You don't have one. Or you can't find it. What do you do? You improvise of course!

Quickly and with a MacGyver-like moment of inspiration, you grab a 2-liter bottle from your recycling bin and cut the top off. Phew - that was a close one! Now you won't have oil on your driveway, or water all over your bedroom carpet, and you can go about your day feeling like a secret genius.

Now, a funnel would have still been the best tool for the job, but sometimes it's just not available. What the heck does this have to do with Google Analytics?

Well, Google Analytics has a great built-in Funnel Visualization report, but the problem is that it only works if you have the foresight to build it ahead of time. Funnels are never retroactive - they will only start working the moment you create them. What if you have multiple landing pages? Moreover, what if you only want to look at AdWords traffic? Well, you would need a separate profile in addition to a properly set up funnel, and all of this has to be set up ahead of time.

The problem is that often you won't know what kind of funnel you need until it's too late. Having 20 goals in Google Analytics is great, but you could have a million and it wouldn't make a difference.

The good news is there's hope. That hope is called Advanced Segments. Here's how you do it:

Step 1: Define the funnel.

This part is pretty straightforward. Lay out the path you are trying to get information on, along with any other parameters (AdWords only, US only, etc.), like this:

Step1: /consumer/special/index.html (Landing Page)
Step 2: /order.html
Step 3: /cart.asp
Step 4: /checkout.asp
Step 5: /bonus.asp
Step 6: /order-receipt.asp

Step 2: Create a new Advanced Segment.

First, make sure you change the calendar so that you're looking at the date range you want to analyze. Then click on the 'Advanced Segment' link in the left navigation:

Then click on 'Create custom segment' in the top-right:

Now you're ready!

Step 3: Results!

Let's start with just the landing page. I recommend doing a few things to the segment. First, use 'Page instead of 'Landing Page' and 'Contains' as the match type. Give your segment a name, and then click the 'Test Segment' button:

Make a note of that number - I usually do this in a spreadsheet (see below), although I have plans to use the Google Analytics Data Export API for this.

Next, by adding a second page, we can then see how many people looked at both in the same visit. You can do this one page at a time. Let's use the /checkout.asp page as an example:

Once you've done this for all of your pages, you'll have your improvised funnel report:

Finally, if you want to further segment the funnel, you can repeat the process with an additional condition. Here's the same segment we did before, but just for AdWords traffic:

By doing this analysis, you will get a real feel for how your actual funnels are performing and be able to take better benchmarks before running tests. Plus, you can feel like a secret genius.

1. Missing Page Tags
Probably one of the most common mistakes that can cause problems in your Google Analytics data is missing page tags. Yes, the Google Analytics code needs to be on all pages of the site. It doesn't matter that someone in sales told you that "all we need are metrics from one or two pages." You're setting up Google Analytics already, so you might as well do it right and get accurate data. If any of your sites pages are missing the Google Analytics Tracking Code, you'll start seeing self referrals (where the real source information is overwritten with your site information) and a variety of other issues will occur as well. Comb through the site a few times and make sure you aren't skipping any pages and that every page will register with Google Analytics.

2. Mixing urchin.js and ga.js code
For those of you inheriting Google Analytics projects, you may be faced with the task of maintaining or updating a site that was previously tracked using the urchin.js version of the tracking code. Although Google states it is possible to use both the urchin and ga versions of the code as long as they aren't on the same page, my suggestion is to update the entire site to the new ga.js version of the tracking code. Mixing the two can cause some complications that are better left avoided. Save yourself some future headaches and update everything at once. Plus you'll get some cool new features with ga.js anyway, so why wouldn't you want to upgrade?

3. Not setting up ecommerce correctly
I've had numerous people come to me asking why they aren't seeing any ecommerce or revenue information within the Google Analytics reports. Aside from enabling ecommerce reporting in the Profile Settings, there is actually a separate script you'll need to setup on your site in order to get ecommerce working. Just grab the code and have your developers work their magic to get the dynamic transaction level variables passed into the ecommerce code for Google Analytics. Can't get all those fields? Read more about which variables are required and how to set up ecommerce.

4. Goal Conversion Setup
An important aspect of effectively using Google Analytics is to track the conversions that take place on your site. Aside from ecommerce you can set up goals within each profile to receive data on desired actions your visitors make on your site. I've seen some strange things when it comes to goal setups, but one of the most common is repeating the goal step in the funnel. After specifying the goal page, you don't need to repeat that step again in the funnel. Hopefully since Google added the "+ Yes, create a funnel for this goal" expandable selection this will help make this task a little clearer.

Also, be mindful of the match type you're selecting. Even with the helpful example next to the Goal URL field, I still see people that enter in the hostname in addition to the URI. If you're unsure about which match type you should use, the interface provides a link to an explanation of when you would each of the match types.

5. Campaign Tags Missing
If you're doing online (and even offline) marketing, you'll need to make sure you're tagging your URLs correctly in order to see metrics from those marketing efforts within Google Analytics. Typically by default in Google Analytics your paid traffic sources (with the exception of Adwords) will come in as a referral, so you must tag your URLs with the Google Analytics tagging parameters in order to see the correct referral information. To tag your URLs you can use our builder tool to generate the destination URL. By adding the necessary query parameters Google Analytics will attribute the visit information to the correct source. For Adwords users, just make sure Auto-tagging is enabled and Google will do the rest for you.

Tagging your URLs is also useful for other marketing efforts, like auto responder emails, offline campaigns, and banner ads. Without tagging your marketing efforts you'll be missing the opportunity to track the progress of your investments, so it's important that these steps are taken to get your Google Analytics data reporting accurately.

6. The Misuse of Filters
Filters can be applied to the information coming into your profiles to manipulate the final data in your reports. However, having an incorrect filter can severely impact the accuracy of your reports. When filtering out your office IP addresses make sure that you are using the correct regular expression. When creating include and exclude filters think carefully about what you're including and excluding. Include filters act as include only filters and will only include the information you specify into your reports. If your reports suddenly drop off and no changes were made to the site, check the filters that are set up on the profile to see if you are accidentally excluding your traffic. Carefully monitor any new filters because once the data has been manipulated (correctly or incorrectly) there's no going back.

7. Improper setup for subdomains and multiple domains.
Take a closer look at your site structure when you're setting up Google Analytics. Do you have any subdomains? Does the visitor ever cross over to another domain while browsing the site? Although this topic can be fairly advanced, tracking subdomains and multiple domains is arguably the most common mistake made by anyone setting up Google Analytics on their site. Check out the Google help files for instructions on setting up your Google Analytics Tracking Code to work with subdomains and for multiple domains to make sure you're getting it right.

But what if you need a script that's very specific to your business needs? Or maybe you've heard about the Google Analytics API and you'd like to use it to tie your Google Analytics report data with data from your back end. You might even just need some custom modifications to your Google Analytics Tracking Code and general setup to get that one bit of data that can make or break your business.

At ROI Revolution, we offer support plans that can be used for nearly any type of Google Analytics project you can think up. You can also use your support time to have us help you effectively configure optimal tracking for your business goals, get a second opinion on that those thorny configuration issues, or just to audit your Google Analytics account setup and make sure everything's working just as it should.

And if you just want your own Greasemonkey script, we can make that happen too.

Learn more about our Google Analytics technical support offerings.