Google Analytics 101 + 201

What Is Google Analytics?

Interpreting Reports: Making Sense Of The Data

Social Media Reporting: See The Value Of Social Media On Your Site

Advanced Reporting

Goals And Funnels: Measuring Success

Ecommerce Reporting: Where The Money Comes From

Implementation And Google Tag Manager

Common Client Requests

Q&A

Other Resources

Agenda

GOOGLE ANALYTICS OVERVIEW

Google Analytics OverviewGoogle Analytics shows you how visitors actually find and use your site, so you'll be able to

See how users find your site

See what users use on your site

Make informed site design and content decisions

Improve your site to convert more visitors into customers

Track the performance of your keywords, banner ads, and other marketing campaigns

Track metrics such as revenue, average order value, and ecommerce conversion rates

Track events of any type, including offsite links and interactions with dynamic content

How Google Analytics Works

User loads page

GA Code fires and passes

data

Google processes data into reports

You view reports

INTERPRETING REPORTS

Visitors :: Visits :: Pageviews

A single visitor may have multiple visits to your website

Each visit is made up of one or more pageviews

A visitor is uniquely identified by a Google Analytics cookie which assigns a random visitor ID to the user’s browser

A single visitor may have multiple visits to your website

Each visit is made up of one or more pageviews

Content BreakdownNew User accesses your home page:

1 Visitor1 Visit1 Pageview1 Unique Pageview

The same User access 3 more pages and home again

1 Visitor1 Visit5 Pageviews4 Unique Pageviews

The same User leaves, comes back tomorrow, access home and 2 new pages

1 Visitor2 Visits3 Pageviews3 Unique Pageviews

Report Interface

4 Main Navigation Categories

Report StructureAudience (Visitors) - who are they?

Visitor information such as loyalty, location, and browser types, mobile devices

Acquision (Traffic Sources) - how did they get here?

Organic search keywords, referring sites, campaigns, social

AdWords

Behavior (Content) - what did they do here?

Pages Viewed by URL & Title

Events and Site Search

Conversions (Goals/Ecommerce) - did they complete any KPIs?

Conversion rates and funnels, Revenue sources, product-specific information, ROI

Session Metrics

Visits (Sessions)

A series of pageviews between one browser and your website. Google Analytics visits expire after 30 minutes of inactivity or when the browser window is closed

Pages per Visit

The average number of pages viewed during a visit to your site. Repeated views of a single page are counted.

Average Time on Site

The average duration of visits to your site. Calculated by the difference in time between the first and last pageview. You MUST have at least 2 interactions to generate time on site metrics.

% New Visits

The percentage of visits from browsers who had never visited your site before.

Content Metrics

Pageviews

A pageview is counted every time a page on your website loads

Unique Pageviews

The number of visits during which one or more of these pages was viewed

Average Time on Page

The average amount of time visitors spent viewing a page

Bounce Rate

The percentage of entrances to a page that immediately left the site without viewing a second page.

% Exit

The percentage of pageviews that were the last pageview in a session

Content DimensionsPages

Page: the URL of each page as it is viewed on your website

Page Title: The document title of each page. This is typically also displayed on the title bar of your browser window, on your computer’s task bar, and also as the first line of organic search result listings.

Landing Page

The first page viewed during a visit

Exit Page

The last page viewed during a visit

Dimensions: Traffic SourcesSource

The domain (e.g. google.com) of the source referring a visitor to your website

Medium

The type of referral (e.g. organic) to your website

Keyword

The keyword used by a visitor to reach your website (for search)

Campaign

The names of your online marketing campaigns

Ad Content

The first line of text for your AdWords ads/what you set as ad content in tagged campaigns

Real-Time ReportingGoogle will now show analytics data with a ~1 second delay

Accessible from the Home tab

Great for monitoring campaign launches

Warnings:

Reports do not provide ecommerce information

Reports obey profile filters - may not see your own visits if you are filtering your IP

Real-Time Reporting

SOCIAL MEDIA REPORTING

Social Media ReportsGoogle’s integrated report shows you the impact of social media on your site

Incoming traffic sources

Shared content

Plug-ins used (like/share buttons)

Conversions from social sources, including dollar amounts for ecommerce

Shows all social media networks sending traffic to your site

Social Media Reports – Network Referrals

Clicking shows pages from your site shared on that network

Shows conversions by network – dollar value for ecommerce

Social Media Reports - Conversions

Assisted vs. Last Interaction: did

the traffic from the network

directly drive the conversion or

help along the way?

Shows all pages on your site shared using social media plug-in buttons

Social Media Reports – Plug-Ins

Social Entity tab shows the pages actions took place on

ADVANCED REPORTING

Apply a dimension to reporting in any report

Segmentation

Lets you see metrics in content

Works at a visit level

I.E., “in my visit I did x/came from y”

Can also be custom-built

“See all returning visits from Washington”

See what users who viewed a particular production did on the site

SamplingLarge datasets and datasets over a significant period of time may take longer to process

You can control the processing time vs. the data precision with the sampling slider

Sampled data is statistically significant but not 100% complete

75% new visitors = this percentage is a real number

1,000 visitors = may be 1,075, may be 983.

Note: some queries may always be sampled:

Large datasets

Data pulled over a large time range

Data using advanced segments

You can work with the slider and date range select to limit sampling if needed

Site Speed ReportingReport provides technical details for page load, domain lookup, connection speed, etc.

Will also show these stats by page.

