Author: Justin Cutroni
Publisher: O'Reilly, 2010
Pages: 224
ISBN: 978-0596158002
Aimed at:  Technically savvy Javascript developers
Rating: 4.5
Pros: Practical details that allow to you to dig deeper 
Cons: Fast pace - sometimes too fast
Reviewed by: Ian Elliot

This isn't your standard book on Google Analytics which simply goes over the basic ideas of how to use it and then explains the use of the web interface to process the data collected. This particular book goes in to the details of how the Javascript that you place on a web page actually tracks what is happening. It uses this info to suggest additional ways of gathering data about web site use.

It starts off a bit too slowly with an introduction to Web Analytics and creating an implementation plan. Chapter 3 is of use if you don't know how Analytics works and want to know in detail about the tracking code you place on each page. So far so fairly standard. It's the next few chapters where the book starts to get more interesting.

Chapter 4 is about tracking clicks, outbound links and non-HTML files. You could find out about these elsewhere but it is nice to have it all in one place. From here the book moves on to accounts and profiles, filters, goals and funnels and profiles that you should create. Chapter 9 is on marketing campaign tracking and Chapter 10 is about advanced tracking techniques in particular cross domain tracking, iFrames, event tracking and so on. The book finishes with a brief look at enterprise considerations of tracking, CRM and tools and add-ons.The tools section is particularly useful.

While much of the earlier part of the book is carefully explained, the pace picks up as you move through to the point where you will most likely need to look things up to follow. Occasionally I found it difficult to follow. For such a slim book there is a lot of information packed in.

This is not a beginner's book and it probably isn't essential reading for the majority of Analytics users. You  also need to have a reasonable knowledge of basic Javascript.

Recommended if you want to make full use of Analytics or go beyond what Google has decided to make easy.