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Google AnalyticsHow To Make Sense of Your Stats

Presented by Leanne WicksWeb Marketing Strategist

TODAY’S TOPICS1. What is Google Analytics?

2. How to set up GA on your site

3. Common Terminology

4. Types of Traffic

5. What Reports are Important?

1.

What is Google Analytics?

+ What is Google Analytics?

• Free web site tracking provided by Google

• Powerful!

• Overwhelming

+ How Does It Work

• JavaScript code that is placed in a common file on your site executes when someone visits a page on your site

• Uses cookies to track visitors 1st party cookies, safe and unobtrusive

• If JavaScript or cookies are disabled, your visits aren’t tracked

• Data is anonymous and confidential

2.

How To Set Up Google Analytics

+ Account Creation

• Sign up for Analytics using a Google account at www.google.com/analytics Use a dedicated business account, not your

personal Gmail Click “Create Account” and login with the

Google account

+ Account Settings

• Choose “Universal Analytics”

• Name your property, usually URL

• Specify the URL, industry and time zone

• Name your account, usually business name

• Click “Get Tracking ID”

+ Tracking Code

+ Placing the Code

• Code goes in a common file just before the </head> tag

• Works across the domain and any subdomains (i.e. breakfastbootcamp.com, blog.breakfastbootcamp.com, etc.)

+ Users

Give others access to your site’s analytics Users – can ONLY read reports Administrators – Full access; only for

people you trust. Must have a Google account to access

+ Profiles & Filters

• Keep an unfiltered profile

• Segment out data that you don’t want Internal traffic Agency Traffic

• Typically done by IP address

• Cannot be done retroactively

+ Events

• Special coding added to things like PDF downloads, videos, external clicks

• Must be set up, not a default

• Important for Goal Tracking

+ Goals• Every site has a goal, what is yours?

Destination Duration Pages/Screens per visit Event

• The “Goals” section under “Admin” will walk you through goal set up

• Can also assign goal value, if you know it

+ Destination Goal Match Types

• Destination Goals require you to set the URL you’d like someone to visit Head - /offer/ Exact - /offer/january-offer.html Regular Expression - /.*/signup\.html

Most challenging to create, but most flexible

+ Goal Funnels

Specify the steps a visitor must take during a single visit in order to reach a goal

Useful for determining whether your on-site conversion funnel is working as expected

+ Sales

• If your site sells online, enable e-commerce tracking Under “Profile Settings” select, “Yes, an

Ecommerce Site” Then, enlist your favorite nerd to help you

alter the tracking code appropriately

3.

Common Google Analytics

Terminology

+ Audience Overview

+ Audience Overview

• Visits - # of times someone came to your site

• Unique Visits - # of times you received a unique visitor to your site, always fewer uniques than visits

• Pageviews – how many different pages were loaded on your site, always more than visits

+ Audience Overview

• Pages/visit – average # of pages/visit

• Average visit duration – how long were visitors on your site?

• Bounce rate – a visitor viewed just a single page and left

• New vs. Returning visits – using cookies, Google can tell you if your visitors have been there before

4.

Types of Traffic

+ 4 Types

• Direct Types URL into address bar /bookmark

• Referral Clicked a link on another site that brought

them to yours

• Search Organic Paid

• Campaign Tagged URLs: email, banners, print

+ Most Important Traffic

All of it!

• But, as web marketers, we are particularly interested in non-branded organic traffic Non-branded means your company

name is not included in the search Indicates that you are likely reaching

people who don’t already know you; a brand new audience

+ How to Increase Non-Branded Organic Traffic

• Keyword Research

• SEO

• Good quality, relevant, frequently updated content

• Ongoing marketing efforts every month!

… AKA: Web Marketing from TKG!

(Sales pitch = OVER )

5.

What Reports

Are Important

+ Depends on Goals

+ Audience Overview

• Quick glance with important metrics like visitors, pageviews and bounce rates

• High level picture of what’s happening with your site: demos, technology, mobile

+ Traffic Sources

• What kind of traffic you are getting (direct, referral, search, campaign)

• What keywords people are using to access your site Get lists of organic and paid

keywords and the details on which performed best

Use advanced search to exclude branded phrases

+ Campaign Tracking

• Tag links in newsletters, banner ads and even print publications and find out if anyone is actually visiting them or converting

• Very powerful to determine impact of other marketing efforts

+ Content• All Pages

What pages are visitors viewing?

How much time are they spending on pages?

Where do they go when they leave a page?

• Landing Pages Where do people enter the

site? What do they do next?

+ Content

• Events Special code can track when people open

PDFs, download videos or click to external links

This is valuable data that requires a little extra work to set up, but it’s worth the effort. May require help from your favorite nerd.

+ Conversions

• Goals Get reports on the goals you

created for your site View the steps people took to

complete a goal

• E-Commerce

• Get sales data Segment based on type of

traffic, location, etc

+ GA Reports: Everything Else

• Dozens of other reports that let you drill down to very specific data Where are visitors located, technology How are they moving throughout your site Real time!

• If you find a report you love, email it to yourself or create a custom dashboard

THANKYOU

Any Questions?Learn more at TKGenius.comLeanne Wicks • lwicks@tkg.com