Profile Your Data

Google has made profiling one of the best kept secrets within Analytics. Google Analytics allows you to create multiple profiles under one account. When you first set up your GoogleAnalytics account, you are, in effect, creating a profile under that account.

The following are some of the reasons and benefits for setting up multiple profiles underonce account. You are able to:

• Control the flow of information about your website• Separate out information about specific web properties, like your blog• Track multiple independent web properties (i.e. http://www.domain1.com/ and http://www.domain2.com/)• Determine which data from your site appears in the reports• Apply different rules and criteria for advanced analysis• Restrict access for certain individuals• Segment your visitors• Set up reporting access for a variety of users• Create custom reporting• Track various, specific outcomes with goals• Obtain information on internal search habits• Establish a back-up for your main profile

Adding a profile is the easy part. The more challenging task is configuring your profile so that it is pulling in the appropriate data. There are a variety of options to make your account run more efficiently, so make sure you do the following:

• Specify the Default Page option• Apply AdWords cost data• Consider adding the Site Search option• Set up at least one goal• Filter your results to set up different properties that will affect your reports• Add other users whom you want to have access to this profile only

Here are a few other important notes to keep in mind:

• The first profile for a property should be the "master" profile. A master profile should have no filters so that it contains ALL historical data since tracking began. Once this is set up, leave this profile alone!

• Once a profile is deleted, the profile data cannot be recovered (make a back-up of the master profile by clicking on "Add new profile" and selecting "Add a profile from an existing domain").

• Tracking for a profile begins as soon as the tracking code is installed on the website and a visitor's browser loads a page.

• When you add an additional profile from an existing website with its own profile, then the additional profile will not contain the historical data that you see in the first profile.

Setting up profiles rewards your effort with great customer insight. You can then leverage that insight to your advantage by developing better content or redesigning your page flow. The end result will help you market your product/service to your prospect-turned-customer.

So, in the end, for all the negativity that profiling in the "real world" receives, this is one area of your life where profiling actually does some good.

© 2012 Rob Sanders.