Google Analytics mechanics are quite different to Omniture Stie Catalyst, for Google Analytics many of the calculations such as pages per visit, first visit, last visit, etc are stored in cookies, they are not calculated on the server side. Additionally the visitor ID is not necessarily the same for a given user, it isn't used to tie information together, instead Google Analytics relies on your cookies telling the truth. The problem is that cookies inherently only ever tell partial truths, the attrition rates are huge, so how can you trust this information? The answer is you can to a point, but be aware of what you're looking at, because its far from perfect. If you want to make it more accurate, then use super cookies. This post is aimed to touch on several of these areas where we think flash can add major value to existing Google Analytics solutions. We've already covered the super cookie technology in a previous post, so we won't dwell on the basics, if you need some more background please read the previous post:
Examples of Super Cookie additions to Google Analytics deployments
- Flash based persistent cookies work across multiple domains and multiple browsers - Use super cookies to re-set targeting and other custom variables across your network of domains, in any browser.
- Cookie deletion measurements - Find out how often do your existing users delete their standard cookies?
- Browser switching measurements - Do your users switch between multiple browsers? How does this affect your analytics?
Which browser? Who cares!!!
1. Super persistant cookies
For those wanting to get better accuracy from google analytics, or if you're using the Google Analyitcs custom variables for targeting and reporting, this is for you.
Persisting the profile - In order to keep the rich information on your users no matter whether they delete cookies or switch browsers, you have two main options:
a) Respawn their past GA cookies before loading GA - All their profile information is associated with their visitor ID. By reseting this to it's original value (stored either prior to cookie deletion, or from a previous browser), their profile remains intact. This method can also help you to keep more realistic figures on unique visitors as long as you can replace the visitor ID prior to sending any requests to Google. Although this gives the smoothest operation, the privacy issues are obvious and must be addressed.
b) Keep a copy of targeting parameters in a super cookie - If you detect a cookie deletion, resend the the parameters to Google Analytics so they can be re-bind them to the new visitor ID. This is a little more privacy friendly, as you're allowing the user to remove association to a specific ID, but their profile remains. You no longer know who they are, but you still know a little about them to help serve them better.
2. Cookie Deletion Measurements
If you grapple with privacy concerns but are still desperate to know how many of your users delete their cookies, then you can use this method to find out without fear of privacy invasion. This technique is useful for adjusting data inaccuracies caused by cookie deletion.
Super cookies remain after users delete their standard cookies. Because flash cookies are not currently dealt with by browser settings (Chrome has some functionality), or understood by consumers, they are rarely deleted (assume this will increase in the future). By comparing the super cookie value to the standard cookie value, you can quickly tell if a previous value existed and has since been deleted. The high level logic is found below (note: this over-simplistic and does not allow for browser switching, see section 3!). The following pseudo code would actually be done in JavaScript:
IF standardCookie(a) is not equal to superCookie(a) AND superCookie(a) is not null THEN
{
LOAD GA CODE
Set custom variable to indicate a cookie deletion
SEND GOOGLE REQUEST
} ELSE {
LOAD GA CODE
SEND GOOGLE REQUEST
}
The above logic would enable you to see several things including:
a) The total number of cookie deletions (using the prop or event)
b) Conversion rates of users who have deleted their cookies vs those that haven't (using the custom variable). Note: This is particularly useful for Targeting, where profiling enhances conversion. You can directly measure the uplift of normal users compared to users post cookie deletion.
3. Browser Switching Measurements
Many people now use multiple internet browsers for a variety of reasons, evaluation, different features, old bookmarks and probably most importantly, technical issues. The problem for analysts is that traditional cookies are browser specific, so each browser appears as a different user. Super cookies can quantify this issue. Super cookies provide the capability to keep a cross browser profile that remains even if a user uninstalls a specific browser and switches to a completely new one, but for the purposes of the exercise we are only looking to quantify the issue.
To create this capability the following logic can be used. Again this would be written in JavaScript.
IF current browser is not equal to superCookie(browser) THEN
{
LOAD GA CODE
set custom variable "browser A > browser B"
SEND GOOGLE REQUEST
set superCookie(browser) = "browser B"
} ELSE {
LOAD GA CODE
SEND GOOGLE REQUEST
}
The above logic would enable you to see:
a) Which browsers people are switching from/to. This can help you plan future testing resource allocations, etc.
b) Which pages browser switches are commonly associated with (above logic does not show a direct correlation to a specific page, but you can store the final session page in the super cookie and use that to see if the user has made a browser switch on the same page, which may indicate a browser issue).
c) How many browser switches have occurred (set the variable to be page specific)
d) How many users use multiple browsers (if you keep a common visitor ID across multiple browsers)
Hopefully this article has helped to show you how super cookies can be used to improve your Google Analytics deployment accuracy. For actual code examples, please see our original super cookie post or download the zip file below. For any questions or enquiries, please contact us at
insights@datalicious.com
