BUS 572 - 5 Analytics Academy (Very Prestigious)

It's Been a Journey

After registering for the Analytics Academy course, I took a look at all the videos and thought the Platform Principles Course didn't look too hard. I watched each video, and then took the respective quiz afterwards. I then made it to the final assessment and failed. I looked back at each question I missed and reviewed the concept. I took it one more time and passed! I was anxious for my certificate. I took a screen capture, placed it in a Word document and reviewed the assignment directions to make sure I did everything I needed to. After playing around in the course dashboard, I realized I never did the Fundamentals. I felt defeated, but knew I had to get it done. I then began watching the videos and then, yet again, opened the final assessment. It was tougher than the last test and took me longer and more attempts to finish. I ended up getting a perfect (I'd hope so after the amount of times I took it) and then double-checked there were no other secret tests. I have succeeded!

Overall, the courses provided a ton of useful information. Although, it was a lot to remember, I know this information will become handy. It is exciting to know that after all this preparation, studying, researching and anxiety, the GOMC has finally started. Working hard and then seeing your work pay off is a great feeling. This course has had so many parts that are dependent on other parts. Missing one concept or assignment can cost a team a lot of time and anguish to catch up. I am happy our team stayed on track and worked together for this project. Hopefully our campaign will yield successful results.

BUS 572 - 4 Google Analytics Cookies

Cookies (....I hope they're peanut butter)

Let's start off by saying that the cookies aren't peanut butter, or chocolate chip, or oatmeal! What kind are they, you ask? These cookies are files that store information about you and/or your computer on the hard drive. Google Analytics assigns first party cookies (set by the domain being visited and can only be read by the website that created it) that helps the website you are on to uniquely identify you. First party cookies are used for Google Analytics tracking. Browsers don't share first party cookies across domains so when you visit another website, another first party cookie is created. When visit the website again, Google Analytics knows you have visited before and only counts you once. It sounds either really cool or really creepy, right? It can be both, but cookies help the visitor to have an experience centralized and customized around them. If you think disabling cookies will protect your privacy, you are right in a sense, but this is only limits your ability to visit websites and the time it takes to find something you are looking for may increase. Although cookies seem scary (unlike cookies we eat), they help us, the website visitor, in the long run.

Google Analytics Cookies (...still not the edible kind)

Google Analytics has 4 different types of cookies. The first cookie is the Visitor Identifier cookie. The Visitor cookie is persistent which means even if you close your browser, the cookie still remains. It expires 2 years after a visitor visits the website or until the visitor deletes the cookie.  The second cookie is the Session Identifier. The Session Identifier cookie expires only 30 minutes after inactivity on a website. This is a short life span compared to other cookies that expire after years. It determines the beginning and end of a visit so whenever you visit a new webpage, the cookie is refreshed and then set to expire in 30 minutes. The third cookie type is the Traffic Source Identifier. The Traffic Source Identifier cookie stores traffic source information for a session. It has a 6 month timeout and will only be attributed to a certain campaign for that amount of time or until the cookie is overwritten. The last cookie is the Custom Visitor Segmentation cookie. This last cookie helps in defining segments for reporting like demographics. You can do A/B testing and see if logged in visitors' actions differ from those who do not log in. This cookies expires after 2 years.

Customizing - You Can't Live Without It

I knew you could track things and they would be customized to your actions, but I never knew the detailed level this was done on. All the code that goes into customization, and everything that can be tracked! There is event tracking for things like flash, page categories, outbound links, site search, and eCommerce. You can track paid search campaigns, banner ads, e-mails and other programs. Just linking your Google Analytics to AdWords you can get auto categorized. This videos we can watch and listen to have so much information. Have these videos been helping you in fixing your campaigns? What have you learned specifically that you think enhanced your campaign?

It's Been a Journey

We are over halfway finished with the class and I am really looking forward to these last few weeks. Not because it's going to be over, but because we are finally going to be involved in the challenge! I feel like we have been talking about this challenge for months (because we have!) and today was finally the day we were able to register. Once all the details get worked out and we get our code, our campaigns can proceed and we finally get to see if our research was correct. Learning about everything leading up to this was great, but finally getting to see it in action is the icing on the cake. It's like we are in the homestretch of it all and I think many of my classmates can agree that this journey was well worth all the knowledge we received. The guest speakers also really helped us to learn and steer our campaigns in the right direction for success.

...are you still craving that cookie??