Google Analytics Training - Viget Labs

© Copyright 2010 Viget Labs

 Web Analytics answers two major questions

1.  How do visitors arrive at your site?

2.  What do visitors do on your site?

 The third question requires you, and it’s the most important

3.  Why do visitors do what they do?

What Is Web Analytics?

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 Google Analytics gives you data such as •  Number of visitors

•  How long visitors spend on your site

•  Popular pages

•  Problem pages

•  Search engine keywords use to find your site

•  Visits from sites linking back to yours

•  Conversion rates

What Is Web Analytics?

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 CPC: Cost-Per-Click

 PPC: Pay-Per-Click

 Organic: Free search

 Traffic Source: Where the traffic came from

Common Terms

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 The entrance page of a visitor

 Often landing pages have a traffic source of referral or search

Landing Page

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 Unique Visitors represents the number of unduplicated (counted only once) visitors to your website over the course of a specified time period. A Unique Visitor is determined using cookies

 Or….

 Τους σωστά περιεχόμενα αν έχω, στο να μαγικά προκαλείς. Τα φράση επιδιόρθωση από.

Terminology – Unique Visitors

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 Unique Visitors •  Counts the amount of people who visited your site within the

specified date range

•  If I visit your site 5 times from the same computer, I will still only be counted as 1 unique visitor

•  In other words, visitors can make multiple visits

•  Tracked by cookies


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 Contingent on date range •  Sunday + Monday + Tuesday + Wednesday + Thursday + Friday +

Saturday Unique’s ≠ Unique’s for one week

•  If I visit on May 31st and June 1st…


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May 1 – May 31

Monthly unique visitors: 1 May 31 daily unique

visitors: 1

June 1 – June 31

Monthly unique visitors: 1 June 1 daily unique

visitors : 1

May 31 – June 1

Monthly unique visitors: 1 May 31 daily unique

visitors: 1 June 1 daily unique

visitors : 1


The Big Takeaway

 Absolute Unique Visitors are the amount of individuals who visited your site within the selected date range. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.


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 This report classifies by visitor type (new or returning)

 Counts visits not visitors

New vs. Returning Visitor

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 Bounce Rate: A one page visit

Terminology – Bounce Rate

A Bounce

“I came, I saw, Yuck, I am out of here…” – Avinash Kaushik, Google Analytics Evangelist

Landing Page Back Button

Exit Link Advertisement

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 Exit Rate: The page a visitor exited from in a two or more page visit

Terminology – Exit Rate

An Exit Prior Page Exit Link

Advertisement Quits browser

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 Goal: An action you define triggered by a pageview or a click

•  Ecommerce: Purchase confirmation

•  Lead Generation: Contact form submission

•  Whitepapers: PDF download

•  Blogs: Clicking an outbound link (advertisements)

•  Reservations: Hotel bookings

 GA goals can also be used for internal testing

•  Measuring an internal click tests site’s function but might not directly achieve a business goal

Terminology – Goal

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Visitor

Visitor Visitor Visitor

Visitor Visitor

Visitor

Visitor

Visitor

 Conversion: A completed goal

Terminology – Conversion

Conversion

60 % exit

50% exit

20% conversion rate

Visitor


Visitor Visitor

Visitor Visitor

Homepage Landing Page

Shopping Cart Contact Form Services Page

Blog Post Booking Widget

Purchase Form Submission PDF Download

Clicked Ad Booked Reservation

Visitor

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•  If I visit your site 5 times from the same computer, I will still only be counted as 1 unique visitor

•  In other words, visitors can make multiple visits

•  Tracked by cookies

•  Sunday + Monday + Tuesday + Wednesday + Thursday + Friday + Saturday Unique’s ≠ Unique’s for one week

Visitors – Unique Visitors

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•  Measures visits not visitors

•  A visitor can complete a new visit and a returning visit in the same month

•  One visitor can count as multiple return visits, but only one new visit

Visitors – New vs. Returning

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Source Where did they come from?

Who brought them to your site?

Who is ‘pushing’ your message?

Google? MSN? Yahoo!? ESP?

Jet Blue

Traffic – Medium & Source

Medium How did they arrive?

cpc, email, banner, referral, none

Airplane

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Jet Blue



Airplane

cpc

email

banner

referral

none

Google, MSN, Yahoo

Facebook.com

ESP

Washingtonpost.com

Direct

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•  Visitors enter URL directly into browser

•  Browser bookmarks

•  Desktop email clients

•  Desktop Twitter clients

Traffic - Direct

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•  Links on other domains

•  Web-based email clients (Gmail, Yahoo! etc.)

