This document provides an agenda for a Google Analytics training session. The agenda includes topics such as getting started with Google Analytics, navigating the interface, audience, acquisition, behavior, and conversion reports. It also covers account administration, advanced tracking implementations, measuring content, importing and extracting data, and common applications of Google Analytics. The training emphasizes using Google Analytics for analysis rather than just reporting, and how to tell data-driven stories to different audiences. It provides best practices for setting up views and segments, understanding users, tracking campaigns and visitor engagement, and setting up conversion goals.

1. Google Analytics
Training
DemandQuest
May 2017

2. TODAY’S AGENDA
1. Introduction
2. Intro to Web Analytics
3. Intro to Google Analytics
4. Getting Started with Google Analytics
5. Navigating the Google Analytics Interface
6. Audience Reports
7. Acquisition Reports
8. Behavior Reports
9. Conversion Reports
10. Account Administration

3. NATE PLAUNT
Digital Marketing Manager
Thomson Reuters
@NatePlaunt

4. - John Wanamaker
1838-1922
“Half the money I spend on
advertising is wasted; the
trouble is, I don't know
which half”

5. …It’s still true today
Email
Paid Media
SEO
Website
Mobile App
Social Media
Billboards
Brochures
Branding
Trade Shows

6. Is Your Marketing Working?

7. You have to
understand how
your investments
are working.

8. Why Web Analytics?

9. Understanding the Numbers
250
Leads:
April
Clicks: 600
200
March
50
Sales: 15 5
35
May
175
20

10. WEB ANALYTICS

11. Remember the Scientific Method?
Ask a Question Do Research
Construct a
Hypothesis
Test Hypothesis -
Experiment
Analyze Data and
Draw a Conclusion
Report you Results
– Was Hypothesis
Correct?

12. What Digital Marketers Do Wrong
Ask a Question Do Research
Construct a
Hypothesis
Test Hypothesis -
Experiment
Analyze Data and
Draw a Conclusion
Report you Results
– Was Hypothesis
Correct?

13. Why Measure the Web?
1. To understand what is working
2. To fix things that aren’t working
3. To improve our results
4. To calculate the value of our marketing efforts
5. To justify and encourage investment
6. Grow our market share

14. Data
PPC
SEO
Email
Social
Ecommerce
Events
Print
Offline
App
Why Measure the Web?

15. How we Used to Measure the Web

16. There WERE So Many Vendors

18. It’s easy.

19. It’s powerful.

20. It’s FREE!

21. Google Analytics Market Share
83.4%
Market Share
Everyone else

22. Setting Expectations
1. What is the business goal you are trying to achieve?
2. What are the key performance indicators that tell you if you’re on
or off track?
3. What are your baseline metrics?
4. What does your team look like?

23. HOW DO WE MEASURE SUCCESS?
Source: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-marketing-and-measurement-model/

24. HOW DO WE MEASURE SUCCESS?
Source: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-marketing-and-measurement-model/

25. HOW DO WE MEASURE SUCCESS?
Source: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-marketing-and-measurement-model/

26. Terminology
• Session – A period of time that a user is on a site
• Ends after 30 minutes of inactivity
• Users – Visitor who has initiated at least one session in a
given time frame
• Pageview – A view on a page
• Bounce Rate – Percentage of single-page sessions in which
there was no interaction with the page

27. GETTING STARTED WITH
GOOGLE ANALYTICS

28. Setting Up Your Account
• https://www.google.com/analytics/analytics/

29. Setting Up Your
Account

30. Setting Up Your
Account

31. Setting Up Your Account

32. PLACING THE ANALYTICS CODE ON YOUR SITE

33. Two Methods for Adding GA
Place the code
before the closing
head tag </head>
Place the code
using Google Tag
Manager

34. Terminology
• Tracking code – The snippet of javascript code placed on the
pages of your website
• Tracking ID – The unique identifier attached to your tracking
code, Or, the “UA-xxxxxxxx-x” part of your tracking code

