This article describes the steps taken to build the Google Analytics Traffic Dashboard report with the Analytics Edge Core Add-in. It follows the approach described in the article Building a Marketing Dashboard in Excel. More →

Google Analytics uses statistical sampling to improve responsiveness for large queries. There is nothing wrong with statistical sampling — it will usually produce numbers close to the actual, but not always. More →

This is a PROVEN WORKING SOLUTION to remove referral spam in your Google Analytics. Updated for 2021: Bothered by referral spam from the likes of trafficnow.club, bot-traffic.xyz or other domains? Implement a Custom Segment as described in #3 below or, if you catch the spam traffic on the day it happens, a Spam Crawler Filter (#4). More →

A number of my clients have seen unexplained direct traffic in their Google Analytics accounts. There is no apparent purpose or reason behind this traffic — it just exists; sometimes for a short period of time, and sometimes for months. More →

This Google Analytics API error indicates that you are referencing an invalid view ID. The view ID is the number that appears beside the view in the Accounts wizard (Analytics Edge connector for Google Analytics), or in the Google Analytics web interface when you click on the account selector at the top. More →

This Google Analytics API error indicates that the metrics and dimensions being requested cannot be used together. This usually happens when you are creating a custom report, and you added a combination of fields that the API rejects. More →

This Google Analytics API error indicates that the security token for the account you are using has failed. Normally the security tokens are auto-renewed, but if you changed the account password or otherwise changed your security settings, the renewal can also fail. More →

This Google Analytics API error means that the selected advanced segment is not available to the account you are using. This usually happens when you share a report with a coworker. Advanced segments in Google Analytics are personal assets and are associated with your login account. More →

This Google Analytics API error indicates that the account you are using cannot access the Google Analytics view (profile). This usually happens when the Google Analytics account owner removes your access (a typical agency problem). More →

This Google Analytics API error indicates that there was a problem processing your query request. This can occur if you make too many bad queries in a short period of time, or if you use use up your quota for the day. In some cases, it may indicate that the server was too busy to process your request (usually for a very large query).  More →

With the surge in working-from-home employees, many people are trying to figure out how to exclude this “internal” traffic from their Google Analytics reports. There is a simple option for sites with low to moderate traffic. More →

The Google Analytics Pro connector from Analytics Edge supports the extra dimensions and metrics available to Google Analytics 360 customers. It also supports the new resource quotas, allowing GA 360 customers to get unsampled reports up to 100 million sessions! More →

FAQ: do NOT encode the “ga:” in the field names of your expression!

Custom filter expressions can be used in the Google Analytics connectors, but there are a number of rules you must follow. This is documented in Google’s API Reference, but it is part of the old v3 API documentation, which could be removed at any time, so I have copied and embellished it here.

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This article gets you started with some simple Google Analytics reports with Analytics Edge. More →

This article explains how to build a cohort analysis report in Excel using the Analytics Edge free Google Analytics connector. Cohort Analysis lets you see how one group of people behaved differently from another. More →

One of the features of the Google Analytics connector is the ability to create a custom dynamic segment, which is really useful when you are sharing workbooks with others. Custom segments in Google Analytics are stored as personal assets — they are associated with the login account, not the Google Analytics account. Because of that, using one of your custom segments in a query means other people cannot run your query; they will get an error when they try to refresh the query.  More →

This article describes some of the more advanced techniques used to create the Excel workbook Google Analytics Monthly PDF Report. More →

Google Analytics provides a New vs Returning report to measure the pull of your site and the extent to which you are encouraging first time users to return. Making this report with Analytics Edge allows you to easily track these metrics the way you want to see. More →

If you find your Google Analytics reports won’t download any data beyond 25 months, chances are this is due to your data retention settings. By default, they are set to purge after 26 months.

To change this, go into your Google Analytics Admin settings for your account: Property Settings > Tracking Info > Data Retention.

