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Story: What Google Analytics cannot tell you
Can you provide detail on the browser blocking?
I found this article very interesting -- in particular the claim that 10-20% of analytics calls are blocked by browsers or anti-spyware plugins.
As mentioned in the article, analytics depends on a combination of javascript, third-party images, and first-party cookies. (Some legacy customers still use third-party cookies, but this is a small number, and GA uses first-party cookies. Not sure about the other analytics packages.) No standard browser turns any of the above three pieces of functionality off by default. (Safari keeps third-party cookies off by default, but we're not talking about third-party cookies here.) And if a user manually turns off any of these pieces of functionality, the web experience effectively dies. As for anti-spyware plugins, it makes sense to me that something out there exists that might block, for example, any __utm* cookies (GA cookies), but could this be 10-20% of all analytics calls? If so, this would be new news (and very interesting news) to me. Mr. Guarnaccia, it'd be great to learn where you got your 10-20% numbers from. Intuitively I'd think that the real number is far, far lower. Periodically *deleting* cookies is another story, as anti-spyware applications (not plug-ins) tend to do this. But we all know about the short shelf-life of cookies. But this does not mean *blocking* of analytics calls -- only detailed lifetime value (or longterm value) analyses. But the wording of the article implies that browsers and plug-ins are in fact blocking the calls. It'd be great to learn more about where these insights come from so we can all adjust our expectations accordingly.
I look forward to more information on this question.
Regards,
Jonathan
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