This document provides an overview of using Google Analytics to analyze metrics for galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs). It discusses key metrics like sessions, users, and pageviews and how they can be used to understand user behavior and acquisition. Dimensions like geographic location, devices, and browsers are explored. Various reports and advanced features are demonstrated through examples of exercises analyzing the National Library of New Zealand's analytics data.

1. Metrics Analysis for GLAMs
Using Google Analytics
National Library of NZ (and friends)
8 November, 2018
Michael Lascarides
@mlascarides

2. Analytics is
storytelling

3. There are no
absolute
answers

4. Google Analytics: Pro
•Free
•Ubiquitous
•Powerful
•Well-maintained
•Easy to use and
install
•Anonymized
•Accurate
•Well-filtered

5. Google Analytics: Con
•It’s Google
•Could be more
powerful
•Not useful for
bandwidth,
downloads
•Has its limits

6. How it works:

7. How it works:

8. How it works:

9. How it works:

10. http://code.stephenmorley.org/javascript/
understanding-the-google-analytics-tracking-
code/

11. Analytics Help
https://support.google.com/analytics

12. https://analytics.google.com/
dnzgaworkshop @ gmail.com
pwd: DigitalNZRocks

13. Some
definitions

14. Properties
Dates
Reports
Exports
Segments

15. Metrics vs
Dimensions

16. Metrics
Things you can
count: Pageviews,
visits, events, etc.

17. Dimensions:
Things you can sort
by: Country, page
title, OS, browser,
etc.

18. Metrics & Dimensions
Explorer
https://developers.google.com/analytics/
devguides/reporting/core/dimsmets

19. THE FUNDAMENTAL METRICS ARE
Sessions,
Users,
Pageviews

20. Pageview
A load of a single
HTML page.

21. User
(AKA Unique Visitor)
A single person*, to
the best of our
ability.
* Really, it’s a single browser cookie.

22. Session
(AKA Visit)
A sequence of pages
visited by a single visitor
with no more than 30
minutes between pages.

23. Scenario:
Ellen views 6 pages in 10
minutes on Monday
morning, and 5 pages in 20
minutes on Tuesday.

24. Scenario:
Ellen views 6 pages in 10
minutes on Monday
morning, and 5 pages in 20
minutes on Tuesday.
That’s 1 visitor, 11
pageviews, and 2 sessions.

25. USEFUL RATIOS OF THE
FUNDAMENTALS
Sessions per visitor
Pageviews per session

26. ALSO INTERESTING
Time on Site*
* Warning: Easy to misunderstand.

27. OCCASIONALLY UTILITARIAN
Bounce Rate

28. Users,
Behavior,
Acquisition

29. Users:
Who are they?

30. User reports:
•Geographic
location (country,
city, sometimes
more)
•Demographics
(privacy
implications!)
•Screen
resolutions
•Devices
•Browsers&
versions
•More!

31. EXERCISE:
What appears to be the
next-most-popular
language our visitors
speak after English?

32. EXERCISE:
What was the change in
mobile traffic share from
May 2016 to May 2017?

33. EXERCISE:
Is the percentage of our
audience using MacOS
rising or shrinking?

34. EXERCISE:
How many different
countries sent visitors to
us in October?

35. Acquisition:
Where did they come
from?

36. Acquisition reports:
•Referring site
•Search engine
•External search
keyword
•Campaigns
•Direct traffic
•Referring page
•Social Media
•More!

37. EXERCISE:
What were the top 10 terms
searched on search
engines that led to Natlib in
August 2018?
How far down the list do
you have to go to get a
“non-boring” one?

38. EXERCISE:
There was a big spike in
traffic on 4 March, 2015.
Why?

39. Treemaps

40. Behaviour:
What did they do?

41. Behavior reports:
•Pages viewed
•Flow
•Page landed on
•Site search
•Event tracking
•Content Drilldown
•More!

42. GLAMs
❤
Site Search!

43. EXERCISE:
What are the top 20 most
popular pages on the
whole site?

44. EXERCISE:
What are the 5 most
popular blog posts on Natlib
so far in 2018?
Hint: Blog URLs start with
“/blog/”

45. EXERCISE:
What are top 10 most
searched terms on the
Natlib site in May 2018?

46. EXERCISE:
What was the most-visited
collection item on Natlib in
2017? Why was it so popular?
Hint: Item URLs take the form
“/records/IDNumber”

47. GLAM-
Specific

48. Considerations for
GLAMs
•The behavior of your
public terminals
•The seasonality of
your traffic
•The “curve” of your
week
•Understanding
Spikes
•The profile of your
recency/frequency
(ie, dedicated visitors
vs one-timers)
•Don’t forget to track
after the
engagement!

49. Advanced cool
stuff

50. Visitor Flow

51. EXERCISE:
Use visitor flow to
visualise where,
in general, Australians
go on our site

52. Real-Time

53. EXERCISE:
From which NZ city are
the most people visiting
Natlib right now?

54. Advanced
Segments

55. EXERCISE:
How many people visited
the He Tohu site on an
iPad last month vs
August 2017?

56. EXERCISE:
What was the most popular
search term used by
Aucklanders using Chrome
on a Mac in April 2018 who
also visited a Schools page
during their visit?

57. Custom
Variables

58. Event
Tracking

59. EXERCISE:
In the past couple of
months, what search
terms were used by
people who visited at least
one Whites Aviation photo?

60. Goals,
Conversions
and Funnels

61. “Fake
e-commerce”