Satisfaction Brought It Back

I am of course referring to the cat that curiosity was killing just a few days ago. That's right etsy unveiled its link to Google Analytics for shop owners. It took about a minute to set up and a couple of hours to go live for those of us with existing analytics accounts. Like so many things the data it revealed presented just as many questions as it answered. Many of the keywords made perfect sense, people searching for tatting or for me specifically, yet many were very perplexing. I could not for the life of me figure out why a search for "cupcake applique on a onesie" resulted in a visit to my store. After a visit to the etsy forums, I had a sort of answer. Apparently, since our stores are part of a much larger site Googles data is showing us information that brought people to etsy who then clicked through to our stores. They do not have access to the internal paths that might show how that leap was made and etsy is working on a way to link the two services more accurately, but they don't have the ability to make this external tool perfect for our needs.

I could complain, but following these bizarre links has been quite a game for me this weekend and really the numbers will prove to be just as important as the more specific data. I spent quite a lot of time checking out the links that brought people, albeit indirectly, to my store. Some of them had links to my store, but most did not. I got several hits from people visits from the Closed Thread blog, which puzzles me a bit and I even got visits from The Black Apples blog. I do wish I knew how they got from there to here, but I guess I cant know everything.

One glaring omission from my link data I just noticed this morning, is I got not one single visit to the store from my blog. I know I don't write on weekends, but it still seemed odd to me. So if you will please indulge me in an experiment. Click through to my store after you finish reading and let me know you did it, if it's not too much trouble. You can shop if you want, but mostly I just want to track the data in a less than scientific manner. I don't usually link to the store since there's a permanent link in the left column, but here's one for the experiment: http://totusmel.etsy.com

Thanks to anyone who plays for me. I am still working on a tatted mask and I have several pieces on a list to remake before I get around to making some new pieces. I do have the beginnings of a new mask floating around in my head right now, perhaps colored for Mardi Gras, but I'm not sure yet. I guess we'll see what emerges when I get the time.