working with web analytics. After all, what good are reporting and analytics if you can’t trust your data? Usually, when setting up GTM and Analytics on a website, you’ll find yourself checking source code for the correct dataLayer or using real-time reports to see if data comes in. But Chrome Extensions for Google Analytics and Tag Manager makes it much easier. Read more →
A client of mine recently asked me to track ‘mouse interaction’ with an iframe that they embed on several pages. By ‘mouse interaction’, the client basically meant that they would like to track whenever users hovered their mouse cursor over the iframe for a certain amount of time. I’ve previously posted that you can track any mouse or keyboard interactions with Google Analytics. As long as they occur within the browser. Read more →
The Time on Page metric is probably one of the most misunderstood metrics in Google Analytics. Google Analytics measures the time on page for each page, but can only do so by measuring the elapsed time between two interactions. The first interaction is the timestamp of the initial pageview, and the second interaction is usually the timestamp for the next pageview (or an event). So for sessions with just one pageview (i. Read more →
Did you know you can detect and track device orientation changes in Google Analytics? That is, if a mobile or tablet user switches between portrait and landscape mode? Well, of course it’s possible (basically anything that happens inside a browser can be detected and tracked in Google Analytics). In a previous post, I wrote about how to detect and track the browser’s viewport (which was made almost obsolete by the new native Browser Size dimension). Read more →