George Weiner, founder of Whole Whale, helps make sense of Google Analytics. He'll show you how to track social, content, and user behavior; analyze the numbers; and become an action-oriented, data-driven organization.

1. Google Analytics:
Measuring What Matters
With George Weiner, Whole Whale
December 3, 2015

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About TechSoup

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Where Are
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We Are Here
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TechSoup’s mission is to build a dynamic bridge that enables civil society
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8. What Do You Want to
Learn?

9. Google Analytics:
Measuring What Matters

10. Who is Whole Whale?
We leverage data and tech to increase nonprofit impact.

11. My Goals
1.Increase your knowledge of GA
2.Provide a framework for using GA
3.Make a change in your organization
Questions?
@WholeWhale
(or chat)

12. Poll: How much do you know?
A.No Google Analytics knowledge
B.Beginner
C.Intermediate
D.Enough to be dangerous
E.Advanced

13. Contents
Gather
●Setup
●Google Analytics terms
●Basics of metrics
●Goals
Analyze
●Misleading Metrics (M&Ms)
●Case Study Examples
Act
●Dashboards

14. What is it?
Google.com/analytics
●Free
●Web analytics for your website
●Javascript that lives on every page
●Every website codebase can handle this
●Takes less than 30min to install
●Shows what/where/how/when activities on your
website (not so much why)

15. How do we measure behavior?

16. How do we measure behavior?

17. ?
Gather Data
Ask
Questions
AnalyzeInsights
Learn
& Act

18. Gather

19. Poll: Is your site using Analytics?
A.No clue - how do I check?
B.No we aren’t
C.Yes - outdated Analytics code
D.Yes - Universal Analytics
E.I wandered into this webinar by accident
and just like clicking buttons

20. Getting Started with GA
●Setup: is it installed?
●Staff: who is monitoring?
●Access: are there tiers of access?
●Goals: are they setup/defined?
●Webmaster tools: is it connected?
●AdWords: Connected?
●Dashboards: (WW bundle)

21. Google Analytics Terms
●Users (formerly Unique Visitors)
●Sessions (formerly Visits)
●Pageviews
●Bounce Rate (Bounces)
●Average Visit Duration
●Exit Rate (Exits)
●Goal
●Event
Simple Glossary @
WholeWhale.com/Google

22. Basics: Users, Sessions, Pageviews
Simple Glossary @
WholeWhale.com/Google

23. Basics: Bounces and Exits
1 Session, 1 Pageview
enter
1 bounce
1 exit
1 Session, 2 Pageviews
enter
1 exit
no bounce

24. Demographic Info
Upgrade to Universal Analytics for...
How to tell in Code
Universal Analytics = Analytics.js
Old Analytics = ga.js

25. Logic Model
Input:
what you invest
Output:
what you make
Outcome:
what you expect to
happen
Free PDFs
Free Photos
Free Classes
Downloads
Pageviews
Signups
Informed Programs
Health Literacy
Healthier World
GOALS!

26. Goals

27. Goals

28. Analyze

29. M&M: Users
●How is this possible?
Selected together:
oJune-August: 2,000 users
Selected month by month:
oJune: 1,500 users
oJuly: 1,000 users
oAugust: 1,200 users

30. M&M: Users
Cookies are used to
track unique users
over time.

31. M&M: Counting Sessions
●Quiz: A user visits nonprofit.org homepage, 5 minutes
browsing 2 pages. They leave the site for 20 minutes,
return and spend another 5 minutes browsing 2 pages.
How many sessions and pageviews are recorded?
A. 2 Sessions - 4 Pageviews
B. 1 Session - 4 Pageviews
C. 1 Session - 2 Pageviews
D. Other
5m 20m 5m

32. M&M: Counting Sessions
B: Correct answer
- 1 Session - 4 Pageviews - 1 User
Session cookies last 30 minutes
1 Session
5m 20m 5m

33. M&M: Avg. Session Duration
●Quiz: A user visits nonprofit.org homepage, spends 3
minutes scrolling through the article title, and then
bounces (leaves the site).
How long does GA record for session duration?
A. 3m
B. More than 3m
C. 0m
C. 0m is Correct

34. M&M: Avg. Session Duration
Add a non-bounce segment to see true time
But… Averages are misleading (they can also hurt kittens)

35. M&M: Avg. Session Duration
All Sessions Non-Bounce Sessions

36. M&M: Session Duration
●Quiz: A user visits nonprofit.org homepage, spends 3
minutes scrolling through 1 page, the 2 minutes on the
next page and then leaves the site.
How long does GA record for session duration?
A. 5m
B. 3m
C. 0m
1 Session
3m 2m
enter exit
B is Correct - 3m

37. M&M: Session Duration
●Problems
o Metric underestimates true session duration
o Bounced sessions have durations of 0
●Solutions
o Look at non-bounce visitors
o Goal tracking

38. M&M: Internal Sessions
Internal Traffic can inflate sessions

39. M&M: No Filters
●Problems
o internal traffic can overestimate traffic numbers
●Solutions
o Create filters to exclude traffic from internal IP
address
o Also exclude traffic from “dev” sites

40. What else can Google Analytics Track?
●Goals!
o Newsletter signups
o Donations
o Sales Funnels
o 5 minute visits
o Any click on the site
●Events
o Outbound referrals
o Scroll depth
o Video interaction

41. Event: Outbound Referrals
Note: this requires advanced configuration
via Google Tag Manager
Q: Where do people go when they click to leave our site?

42. Example: Social Media Traffic
Q: Which social network sends better traffic to our website?

43. Example: Demo Conversion
Q: Do millenials like us?

44. Example: Increasing Subscriptions
How many new subscriptions are we getting?
How can we increase that?

45. An example...
Interesting - Paid traffic is #winning

46. Dig a little deeper...
Which keywords are driving the most
conversions?
ACTION: Tell marketing team team to pursue these for
higher quality traffic

47. Find your impact sabermetrics

48. Act

49. Using Dashboards
Download the free Whole Whale starter pack
WholeWhale.com/google

50. Using Dashboards

51. ?
Gather Data
Ask
Questions
AnalyzeInsights
Learn
& Act

52. Are mobile users happy?
Problem:
● Mobile bounce rate is unusually high
● It is more than 10% higher than the desktop bounce rate, our benchmark

53. Something on Mobile is Broken
Insight:
● Mobile experience is lackluster, people are less engaged
● People are less likely to interact the way we want
Solution:
● Talk to developers/QA team to discuss further mobile testing and theme
improvements.

54. Broken Funnels

55. Something can be improved
Maybe the homepage needs improvement?

56. OK, so how do we improve?
A
B
B Wins + 25%

57. Numbers are people too
How do we talk about #s internally?
1. There were 315 newsletter signups during the
month of September, an average of 10.5 per day.
2. In September, 10.5 people per DAY told us they
care about the cause and want to hear more about
our work.
3. During September, 315 people signed up to hear
more from us, this should lead to 31 new donors in
the next 6 months.

58. ?
Gather Data
Ask
Questions
AnalyzeInsights
Learn
& Act

59. Q&A?

60. Google.com/analytics - University

61. Whole Whale Resources
Google Resources - WholeWhale.com/Google
Tons of helpful training articles
Video Trainings - WholeWhale.com/TV
Free digital strategy YouTube series
Online course - WholeWhale.com/University
Google AdWords for Nonprofits
Nonprofit Podcast - WholeWhale.com/podcast
Stories of tech in the nonprofit world podcast

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