Performance report buckets statistics on server and page response

Multi-Channel Funnels Shows you the paths users took to a conversion

Lets you see what channels may have assisted a conversion

Helps you see how channels work together

Assisted ConversionsShows you if a conversion was direct or last click or if it was part of the process

User -> Paid Search -> Convert = last click/direct

User -> Facebook -> Organic Search -> Convert

Last Click: Organic Search

Assisted: Facebook

Shows actual dollar amounts with ecommerce

Lookback window lets you set how many days prior for assisted conversions

GOALS AND FUNNELS

Goal Types And NotesURL Destination

Goal is a page on the site

Only goal that can be funneled

In the funnel, setting the first step as required will ONLY count visitors if they start there

Not selecting a required step will count ALL goal completions even if they didn’t enter at the top of the funnel

Time on Site and Pages/Visit

Metric-based goals

Event

Match an event’s category, action or label

A series of pages through which a visitor must pass before reaching the

conversion goal

What Is A Funnel?

A funnel allows you to:

Examine where visitors enter and exit your conversion process

Eliminate bottlenecks in your process

Identify which site paths lead to the most goal completions

Use your findings to test changes to your site

Your Visitors

Your Customers

Funnel Reporting - BasicEntering the Funnel Leaving the Funnel

Defined Goal Conversion

Funnel Reporting - Advanced

Graphically shows where users are going in your funnel

Can use advanced segments

Can start with many different dimensions

Can show path based on a single data point

ECOMMERCE REPORTING

Ecommerce ReportsGoogle Analytics can report on transactions if properly coded

This allows you to see the following:

Total transactions and revenue

Transactions and revenue by source

Products sold

Individual transactions

Transaction data can also be tied back to other reports as well

Product Report

Ecommerce Reports

Individual Transaction

Ecommerce ReportsCaveats:

Ecommerce will only report what it is told

It is NOT a CRM or accounting system

It performs no math on its own

eCommerce requires integration to the client’s cart system

IMPLEMENTATION AND GOOGLE TAG MANAGER

How Google Analytics Works

User loads page

GA Code fires and passes

data

Google processes data into reports

You view reports

Google Tag ManagerImplement tagging with just one line of code on every page

Tags are set up in a Web-based form

Events are pushed to a data layer, accessible by all tags

Future-proof updating: can update tagging without having to touch the site

Preferred way of implementing GA code going forward

<!-- Google Tag Manager --><noscript><iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-XXXX"height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript><script>(function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='//www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-XXXX');</script><!-- End Google Tag Manager -->

Data Layer Events:dataLayer.push({’name’:parameter,’name2’:parameter,’event’:’eventname'})

Google Tag Manager

Mobile Sites And AppsMobile sites function the same as standard Websites - standard tagging applies

May want to track specific events: accordions, device orientation

Mobile apps require a SDK

SDKs are available for iOS and Android; can be modified for Windows 8 apps

SDKs handle some level of auto-tracking

Otherwise pass events and pageviews per the SDK:

iOS: [tracker send:[[GAIDictionaryBuilder createEventWithCategory:@"ui_action",     // Event category (required)                                                  withAction:@"button_press",  // Event action (required)                                                   withLabel:@"play_button",   // Event label                                                   withValue:nil] build]];     // Event value

Android: easyTracker.send(MapBuilder      .createEvent("ui_action",     // Event category (required)

                   "button_press",  // Event action (required)                   "play_button",   // Event label                   null)            // Event value

 .build()

Changing VersionsGenerally a change in Google Analytics functionality will change how we send data into the system

SDK’s, JS function calls change

We may load a different version of the analytics script (i.e., urchin.js -> ga.js -> analytics.js)

Google will usually accept data from older methods for some period of time

Eventually they (say) they will deprecate older methods

Changing methods means changing the basic implementation and any advanced tracking

Events, ecommerce, social sharing

This work is much easier with Tag Manager

Data exists in the data layer and can be read with any method

COMMON CLIENT REQUESTS

_gaq.push(['_addTrans',   '1234',           // transaction ID - required   'Womens Apparel', // affiliation or store name   '28.28',          // total - required   '1.29',           // tax   '15.00',          // shipping   'San Jose',       // city   'California',     // state or province   'USA'             // country]);_gaq.push(['_addItem',   '1234',           // transaction ID   'DD44',           // SKU/code - required   'T-Shirt',        // product name   'Olive Medium',   // category or variation   '11.99',          // unit price - required   '1'               // quantity - required]);_gaq.push(['_trackTrans']);

Ecommerce TrackingGoogle doesn’t track ecommerce natively

Requires integration with the client’s cart system

Uses _gaq.push functions or specific data layer variables<script>dataLayer = [{ 'transactionId': '1234', 'transactionAffiliation': 'Acme Clothing', 'transactionTotal': '11.99', 'transactionTax': '1.29', 'transactionShipping': '5', 'transactionProducts': [{ 'sku': 'DD44', 'name': 'T-Shirt', 'category': 'Apparel', 'price': '11.99', 'quantity': '1' },{ 'sku': 'AA1243544', 'name': 'Socks', 'category': 'Apparel', 'price': '9.99', 'quantity': '2' }]}];

</script>

Upgrading VersionsGoogle has had several iterations

Started as Urchin

Was synchronous, then asynchronous

Moving to Universal Analytics

Each type has its own method to send data to GA:

urchinTracker -> pageTracker. -> _gaq.push -> ga('send’);

Upgrades involve changing the pageview tracking method and upgrading any event and/or eCommerce tracking

May be a good time to migrate to Tag Manager

Q & A

Other ResourcesGoogle Conversion University (GA Training):

http://www.google.com/intl/en/analytics/iq.html?&rd=2

Google Analytics Help Center:

http://support.google.com/analytics/?hl=en

Google Analytics Forums:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/analytics

Google Analytics Blog (best source for updates):

http://analytics.blogspot.com/

SDKs and other code:

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/

Many books and other Websites also exist

Thank You