Google Analytics: The Basics

@ d o m c u s h n a n
THE BASICS
DOMINIC CUSHNAN

What is Google Analytics?
It is a free Web analytics service that provides statistics and basic
analytical tools for search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing
purposes. The service is available to anyone with a Google account. Its
features include:
> Data visualization tools
> Segmentation for analysis of subsets, such as conversions
> Custom reports
> Email-based sharing and communication
> Integration with other Google products, such as AdWords, Public
Data Explorer and Website Optimizer

Google Analytics Quick Glossary
> Dimensions - A dimension is a descriptive attribute or characteristic
of an object that can be given different values. Browser, Exit Page,
Screens and Session Duration are all examples of dimensions that
appear by default in Google Analytics.
> Metrics - Metrics are individual elements of a dimension that can be
measured as a sum or a ratio. Screenviews, Pages/Session and
Average Session Duration are examples of metrics in Google
Analytics.
> Sessions - A session is the period of time a user is actively engaged
with your website, app, etc., within a date range. All usage data
(Screenviews, Events, Ecommerce, etc.) is associated with a session.

> Users - Users who have had at least one session within the selected
date range. Includes both new and returning users.
> Pageviews - Pageviews means the total number of pages viewed.
Repeated views of a single page are counted.
> Pages/Session - Pages/session (Average Page Depth) is the average
number of pages viewed during a session. Repeated views of a single
page are counted.
> Avg. Session Duration - The average length of a session.
> Bounce Rate - Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e.,
visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page
without interacting with the page).

> New Sessions - An estimate of the percentage of first-time visits.
> Goals - Goals let you measure how often users take or complete
specific actions on your website.
> Conversions - Conversions are the number of times goals have been
completed on your website.
> Campaigns - Campaigns (also known as custom campaigns) allow you
to add parameters to any URL from your website to collect more
information about your referral traffic.
> Acquisition - Acquisition is how you acquire users.
> Behavior - Behavior data helps you improve your content.

Google Analytics Home
If you have a lot of websites, you can use the search box under the date range
to search for a particular domain. If you only want to view the domains that are
most critical to your business, you can mark them with a star and change the
Show settings to list only the starred websites.

You can use the date range to see your data over any specified time period. You
can also use it to compare the current time period to a previous time period to
see the change in sessions, average session duration, bounce rate and goal
conversion rate.

Since the data for each website changes to reflect the compared timeframes,
it’s easy to see which of your websites are getting more or less traffic and
conversions.
To view more data about a particular website, just click on the corresponding link and you’ll see the
Google Analytics Reporting page.

Google Analytics Reporting
On the left sidebar, there is a search box to help you
find specific reports and a list of links to important
areas of your Google Analytics.

Dashboards
Dashboards allow you to create
customized views of your Google
Analytics data using widgets.
It’s a great way to see specific
subsets of data without having to
navigate through your standard
reports.
You can add widgets to your
dashboards using the +Add Widget
button or by adding widgets as you
browse your standard reports using
the Add to Dashboard link.

Shortcuts—links to your favorite Google Analytics reports.
Whenever you’re viewing a specific piece of
data in Google Analytics that you want or
need to revisit often, click on the Shortcut
link above it. This places it in your Shortcuts
menu for future reference.
Shortcuts

Intelligence Events are alerts you can set up within Google Analytics that email
you when a specific event occurs.
You can set up alerts for events like a dramatic change in number of sessions,
goal conversions or other metrics within a daily, weekly or monthly timeframe.
Intelligence Events

Real-Time data gives you access to
that data instantly.
You can see current visitors’
pageviews, active pages, locations
and more.
Real-Time

Google Analytics
Standard Reporting Views
Each subsection of the main sidebar options offers a standard report.
When you’re viewing a standard report, you will likely see the following:
the report name (e.g., Language), the date selector and a standard
toolbar with options that allow you to customize the view, email the
report, export the report data to various spreadsheet formats or PDF,
add the report to your dashboard or create a shortcut to the report.

