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

This is part of our series of posts highlighting the new Google Analytics. The new version of Google Analytics is currently available in beta to a number of Analytics users. We’ll be giving access to even more users soon. Sign up for early access. And follow Google Analytics on Twitter for the latest updates.

Real Analytics ninjas use goals. Google Analytics has always had URL Goals (when a visitor reaches a specific page). In 2009, we added Engagement Goals to track success metrics around visit depth and time on site. With the new version of Google Analytics, we’ve added one more: Event Goals. This was one of our most requested features, and it gives you even more reason to use event tracking.

A brief intro to Event Tracking
You can use Event Tracking in Google Analytics to track visitor actions that don't correspond directly to pageviews. It's a great fit for tracking things like:

• Downloads of a PDF or other file
• Interaction with dynamic or AJAX sites
• Interaction with Adobe Flash objects, embedded videos, and other media
• Number of errors users get when attempting to checkout
• How long a video was watched on your site

Events are defined using a set of Categories, Actions, Labels, and Values. Here’s how you might set up event tracking for tracking downloads of whitepapers and presentations.

These interactions all have potential business impact, but until now you couldn’t track them as goals in Google Analytics. Let’s look at three ways you might use Event Goals on your site.

Tracking Downloads
Suppose you run a business to business (B2B) website and offer whitepapers (as a PDF download) in order to attract leads. You drive traffic to this page through advertising. You can track the number of downloads using event tracking. For example, we can use the category to designate the click was of type “download”. We can use the action to designate the download was a “whitepaper” and we can use the label to identify the actual whitepaper that was downloaded.

With the new Google Analytics, configuring this as a goal is easy. We simply match any event with the category of “download” and the action of “whitepaper”. Finally we set the goal value as 20.

Tracking Time Spent
Event tracking is powerful because you can track values, along with the category, action, and label. Going back to our B2B website, suppose you have a embedded product demo video on your page. With a little JavaScript, you can track the time a user spends watching the video and send that number back to Google Analytics as an event value.

With Event Goals, you can now set up a goal based on this value. In this example, we’ve configured a goal when a user spends over 180 seconds watching the product demo.

Using The Event Value As The Conversion Value
Traditionally, the only way to set goal values was when creating the goal in Google Analytics, or from the tracking code using ecommerce tracking. With Event Goals, you have another option: using the event value as the goal value.

Again putting yourself in the shoes of a B2B website owner, you realize not all your whitepapers bring in the same quality of lead. The lead value associated with downloading a certain whitepaper is $20, but the lead value from a different whitepaper is $35. Rather than creating a separate goal for each, you can pass the values 20 and 35 as the Event Value, and then set up the goal to use the actual Event Value:

Now when a goal is matched, the value passed in the event will be used as the goal value.

These are just a few examples of how you can take advantage of Event Goals in the new Google Analytics. You can read more on how to implement Event Tracking on Google Code and how to set up goals in the new Analytics. We’re constantly giving more of you access to the new version. If you don’t have the new version yet, you can sign up for earlier access.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team