Our presentation from 3xe on 8th February 2018 in Croke Park. Whilst Google Analytics is the number 1 analytics tool used by the marketers and business owners worldwide, often organisations end up distrusting Google Analytics because they fail to get the valuable insights that they expect. We discussed the most common examples, issues and misconceptions and offered some solutions to overcome them and help you get the most out of your data.

1. OUR TRUST ISSUES
With Google Analytics
Darren McManus
& Karen McHugh

2. @arekibo
info@arekibo.com

3. Budget Insights
Usability Insights
Audience Insights
Marketing Insights
Benefits ofGoogle
Analytics

4. Standard “out-of-the-box” Google
Analytics implementation
Tailored, organisation-specific
Google Analytics implementation
ONE SIZEFITS ALL?

5. • Match your goals with analytics KPIs
• Understand what Google Analytics metrics
actually mean
MEASUREMENTPLANNING PROCESS
• Know your audience and your goals

6. TRUST ISSUE #1
The Bounce Rate Misconception

7. GOOGLEDEFINITION:
“Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-page
sessions (i.e. sessions in which the person left your
site from the entrance page without interacting with
the page).”

8. But… what does
that mean?

9. “Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-
page sessions (i.e. sessions in which the
person left your site from the entrance page
without interacting with the page).”
POINT 1:

10. FOR EXAMPLE:

11. THE USUAL SUSPECTS
Slow Page
Load
Times?
Loads of
404s?
Navigation
Issues?
Double
Page
Tracking?

12. THE ACTUAL REASON?

13. BUT WHY?
By default, Google Analytics events affect bounce
rate.
When a user triggers an event, the interaction stops
a bounce from being recorded even if the user does
“bounce” in the conventional sense of the term (i.e.
they don’t view any subsequent pages).

14. “Bounce Rate is the percentage of
single-page sessions (i.e. sessions in
which the person left your site from the
entrance page without interacting with
the page).”
POINT 2:

15. BOUNCESARE NOT ALWAYS BAD
If the success of your site depends on users viewing
more than one page, yes, a high bounce rate is bad.
If you have a single-page site like a blog, or offer other
types of content for which single-page sessions are
expected, then a high bounce rate is perfectly normal.

16. Retail: 20-40%
Blogs: 70-90%
LeadGen: 30-50%
Content: 40-60%Landing Pg: 70-90%
Services: 10-30%
Average
BounceRates

17. Using Bounce Rate as an engagement KPI is very
tempting. But misinterpreted, it is also very prone to
error. Therefore it is extremely important to be
aware of the exact measurement.
A bounce isn’t good.
A bounce isn’t bad.
A bounce is just a bounce.
REMEMBER…

18. SOLUTION #1
Content Grouping

19. Regular Content Bouncy Content
COMPARINGLIKE WITH LIKE

20. OUR“BOUNCY”PAGES

21. CREATINGA CONTENTGROUP

22. GROUPTHEMTOGETHER…

23. VOILA…

24. OTHER TIPS…
•Use more appropriate engagement KPI’s

25. TRUST ISSUE #2
“Average Session Duration” & “Average Time On Page”

26. GOOGLE’SDEFINITION:
Average session duration:
Total duration of all sessions / Number of sessions.
e.g
7+3+5 / 3 = 5 mins

27. AVG. SESSIONDURATION
/article-a/

28. AVG. TIME ONPAGE
/article-a/

29. How can the
Average Session
Duration be less
than the Average
Time on Page?

30. Google can’t measure the time a user spent
looking at the last page of their visit to a website.
THE ISSUE:

31. Google uses the timestamp of the next page view
to determine the time you spent looking at the
current page.
THE ISSUE:

32. On the last page, there is no next page recorded,
so the Time on Page is unknown (recorded as 0)
and the Session Duration ends when they opened
the last page.
THE ISSUE:

