Hey y'all,

If you're anything like me, it probably seems like everytime some piece of technology upgrades, or you have to implement something that seems to come really easily to others, you find yourself met with resistance at every turn.

Such is the case this week for me when I was setting up my first Google Content Experiment.  This is the new a/b split test feature that was formerly known as Google Website Optimizer, but is now part of the Google Analytics suite.  I have been dreading this update, to be honest.

Going throught the set-up process, it actually seemed to be a bit easier that Website optimizer because you only have to set up code on your control page, while you just have to tell google which page is the test and which is the conversion.

So far so good, right?

Well during the process, I was asked to set up a 'goal', which is a feature I've never bothered to use previously for analytics, but I wanted to do this right the first time, so I set one up.

Still so far so good.

A few days ago I started running traffic to my experiment and I was thrilled to start seeing opt ins right off the bat, only to find the next day that my Google Content Experiment was reporting no visitors and no conversions. (wtf?)

What the hell happened?  I'm really missing Website optimizer right now and it seems no one from google has bothered to chime in on the numerous reports of epic failure that closely resemble mine.

Anyone out there have any words of wisdom on content experiments?  I've gone through it a couple of times and there's not a doubt that I've set this thing up properly.  Just can't figure out how google can tell me it's set up properly but function like it's not, all at the same time  🙂

Thanks in advance,
Steve