This post originally appeared on the Google Analytics Japan blog. - Ed.

Google Analytics’ e-commerce tracking allows online merchants to measure items sold and tie those results back to their digital marketing activities. But did you know that it can also be used to track non e-commerce activity?

Nissan Motor Company does just this. Nissan operates in the automobile industry, and owns a network of websites designed to help consumers around the world decide which Nissan vehicle they would like to purchase.



Nissan uses e-commerce tracking whenever a visitor submits a request for a test drive or a brochure. They treat each request as if a car were sold, and record details such as the model, colour, transmission type, and location of the vehicles people inquire after. A traditional Google Analytics implementation for a non e-commerce site would simply use goals to measure conversions. So why did Nissan opt to use e-commerce tracking instead?

They wanted to be able to measure more information about each inquiry within their Google Analytics reports. By implementing e-commerce tracking they are now able to pass additional information to their Google Analytics account, such as the category, colour, and model of car the visitor was interested in. Nissan's Global Marketing Strategy Division then analyses this information to understand which vehicles are in hot demand in each market; it then feeds those insights to their manufacturing plants across the globe to ensure that there is enough supply to satisfy demand.

One of the benefits of Google Analytics is that you can decide who should have access to your suite of reports. Nissan’s Global Division uses this feature to decentralise access to their different market operations, allowing each country manager to log into Google Analytics and quickly assess the popularity of different models for their market. Nissan employed a Google Analytics Certified Partner in Japan, Ayudante, to help set up their account profiles and custom reports that could then be accessed by each of the country managers.

Nissan’s Global Marketing Strategy division says there are 3 key benefits they gain from Google Analytics as a whole:

1. It is easy to assess product popularity globally and by market. The user experience is seamless and there was no complex setup necessary.
2. Custom reports allow you to easily view complex information in one view. It dramatically reduces the time to summarize multiple reports, document it, and share it within the organisation.
3. Google Analytics gives them access to timely information, which allows for better decision making.

Even if you are a non e-commerce site, you should explore e-commerce tracking as a means of measuring more information about the products or services your visitors are inquiring about. Then share that information with your wider marketing and product teams so that they can make effective decisions to maximise sales.

Posted by Noriyuki Ouchi, Google Analytics Solutions Consultant, Google Japan and Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Senior Conversion Specialist, Google Southeast Asia

Last month we ran a series of GoMeasure with Google Analytics events across Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur. In those four events, Googlers and Google Analytics Certified Partners shared insights into how to get the most value out of Google Analytics’ new features as well as sharing site optimisation and conversion tips.

Today we’re releasing the videos of the presentations from the Singapore and Kuala Lumpur events. The videos are of easy-to-digest bite-sized lengths. So you should be easily able to watch them in between meetings or while taking a break. You can also download the slides if you would like to view them on a bigger screen.



Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Senior Conversion Specialist, Google Southeast Asia

What a crazy two weeks it has been! GoMeasure with Google Analytics did a whirlwind tour through Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur. In those four events, Googlers and Google Analytics Certified Partners shared insights into how to get the most value out of Google Analytics’ new features as well as sharing site optimisation and conversion tips.

You can view the presentations from the four events via the below links. We’ll also be providing the videos of the talks from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur next week. Stay tuned!

• Southeast Asia Leg: Kuala Lumpur (Sep 8 2011)
• Southeast Asia Leg: Singapore (Sep 6 2011) 
• Australia Leg: Melbourne (Sep 1 2011) 
• Australia Leg: Sydney (Aug 30 2011)

Posted by Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Senior Conversion Specialist, Google Southeast Asia

Google Analytics Certified Partners play an important role in Asia Pacific’s web analytics ecosystem. They are the Google Analytics implementation and reporting experts, and they partner closely with businesses of all sizes to help them improve and grow their online presence. This is one in a series of articles from Google Analytics Certified Partners across the region.

Adrian Tan is one of the founders of clickTRUE Pte Ltd, Southeast Asia’s first Google Analytics Certified Partner. - Ed.


I would like to share an example with you on how our team at clickTRUE use insights from Google Analytics to benefit our clients’ online marketing effectiveness. Recently, a world leading electronic security and alarm monitoring service provider approached us to optimise their reporting and analysis framework. We helped them adopt Google Analytics as a way of measuring the number of leads generated by their website. With Google Analytics we were able to react to changing conditions within days rather than months.