When you see the graduate hat beneath the date selector in the toolbar,
you can click on it to learn more about the data within that specific
report (as shown below).
Google Analytics

Under the toolbar menu, there are two options. All Sessions shows you your data
throughout Google Analytics as a whole, and +Add Segment allows you to see your data
based on certain criteria, such as direct traffic, search traffic, mobile traffic and so forth.
On the +Add Segment
page, you can use the
+Create New Segment
option to create your own
criteria, such as traffic from
the US or traffic that
entered your website on a
specific landing page.
Google Analytics

Looking at All Sessions, you’ll see the data specific to the report you’re viewing.
Most reports start with an Explorer timeline view.
At the top of the Explorer view is the option to switch between Summary, Site
Usage, Goal Sets, Ecommerce and AdSense.
Google Analytics

The Summary view is the default and shows the Acquisition, Behavior and
Conversions data for the data being reported. In the example below, this would
be the data for visitors who speak a particular language.
Google Analytics

If you have several goals set up for your website, use the Conversions
drop-down menu to change the data to a different goal.
Google Analytics

The Site Usage view shows you just the number of sessions,
pages/session, average session duration, percent of new sessions and
bounce rate for the data reported. Basically, the Site Usage view is
everything from the Acquisition and Behavior portions of the table
except new users.
The Goal Sets view shows you the overall goal conversion rate for goals
within a set (you can have four goals per set), per-session goal value and
individual goal conversion rates for each goal in a set. (We’ll talk about
setting up goals toward the end of this post.)
Google Analytics

The Ecommerce view shows you revenue, transactions, order value,
ecommerce conversion rates and per-session value for the data reported.
In order to receive this data, you need to have set your website up with
ecommerce tracking, which you can learn about in the Google Analytics
Help Center.
The AdSense view is for publishers who have Google AdSense set up on
their website. This shows you data for AdSense revenue, ads clicked,
page impressions, CTR and eCPM for the data reported. To receive this
data, you must have your AdSense account linked to your Analytics
account.
Google Analytics

Beneath the Explorer view options is a drop-down for Sessions vs. [Select
a Metric]. Use these drop-downs to see different data comparisons
within your report, such as Sessions vs. Bounce Rate.
Google Analytics

To the right of these drop-downs, you can change your data view to daily,
weekly or monthly and change the timeline to a more detailed chart or
graph view.
Google Analytics

In the table below your Explorer, there are a few more viewing options.
At the top left, you’ll see drop-downs to add a secondary dimension.
For example, let’s assume you’re viewing the en-us Language report
(Audience > Geo > Language > en-us) and want more detailed
information about the top sources of traffic for English – United States
users.
Click on Secondary Dimension, choose Acquisition from the menu and
then choose Source. The table data now shows you the data you want.
Google Analytics

Google Analytics

At the top right of the table,
you can change the view to
different charts and graphs. For
example, you can change to the
pie chart view and see that
most users come to the site via
direct means (no referring
website, search engine or social
network) and speak English –
United States.
Google Analytics

You can also click on the
Advanced link next to the search
box to filter specific dimensions
and languages within the table.
For instance, you can show only
users who have a Bounce Rate
less than a certain percentage to
find out which languages and
related traffic sources have the
lowest bounce rates.
Google Analytics

At the bottom right of the table is a drop-down to show more rows. This allows you to see more than
the default top ten reported data types within your table.
Last but not least, within the table view, be sure to click on links within your table. These allow you to
drill down to particular subsets of data.
For example, if you are in the Location Report (under Audience in the left sidebar), the table shows
which countries the majority of your sessions are happening in. If you click on United States, you’ll
see the States breakdown of your traffic. If you click on a state, you’ll get the top cities.
The same happens if you click on links within the table under the All Referrals report. Instead of just
seeing the domain that is sending you traffic, you can see the pages within the domain sending you
traffic.
This is great if you contribute to other blogs, for example, as it shows you which of your posts are
sending the most traffic your way.
Google Analytics

Google Analytics Customization
The benefit of using a Custom
Google Analytics report is that you
can see an exact portion of your
Google Analytics data and have it
emailed regularly to contacts you
choose.
You can create new reports on your
own, organize them by category
and import reports from the
Google Analytics Solutions Gallery.