35. Two Methods for Adding GA
Add the code to
the header file of
each page

36. Two Methods for Adding GA
https://www.google.com/analytics/tag-manager/

37. How Google Analytics Collects Data
• Google Analytics is a platform that collects data and compiles it into
useful reports
• Every time a user visits a webpage, the tracking code will collect
anonymous information about how that user interacted with the
page
• The tracking code will also collect information from the browser like
the language the browser is set to, the type of browser (such as
Chrome or Safari), and the device and operating system used
• When the tracking code collects data, it packages that information up
and sends it to Google Analytics to be processed into reports

38. An Analytics Implementation

39. LET’S DIVE IN!

40. Google Analytics
Training
Session 2
DemandQuest
May 2017

41. TODAY’S AGENDA
1. Questions From Last Class
2. Reporting vs. Analytics
3. Best Practices: Clean Data
4. Advanced Segments
5. Understanding Your Users
6. Traffic Source Reports
7. Best Practices: Visitor Engagement
8. Best Practices: Conversion
9. Sharing Google Analytics with the Organization

42. QUESTIONS FROM LAST CLASS?

43. Reporting Vs. Analytics

44. - Avinash Kaushik
Google Analytics Evangelist
“If you see a data puke then you know you are
looking at the result of web reporting, even if it is
called a dashboard.”
“If you see words in English outlining actions that
need to be taken, and below the fold you see
relevant supporting data, then you are looking at
the result of web data analysis.”

45. What’s a ‘Data Puke’?

46. What’s Analysis?

47. - Brent Dykes
Director, Data Strategy - Domo
“Reporting: The process of organizing data into
informational summaries in order to monitor how
different areas of a business are performing.”
“Analysis: The process of exploring data and reports
in order to extract meaningful insights, which can be
used to better understand and improve business
performance.”

48. Both are useful,
but for different
reasons.

49. Purpose
Reporting translates raw data into
information.
Analysis transforms data and information
into insights.

50. Tasks
Building, configuring, consolidating,
organizing, formatting, and summarizing.
Questioning, examining, interpreting,
comparing, and confirming.

51. Outputs
Reporting follows a push approach, where
reports are pushed to users who are then
expected to extract meaningful insights and
take appropriate actions for themselves.
Analysis follows a pull approach, where
particular data is pulled by an analyst in
order to answer specific business questions.

52. Delivery
Reports are typically delivered to multiple
individuals and groups – often times
automated.
Analysis is all about extracting key insights in
data and is therefore more effectively
presented person-to-person.

53. Value
Source: https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/analytics/reporting-vs-analysis-whats-the-difference/

54. The Top 10 signs
you are doing
web analysis

55. Web Analysis Top Ten
1. The thing that you see instantly is not data, but
rather actions for the business to take.
2. You can plainly see economic value.
3. You see references to a “Measurement Model”.
4. Application of algorithmic intelligence, weighted
sort, expected range for metric values.
5. You see a “Target” mentioned in the
presentation.

56. Web Analysis Top Ten
6. Loads and loads and loads of context!
7. Effective use of data/user segmentation.
8. There is even a hint of the impact of
actions being recommended.
9. If you look at your report and can still ask
“and…as a result?” it’s not analysis
10. If it’s automated, it’s not analysis.

57. …But you still need clean data.
Quality reporting gets you
what you need in order to
make an impactful business
decision through analysis.

58. VIEWS AND FILTERS

59. Purpose of Views
Views are where you do your data analysis.

60. Views Best Practice:
At a minimum, you should set up 3 views:
1. Raw Data
2. Test
3. Master
1. (Internal and other unnecessary traffic
filtered)

61. Purpose of Filters
Filters allow you to filter out certain traffic
from a view.
• Internal traffic
• Spam bot traffic
• Agency traffic

62. ADVANCED SEGMENTS

63. Purpose of Advanced Segments
A segment is a subset of your Analytics data.
• For example, of your entire set of users, one segment
might be users from a particular country or city.
• Another segment might be users who purchase a
particular line of products or who visit a specific part
of your site.