Problem: Non real-time analysis
The client ran several Google AdWords campaigns to drive sign-ups via their enquiry forms. These sign-ups represented the number of leads for their business and provided a forecast of their revenue for the months ahead. The client was used to consolidating the enquiry form sign-ups from their website on a monthly basis and sending it to us for analysis.

We would analyse the numbers and determine how many conversions (i.e. enquiry form sign-ups) were attributed to their AdWords campaigns. We would then suggest and implement changes for their following month’s AdWords campaign so that they could generate a higher volume of sign-ups at a lower cost. Waiting for monthly reports was less than ideal. Since we deal with the Internet, we wanted to measure the performance of our enhancements in real-time! We wanted to cut down this lag to make more timely changes and more quickly achieve the client’s target number of leads per month.


Solution: Integrating Google AdWords and Google Analytics
Being a Google Analytics Certified Partner, we knew that one of the best ways to get near real-time insights about the performance of a website is to use Google Analytics. We worked with the client to implement Google Analytics on their website, and then integrate their AdWords account, so that we could attribute conversions to AdWords clicks.

Here is how we approached the creation of the reporting and analysis framework for the client:

Step 1: Link the Google AdWords account to the Google Analytics account
We first linked the client’s Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts.

Step 2: Define goals within Google Analytics
We defined a goal in their Google Analytics account as visitors who arrived at a “Thank You” page after submitting their contact details.

Setting up the goal was easy: we took the URL for the “Thank You” page as the goal URL.

With Goals set, we were now able to more accurately assess how each keyword in the client’s AdWords campaign was converting visitors into sign-ups (leads). Better yet, we were able to assess these on a daily basis, and didn’t have to wait for the monthly reports.


Step 3: Setting up the reporting framework
We created a set of custom reports to to address the key performance indicators that were most relevant for the client. Below is one of our custom reports that lists keywords and the associated metrics for clicks, visits, cost-per-click, impressions, clickthrough rate, bounce rate, time on site, and goal conversion rate. If we were to rely on Google Analytics’ standard reports, we would need to combine three reports to get this information. You can get a copy of this custom report here.

Step 4: Taking action by optimising keywords
With the above in place, we are better able to drill down and do optimisation on the keywords instead of just depending on traditional statistics such as clicks, cost per click and clickthrough rates.

For example, when we first ran the campaign, the keyword “CCTV” generated the most number of clicks. We needed to find out if this keyword was effective in producing qualified leads.

On closer inspection, we saw that the keyword “CCTV” was performing poorly in terms of bounce rate and conversion rate.

The bounce rate for “CCTV” was 7.32% worse than the site average. Visitors coming from this keyword left the site without signing up or even visiting any other pages. It indicated a poor visit quality – visitors did not find the content on the landing page relevant.

To help optimise the performance of this keyword, we analysed the actual search query used by visitors that contributed to goal conversions. For example, visitors who searched for “CCTV Singapore” and clicked on the client’s ads were more likely to sign-up and convert.

Such search queries were immediately added as phrase match keywords in the client’s campaign and set with a higher bid to have their ads appear more frequently . This fine-tuning allowed us to only show the ads to an audience that is looking for security solutions rather than to non-relevant searches for “China Central Television” that was also know as CCTV. We also included such non-relevant searches as negative keywords to filter out irrelevant impressions and improve clickthrough and conversion rates.

Through the use of better defined keywords, such as with approproriate keyword matching for the “CCTV” root keyword, we obtained much better conversion rates – increasing the rates from 1.55% to a range of 1.96% to 25% and a corresponding increase in ROI of at least 66%.

Actionable insights on early data results in 114% lift
The time previously spent waiting for monthly reports was now put to good use optimising based on almost real-time data. The lift in leads demonstrates the benefits of this strategy – a 114% increase after the first three weeks of the campaign. The client is now ahead of schedule in achieving their target number of leads and meeting their revenue forecast.

