analytics tune up! google analytics workshop for beginners, intermediates
TRANSCRIPT
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Insights and methods for a manageable
approach to Google Analytics
Workshop for Smithsonian Institution digital practitioners,
6/14/2016
Analytics Tune Up!
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Our Workshop Today
Analytics process
GA Basics / Exercises Exercise: “Solutions Gallery”
Exercise: Segments
Exercise: Custom Reports
Demo: Goals
Exercise: Dashboards
New(ish) features
Universal Analytics
A few best practices
A few ‘real world’ questions
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What web analytics is often about
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Web analytics is often about:
“So What?”
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What web analytics is really about:
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Your goal: use data to tell a story
What was happening.
What it meant.
What you did.
What’s happening
now.
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forbes.com
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There is a systematic, step-by-step process
Articulate your program’s goals.
Decide strategies to achieve those goals.
Decide tactics to pursue the strategies.
Decide what and how to measureto validate the tactics.
Benchmark to get a sense of what’s normal.
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homedit.com
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Articulate specific goals
Express what you’re trying to
accomplish.
Make high-level goals more
specific:
“Increase influence” - too broad.
“Become the definitive source on
Smithsonian history” - more specific.
Specificity makes it easier to
identify strategies and tactics.
Not too many!
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It’s a Wonderful Life
Start the conversation! Articulate goals & next steps on your own; work with management to finalize.
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Determine strategies & tactics
Strategies – the plans you make to achieve the goals.
Employing social media is a strategy.
Tactics – the things you do to advance the strategy.
Producing a specific type of content is a tactic.
Individual channels (facebook, twitter) are tactics.
Per the example:
Goal: “Become the definitive source on Smithsonian history.”
Strategy: Increase engagement with history of the Smithsonian content.
Tactic: Make SI-history content more findable and measureable.
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Decide how to measure your tactics
Choose measurements to learn if your tactics are succeeding.
Choose a few measurements.
Trend them over time.
Per the example:
Strategy: increase engagement with
SI history website content.
Tactic: make website history content more findable / measureable.
Make a “history-content” segment and measure for engagement:
Visit frequency
Visit depth
Bounce rate
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History-
related visits
All
visits
“Deep history visits” were 94% higher!
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You can’t set targets w/o benchmarks
You need at least six months of
data.
Data is seasonal.
Depends on your traffic.
Balance targets with factors
beyond your control:
Are the improvements you’re
seeking difficult to achieve?
How much resources will you have
to implement tactics?
Drinks Enthusiast
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Keep it simple!
Don’t do too much!
Minimize the number of measurements.
If they turn-out to be inconclusive, change up.
It’s an ongoing process!
arvinddevalia.com
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Army Times
GOOGLE ANALYTICS Basics
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GA Basics
The most basic thing
Navigating Google Analytics
GA in your world
Army Times
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Dimensions describe the
data, or an attribute of the
user (“what”): Traffic source
City
Page
Metrics measure the data
(“how many”, “how long”): Sessions
Bounce rate
Time on page
Lunametrics
Optimizesmart
Dimensions & Metrics Explorer
(Google)
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Optimizesmart
Dimensions Metrics
GA’s familiar
color-coding
helps you
keep track of
Dimensions
and Metrics.
The most basic thing
Dimensions and Metrics
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Navigating Google Analytics
How GA is organized
Home
Searchable list of
all GA accounts
associated with
your Google
Account.
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Navigating Google Analytics
How GA is organized
Reporting
Where GA’s
reports are
located.
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Navigating Google Analytics
How GA is organized
Customization
Where Custom
Reports are located.
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Navigating Google Analytics
How GA is organized
Admin
Settings for your:
1. Account
2. Property (individual
websites)
3. View (setup
different “views” –
with custom filters,
etc.)
Account Property View(s)
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Navigating Google Analytics
How GA is organized: Views
Having multiple Views is an important facet of managing your GA Property.
Views are filtered subsets of traffic, created for specific purposes:
“All Web Site Data” is the default View – your primary view
Unfiltered ‘Backup’ View (no filters – this is a best practice)
“No internal traffic” view
Specific directories or subdomains
Mobile traffic only (maybe only from within the SI Wi-Fi)
Traffic from search engines
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LunaMetrics
Navigating Google Analytics
How GA is organized: Reports
These four
sections under
“Reporting”
house most of
the reports.