64. Segment Types
A segment is made up of one or more non-destructive
filters.
• Segments to not alter the underlying data
• Segments can be used to analyze historical data

65. Segment Types
Those filters isolate subsets of users, sessions, and hits:
• Subsets of users: for example, users who have previously purchased;
users who added items to their shopping carts, but didn’t complete a
purchase
• Subsets of sessions: for example, all sessions originating from
Campaign A; all sessions during which a purchase occurred
• Subsets of hits: for example, all hits in which revenue was greater
than $10

66. UNDERSTANDING YOUR USERS

67. Demographics and Interests Reports
Demographics and Interests reports collect data from your users stored
in cookies including:
• Age
• Gender
• Affinity Categories
• In-Market Segments
• Other Categories

68. Demographics and Interests Reports

69. Where Analytics Gets the Data
Note: Analytics cannot collect the demographics and interests information if
the DoubleClick cookie or the Device Advertising ID is not present, or if no
activity profile is included.

70. Demographics and Interests Reports
To get access to this data, you will have to enable two features within
analytics:
1. Advertising Reporting Features for your property
2. Demographics and Interests reports for the view
Note: You will probably have to update your privacy policy

71. Benchmarking Reports
Benchmarking allows you to compare your data with aggregated
industry data from other companies who share their data
• Provides valuable context
• Helps you to set meaningful targets
• Allows you to gain insight into trends occurring across your industry
• Find out how you are doing compared to your competition

72. Compare Against Benchmarks
• Industry Vertical (required): Select one of over 1600 industry categories.
• Size by daily visits: (required) Select from seven traffic size classifications. This
allows you to compare your property against properties with similar traffic levels
in your industry.
• Geographic location (optional): Limit Benchmarking data to the a specific country
or territory by selecting a geographic location.

73. CHANNEL GROUPINGS

74. Channel Groupings
By default, Google Analytics creates groupings of common channels
• Direct
• Organic Traffic
• Social Media
• Affiliates
• Referral
• Paid Search
• Display
• Other Advertising

75. Channel Groupings
You can easily add a new channel for a view using
the admin settings.
•This is helpful if you want to easily view a new
channel from which you typically receive traffic
•They help you understand the conversion paths
of your customers and your advertising efforts

76. CAMPAIGN TRACKING SETUP

77. Campaign Tracking
Tracking your advertising and email campaigns allows
you to easily see where your advertising dollars are
best spent.
• You can track your campaigns by adding parameters to
your advertising links

78. Campaign Tracking Parameters
http://www.example.com/?utm_source=adsite&utm_medium=ad
medium&utm_campaign=adcampaign&utm_term=adkeyword
• utm_source= The source site sending traffic
• E.g. Google, Bing, Jeffalytics
• utm_medium= The marketing medium
• E.g. cpc, email, banner
• utm_campaign= The campaign name
• E.g. summer_sale, registration
• utm_term= The keyword you bid on for that ad

79. Setting up Custom
Campaigns
Use the campaign URL
builder to help building
your URLs
• https://ga-dev-
tools.appspot.com/cam
paign-url-builder/

80. VISITOR ENGAGEMENT BEST PRACTICES

81. Landing Pages and Bounce Rate
Although bounce rate on its own is not great metric to
key in on, it can help determine how well your landing
pages are performing.
• This is especially important if you are paying for traffic
• *Pro Tip: Unbounce.com

82. Site Search
If your site utilizes an internal search function, set up
the site search report in GA.
Admin > View Settings > Site Search
Use only the query parameter (such as search or s) and
not other characters (such as ? or =)

83. Event Tracking
Leverage event tracking to capture activity and
engagement on your site such as:
• Form submits
• Video plays
• Outbound clicks
• And more

84. Event Tracking Resources
Tracking events with analytics.js:
• https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collect
ion/analyticsjs/events
Tracking events with Google Tag Manager:
• https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/6106716
?visit_id=1-636306731233512216-1987254182&rd=1

85. CONVERSION BEST PRACTICES

86. Goal Tracking
Set up both Macro and Micro conversion goals
• Macro: Purchase or form submit
• Micro: Sharing a blog post or posting a review

87. Goal Funnel
Visualizes where
your visitors are
falling out of the
conversion funnel.
Helpful for
diagnosing
conversion issues.

88. Ecommerce vs. Enhanced Ecommerce
Traditional Ecommerce in GA imports the transaction
data on the receipt page after a purchase occurs.
Enhanced Ecommerce imports data about the users
behavior as well as transactional data.
Both require development or GTM to implement.

