The first screen you as soon as you hit the create new custom report report button is the one below:

In this screen, you can name your report for easy referencing. Now you’re ready to setup the elements in your custom report. First up is the Metric Group. It’s here that you decide what metrics do you want to see. Visitors vs Unique Visitors, Bounce Rate, Conversion Rate, Conversions, etc.

To add your desired metrics just click on the +add metric button and after adding some your form will look like the one below:

Next step is adding dimensions. This will be the details you want in your report. The metrics are the “columns”, while the dimensions are the “rows”.

Next steps is one of the features that is not available in the old Google Analytics custom reporting. In the old one, you have to create an advanced segment separately to create some filters of sorts. In the new GA, you can now include filters/segments in the custom report itself. So if your custom report is designed for organic traffic metrics only, you can then set a filter.

Last part of the report would be the option to make your custom report available to other profiles in your account. So instead of creating a custom report for each profile, you can now use your report to any of the profiles in your Google Analytics account.

You now have a custom report that looks like the one below:

So I tried my luck with the new GA. And lo and behold! I finally managed to get the data I wanted to present to the client. Here’s how the custom report was built:

First, I created a “Thank You” page. I then set it up as a goal in my Google Analytics account.

After setting up the goal, I went into the configuration page of my contact plugin. At the bottom of the page, there’s a box for “Additional Settings”. In there I inserted a line of code.

And here I am now able to track contact form submissions!

In the old Google Analytics, a lot of times, after creating a custom report, I still have to use a custom segment to get the desired data. In the new Google Analytics, custom segments can now be embedded in the report. Sweet!

For more of the features in the new Google Analytics, click here.

Another feature I like most is that I can now use advanced segments while viewing the goal funnel visualization report. This is very helpful especially in the knowing where customers drop off in the funnel, on a per segment basis.

One of the downsides I have with the new interface is that I have to rebuild all my custom reports. In some of my accounts, I have set up 20 or more custom reports. Some of them are no longer needed though in the way standard reports are built in the new Google Analytics.

Looking at the bounce rates of a list of say 2,000 keywords/queries for your website would really be very exhausting. The big question would be what type of analysis are you going to perform for the data set at hand? How are you going to translate the data into an actionable list?

A very good breakdown and discussion regarding this feature can be found in the two blog posts below:

Build Your Own Weighted Sort (GA Style)
End of Dumb Tables in Web Analytics Tools! Hello: Weighted Sort

Regular Expressions eBook – A relic or valuable tool? | Google Analytics, Search Engine Optimization and PPC blog.

One of the greatest resources in its use is the Fire Horse SEO Blog. David Harry, the blog’s author, explains in plain and in step-by-step process, the use of segmentation. Here are his posts:

Google-Analytics-tips-for-SEO
Google-Analytics-tips-for-SEO II

I have a little problem with the Beta Advanced Segments though. Each time I use it, my CPC data disappears until the next day. I e-mailed Google and it seems it’s an isolated issue. Waiting for them to get to the bottom of it.