what does google analytics do.

*this is meant as a study guide that was created from lecture videos and is used to help you gain an understanding of what does google analytics do.

Google Analytics Foundations

Business Objectives

Ecommerce- sell products or services

Lead Generation- collect user info

Content publishing- encourage repeat visitors and engagement

Online information- find what they are looking for when they need it

Branding- awareness and loyalty, is your site being shared, linked to and engaged with?

How Google Works

Small javascript code placed on each page of site that collects information

Data collection-> configuration-> data processing-> reporting

Google Analytics Terminology

Attribution- process for assigning credit for sales and conversions

Attribution model- rules that define how to assign credit for sales and conversions

Conversion- completed activity that you deem important to your business goals

Dimension- describes characteristics of a piece of data

Event- Action that is tracked when a user interacts with content

Goal- used to track discrete actions and their value, series of actions

Hit- an interaction that sends data to Google Analytics

Metric- an individual element of a dimension that can be measured as a sum or ratio

Pageview- when a page is loaded or reloaded in the browser

Segment- a set of users that share common attributes

Session- a period of time a user is active on your site. Default is 30 minutes

Source/Medium- source is origin of traffic, medium is category of that source

Overview of Accounts

Account Users-> Analytics accounts->Properties-> Views (a way to slice data from property)

Create Account-> Tracking Code

Create Views

Make first view a master property as a data backup (once you apply a filter on a view it is permanent)

Admin-> View-> Create New View

Add filters to views

Admin-> Views-> Filters-> Add Filter (Exclude Employees with IP addresses, Force lowercase URLS -> Custom-> lowercase-> Request URL

Filter order matters

Learning Google Analytics Reports

If you would like official training in Google Analytics you can visit LunaMetrics

Audience Report

Insights into your audience

Who they are

What devices they’re using

What their interests are

What their location is

Acquisition Report

Reveal where users are coming from

Provide their conversionpattern

Behavior Reports

Show how users interact with your website

Conversion Reports

Demonstrate how all your channels work together

Every report is built off dimensions(characteristics..)  and metrics (quantitative..)

Double check your views segment and dates

Each dimensions/metric has a scope, hit-level-single action taken, session- all hits user takes on site, user-browser and location

Combine dimensions and metrics that share the same scope

Data Table

Utilize plot rows between different rows you select to see comparison on graph

Annotations

Add notes to data, select tiny down arrow right under graph

Segmentation

Key in first step to any analysis

Segments allow you to isolate and analyze subsets of your data

Series of individual filters that create well defined slice of all of your data

Example: segment visitors by region

‘Add Segment’ in any report view -> ‘New Segment’ -> Create Name and make your segment

Filters

Top of Data Table, use search query box to filter, use advanced!

To include an OR filter use pipe symbol use ‘Matching RegExp’ -> Yahoo|Facebook

Audience Reports

Demographics, new and returning users, browsers, networks, mobile devices

Cohort analysis- Group of users who share common characteristic

Demographic-age and gender of audience

Interests- context for expanding content/advertising into related markets, what your users have in common

Geographical- Language, Location

Behavior- measure gravitational pull of your site, how new users and existing use your site and identify patterns

Technology- how people are connecting and consuming your site

Mobile- what mobile devices they use and such

Benchmarking- compare your data with industry data with companies that opt to share it

User Flow- graphical representation of all the paths users have taken through your site

Overview- 10,000 foot view of what is going on as it relates to the date chosen, set the tone of what you should look into and drill into

Demographics overview- age and gender based on date range

Admin  -> account ->property ->property settings -> enable demographics and interest reports

Location

Frequency and Recency- how many times users are coming back to the site

Engagement- shows the session duration and page depth

Technology- Understand the user and what technology and browsers they use

Acquisition Reports

Identify what marketing efforts are working and what aren’t

Channel- bucket of sorts, common sources of traffic and categorized by Google

Source medium campaign

Shows how much traffic, the category and the quality, use to figure what type of marketing that you want to do

Overview- gives at a glance of all the top channels sending visitors to your website

What am i looking for?