89. SHARING ANALYTICS WITH THE ORGANIZATION

90. Google Analytics
Training
Session 3
DemandQuest
May 2017

91. TODAY’S AGENDA
1. Questions From Last Class
2. Telling Your Story with Google Analytics
3. Account Administration
4. Advanced Tracking Code Implementations
5. Measuring Content
6. Advanced Conversion
7. Importing Data
8. Extracting Data
9. User Interface Tips and Tricks
10. Common Applications

92. QUESTIONS FROM LAST CLASS?

93. Storytelling with
Google Analytics

94. - Christina Baldwin
“Words are how we think; stories are
how we link.”

96. 5 Elements of a Story
1) Characters
a) Main/secondary
2) Setting
a) Where story takes place
3) Plot
a) Actions/events that take place
b) Beginning, middle, end
4) Conflict
a) Problem to solve
5) Resolution
a) Solution to the Problem
1) Products/Services
a) Blue chips/White chips
2) Timeframe
a) Month, quarter, etc.
3) Analysis of the Report
a) What happened that period?
b) Trends
4) Key Business Goal
a) Did you meet your target? Why?
5) Clear Next Steps
a) Good or bad, how you will
improve

97. Storytelling with Google Analytics
1. Know the story you are going to tell.
2. Tell the right story to the right audience.
3. Details are good, details are bad.
4. State facts, not generalizations.
5. Use words in your report.

98. HOW DO WE MEASURE SUCCESS?
Source: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-marketing-and-measurement-model/

99. ACCOUNT ADMINISTRATION

100. Product Linking
1. AdWords
2. Search Console
3. AdSense
4. AdExchange
5. Postbacks

101. User Management
You can edit permissions for users at the account,
property, and view levels.
• Mange Users
• Edit
• Collaborate
• Read & Analyze

102. Change History
The account “Change History” keeps a record of
account activity that has occurred in the most recent
180 day period.
Helpful when attempting to diagnose a data loss issue.

103. ADVANCED TRACKING CODE IMPLEMENTATIONS

104. Properly Tracking Subdomains
Subdomains:
• example.com
• www.example.com
• blog.example.com
• store.example.com

105. Properly Tracking Subdomains
• Set the Cookie Domain to “auto”
• By default, the Universal Analytics code and the Google
Analytics Settings variable in GTM do this for you.
• Update your “Referral Exclusion List”
• Admin > Property > Tracking Info > Referral Exclusion List

106. Why?
• To get clean data.
• Without setting this properly, you will have
artificially inflated user and or session data
in GA.
Image Source: http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2016/08/11/subdomain-tracking-google-analytics/

107. Cross-Domain Tracking
• To track sessions, Analytics collects a customer ID value in every hit.
• Customer ID values are stored in cookies.
• Cookies are stored on a per-domain basis, and websites on one
domain cannot access cookies set for another domain.
• When tracking sessions across multiple domains, the customer ID
value has to be transferred from one domain to the other.
• To do this, the Analytics tracking code has linking features that allow
the source domain to place the customer ID in the URL parameters of
a link, where the destination domain can access it.

108. Cross-Domain Tracking
Basically:
• You have to edit the Analytics code on all pages of
both sites to call out the relationship.
• One Tracking ID, multiple sites.

109. Cross-Domain Tracking Set Up
Site 1:
• Make the following changes to the snippet (the
changes you need to make are in bold red text):
ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXXX-Y', 'auto', {'allowLinker': true});
ga('require', 'linker');
ga('linker:autoLink', ['example-2.com'] );

110. Cross-Domain Tracking Set Up
Site 2:
• Make the following changes to the snippet (the
changes you need to make are in bold red text):
ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXXX-Y', 'auto', {'allowLinker': true});
ga('require', 'linker');
ga('linker:autoLink', ['example-1.com'] );

111. Set up New Reporting Views and Filters
Since GA doesn’t report on the domain name, you have
to tell it to do so.
• Filter Type: Custom filter > Advanced
• Field A: Hostname Extract A: (.*)
• Field B: Request URI Extract: (.*)
• Output To: Request URI Constructor: $A1$B1
Once complete, add domains to Referral Exclusion List

112. Plugins
Plugins are scripts that enhance the functionality of
analytics.js to aid in measuring user interaction.
A few common plugins are:
• Enhanced Ecommerce
• Enhanced link attribution
• Display features*

