Detecting and avoiding sampling in Google Analytics just got easier

James Standen Analytics Canvas Tool, Avoiding sampling 1 Comment

Sampling in Google Analytics helps speed up the response from GA, but it can serious affect the accuracy of the data you are looking at. Fortunately, Google Analytics has a great API, and with Analytics Canvas you can use a visual interface to get at your data, know when sampling is happening, and in many cases eliminate it. In our …

Analytics Canvas now with direct integration with Tableau

James Standen Analytics Canvas Tool, Avoiding sampling, Tableau 2 Comments

Anyone who has used Tableau Software knows how powerful dynamic visual analytics can be. But they also know sometimes it can be hard to get the data ready when it is coming from multiple sources, and requires cleaning or preparation. Getting that data in shape is exactly what Analytics Canvas is best at- Canvas gets the data together and fixed …

Google Analytics unsampled reporting Automation

James Standen Analytics, Automation, Avoiding sampling, Google Analytics Premium, unsampled reports Leave a Comment

If you are a Google Analytics Premium user and hate all the clicking and downloading involved with unsampled reporting, you’ll be happy to hear that Analytics Canvas fully supports the complete automation of unsampled reports thanks to functionality newly released by Google. As a Google Analytics technology partner and part of the trusted testers program, we’ve been working with a …

Understanding Google Analytics Sampling- Sample Size and Sample Space

James Standen Avoiding sampling, Under the Hood Leave a Comment

Understanding Google Analytics Sampling, Sample Size and Sample Space Nobody likes sampled data if they can have the exact data. Using Analytics Canvas, in the vast majority of cases you can eliminate sampling from Google Analytics. The Google Analytics core reporting API has some new features in the area of sampling that will let Analytics Canvas users understand exactly how …

How to eliminate sampling by using the Google Analytics API

James Standen Analytics Canvas Tool, Avoiding sampling, Google Analytics Premium 1 Comment

Sampling can drastically reduce the accuracy of data queried from Google Analytics, but by using the API in many cases it can be eliminated. Google Analytics is clearly an enterprise capable analytics platform. As higher and higher traffic websites take advantage of its features, Google has put in place some limits on how much data can be included in a …

Avoiding sampling in Google Analytics for your year end reporting

James Standen Analytics Canvas Tool, Avoiding sampling, Google Analytics API 1 Comment

Are you working on year end reporting? If you use Google Analytics, and had more than 500,000 visitors this year and want to use an advanced segment in your reporting (and you should use segments, because segments rock) then it means it is also time to deal with sampling. A query trying to see Non-paid search by source ignores 94% …

Google Analytics fast access mode and accuracy

James Standen Analytics Canvas Tool, Avoiding sampling, Google Analytics Premium 2 Comments

Mark Twain popularised the expression “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics”. It is a phrase that I think reminds us that when working with numbers, we have to be careful with the analysis we do. Statistical sampling is a very valid way to come up with accurate, useful measurement from very large sets of data. …

How to avoid Google Analytics fast access mode

James Standen Analytics Canvas Tool, Avoiding sampling, Google Analytics API 1 Comment

We all love Google Analytics- it is a wonderful tool, great features, great price, but if you have a high traffic website, it won’t always give you all your data. So how do you avoid fast access mode? How can you eliminate sampling? You need break your request to Google into smaller chunks, so each request is less than the …

Google Analytics sampling data

James Standen Analytics Canvas Tool, Avoiding sampling, Google Analytics API Leave a Comment

Google Analytics is being used by some very large websites. The result is that there is a lot of data, and one of the realities of tracking a high traffic website with Google Analytics is that often data will be returned as a statistical sample, rather than exact metrics. Ask for too much data and you will get an estimate. …