Am I going to find it in this report?

Will I understand the action I need to take if I find the data?

All Traffic shows all the traffic to your website

Channels- can show the highest traffic drivers

Secondary dimensions as landing pages to see what landing pages are performing well

*Secondary Dimension as Landing Page -> Advanced Filter -> Sessions

Referral Traffic to see where you are getting linked from and what page the traffic is landing on

Advanced Filter -> Referral path as a secondary dimension to see exactly what page is linking to you

Social Reports

Social that sends to your website, social interactions that happen on your website(can install a tracking code for each social media widget), track what happens on social media sites (better to use their platforms directly)

Overview- once goal tracking set up, social value, Social Source to see the plugins,

Network referrals- compare social media networks to overall sessions on site, etc.

Data hub- google partners that share their analytics with Google Analytics

Conversions report- measure the value of social, need to set up conversions and goal tracking first

Behavior Reports

How your users interact with website and app, how to understand how visitors navigate through the site

Overview- see every page and it’s dimensions/metrics on the data table

Behavior flow- lets you see the path visitors take on your site, from first page to the last

You can ‘customize dimension items’ such as United States as an expression to see only US visitors In Site Content Reports/ Content Drilldown

Landing Page- lists all pages where the visitors entered/arrived from, analyze their bounce rate to see which pages you need to improve

Exit Page- the last page people are on before they leave

Site Speed- ‘page timings’ to see each page and their load time

Events- select ‘graduation cap’, includes CALV

category-object interacted with

Action- click or download

Label- to categorize

Value- numerical value you want to associate

Conversion Reports

measure how well site is meeting its objective

Crucial for conversion rate optimization and using goal conversions

Admin -> View -> Goals -> New Goal -> Name Goal -> Leave default goal slot -> destination (when url is reached, it is a goal) duration & pages/screens per sessions- how long someone is spending on your site, event type- first set up events, then set up -> add in goal details -> leave case sensitive unchecked -> adjust ‘value’ if needed -> adjust ‘funnel’ if needed (funnel visualization report to analyze it)

Reverse Goal Funnel- How a user got to your particular goal

Goal flow- shows a layout of the goals you created

Real Time Reports

Activity as it happens

Great way to understand immediate usage, or if one day promotion or new blog post

Custom Tracking

Google UTM Tracking- UTM_campaign, UTM_source, UTM_medium, each reference a tag and they are placed at the end of the URL.

Use a question mark after (don’t include slash, leave if it’s there) ex. mysite.com/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=offer (name it whatever campaign, replace twitter)

View ‘campaign’ reports under ‘acquisition’ reports

Use campaign tracking to bring in more granularity

Advanced Google Analytics Tips

SEO Metrics in Analytics- ranking, market share, referrer links, organic search traffic, bounce rate, page load speed, indexing and crawl issues, user experience segmented by device

Ranking- webmasters -> search traffic -> search analytics -> position

Links to your site- search traffic -> links to your site -> who links the most

Organic search traffic- google analytics -> audience -> overview -> add segment ->

User Experience- google analytics -> behavior -> site content -> landing pages -> average session duration -> add segment -> mobile and tablet traffic to see time spent per landing page for each device

Indexing and crawl statistics- webmasters -> crawl -> crawl errors to see possible technical issues

Search engine traffic as segments- analytics -> set date range for at least 6 months -> audience -> overview -> add segment -> add new segment -> traffic sources -> source: contains bing -> add segment also by google organic

Integrating with WordPress- go into analytics -> go into admin -> property: tracking info: tracking code -> go into backend of wordpress and add google analytics code into your header or footer -> go into WordPress: appearance: editor -> add code

webmaster -> add a property -> download html verification to verify Google Webmasters -> analytics admin -> view: goals -> + new goal

