The Social Engineering Toolkit's evolution, goals
Dave Kennedy, creator of social-engineer.org's social engineering toolkit, gives an overview of how the program was created, and how it is always changing to keep pace with crime
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Analytics Blog: Advanced Topics
Get Useful Insights Easier: Automate Cohort Analysis with Analytics & Tableau
Tuesday, March 12, 2013 | 10:44 AM
Labels: Advanced Topics, Analytics API
The following is a guest post by Shiraz Asif, Analytics Solutions Architect at E-Nor, a Google Analytics Certified Partner.
Cohort analysis provides marketers with visibility into the behavior of a “class” of visitors, typically segmented by an action on a specific date range. There are many applications and businesses that would benefit tremendously from cohort analysis, including the following sample use cases:
- What traffic channel yields the most valuable customers (not just valuable one time conversions)
- Customer life time volume based on their first bought item (or category)
- Methods for gaining and retaining customers and which groups of customers to focus on
- For content and media sites, understanding frequency, repeat visitors and content consumption after sign up or other key events
- Repeat Purchase Probability
If you read E-Nor President and Principal consultant Feras Alhlou’s latest post on cohort analysis in a cross-platform environment, and read until the very end, you saw a note about a follow up post on how to automate cohort reporting from Google Analytics in Tableau. This is what I'll outline in today’s post. Why the emphasis on automation, you might ask? Without automation, we end up spending more time than necessary on exporting/copying/pasting/massaging data which can eat up resources better used analyzing and optimizing.
In addition to report automation, data visualization is also key. Google Analytics offers amazing visualization, including the recently announced dashboard enhancements, but at times you also want to view the data and trend it or merge with other sources. For this, its best to use tools available in the Google Analytics Application Gallery or a BI platform like Tableau.
With the introduction out of the way, following is a step-by-step guide to automated, cohort analysis with Google Analytics and Tableau:
1. Cohort Data Elements in Google Analytics
If you have your cohort data elements already captured in Google Analytics, then skip this step, otherwise, this post is on setting up cohort data in by Google’s Analytics Advocate Justin Cutroni is a must.
2. Tableau version 8 (Google Analytics connectors)
In order to automate reports, you need to have Tableau version 8, since this is the version that has a Google Analytics connector (works well, although still in beta).
3. Data Import from Google Analytics Into Tableau
- From the Tableau home screen, select Connect to Data, and then pick the Google Analytics connector. After authenticating to Google Analytics, you'll be prompted to select your Account, Property and Profile, if you have access to more than one.
- Set up the data import to get your Custom Variable key (e.g. CV1) and Date as dimensions, and Revenue as a Metric.
4. Tableau Cohort Analysis Configuration
- Change the format from Google's 20130113 to a Tableau DATE format. Since the date was stored in a custom variable, it was stored as a string. So that Tableau can treat this as a date, we need to convert the string to a date format. This was done by creating a new Calculated field in Tableau. We called the field "Cohort Date". The formula below worked for our purposes but would require some tweaking for larger datasets.
- Now that we have the date in the format we want, the next step is to subtract the cohort date from the transaction date. To do this, we created another calculated field called "Days since Signup". The formula for this field was simply:
DATEDIFF('day',[Cohort Date],[Date]).
Important: Tableau natively treated this as a "Measure" since it is a number. However since we're going to be graphing this on the X Axis, you should drag it to the Dimensions pane.
- Drag the Revenue measure to the rows Rows tab. Now drag the Days since Signup to the Columns tab. You should see a long graph similar to:
- Drag the Cohort date to the Filter pane, and select the cohort dates you'd like to visualize. For ease of use, I suggest, select only a few to begin with. Drag the Cohort to the color shelf to enable color coding of individual cohort dates.
- Now let's make a couple of adjustments to make the visualization more useful. In the color shelf, click the down arrow next to Cohort Date, and change the default display from Continuous to Discrete. Then, in the same field, select Exact Date instead of Year.
Voila! Your final view should look like this:
There you have it. With a few steps, we’ve pulled data from Google Analytics via the API using Tableau, massaged the data and then created a very insightful visualization. With this work now done, the graphic can be easily updated/refreshed. This takes the manual and mundane work of setting up the graphic and automates it so we can spend more time analyzing the data and finding hidden insights for our clients.
What I cant understand is how transparent it is. I mean, its one thing trying to sockpuppet / astro-turf whatever, but at least have the decency to do it sensibly.
This just smacks of epic fail and if I didnt already think the organisation was nothing but a huge scam / cluess enterprise / both, then I would now.
I really, really, really hope they are not making any money. It makes me want to cry when I think about the hard work and skill I put into meeting client requirements….
Ack KimberlyG is next assuming they are not the same people.
To be honest, my initial suspicion is that they are the same person….
Obvious mental health issues, obvious support of a charlatan (as described by Attrition…) etc…
I’d be tempted to bet a shiny new 5p coin on them being the same person.
i think this sums it up best
https://picasaweb.google.com/elyssa.durant/ElyssaD#5389813127274300450
BTW – sort of off topic, sorry – but have you seen her boss’ twitter feed (which has now become private). The profile states:
“Being prepped to fulfill the role of National Cybersecurity Advisor. ”
Please reassure me about this…..
I have no access to Mr Blacks Twitter. Oh well
You arent missing anything. Seriously….
Twitter account @josephkblack is really bizarre. I kind of scares me.
Yeah me too… Nice e-mail.. DOH!
[...] ElyssaD and her whack ass site which was scraping my content from Infosecisland. I later read Jaded Security’s post filling in the gaps that I had given up on in my searches on her digital rats warren of sites and [...]
Much,much more indeed. Social Security number,two SS claim numbers,current & past addresses,cell number,student loan amounts & info,two checking account numbers,birth certificate with her mother’s maiden name(full name of parents & where they were born),medical info(car accident,OCD,depression,takes klonopin,drs note regarding her neuropsychiatric issues-she seems to have been declared unfit to handle her own benefit checks and finances-unclear if she’s back in charge of her own shit),IRS issues from filing when she was still being claimed on her father’s taxes,crazy claims of HIPPA violations tax fraud and medicaid fraud,(pretty clear she didn’t qualify for medicaid but persists none the less),her time in “transitional” housing,the reduction in her food stamps,a crazy article she wrote about having her social security number stolen in a break-in(lmao),certificates for completing alcohol classes & “verbal de-escalation class therapeutic assault prevention system”(anger management?) and a fuck ton of other craziness. She’s litigation happy and has been turned down for all sorts of shit and is fucking raging about it.
The best part-her father is a lawyer and former Assistant US Attorney,(criminal division),and there’s several copies of the same form that lists HIS Social Security number. Daddy’s site is durantlaw.com. From the legal papers she’s posted I’m sure he knows she’s a unhinged,wonder if he knows his SS number is out there for the taking?
Joe sure knows how to pick ‘em. Apparently the best way to defeat hacking is to give all your shit away.
LOL… nice… very nice…. Amelie I like you https://jadedsecurity.net/wp-admin/edit-comments.php#comments-form
You want to know how long she and her buddies have been not only hacking every account I have but posting cut and paste twitter posts…Over a year now and she is still at it…
She claims I am CIA mole along with being a hacker…lolll…has 3-4 picture sites & 2-3 video sites as I keep having to flag stuff she puts up…I had to get a security firm for my blog…anyway…you can google my twitter name which will give you every thing else…I swear one of her sites is dedicated too me…TY for being able to do something…I blocked her and she still got in…twitter finally helped…any help you give is truely appreciated…
~jude/rockingjude