Google Analytics for Dummies

Google  Analytics The Basics

The Rundown

➤  What is Google Analytics

➤  Why we measure?

➤  What to measure?

➤  Getting use to the Interface

➤  Understanding the Metrics

➤  Interpreting Reports

➤  How to track your campaigns

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about a website's traffic and traffic sources and measures conversions and sales. The product is aimed at marketers as opposed to webmasters and technologists from which the industry of web analytics originally grew.

Universal Analytics Universal Analytics introduces a set of features that change the way data is collected and organized in your Google Analytics account, so you can get a better understanding of how users interact with your online content.

•  Connect multiple devices, sessions, and engagement data with the User ID.

•  Get a new and more flexible tracking code that lets you collect data from any digital device.

•  Use simplified and more accessible configuration options.

•  Create custom dimensions & custom metrics to collect data that's unique to your business.

•  Collect deeper demographic data of your users.

What To Measure

Define Your Business Goals

➤ Why does your business have a website?

➤ What is its purpose or what problem does it solve for the business?

Goals By Business Model

Sell  Products  Ecommerce  

Contact  Info  for  Sales  Prospects  Lead  Genera7on  

Show  Adver7sing  to  Visitors  Content  Publisher  

Help  Customers  Solve  Problems  Support  

Drive  Awareness  &  Engagement  Branding  

Business  Objec7ve   Goal  

Defining Goals in Terms of Website Actions

View  a  ‘Thank  you’  page  

Sign  up  for  an  email  list  

Download  a  whitepaper  

Make  a  purchase  

Listen  to  3  audio  tracks  

All  of  these  ac7ons  are  “conversions”  

For  example,  do  you  want  your  visitors  to…  

$ ü

Think About Micro Conversions

Goals  

There  is  value  here!  These  ac7ons  lead  to  your  future  conversions.  

Think About Micro Conversions Common Micro Conversions •  Share content via social media, •  Subscribe to newsletters, •  Watch video, •  Play games, •  Use calculators, •  Use payment estimators, •  Live chat, •  Customize product, •  View special content, •  Store locator, •  Property search.

New  visitors  

Micro  Conversions  

Goal  Achieved  

Keep  your  customers  returning  

Getting use to the Interface

Audience

Acquisition

Behaviour

Conversions

Getting use to the Interface

Audience

The visitors overview is the default screen you’ll see when you view the report for any of your sites. This screen gives you the number of visitors, unique visitors, and pageviews (along with the average pages/visit).

It also shows you the average time spent on your site, the bounce rate, and the percentage of new visits (a pie chart comparing new to returning visitors is also shown).

Audience Metrics •  Demographics, •  Interests, •  Geo, •  Behaviour, •  Technology, •  Mobile

Acquisition

The Acquisition tab shows you where your traffic is coming from tells you a lot about the strength of your SEO, your incoming links, and your AdWords and other advertising campaigns.

It also shows you where your weaknesses are. Ideally, you want traffic coming from a variety of sources, so that your traffic isn’t tied to closely to a single source that’s beyond your control.

Acquisition Metrics •  Organic, •  Direct, •  Referral, •  Social, •  Email

Behavior

On the content overview page, the graph represents page views rather than visits, so you’ll notice the numbers used should be a lot larger than on the visits graph. One thing you’ll notice here is that both pageviews and unique pageviews are both shown.

Behaviour Metrics •  Site Content, •  Site Speed, •  Site Search, •  Events, •  AdSense,

Conversions

Conversions are broken down into two categories: goals and ecommerce. Goals are fairly easy to set up. You can have up to four sets of goals, each with five individual goals.

This can be valuable for tracking different kinds of actions on your site (like length of time spent, reaching a specific page, or visiting a certain number of pages).

Conversion Metrics •  Goals, •  Ecommerce, •  Multi-Channel Funnels, •  Attribution

Understanding Metrics

Pageviews, Visits & Visitors

•  A pageview is counted every time a page on your site loads,

•  A visit (or session) is a period of inteaction between a browser and a website. Closing the browser or staying inactive for 30 minutes ends the visit.

•  A visitor is uniquely identified by a Google Analytics visitor Cookie.

Pageviews, Visits & Visitors – The Basics

Visitors Visits Pageviews

1 1 3

Pageview Pageview Pageview

Visitors Visits Pageviews

1 2 5

VISIT 1 VISIT 2

A   B   C  

Pageview Pageview

A   B  

Pageviews vs Unique Pageviews

Pageviews

6 Unique Pageviews

3 Page A 3 1

Page C 2 1

Page B 1 1

Pageview Pageview

VISIT

A   C  

Pageview Pageview

B   C  

Pageview Pageview

C   A  

Time Metrics – Time on Page

Time on Page is calculated by the timestamps of the page visit.

3:32:25 3:33:40

Time on Page = 1 minute and 15 seconds

Time on Page = 0 seconds

Equation: Page B Time – Page A Time = Time on Page A

Exit  

A   B  

Time Metrics – Time on Site

Time on Site is calculated by the time on each page.

3:32:25 3:33:40

Time on Page = 1 minute and 15 seconds

Time on Page = 1 minute and 10 seconds

This visit had a time of 2 Minutes and 25 Seconds. Page A (01:15) + Page B (01:10) = Time of Visit (02:25)

3:34:50

Time on Page = 0 seconds

Exit  

A   B   C  

Traffic Sources

Direct Traffic Visitor arrives directly

There are a few misconceptions around what is treated as a direct visit. A direct visit can be attributed from a visitor:

-  Typing the URL into the address bar,

-  Visiting the site via a bookmark,

-  Ctrl-clicking a link (manually opening a new window)

-  Visiting from a HTTPS webpage,

-  Visit from an email without a tracked link,

-  Visits from shortened URLs

-  Visits from a document

Referral Traffic Visitor arrives via another site.

Search Traffic Visitor arrives via a search engine

How To Track Your Campaigns

Link Tagging Link  tagging  is  the  process  of  adding  marke7ng  informa7on  to  the  URLs  in  your  marke7ng  material.  

Tags   Meaning  

Campaign   Name  of  your  campaign  

Medium   The  channel  

Source   More  informa7on  about  the  channel  

Keyword   Keyword  from  search  

Content   Ad  variant  

How The Tag Is Displayed In Your URL

Example of tagged URL, within an Email

Campaign Tag Query Parameter

Campaign Utm_campaign

Medium Utm_medium

Source Utm_source

Keyword Utm_term

Content Utm_content

http://www.cheproximity.com.au/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=april2014

Event Tracking Events are user interactions with content that can be tracked independently from a web page or a screen load.

_gaq.push([‘_trackEvent’, ’Category’, ’Action’, ’Opt Label’, Opt Value’])‘_trackEvent’

’Category’ – the category that you want to show up, use something broad like external links, social links, images, videos, or form. ‘Action’ – This is the action that occurred; something the user did that you are tracking. For the ‘Action’ property use clicked, submissions, copy or whatever you are tracking from the user. ‘Optional Label’ – This is an optional field you don’t need anything, but when you start tracking a lot of stuff you want to be able to segment it out. For this property think of it like a specific category for example, facebook, box 2, or headline picture. Optional Value – This is a number value for the thing you are tracking. There is no need to put quotes around the numerical value because its a number.

Google Tag Manager Google Tag Manager lets you add or update your website tags and mobile applications, easily and for free, whenever you want, without bugging the IT folks.

End.