Google Analytics Admin
This is where you manage all of the settings for your website within
Google Analytics.
There are two things you should start using right now (if you aren’t
already) to truly get value from your Google Analytics: Goals and Custom
Campaigns.

Goals
In the Google Analytics Admin menu under View, you have the option to set up
goals for your website.
Google Analytics Goals, help you track the data related to a user completing a
specific action on your website.
The simplest goal type is the Destination goal. This type of goal allows you to say
that when a user reaches a specific page on your website, a specific goal has been
completed.

Example 1: If you have a mailing list, create a custom page on your
website that thanks users for subscribing after they submit their
information. Then set up that page as a destination goal called Mailing
List (or something you will easily recognize as a mailing list conversion).
Example 2: If you have a contact form on your website that you use to
capture leads for your business, create a custom page on your website
that thanks users for submitting their contact information. Then set up
that page as a destination goal called Contact Form (or something you
will easily recognize as a contact form conversion).
Goals

Example 3: If you have a shopping cart on your website to sell products,
you likely have an order confirmation or thank-you page that users land
on once they’ve successfully completed an order. Set up this page as a
destination called Shopping Cart (or something you will easily recognize
as a shopping cart conversion).
If there are specific pages that shoppers land on throughout the
shopping cart process, you can turn on the Funnel option and include
those pages as well. This allows you to track which pages in your funnel
get the most abandons so you can optimize your shopping cart for more
sales.
Goals

To set up a destination goal, click on Goals from the Admin panel, then
click on the +New Goal button.
Goals

Name your goal and choose Destination as the type, then click Next Step.
Goals

Enter your goal details. If your thank-you page is always
http://domain.com/thank-you/, enter /thank-you/ as the web page URL and
leave the drop-down set to Equals To.
If your thank-you page URL
has appended tracking
information added to it,
then change the drop-
down to Begins With and
enter /thank-you/ as the
web page URL.
Goals

To find out if your new goal is working, you need to submit your opt-in
form, contact form or make a purchase in your shopping cart.
The two optional items in your goal details are Value and Funnel. If you
know a specific value for each goal completion (e.g., the average order
through your shopping cart is $10), then you can add that as a value.
Otherwise, leave it blank.
If you have a shopping cart with specific pages that a user will visit
throughout the process of purchasing a product, you can add them
under Funnel.
Goals

Goals

You can view your sales funnel(s) in the standard Funnel Visualization
report.
Goals

Once you’re finished filling out the form, you can click the Verify this Goal
link before saving your goal. If any users have completed the goal in the
past seven days, you should get confirmation that your goal is set up
correctly.
By setting up a Destination goal, you can measure ROI using your Google
Analytics. You’ll be able to see which traffic sources and social networks
send the most users to your website who complete a goal. You’ll be able
to see which countries users who convert live in, and much more.
Goals

Custom campaigns track visitors from specific traffic sources. Campaigns
are set up using UTM parameters appended to the end of a URL a visitor
would click on.
Google Analytics requires three parameters to track campaigns: the
campaign medium (utm_medium), the campaign/traffic source
(utm_source) and campaign name (utm_campaign).
For example, you can create a campaign to track traffic from a link shared
through the Buffer app on Twitter.com, which is social media. In this
case, social is your medium; twitter.com is your source; and buffer is your
campaign name.
Custom Campaigns

When someone clicks on a link shared by the Buffer app, they’ll see the
following URL in their browser address bar:
http://iqtell.com/2014/02/are-we-managing-our-to-do-lists-all-wrong/?
utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
That link tells Google Analytics that someone completed your campaign
parameters. You can see the results in the first entry in the Campaigns
report.
Custom Campaigns

Custom Campaigns

When you click on buffer (the campaign name) in the above example,
you can see the source and medium.
Custom Campaigns

Google Analytics: The Basics

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Google Analytics: The Basics