33. Time on Page: 5 mins Time on Page: 10 mins Time on Page: 0
Google “Time on Site”: 15 mins

34. Time on Page: 0
Google “Time on Site”: 0 mins

35. Avg. Time on Page calculation removes the effect of
Bounces (Exits)
Avg. Session Duration calculation includes the
Session count for those Bounces which reduces the
average.
WHYIT’S A PROBLEM:

36. Googles calculation:
(15 min + 0 min) / 2 = 7min 30 secs
In reality:
(30 min + 30 min) / 2 = 30 min
AVG.SESSION DURATION FOR OUR EXAMPLE:

37. SOLUTION #2
Choose New Engagement KPIs

38. GOOGLE TAG MANAGER

39. GOOGLETAG MANAGER

40. SCROLL TRACKING

41. Create A Trigger To Fire The Event

42. Set uptag based ontrigger &variables

43. JudgePage Engagement…

44. Other custom engagement metrics…
•Form Submissions
•File Downloads
•CTA Clicks
•Video Plays

45. TRUST ISSUE #3
Direct Traffic = “We Don’t Know”!

46. Source exactly matches direct
AND
Medium exactly matches (not set)
OR
Medium exactly matches (none)
GOOGLEDEFINITION:

47. VERY HIGH DIRECTTRAFFIC?

48. Traffic that arrives to your website and is
labelled by Google Analytics (or other web analytics
tools) as “direct traffic” when the source is
unknown.
DARK TRAFFIC

49. Improperly Tagged Ads
Native & Chat Apps
HTTPS to HTTP
E-mail Links
Some Sources of
“Dark Traffic”

50. SOLUTION #3
Campaign Tracking URLs

51. CAMPAIGNTRACKINGURL’S

52. CORRECTSOURCE/MEDIUM

53. GOOGLEURL BUILDER

54. GOOGLEURL BUILDER

55. OTHER TIPS…
•Move to HTTPS
•Block your company’s traffic from being tracked
•Use server side redirects instead of Meta and
JavaScript redirects

56. BE AWARE OF..
Some more considerations

57. Location, Location, Location
Location is not always accurate

58. THE ISSUE:
Google tracks locations
via user’s IP address
and where internet
services providers
assign those ranges.

59. THE ISSUE:
User’s location will be
where their Internet
Service provider assigns
those IP ranges.

60. New vs. ReturningVisitors
How accurate are these dimensions?

61. NEW VS.RETURNINGVISTORS
If you are not using User ID tracking the New
& Returning Visitor dimensions can collect
misleading numbers.

62. NEW VS.RETURNINGVISTORS

63. NEW VS.RETURNINGVISTORS
Visitors are tracked using cookies:
• Cookies are browser specific
• Cookies are site specific

64. TRACKINGBLOCKERS
Website visitors that don’t
want their visit data reported
can use Ad Blockers &
Browser Extensions.

65. TRACKINGBLOCKERS

66. Data Sampling
Are you reporting on ALL of your data?

67. GOOGLEDEFINITION:
Data sampling is the practice of analysing a subset
of all data in order to uncover the meaningful
information in the larger data set.

68. % OFSESSIONS

69. % OFSESSIONS
• Greater precision: uses the maximum sample
size possible to give you results that are the most
precise representation of your full data set
• Faster response: uses a smaller sampling size to
give you faster results

70. SAMPLING THRESHOLD
Default reports are not subject to sampling. Ad-hoc
queries of your data are subject to the following
general thresholds for sampling:
• Analytics Standard: 500k sessions at the
property level for the date range you are using

71. KEY POINTS
Understand your Google Analytics
metrics:
• Bounce Rate
• Session Duration
• Direct Traffic

72. KEY POINTS
Take into account some
considerations when reporting:
• Location Accuracy
• New vs. Returning Visitors
• Data Sampling

73. THANK YOU
by Darren McManus | Karen McHugh
darren@arekibo.com | karen@arekibo.com
www.arekibo.com