Technology

Wednesday Buzz: How a Google Engineer Sets Up Google Analytics

A Google engineer provides a handy guide to optimizing Google Analytics for the data you need. Also: Questions event professionals should ask in the initial planning stages.

Attention all web developers, IT professionals, and data analysts: Today’s Buzz is for you.

Google Engineer Philip Walton created a detailed and thorough resource to help web developers implement and get the most out of Google Analytics (GA). His post is chock-full of the insider tips and tricks you’ve been looking for.

The analytics platform has a ton of great features that can be complicated to suss out. Walton’s GA setup guide provides a detailed look at loading analytics.js, performance tracking, using autotrack plugins, and much more.

 

Do you worry if your code is running correctly? Walton mentions that there are paid resources you can use to verify your code, but he also provides actual snippets of code you can use for GA to do this yourself.

What’s his fix? “I track unhandled errors by adding a global error event listener as the very first <script> in the <head> of the page.”

<script><head>

Check out Walton’s post for much more.

Planning Timelines

All conferences require their own planning strategy, but there are a few key questions any event professional should ask to help form a timeline.

What’s the value of asking these questions? Frank M. Waechter of Congrex Switzerland says that this step “involves gathering information, bringing together the right team, and bringing this all together in order to construct the outline and picture of the event to fulfill the criteria and expectations of the parent association.”

Some of the questions that Waechter suggests are fairly basic: What local venue can serve the needs of your conference? What are the dates of availability of that venue and nearby hotels?

But he also provides questions that are more complicated. “Have the scheduled or preferred dates for the perspective conference taken into account other events or conferences occurring at the destination at the same time?” And “What are the general conditions for infrastructure and logistics once the participants reach the selected destination?”

Hiring the best people: Adrian Segar of Conferences That Work delivers the “must-do steps” for hiring professionals.

Get ready for noisy newsfeeds: Facebook makes an aggressive move toward monetizing video by enabling sound on autoplay video in newsfeeds, reports BBC News.

Keep ’em coming back for more: Don’t miss these tips from Omnipress’ Big Ideas Blog that will keep conference attendees returning year after year.

(iStock/Thinkstock)

Raegan Johnson

By Raegan Johnson

Raegan Johnson is a contributor to Associations Now. MORE

Got an article tip for us? Contact us and let us know!


Comments