Google Analytics Demystified: A Hands-On Approach (Second Edition) 2nd Edition

I bought this book a couple of weeks ago. I had already purchased "Google Adwords and Google Analytics" by Benjamin Mangold about a year ago. That's a very good book to get started, and I learned quite a bit. However, I really wanted to go a bit further in learning the real ins and outs of Google Analytics. Joel Davis wrote the perfect book. If you're new to Google Analytics, then start from the beginning. I started right off reading the chapters that dug into different concepts more deeply than what I had already read in other books. If you're not setting up micro and macro conversions - good luck. If you're running an Adwords campaign without setting up Google Analytics you're really missing out and probably paying at least twice as much for advertising that you need to. I highly recommend this book to take your Google Analytics knowledge to the next level.

The only way to use this book is to actually start at the beginning and read through it page by page.When trying to learn a specific task, it is too difficult to actually find anything you are looking for - the index is useless, and the table of contents is not very revealing. I usually find things missing from the index, but I could not find one single item in this index. I gave up trying and started reading through the book as directed. I learned quite a bit using the direct approach, but in my busy life I have still not finished it. My interest, though, was for a personal web page, not for a business.

I've always had trouble finding my way around in Google Analytics. I knew how to use the program thanks to online courses and other books, understanding GA was something completely different. Mr. Davis' book helped me to finally get a grip on GA. I will never be a super star at analytics but right now I understand what GA is telling me about my websites and that's a major improvement. 5 stars for this excellent book!

Excellent book. Very comprehensive. Detailed but very clear. Opened my eyes to how Google Analytics can help us better understand our site visitors and make more informed, data-driven decisions. We can already see improvement. The book provides a wealth of information that I will be referring to again and again. And, as an added bonus, I passed the Google Analytics test.

Thorough. Well-written.

It's more of a text book than a quick read. I am sure it is useful... if you have time to read it.

Thanks

While moving through the first edition of the book I had several questions, which Joel helpfully answered via email. When he mentioned that a new edition of the book was near release, I asked if he could send me an advance copy, which he did. Here are my impressions after reading through the second edition:- everything I said about the strengths of the first edition apply to the second. So, I'm pasting my review of the first edition at the end this review.- the second edition has expanded the content that it covers, all of which has provided additional insights into how to apply Google Analytics to different marketing situations.- the second edition's discussion of procedures and its screen-shots have all been updated to reflect the current state of Google Analytics.- the second edition provides more detailed discussion of how to apply Google Analytics to strategy and decision-making.REVIEW OF FIRST EDITION FOLLOWSI'm so glad that there is finally a book on the market that allows a novice (as well as the more seasoned user) of Google Analytics to be able to understand, learn from, and implement this powerful tool. As a marketer it is important to me to be able to translate theoretical information needs into data collection procedures. This book allows me to do that quickly and efficiently. On the other end of data collection, this book gives me the insights and the confidence to accurately interpret the data. This, then, allows me to ask more, learn more, improve my site, repeat!The flow of the book is great for when I have time to sit down and learn GA. The quizzes and exercises along the way help me assess strong and weak areas and catch me before I 'go live' with some of my implementation ideas. The Table of Contents, however, is great for 'on-the-fly' learning when an immediate need arises for something new or simply to review a current process.This book and author will likely become 'the' source learners and students of GA for many years to come.