Analytics 2.0

Much more than just tagging

Monthly Archives: May 2007

New Google Analytics version

Well after some weeks of using the new Google Analytics Version I’m posting my fist analysis about it.

I was never so in love with google analytics since it born in November 2005 based on Urchin, the log file analyzer funded in December 1995 by Paul Muret and Scott Crosby (actual CEO of Google Analytics). Google analytics seems to be a Log File Analyzer that emulate a page tagging, since it is not installed in your own servers you need to tagging your site, those tags generate logs that are analyzed once a day by google analytics servers as a regular Log File Analyzer.

Former analytics

The former version was a very (very) basic analytics tool mainly because it was focused on providing SEM’s campaigns information to the Google clients. When I say very basic I meant it gives standard information with almost no customizing capabilities, with the aggravating of having lot of bugs both in back-end and front-end.

I was analyzing this new version and unfortunately it’s pretty soon for back-end results, but I have some findings about the front-end.

The first I found which is so evident is that this new version is focused on extending its target by reaching non professionals, mainly because that is Google SEM’s products strategy (adwords and adsence). I’m not saying this is right or wrong, because it depends on what are you looking for. In my opinion they could focus on a non professional target and at the same time have a very flexible tool that allows professionals run more complex queries.

That’s exactly what I fount on this new version of Google Analytics, they forget about the professional needs which are normally less based on front end but more flexible, like generating my own data tables, metrics and functions between other things.

This new version is 1000 times better than the former one, but I think that it could be even better if it count with two different front ends, “beginners” and “professionals”.

Regarding front-end I found very useful the drag and drop dashboard generator, with an Indextools style but not as good as it.

new version

Last but not least, the lack of right mouse button function makes Google Analytics even less flexible. For example adding a new chart to the dashboard by clicking the right button is something that I found incredible useful and not complicated to launch at all.

Well that’s all by now, I’ll be waiting your comments.

Juan Manuel Damia

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Comparison of churn rates

One of the most closely guarded secrets in business seems to be the churn rate. This is the rate of attrition, over a period of time, that subscriber-based customers “churn out” (unsubscribe) of the customer base. Churn rates are often measured in monthly terms, especially in the cable and satellite television and the wireless telephone industries. Business analysts will often look at the churn rate on a quarterly basis. Likewise, an annual rate of churn is a commonly used measure.

Recently, I got to searching the Internet for a comprehensive list of churn rates, if such a thing existed. A churn rate table, across industries. But alas, nobody seems to have compiled a database measuring the percent of customers who churn out of various companies, across sectors. So, I had no choice but to create such a table.

If you try to discover reported churn rates, the first thing you’ll notice is that companies will use various time periods as the basis. Monthly, quarterly, annually. I even found one study of lawyer retention rates that spanned a four-year period. So, to try to make this an apples to apples comparison, I converted all of the churn rates I found to “per year” terms. Note, however, if a company reported a 2% monthly churn rate, I did not say that equates to a 24% annual rate (2% times twelve months). Rather, I calculated a sliding count, such that in the first month, 100 customers would dwindle to 98. But in the second month, the 98 customers would decrease to only 96.04 customers (98 minus 2% of 98). Continue reading →

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Individuals – Daily Quote

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. (Friedrich Nietzsche)

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What’s a Latino?

1 What’s a latino?.

This first part deals with the English term Latino as used in English-speaking nations. This term should not be confused with its homographs in other languages and their usages therein (wikipedia).

Latino

Etymology

Latino is borrowed from Spanish latino, probably shortened from latinoamericano.(wikt:latino, dictionary.com). The English language does not usually distinguish between the male and female genders of the word in Spanish. Continue reading →

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