113. MEASURING CONTENT

114. Content Grouping
Content grouping allows you to see performance of
groups of content against one another.
For example:
Men’s Clothing
• Shirts
• Pants
• Accessories
Women’s Clothing
• Tops
• Slacks
• Skirts & Dresses
• Accessories

115. Creating a Content Grouping
You can create a content grouping in one of three ways:
1. Create via editing the tracking code (hard)
2. Create via extraction (less hard)
3. Create via a rule set (least hard)

116. Enhanced Link Attribution
Enhanced link attribution allows you to measure the
effectiveness of the individual links on your pages on In-
Page Analytics reports
• Assign unique “Element IDs” to the links in the code on
your pages.
• Alter the tracking code on your site.
• ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', 'auto');
ga('require', 'linkid');
ga('send', 'pageview');
• Enable enhanced link attribution in your Property Settings.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/page-analytics-by-google/fnbdnhhicmebfgdgglcdacdapkcihcoh?hl=en

117. ADVANCED CONVERSION

118. Multi Channel Funnels
The Multi Channel Funnels reports allow you to see the
paths that consumers take before making a goal
conversion.
These reports help you to validate performance of
marketing efforts.

119. Attribution Modeling
Attribution Modeling refers to assigning an amount of
contribution weight to a specific “touch” in the
conversion funnel.
Examples:
• First touch
• Last touch
• Linear

120. Attribution Models
Last Touch/Interaction
• This model assigns 100% of
the conversion credit to the
last touch channel.
• This is the standard
attribution model in all web
analytics tools.

121. Attribution Models
Last Non-Direct Click
• This model assigns 100% of
the conversion credit to the
last campaign prior to the
conversion.

122. Attribution Models
Last AdWords Click
• This model assigns 100% of
the conversion credit to the
last AdWords ad click.

123. Attribution Models
First Click/Interaction
• This model assigns 100% of
the conversion credit to the
first click.

124. Attribution Models
Position Based
• 40% of the credit to the first
and the last interaction and
the remaining 20% is
distributed evenly to all the
interactions in the middle.

125. Attribution Models
Custom Attribution
• With the custom modeling
tool you can use the Linear,
First, Last, Time Decay and
Position Based models as your
starting point, and then layer
in other factors you consider
to be important for your
business to create your own
attribution model.

126. IMPORTING DATA

127. Importing Data
Data Import lets you join the data generated by your
offline business systems with the online data collected
by Analytics.
This can help you organize, analyze and act upon this
unified data view in ways that are better aligned with
your specific and unique business needs.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3191589?hl=en

128. Types of Data to Import
Hit Data
• Refund data
Extended Data
• User data
• Campaign data
• Geographical data
• Content data
• Product data
• Custom data sets
Summary Data
• Cost data

129. Custom Dimensions and Metrics
Google Analytics has the flexibility for you to create
custom dimensions for your unique business needs.
• Custom dimensions and metrics allow you to combine Analytics data
with non-Analytics data, e.g. CRM data. For example:
• If you store the gender of signed-in users in a CRM system, you could combine
this information with your Analytics data to see Pageviews by gender.
• If you're a game developer, metrics like "level completions" or "high score"
may be more relevant to you than pre-defined metrics like Screenviews. By
tracking this data with custom metrics, you can track progress against your
most important metrics in flexible and easy-to-read custom reports.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2709828?hl=en

130. EXTRACTING DATA

131. Extracting Data
• Export
• Email
• Custom Reports
• Google Data Studio

132. USER INTERFACE TIPS AND TRICKS

133. User Interface Tips and Tricks
• Date Range Selection
• Shortcuts
• Add to Dashboard
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Custom Alerts (Intelligence Events)

134. Keyboard Shortcuts
Hit “Shift + /” (or, “?”)

135. Custom Alerts
Custom alerts allow you to be alerted when there is a
significant change to your web property’s traffic.
When you create a custom alert, that alert is visible
only to you in your current reporting view and in any
other views to which you apply the alert.

136. USE CASES

137. “How many sales/leads did we get
from campaign X?”

138. “How is our SEO doing?”

139. “Which product performed best in
Q1?”

140. “Which product performed best in Q1,
and how does that compare to last
year?”

141. “Where do people go if they don’t
convert?”