Something I just discovered (much to my annoyance) is that Google Analytics does not allow for easy (in fact, any) migration of account data from one account to another.
Google Analytics is a very powerful tool for web masters to get information about their site, content and visitors. Every union website should use Google Analytics (and Google Webmaster tools). Not only do many useful web applications (such as email services MailChimp or Campaign Monitor) integrate with Google Analytics, but they are excellent ways to produce reports on the number of people who visit your site, and the paths they go through to find your content. Google Analytics also links to Google Adwords, another excellent tool for union campaigns.
A word of warning however. Once you create an account for your website, it’s impossible to transfer it to another person without giving them the password. This means that if you manage a number of sites, you will want to create separate accounts for each website, rather than use the “website profiles” option within an account.
Best practice for Google Analytics account set up:
- Always make sure that every website you set up on Google Analytics is set up as a new Account, and not a new Profile.
- Create a Google Account (or use an existing one) to create the new Analytics account.
- Set yourself, or whoever will be managing the account on your end, up as an Administrator on the account. This will allow you to access and administrate everything while maintaining account exclusivity for each union campaign. This will also allow the account to be “unhooked” later, in case you leave the union or need to hand over the account to another person without losing all their historical data.
Hi Alex,
Great point about setting up different Analytics accounts instead of profiles. I came across this problem a while ago and because of very similar reasons to yourself; but never thought to blog about it.
Nice one.
Cheers
Alex
Thanks for the comment. Given that unions are increasingly starting to use tools like Google Analytics, I thought it was worth writing about. Especially since it can really stuff things up down the track if you get it wrong at the start.