We strive to replicate the above process in all our engagements:

• Setting goals allows us to measure site performance and understand whether we are being successful or where we need to improve.
• Linking AdWords and Google Analytics accounts allows us to assess paid traffic performance in terms of bounce rates and conversion rates.
• Last, but not least, we cannot emphasise enough how important it is to analyse your Google Analytics data on a regular basis and take immediate actions to experience real-time gains.

Posted by Adrian Tan, Co-Founder, clickTRUE Pte. Ltd.

Google Analytics Certified Partners play an important role in Asia Pacific’s web analytics ecosystem. They are the Google Analytics implementation and reporting experts, and they partner closely with businesses of all sizes to help them improve and grow their online presence. This is one in a series of articles from Google Analytics Certified Partners across the region.

Anantya is the Executive Director of Think.Web, the first Google Analytics Certified Partner in Indonesia. - Ed.

Rapper, radio broadcaster, host, TV personality and writer: these are the many faces of popular Indonesian independent artist Pandji. As an independent artist, Pandji has to be smart about his Web presence and his budget and he needs an efficient and cost-effective way to get the word out about his work.

That’s where Google Analytics, and the Think.Web consulting team, come into play. In this post, we’ll walk you through how we used Google Analytics to answer two key questions about Pandji’s online presence - “Why do Pandji’s fans visit his website?” and “How do we reach Pandji’s fans?” - and then how we applied those insights successfully to promote a new album.


Why do Pandji’s fans visit his website?
To understand what fans like on Pandji’s website, we decided to analyse three months worth of data from two reports:

1. Top Content report: which tells us which pages (and which music and writings) people like the most
2. Internal Site Search report: which tells us what people are searching for once they reach the site

These reports revealed that Pandji’s fans visit his website to find out more about his latest releases. The Top Content report showed that the “For You” page, where Pandji showcases his latest books, songs, and radio recordings, was the most-visited page on the site after the home page. To confirm this finding, we looked at popular keywords typed into the internal site search. Here too, fans wanted information about recent works, whether it’s a new book, radio recording, or single. These insights motivated Pandji to release his next album 100 percent online, where fans were already turning to find his latest releases.

Note: nasional.is.me is Pandji’s e-book, hardrock is the radio station that airs his show, and “mulanya biasa saja” is the title of one of his songs.


How do we reach Pandji’s fans?
Pandji uses Facebook and Twitter to interact with his fans. To identify which of these mediums provide the best reach and traffic, we used campaign tracking parameters to monitor the performance of Pandji’s social media campaigns. We wanted to pinpoint which medium we should use to promote Pandji’s next album.

Before the actual album release, we posted several times on Twitter and Facebook and used campaign tracking parameters to understand which posts were most effective at driving visitors to Pandji’s website. We learned that almost 11 percent of overall traffic came from promotional messages placed on Twitter and Facebook. We also learned that promotions on Twitter (twitter/promoSMM) performed better than both organic referrals from Twitter and promotions on Facebook (facebook/promo SMM). With this information, we decided to use Twitter as the main vehicle to promote Pandji’s new album, Merdesa.

Putting it all together: Distributing Merdesa online and measuring performance
Pandji released Merdesa on his website as a free download and promoted the release on Twitter. We then partnered with Pandji’s marketing team to monitor Merdesa’s popularity and gain learnings for his next album release. As you can see, we’re big believers in continuous improvement!

To understand performance, we looked at:

• The number of page views of content related to Merdesa
• The number of clicks on the album’s download link

Analysing the results
The Merdesa page was the most-visited page in November 2010 and contributed 24.65% of all pageviews on the site for a total of 8,383 unique pageviews. We then used event tracking to measure clicks on the download links. For each click, we also tracked the title of the song downloaded. We identified 13,399 downloads as of the end of November 2010.

The event tracking reports could also show us which songs were most popular among visitors. With this list, we were able to rank each single on the Merdesa album by popularity. This insight helps Pandji understand what his fans want to hear.

Measure, analyse, recommend, measure again
Through the insights provided by Google Analytics, we were able to identify the key channels through which Pandji influences his fans and what they were most interested in. With these insights in hand, Pandji’s marketing team were able to come up with an effective digital marketing strategy for Merdesa.