Advanced filters and views- analytics -> admin -> view:filter -> add filter -> use advanced filter as necessary

Setup custom dimensions- analytics -> admin -> property: custom definitions:custom dimensions -> add custom dimension -> scope which type of visitor to associate with a dimension

Setup custom metrics-  analytics -> admin -> property: custom definitions:custom metrics -> new custom metric -> fill out information -> receive tracking code

Refine a weighted sort- analytics -> select column to get a weighted sort -> sort type: weighted -> set rows to maximum -> export into excel -> apply filter to a specific column/metric in excel

Understand user intent- Use site search data and behavior flow from Google Analytics. -> what do you want to measure.. Search terms/keywords? Search patterns such as top performing searches? Where did users search/ what page path? Which site was the referrer? Did search improve goal conversions analytics? Can we design and test other outcomes? What are the page depth? How satisfied are users with what they find?

Set up Site Search in Google Analytics to study user intent- admin -> view (site search needs to be set up for each view created) -> view settings -> site search tracking: turn on -> enter query parameter -> click save -> behavior tab -> site search:overview

In page analytics with Google Chrome- search for page analytics on google chrome store -> download -> go to a web page that you have google analytics access to -> analyze specific page for click patterns and ctr

Content Grouping- a way to group your content and to measure content more granularly to see the aggregation of content into categories. Admin -> view: content grouping -> add new content grouping -> tracking code OR extraction OR rule definition.

How to use Regex- used for flexibility to set up definitions. You can create a regular expressions to make it simple to use.

Learn the regex characters: \        \. | ? () []      [ ] [-] . + * ^ 

Advanced Reporting in Google Analytics

Build customized team reports- customization -> custom reports -> create custom report

Setup C level dashboards- customization -> dashboards

Cross Domain tracking and site linking- set up to see sessions on two related websites as a single session. Used for multiple domain owners with the same visitors or using a third party checkout or if you have Iframe content that is displayed on another site. Find a developer to setup cross domain tracking as there is a lot of google analytics code manipulation.

Fault reporting with segmentation- set date range -> look at audience:overview to see traffic reductions -> segment by traffic type such as google and bing

Conversion Rate Analysis

Understand which metrics you want to measure, such as page timings, referrers and bounce rates, referrers and time on page, exit pages. For PPC metrics, you can look at best converting keywords, keyword ROI,

-use Google Analytics Content Experiment to test multiple variables

Page timings- Google Analytics Behavior tab -> site speed -> page timings -> enter specific page in search area -> go to speed suggestions and enter page in the search area to see a pagespeed suggestions report on what can be improved for page timings

You can also segment the traffic from different devices and etc.

Referrer and bounce rate analysis- Google Analytics Acquisition tab -> all traffic -> referrals -> sort by bounce rate column -> add secondary dimension -> behavior:landing page

Exit page analysis- google analytics behavior tab -> site content -> exit pages (exits are a percent on each page) -> add segment for bounce rate and apply

PPC click traffic analysis- google analytics acquisition tab -> adwords -> keywords -> see goal conversions to see which keywords converted the best

Content Experiments- google analytics behavior tab -> experiments -> create experiment -> name and select objective that you have already setup in google analytics ; set up content experiment. It is being replaced by Google Optimize to A/B Test.

Conversion Reports

Multi Channel funnels- show entire journey of customer from initial interest into conversion. These reports offer attribution insights. Google analytics conversions tab -> multi channel funnels: overview -> top conversion paths show sequences and interactions that led to a conversion.

Default Attribution models- google analytics conversions tab -> attribution: model comparison tool -> last interaction, to see all attribution models, example is last interaction will attribute the last channel that the customer interacts with before making a conversion. Last non direct click is default model and all credit is given to last touch point that isn’t direct. Last AdWord click is to see all conversion value to the last ad that a customer clicked before converting. Look into all the other attribution models.