•  Social sharing

Traffic - Referring

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•  Search engines

•  Organic search

•  Paid search

•  Keywords

Traffic - Search

Change search medium

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Traffic – Google AdWords

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•  Does not display exact paid search keywords – only what you are bidding on

•  Make sure to separate paid from organic

Traffic - Keywords

Change search medium

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•  Campaigns are self-defined using a special URL

•  You create the medium, source, and give it a name

•  Not to be used on your own site

•  Campaign Name: Holiday Santa Banner

•  Source: http://ChristmasIsAwesome.com

•  Medium: CPC

•  Campaign Name: Save Darfur Email

•  Source: Bronto (Email Service Provider Name)

•  Medium: Email

•  Campaign Name: Fender Jaguar Widget

•  Source: Social Media

•  Medium: Referral

Traffic - Campaigns

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•  Displays most visited pages by URL

•  One of the most insightful reports

Content – Top Content

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•  Displays content by title tag

•  Aggregates all pages with duplicate title tags

•  Exact same data as “Top Content”

Content – Content Title

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•  What pages generated the most visits

•  When visitors arrived, where did they arrive?

Content – Top Landing Pages

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•  What pages caused visitors to exit the site?

•  This includes “bounces”

•  Counts exits not exit rate

•  Often mirrors “Top Content”

Content – Top Exit Pages

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 Aggregates clicks vs. counting clicks by individual links

 All links that go to “/example” will have the same number

 All links that exit the domain will have the same number

 Not very useful

 Breaks easily

Content – Site Overlay

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 Goal: An action you define triggered by a pageview or a click

•  Ecommerce: Purchase confirmation

•  Lead Generation: Contact form submission

•  Whitepapers: PDF download

•  Blogs: Clicking an outbound link (advertisements)

•  Reservations: Hotel bookings

•  NEW! Engagement Goals: Time on Site and Pageviews

 GA goals should be used for internal testing as well

•  Measuring an internal click tests site’s function but might not directly achieve a business goal

Terminology – Goal

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Visitor


Visitor Visitor

Visitor

Visitor

Visitor

 Conversion: A completed goal

Terminology – Conversion

Conversion

60 % exit

50% exit

20% conversion rate

Visitor


Visitor Visitor

Visitor Visitor

Homepage Landing Page

Shopping Cart Contact Form Services Page

Blog Post Booking Widget

Purchase Form Submission PDF Download

Clicked Ad Booked Reservation

Visitor

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•  A snapshot of all goals

•  Conversion rate is aggregate of all goals

Goals – Overview

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 Three Pageview Based Goal Types: 1.  Head Match

•  Input the text after the domain (text after domain: URI) and it will track anything that starts with your input regardless of what comes after

•  /head_match will track

http://example.com/head_match

…and

http://example.com/head_match/this_counts_too

•  Use when your site has dynamically generated URL’s

•  Does not accept regular expressions

•  Never use full URL’s (http://example.com/head_match)

Goals – Head Match

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 Three Pageview Based Goal Types: 2.  Exact Match

•  Input the URI and it will track anything that starts with your input but nothing after

•  /exact_match will track

http://example.com/exact_match

…but not

http://example.com/exact_match/this_wont_track

•  Use when you know the exact URL

•  Does accept regular expressions

•  Never use full URL’s

Goals – Exact Match

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 Three Pageview Based Goal Types: 3.  Regular Expression Match

•  Allows any part of the URI to be mashed together

•  .*Viget.* will track

http://example.com/example/Viget

http://example.com/example_Viget/about

http://example.com/Viget/about

•  Use when URL’s vary or contain query parameters

•  Use ‘top content’ report to test regular expressions

•  Never use full URL’s

•  For additional information on regular expressions, see appendix

Goals – Regular Expression Match

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  Names and steps should be descriptive

  Turn goal on

  Select match type

  Goal value is optional

  Funnel not required

  ‘Required first step’ affects the funnel visualization report only

  Funnel data is “backfilled”

  Data is not retroactive

Goals – Building Goals

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 URL Goal

 Time on Site

 Pages per Visit

Goals – Building Goals

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 Enter a Time

 Goal Value is Optional

 Turn Goal On

 Use a Descriptive Name

Goals – Engagement Goals

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 Enter Pages

 Goal Value is Optional

 Turn Goal On

 Use a Descriptive Name

Goals – Engagement Goals

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Goals – URL Based Goals

Name goal

Funnel only

Conversion URL

Match type

Funnel only

Conversion URL

Name steps

Optional value

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•  A visualization of

user flows

Goals – Funnel Visualization

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Required First Step = Yes

Conversions: 1

Required First Step = No

Conversions: 2

Visitor #1

#1

#1

Product

Purchase

Confirmation

#1

Visitor #2

#2

#2

Visitor #1

#1

#1

Product

Purchase

Confirmation

#1

Visitor #2

#2

#2

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Required First Step = Yes

Conversions: 2

Visitor #1 Product

Shopping Cart

Purchase Visitor #1

#1

Visitor #2

#2

#2

#2

Visitor #1

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•  A visualization of

user flows

•  What’s wrong with

this picture?


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  What’s wrong with

this picture? •  Goal is turned off

•  All URL’s are the same

•  Regular expressions

•  Poor naming

Goals – URL Based Goals

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 Goals can be any pageview

 Track clicks as pageviews

/internal-links/red-button

Goals – Additional Ideas

http://www.viget.com/engage/how-to-track-internal-links-in-google-analytics

http://www.viget.com/engage/how-to-track-internal-links-as-goals-in-google-analytics/

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•  Use this report to measure most effective traffic type

Ecommerce – Sources / Medium

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•  Change sorting to tell a different story

Ecommerce – Product Overview

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•  How many visits does it take before a purchase?

