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Why we'll use Google Universal Analytics over Mixpanel and KISSMetrics

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Re: Why we'll use Google Universal Analytics over Mixpanel and KISSMetrics

#21

Post by joevandyk »

duwip wrote: post #19
joevandyk wrote: post #17

I started saving all my page views in a postgresql database. Schema is pretty simple. I have the following tables: sessions session_id (uuid type) created_at page_views page_view_id session_id created_at site_id path query_string (hstore) user_agent referral_url ip_address user_id http_method (get, post, etc) details (hstore, used to tag page views/actions) This allows me to simply query all my page views against dat…

Yeah, we do that kind of stuff as well. At least you know what your data means. But when you start getting millions of hits a day, you won't necessarily want to spend some time scaling your system... In that case leaving it to the pros and focusing instead on your product may prove the most sensible move.

It should be pretty easy to scale out a simple set of data like this.

"Leaving it to the pros" means you don't control your data and you can't easily combine it with your other data about products, orders, whatever.

Re: Why we'll use Google Universal Analytics over Mixpanel and KISSMetrics

#23

Post by hu_me »

hu_me wrote: post #16
mikeknoop wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP (and the article) refer to the uid tracking mentioned here: https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!msg/google-analytics-mea... As of Jun 27 it hasn't shipped according to a GA team member.

had missed that thanks for sharing. I have been using custom dimension for uId in our client projects its worked out well, though a dedicated api method is always welcome.

yes there isnt a way within GA to aggregate metrics based on custom dims at the moment. we have on occasion done it through reporting api using cd to maintain a unique count.

Re: Why we'll use Google Universal Analytics over Mixpanel and KISSMetrics

#24

Post by corin_ »

alexatkeplar wrote: post #14
snide wrote: post #13

As someone who has built several top 1000 trafficed websites over the past decade here is what the publishing industry definitely needs out of an analytics program. 1. Please give me a report that can prove that my user traffic is real. 2. Please give me a report that can prove that the traffic is healthy. I know that I can get this from analytics now, but it needs to be the focus. For a decade I've competed against…

Hey snide - I think we can probably help you at Snowplow Analytics. We warehouse all your atomic event data (including page views and in-page pings - v hard to fake) with IP address, browser fingerprint, 1st party cookie, optional 3rd party cookie, optional business defined-user ID, user timezone, browser features, useragent... If that sounds useful for proving your audience to advertisers, get in touch!

After seeing Snowplow mentioned a few times on HN in the last week, each time I've thought "hmm, looks maybe interesting... but I don't have time to figure out what it is or how to use it". Finally just now seen the starting guide, so will probably play around with it sometime soon.

So piece of feedback is to maybe try and make it easier/more obvious how to go from "this might be interesting" to "what can this do for me?" (I'm still not 100% sure).

Re: Why we'll use Google Universal Analytics over Mixpanel and KISSMetrics

#25

Post by snide »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #15
snide wrote: post #13

As someone who has built several top 1000 trafficed websites over the past decade here is what the publishing industry definitely needs out of an analytics program. 1. Please give me a report that can prove that my user traffic is real. 2. Please give me a report that can prove that the traffic is healthy. I know that I can get this from analytics now, but it needs to be the focus. For a decade I've competed against…

Do you have more information on how I can see a live view of the practices you discussed in your last paragraph? I was under the impression that traffic from the top portals was costly and not exactly suitable as a component in an arbitrage play like you mentioned.

Visit http://www.yahoo.com/ right now. Scroll through the stories and find one that doesn't link to an internal yahoo or yahoo owned property.

You'll run into one of the following scenarios in most of them.

* It drops you on an interstitial ad before the "article" loads.

* It drops you onto a click trap "gallery" where you are forced to click for each new image.

More often than not it's to a site that you've never really heard of and isn't very well produced vs. their more well known (to a literate Internet audience) competitors.

Re: Why we'll use Google Universal Analytics over Mixpanel and KISSMetrics

#26

Post by duwip »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #20

Last I checked User based analytics is directly against the Google TOS. You are not supposed to store any identifying information about specific users, probably because Google has been under privacy scrutiny. So not only is google not for user based tracking they prohibit it, making them a real non-starter in any case.

Check out the Google I/O video I mention in the article if you need convincing. As far as not collecting user data fo privacy reasons, I think brandon0's comment says it all.

Re: Why we'll use Google Universal Analytics over Mixpanel and KISSMetrics

#27

Post by lukestevens »

snide wrote: post #13

As someone who has built several top 1000 trafficed websites over the past decade here is what the publishing industry definitely needs out of an analytics program. 1. Please give me a report that can prove that my user traffic is real. 2. Please give me a report that can prove that the traffic is healthy. I know that I can get this from analytics now, but it needs to be the focus. For a decade I've competed against…

Chartbeat is attempting to help with 1 & 2 with "Engaged Time": https://chartbeat.com/publishing/for-editorial/ . (I've no connection).

I'm building an analytics interface for GA though and would love to chat about what else publishers need in an analytics interface - luke at itsninja if you'd like to chat.

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