Google Analytics does tracking by using the urchin tracking cookies. In case if you do not know what are HTTP Cookies, then you need to start reading some of these articles that I am linking to!! They can give the crunch to your digital marketing initiatives.

Do bear with me through this post, I will get a bit technical. In case if you do understand a bit of PHP, you will enjoy this post. For now, just keep this information with you, it will come to your aid sometime later when you would be talking to your developers!

Some Cookie Basics first

So if you have any kind of server side script running on your server, then you can create your own cookies! You should know that on a PHP server environment, the entire set of cookies is available in the $_COOKIE reserved variable.

Isn’t this awesome? What this means is that with one line of PHP code, you can refer to all the cookies which are now on your site for each of your visitors.

If you take look under the hood, then you will see that there are many cookies used by Google Analytics.

Each of these cookies have a certain purpose.

So why the __utmz Cookie?

The __utmz cookie contains the traffic source information in Urchin tracker format. It contains information about how and when an individual visitor hits your site for the FIRST time. That means whenever the visitor comes back to your site, this value remains unchanged.

Imagine a scenario wherein a visitor first sees a post of yours on Facebook, or on Google … or other traffic sources. The visitor comes to the site, checks out a few pages and goes away (… such a shame!!). After a few days, the same visitor comes back to the site via an ad. This time the visitor leaves his information on one of your contact forms (I do hope you are using these!).

How would you know that the user is a repeat visitor? The form will only contain data which is about the visitor’s current visit.

So, whom would you attribute this event to? Your advertisement (the later) or your social media sharing (the former)? Do you believe in first impressions or do you believe in the recency effect?

Without having information about the user’s previous visit to your site, you will always choose the later. Thus misattributing your visitor acquisition to the wrong medium! And that’s why the __utmz cookie is so important! In effect it represents a unique visitor for your website.

I treat the __utmz cookie as equal to a real person!!

Associated with it is a story, this story which rolls out in a set of visits. Google Analytics can tell you if you are willing to sift through the data that is available to you.

What can we do with this Cookie?

How do we bite into this Cookie? Well, there are more than one method of cutting this cookie!!

• If you have conversions on your site (Downloads, Sales, Contact Forms, etc), then you can always use the value in this cookie to track the origin of the visitor. This will give you a definite number on which traffic source (and which marketing campaign) is more effective for you when it comes down to conversions.
• Each __utmz has a unique value set, this unique value can be converted into a Custom Variable and you can then track a unique visitor across your site using this Custom Variable (the free version of Google Analytics allows 5 Custom Variables, so use them sparingly).
• For the more technically sound platforms, you can use this and the other GA cookies to track the visitor ACROSS multiple visits. However, there are other tools which are far more easier to setup to do this viz., Mixpanel.
• If you are betting a lot on acquisition of traffic via Search engines, then the __utmz cookie can be mined for keyword data … yes, the data which people are searching for and are coming to your site. However, as of 2013, GA only provides the keyword data of users who have not signed in into their Google Accounts (around 30% of the data is not available).

Hmmm … crunchy delight!! And nutritious as well!!

I would love to hear from you how else can we use this and the other Cookies. In the meantime, do start integrating your Cookies with your CRM for more visitor intelligence!

Back in December, me and my team were in an iterative process for creating a lightweight ERP for our e-commerce based stores. Being a bridge to the technical and the business worlds can be exciting, but without the proper understanding, it can go haywire. Fortunately, we were able to handle the business requirements and all was well. The main reason for any software provider to cry foul is scope change; this is true especially in the case of a flexible business wherein, the entire revenue model of the business changes.

These are the times when the parity between execution and strategy becomes the most clear. So, in December, I had this sudden flash in the pan idea of doing a due diligence for SAP. The right calls and voila, we were underway … what followed were umpteen number of presentations by various SAP implementation partners, visits by the SAP India sales team to reinforce our decision and “smoothen” the entire decision making process.

What will SAP do for me? Well …

• Accountability, Transparency and Accuracy of information
• Facilitation of further analysis for top management
• Scrutiny of our business processes by a Third Party for improvements
• Adherence to globally accepted norms

Four months down, we have went through the entire workflows and process charts at least three times … the user licenses have been bought, the hosting has been more or less figured out … and you know what … I hope to let go a big phew!

b****c*** bahut kharcha hua re!!

SPECIAL NOTE – The post is written ONLY in a lighthearted fashion and does not in any way reflect the organization’s vision and mission or complete lack thereof.

Me and Amit have been having this debate since the past 2 and a half years now. It’s on the existence of god … I take the side of the theists and Sharma takes the side of the atheists. In fact he has gotten so good at that that by now he is a moderator in one of such communities. I just believe in god. I cant prove god’s existence, its a premise for me. And its blind acceptance to that fact.

This weekend, I had been to my family’s guru’s ashram. I was going there after an absence of 12 years (not that I missed not going there). Whilst on the way, I was questioning the many practices followed there … no leather items, lower castes may not enter certain areas, lower castes have to wait for the brahmins to finish their meals, et al. My mother seemed to take this to heart, the next day when we were having a discussion with the high priest over there, she asked him this question about why no leather … and the explanation he gave … or rather the answer he gave set me thinking.

The disciple does not have to look at question or logic for answers, he needs to look at his faith for those answers. The moment we start looking at other sources than our own faith, we have lost our faith in that particular thing. Be it god, be it science, be it the paranormal. Mulder had faith in aliens, Scully had faith in science, I have faith in god … what do you have faith in?

If you think IMDB is just a collection of people trying to manipulate people into watching movies they want them to watch, then think again.

Yesterday, I bought tickets for D-Wars (Dragon Wars) the movie released today. Just when my tickets were confirmed online, I checked out the IMDB rating .. 3.8 !! No worries, I reassured my friends into thinking that IMDB does not fit into the “Indian context“.

Today, I have seen the worst sfx movie ever. One question to the movie crew … Why?

Highly recommend give this movie a skip. You wont live to regret it.

PS – Check out the user comment on the imdb page of this movie. Its so apt, that I wish to copy paste it here!

When I was an engineer, the campus placements were on full swing … well, not so full … it was the Dot Com Bust of 2002, remember?

So a new firm had come to campus – IRIS. And I was intent on getting placed. The interview was going well and I seemed to have the technical part of the interview clinched (whew!). Now the hard part … the HR round. Some weird questions were thrown in, but I got them or dodged them safely … then the head HR (Jayaraman, as I would soon find out) asks me, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”

I had not thought of this question (I was green under the gills, cut me some slack here!!). The smart alec inside me wanted to blurt out … “On the other side of the table” … I did not. I gave some simple minded answer and that was that.

5 years hence, I am taking interviews … and I AM on the other side of the table.