•  Do visitors know what they want? Or are they in research mode?

Ecommerce – Visits to Purchase

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•  How many days does it take before a purchase?

Ecommerce – Days to Purchase

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 Tracking all marketing initiatives is key to understanding their overall impact

 GA offers custom ways track additional marketing tactics

•  Banners

•  Email

•  Yahoo! and MSN paid search

•  Magazine Ads

•  TV ads

•  Direct Mail

Integrating Marketing

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Jet Blue



Airplane

cpc

email

banner

referral

none

Google, MSN, Yahoo

Facebook.com

ESP

Washingtonpost.com

Direct

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 Google Analytics only has four native mediums:

Traffic – Mediums

cpc

none

organic

referral

Google, MSN, Yahoo

Facebook.com

Direct

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Google only


 User Defined report

 _setCustomVar(index, name, value, opt_scope)

Segmentation setCustomVar

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Campaign Report

Campaign

Medium Ad Content

Source

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 Campaign Name •  Required

•  Answers the “Why?”

•  Why did visitors come to your site?

•  The name of the campaign should answer that question

•  “I came for the holiday promotional” = Holiday 2010

•  utm_campaign


http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55578

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 Campaign Source •  Required

•  Answers the “Who?”

•  Who is ‘pushing’ your message?

•  Google? MSN? Yahoo!? ESP?

•  “I came via Google” = Google

•  utm_source



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 Campaign Medium •  Required

•  Always use lowercase

•  Answers the “How?”

•  How did visitors get to your site?

•  cpc, email, banner, referral, none

•  “I came from a banner ad ” = cpc

•  utm_medium



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 Campaign Content •  Optional

•  Use to label banners: 200x300 White Banner

•  Use to further clarify marketing: Yahoo! Ad Group Name

•  utm_content



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•  Source, Medium, and some Visitor reports let you compare against goals and ecommerce (if installed)

The Tabs

102


•  Use different data views to see data from different angles

•  Is this page a problem?

The Data Views

Bounce Rate

Time on Site vs. Site Average

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•  Shows visitor path to previous 5 pages, and next 5 pages from the current page

•  Clicking each page opens the Navigation Summary for the selected page

Navigation Summary

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•  Confusing report – not actually entrance paths

Entrance Paths

The page you’re on

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•  Shows where visitors came from (Jet Blue vs. Airplane)

Entrance Sources

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 What are visitors searching for?

 Which pages inspire searches?

 Do visitors refine their search?

 Dig deep! •  Change sorting

•  Click into additional dimensions

Site Search – Overview

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Site Search – Overview

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•  How many visitors used search?

Site Search – Usage

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•  What did visitors search for?

Site Search – Search Terms

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•  Which pages inspired searches?

Site Search – Start Pages

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•  What pages did visitors find through search?

Site Search – Destination Pages

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•  Dig deep! Click a search term, change “Analyze” dimension

Site Search – Search Terms

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 Why Segment? •  Segmentation allows the full use of Google Analytics on specific

user types

•  Analyze behavior based on content and visitor type

Do new visitors behave differently than returning visitors?

Does national traffic convert more often than international?

How is the blog performing?

Are the product pages causing roadblocks?

Is the direct mail campaign in Washington, DC working?

Does organic search bring more engaged traffic than paid search?

Segmentation

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 GA’s Advanced Segments Beta •  Filters data retroactively

•  Easy interface

•  Mash up data in unique ways

Advanced Segments Beta

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Dimensions Metrics

http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=99021 http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99118

Data types/names Numbers

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 Mobile Traffic


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 Filters + Profiles is the most powerful and accurate segmentation

•  Filters are processed before you see the data

•  Filters are processed in order from top to bottom

•  Always use regular expressions

Using Profiles and Filters

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 Segment the Viget Engage Blog http://viget.com/engage

 Include filters exclude everything except what you’ve included

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 Exclude the Viget Engage Blog http://viget.com/engage

 Excludes only exclude the sub-directory


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 Include organic search traffic

 Learn more about using regular expressions to create custom profiles http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55582


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 The Google Analytics Interface: •  http://galearning.com/ga_learning/gainterface/map.htm

 The Missing Google Analytics Manual: •  http://www.grokdotcom.com/2010/02/16/the-missing-google-

analytics-manual/

 Firefox plug-ins: •  http://www.vkistudios.com/tools/firefox/betterga/index.cfm

•  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748

•  http://www.viget.com/engage/sweet-greasemonkey-script-for-google-analytics

•  http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/31584

Additional GA Resources

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 Regular Expressions •  http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?

hl=en&answer=55582

 Tracking Internal Links •  http://www.viget.com/engage/how-to-track-internal-links-in-

google-analytics

•  http://www.viget.com/engage/how-to-track-internal-links-as-goals-in-google-analytics/

 Google UTM URL Builder •  http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?

hl=en&answer=55578

Additional GA Resources

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Technology

Google Analytics Training - Viget Labs