Standard reports stink. Custom reports rock!
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you are quite familiar with this sentiment. I’ve expressed it often. 🙂
The primary reason is simple: You are unique. Your business is unique. Why would a report created for everyone work for the special someone that you are?
There are other great reasons as well.
Custom reports allow you to deeply focus (by eliminating the rif-raf metrics and dimensions, they save time and show just what you want). When shared, custom reports allow you to deliver deeper relevance. Custom reports allow you to package up entire datasets for deeper analysis.
I’ve shared a whole bunch of custom reports in the past. You can download them into your Google Analytics account via one click (along with some lovely Advanced Segments and a Dashboard). Just go to the GA Solutions Gallery and click Import: Occam’s Razor Awesomeness.
You can download a bunch more, that are not yet in the bundle above, by following the links at the end of this post. Seven more! The include single custom reports that replace all/most current standard reports in GA on Mobile, Content, Paid Search and Acquisition. Your life will be simpler. Grab the above, then grab the ones at the end of this post.
Today, I want to share a few of my recent favorites that solve day-to-day challenges in clever ways.
But, before we go there I want to share an important concept. Many custom reports are wrong because we mess up the fundamental data model in analytics. We mis-align metrics and dimensions across Users, Session, Hits. If you want to create accurate custom reports (or apply advanced segments), this post is mandatory reading:
Category: Web Metrics
See, Think, Do, Care Wining Combo: Content + Marketing + Measurement!
There have been tons and tons of implementations around the world of my wonderfully profitable See-Think-Do-Care business framework.
This is immensely gratifying.
Over the last year, I’ve also worked with many companies to drive new and rapid innovation in their digital strategies using the framework. In the process, I’ve learned a whole lot more, evolved my thinking and refined the nuances.
In this blog post I want to share two strategic clarifications/extensions of my thinking about the See-Think-Do-Care framework. My hope is to better assist you in your own journey in using the framework to unlock imagination, build intent-based audience strategies, deliver joy to them and accelerate business profit.
And, just because I love you all so much, I’ll end with a little bonus. A thing three that shares optimally aligned See-Think-Do-Care metrics!
But, let’s start with the core intent of my post.
There were two key reasons I’d created See-Think-Do-Care.
Thing One.
I passionately dislike how most Marketers have become selfish – because most companies set deeply selfish goals for them!
There is a ton of pressure to show ROI, in 24 hours (!!). There is very little desire to “rock the boat.” There are ton’s of incentives to keep doing things the way they’ve always been done. There are loads of “studies” and business frameworks from the ancient Romans and early Greeks to “guide” decision making. We expect to shout via TV or Radio or on AOL.com and expect our customers to follow a specific “path” down the “funnel.”
Shove, shove, shove, them down the funnel, and shovel, shovel, shovel in the money!
I saw this wonderful cartoon by Marketoonist somewhere, it captures the essence beautifully…
It is not that companies are silly. Remember, there was little data
Ten Hidden Gems In Google Analytics: Do Smarter Web Data Analysis!
The 80/20 rule applies to our use of web analytics tools as well. Most of us use just a small amount of power our tools contain.
This hurts my feelings! Ok, not so much hurts my feelings and more that I’m sad you are not taking advantage of all of the features at your disposal to drive smarter decisions by your leadership teams.
Regardless of the tool you have, it is always prudent to take a fresh look at a familiar tool every once in a while and see what you’ve been missing. I recommend that periodically you gather folks around you for lunch, pull up Adobe Analytics on the big screen in the conference room, let each person expose one hidden report or feature. You’ll be surprised at how much you learn, and, like an Easter egg hunt, the whole thing is fun all by itself.
As many of you already have access to Google Analytics, in this post I want to re-introduce some of the features/reports/concepts that most likely fall outside of the normal 20% you use regularly. My hope is to aid in your persistent quest to deliver more impactful IABIs (Insights, Actions the leadership should take, Business Impact).
Some of these hidden gems are small, some big, some you might know and have ignored, and some never crossed your radar. Pop open your GA account in a different tab, or your WebTrends or your WebTrekk or IBM Analytics accounts, and follow along.
But, first… It is important to point out that some things are a bit hidden and not used as much, like the Real Time reports in Google Analytics but I’m not quite filled with grief about them….
Even