Create a custom attribution model- you can have up to 10 attribution models per view. Google analytics conversions tab -> model comparison tool -> last interaction -> create new custom model -> select baseline model and complete setup.

Best practices when structuring Google Analytics- Always keep a raw unfiltered view, have one account per business entity, have a test view that you can use to test various new configurations

Admin -> user management. Access and permissions can be assigned at the account, property or view level

User management best practices

Collaborate-  analysts outside organization, see data but make no changes, read and analyze, low risk

Edit- web analytics consultants who make configuration changes

External consultants- no user management permissions, best to limit scope, cannot add and delete at will

Putting multiple clients in one account is a bad idea. Be generous with Collaborate but cautious with Admin functions. Give Read and Analyze access of the entire account to users, unless it will cause confusion as you may need to keep data private. You can set the view at the web Property instead of at the Account level. Give careful thought to who can manage users and limit Admins.

Filters

Permanent Filters are applied on the View level, but they are shared across an Account.

Data comes in at a hit level and filters are not retroactive. Filters are permanent and can be destructive. Admin -> View -> Filters

For a small company you can type ‘what is my IP’ and for a large company you can speak with the IT team to get accurate IP address.

To see the Hostname of a PageView- Behavior -> Site Content -> All Pages ->Primary Dimension: Page -> Secondary Dimension: Hostname

Set Advanced Filter for it- Filters -> Advanced Filter -> name filter ->

Debug and Troubleshoot

Go to website page -> open network tab in top right of webpage -> more tools -> developer tools -> network -> to test, go into GA Real Time: Traffic Sources -> go back to webpage and add UTM (screenshot) to ensure you can see it is you

Debugging a Tag Management System with WASP- go into webpage to troubleshoot -> right click, view source -> add WASP plugin to Chrome if haven’t done so -> open WASP on webpage -> go into WASP -> reload webpage -> click gtm.js

Using Google Tag Assistant to Debug- download google tag assistant plugin -> enalble and record -> go into webpage -> stop recording -> show full report -> google analytics report or tag assistant report

Segmentation

Segmentation with both Sessions and Users will always filter Users and then Sessions, regardless of the order the segmentation is created in.

Segment Sequences

Demographic Reports

Enabling Demographic Reports- Enable Advertising Features (Submits secondary hit to DoubleClick servers, Enables Demographics and Remarketing, Must have edit permissions) -> Adhere to GA Advertising Features policy (restriction on the data, privacy policy updates) -> Enable demographics and interest reports.

How to enable demographic reports- Google Analytics -> Admin -> Property: Tracking Info: Data Collection -> Enable Advertising Reporting Features -> Property: Property Settings -> Enable Demographics and Interest Reporting

Cohort Analysis

Google Analytics -> Audience: Cohort Analysis -> Add Segment -> Date of First Session -> Segment: Behavior

-> Create another segment with different date range: Add Segment (Example Report)

Custom Reports

Use to explore dimensions and metrics-
Dimensions & Metric Explorer

Go into a report you want a foundation from -> Click ‘Customize’ in left corner to see how Google Analytics created that report -> add and change metrics as needed within Customize -> save the report

Calculated metrics

Google Analytics Admin -> View: Calculated Metrics -> New Calculated Metric ->

Custom Dimensions

Google Analytics Admin -> Property: Custom Dimension -> New Custom Dimension -> place code above the ga pageview ->

-> change name of SOME_DIMENSION_VALUE to something accurate -> troubleshoot with WASP on page that uses the Custom Dimension

Import Custom Data

Google Analytics Admin -> Property: Custom Dimension -> Add Custom Dimensions needed for data imports -> Go into Property: Data Import -> Custom Data -> Fill out information of data set -> add key and Imported Data (where the data will go) -> get schema -> download schema template -> open CSV downloaded -> fill out as needed

-> Upload that csv file with Manage uploads -> ensure data is populating with Real Time Reporting