If you’re trying to use the free report Cohort Analysis for Blog Articles, but don’t have the same blog path, here’s a behind the scenes look at how the macro was made so you can adapt it to your own article path. More →

Making a what? I saw an article on the E90E50fx guys blog about making a bilateral flow chart — a cosmograph — in Excel, and it made me think of the behaviour flow chart in Google Analytics. More →

“I want to increase the number of returning visitors.” Now you need a report to track your progress. This article will help you navigate Google Analytics to find the right data, and to produce a meaningful report using Analytics Edge. More →

For people measuring their website traffic with Google Analytics, there is nothing more frustrating than building a really popular web page that gets tons of visits, but GA shows Session Duration close to ZERO! The problem is that Google Analytics doesn’t measure the time on the last page of a visit, so even if they read your article for 5 minutes, if they don’t click on another page, their session is recorded as 0 seconds. Sigh…. More →

What is the bounce rate in Google Analytics? Is it better to be higher or lower? What is typical? Does it affect my search engine rankings? Here is some insight into this frequently misunderstood metric. More →

If you’ve made the leap into custom dimensions with Google Analytics, you’ve probably also tried to make a custom report to segment your traffic with the new dimension. More →

Google Analytics allows you to track user interaction “events” independent of a page view, such as file downloads or video plays. More →

The Google Analytics report for Frequency displays a Count of Sessions dimension that is misleading in several ways. More →

Why do the Users numbers in my report not add up to the total in Google Analytics? This Misunderstood Metrics article explores the Users metric in Google Analytics, why the numbers are different, and why both of them are probably wrong. More →

Why do New + Returning Visitors add up to more than the total Users? How can I have more New Users than Users who are ‘New Visitors’? This Misunderstood Metrics article explores the Behavior > New vs Returning report in Google Analytics, and why the numbers can be confusing. More →

In Google Analytics, the Previous Page Path shows what page was visited just before the current Page, but Next Page Path seems to be broken or not working. The problem is that it doesn’t hold what the name implies. More →

Build a custom report to see how many Sessions included your top pages, and the result is confusing! Chances are you will see the number of Sessions drops sharply once you get below your primary landing pages. More →

How can the Average Session Duration be less than the Average Time on Page?  In Google Analytics, seeing the time spent on your website or on individual pages is not as obvious as it first appears. This Misunderstood Metrics article explores the concept of time in Google Analytics…or lost time as the case may be. More →

Google Analytics has recently changed, introducing a new Unique Events metric calculation. This article has not yet been updated to reflect that change — Mike Sullivan.

As a follow-up to my previous post on Google Analytics events, this article will look at the unique problem of “Unique Events“…the metric that defies understanding by many. More →

The Analytics Edge connector Google Analytics Pro supports multiple view queries when used in combination with The Analytics Edge Core Add-in. More →

If you just logged into Google Analytics from the Analytics Edge connector, you may get a warning email from Google, confirming the action you just took. More →

With the [undocumented] addition of the Client ID dimension to the Google Analytics API, you can now use the Analytics Edge Core Add-in and Google Analytics Pro connector to recreate the User Explorer report in Google Analytics. More →

Analytics Edge no longer offers a spam filter service to new clients. If you need help implementing filters in your account, I recommend Carlos Escalera’s service. More →

Google released new guidance on how to collect and report Core Web Vitals using Google Analytics 4, but the approach makes use of some pretty complicated concepts with BigQuery. In this article, I want to show you how to make similar reports in Excel using Analytics Edge with a lot less work and complexity. More →

Yes, the popularity of Google Analytics has gotten to the point that it has become a popular target for spammer. More →

Google Analytics has had a bit of a referral spam problem over the past year, and although you can install filters in your account to prevent most of it (see the Definitive Guide to Removing GA Spam), you can’t apply them retroactively. More →

When I was working on a new Excel report for my Google Webmaster Tools connector, I started seeing traffic from a specific query phrase that didn’t make sense, so I dug a little deeper, and what I found made me question the very foundation of conventional SEO wisdom and the meaning behind Google Webmaster Tools data. More →

Analytics Edge makes it easy to get data from Google Analytics into Excel, and here are a few tips to make it easier to build impressive reports. More →

Google Analytics sampling can really mess up a custom Excel report! The Free Google Analytics Connector included with all Analytics Edge Add-ins has the ability to minimize sampling problems with large sites and long time frame queries. More →

The Google Analytics Pro connector contains a Save Filter function that lets you copy view filters from one account to a number of others with ease. More →

While all of us fight to get Google Analytics referral spam under control, one piece of well-intentioned, but bad advice comes up over and over again: use the Referral Exclusion List. Some people (myself included) have stated that is a bad idea, but no one has taken the time to really explain why. Here is the Why… More →

Here’s a neat little technique you can use to get year-over-year comparisons in one query with the Google Analytics Pro connector from Analytics Edge. More →

If you are trying to build a Google Analytics report comparing one year to the previous one, you can use the Pivot operation to make charting easier. The trick is to choose your dimensions wisely. More →