We strongly believe in our Measure-Analyse-Recommend-Measure strategy for improving success rates for the marketers we consult with. I hope this inspires web analytics practitioners in Indonesia and globally to adopt a similar strategy!

Posted by Anantya, Executive Director, Think.Web

Google Analytics Certified Partners play an important role in Asia Pacific’s web analytics ecosystem. They are the Google Analytics implementation and reporting experts, and they partner closely with organisations to help them achieve their web analytics goals. Over the course of this year we are delighted to showcase a series of articles contributed by our valued Google Analytics Certified Partners.

Rachit Dayal is the Principal Consultant at Happy Marketer Singapore and manages projects involving Google Analytics for enterprises and small and medium businesses across Asia-Pacific. This article is an abridged version of a live presentation given at the Google Analytics Master Class 2010 in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. You can view a video of this presentation. - Ed.

One of the biggest dilemmas businesses struggle with is pricing. Most businesses work hard to find that perfect price - a value that balances demand and maximises revenue. In fact, ever since the prehistoric trader wondered how many pails of grain he had to give away for a sheep, finding the perfect price point has been the holy grail of sales and marketing.



Large companies rely on expensive market and consumer research, strategy analysis, and price testing to arrive at the right price point for their products. Small and medium sized businesses, which are often strapped for time and money, don’t have access to the same expensive studies. That’s where free online tools, like Google Website Optimizer, can help. Google Website Optimizer is a free tool that allows you to test variations of your website to boost traffic and purchases.

With this tool, we’ve developed an easy way to test different prices for your product online. To explain how this works, I’m going to walk you through an example from a company we worked with called Genometri in Singapore.

Online Price Testing Case Study: Genopal
Genometri was looking to launch a software product for graphic designers called Genopal. While the product, which allows designers to manage colour palettes, had received rave reviews from industry experts, Genometri weren’t sure how to price it. As a start-up, they didn’t have the resources of a large company to conduct expensive market research or testing, so they decided to try online price testing with Google Website Optimizer.

Genopal’s website is a standard e-commerce site with a three-step buying process:

1. A set of descriptive pages that highlight the product’s features
2. A “Buy Now” page that lists the price and availability
3. An e-commerce checkout flow that ends on a “Thank You” page

For the test, we modified the price of the product for different users using multivariate testing. On a random basis, different visitors to the site saw three different prices when purchasing the product:

• S$24.95
• S$29.95 (original price point)
• S$39.95

To be fair to all customers, the actual amount charged to them was only S$22.95 regardless of which price they saw initially. Everyone who came to the site during that period got the same low price. Moreover, when they checked out, all customers were informed of this discount and their participation in the test.

After running the experiment for a number of weeks, we measured the conversion rates at these different price points. Google Website Optimizer ensured that returning visitors always saw the same price they had seen on their first visit, so they didn’t see two prices for the same product.

Beyond Numbers - Interpreting The Impact on Profits
Interpreting the result of such a test can be tricky. While Google Website Optimizer does a great job of tracking the number of conversions (such as sales) per price point, it doesn’t measure the actual profit (price of goods minus cost of goods) on the item sale - which is what really matters. We needed to export the results into a spreadsheet, and then factor in costs and margins (net sales minus the cost of goods sold) in order to determine the profit.





For Genopal, here’s what the test results showed:

• Increasing the price from S$29.95 to S$39.95 resulted in a drastic 90% reduction in sales volume (we had expected a much smaller drop of 40-50%)
• Decreasing the price from S$29.95 to S$24.95 resulted in an additional 100% increase in sales (2X the sales for a S$5 increase, something we hadn’t expected)
• At S$24.95, our profit margin increased by 66% (and the sales volume increased by 100%) compared to our initial price of $29.95.

For us, the implications were clear: by reducing the price of the item from S$29.95 to S$24.95, we could increase both sales volumes and profits significantly.


We are often asked if it is worth taking the effort to test prices in this manner. It was for Genopal. Even if we could have squeezed out a 10% increase in profits from getting the price right, that would have been a bonus. Instead, we saw a 100% increase in sales and a 66% increase in profits. While your results may vary, we think it’s an effective way to find that perfect price, which balances customer demand and sales supply. Happy testing!

Posted by Rachit Dayal, Principal Consultant, Happy Marketer