Audience
Acquisition
Behavior
Conversions
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Improve your program?
Yes! Good for you!
Satisfy your boss with monthly Big Numbers?
Sure. It is what it is.
Validate (or not) something you’ve already done.
Um, maybe.Wikipedia
GA in your world
How can Google Analytics HELP?
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Under Audience >> Behavior
Frequency
Recency
Page Depth (“Engagement”)
“New vs. Returning” (e-nor post)
Use with segments:
Traffic from search
Traffic from mobile
Etc.
‘Time on site’ is great, but do not rely
solely on it.
Due to technical issues
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Improve your program!
Metrics as proxies for user engagement
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Exercise: ‘Solutions Gallery’ import
Import expert-made:
Segments
Custom Reports
Dashboards
Goals
Sign-in to Google
Go to ‘Solutions Gallery’
Google: “google analytics solutions gallery”
www.google.com/analytics/gallery
Under “Most Popular” click #1
Occam's Razor Awesomeness
Click (top left)
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Select one of your GA “Views”
Click
Voila! These will now appear within the View you selected.
(They can always be deleted, btw.)
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Improve your program!
Segmentation: GA’s most powerful feature?
Analyze subsets of traffic.
Search engine traffic
Social media traffic
Demographics
Google Blog
Kissmetrics Overview
Examples (Cutroni)
Examples (Kaushik)
Segments are accessed
by clicking “Add
Segment”. “Organic
Traffic” is shown.
All Users
Organic (Search
Engine) Traffic
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All Visits data tells a nice story...
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Minimal
frequency group
(purple)
downward trend
indicates
improving content
engagement
High frequency
group (blue)
upward trend
indicates same
Impact of this Data on the Site or Program
• This good-looking chart may indicate high content engagement and/or perceived value
• This data may correlate to increasing conversion behaviors
Acting on this Data
• Identify moderate and high loyalty pages as a means of duplicating, or improving others
• Examining conversion behaviors of these segments may yield add'l insights
• Correlating high bounce rate pages to one-time visits may yield add'l insights
• Test different content types in an attempt to move 'minimal' visitors into 'moderate' group
Key Trends
and Insights
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This Impact of this Data on the Site or Program• Organic search listings are driving poorly-targeted traffic
• Will result in decreased organic search performance over time
Acting on this Data• Refocus title tags, meta-description tags and page content for important pages
• Perform link analysis to see where other SEO improvements can be made
Minimal
frequency group
upward trend
indicates organic
listings are not
appropriately
targeted
Moderate
frequency group
downward trend
indicates same
High frequency
group trending
slightly downward,
in contrast to
previous chart’s
upward slope
Key Trends
and Insights
…But applying segmentation tells a different story
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Exercise: dissect a segment Let’s look at Avinash’s segment, Non-Flirts, Potential Lovers
“We all obsess with our bounced traffic (“Flirts”)... Why not analyze people who DO engage with us?”
Engagement / Page Depth shows the distribution of the # of pages
people see on your site.
“The "tipping point," the point at which a core group of people decide to stick with
your site after overcoming their initial "fears" (and your perhaps sub optimal pages!).
Go to: Audience >> Overview
Click ‘+Add segment’ (top-middle)
Find “AK: Non-Flirts, Potential
Lovers” (hint: search for “Flirts)
Click the segment to add it
Click ‘Apply’
Dissect the segment:
Click the segment’s top-right
pull-down
Click the ‘edit’ (pencil) icon.
Segments can be copied and shared.
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Avinash's example questions all hint at “What’s unique about them?”
Where did they come from? (Source/Medium)
What pages did they enter on? (Entrances)
What campaigns have a higher percentage of these people? (Campaign referrals)
What countries? (Geo >> Location report)
What is the delta between content they consume on your site compared to everyone else?
Do they all happen to use the (comparison chart) first?
Do they all read the (Sports) section?
‘Edit’ reveals
the segment’s
technical
specs.
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Let’s duplicate this segment Navigate back to the ‘Reports’ section
Click on a segment, or the plus-sign next to it ( )
Click
Click ‘Conditions’ (left menu, @ bottom)
Note that you can select between Sessions and Users – select Sessions
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Duplicate the segment (cont’d)
Click ‘Ad Content’
Type-in ‘Page Depth’
Select the green ‘Page Depth’ dimension.
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Duplicate the segment (cont’d)
Change ‘equals’ to ‘greater-than-or-equals’
Type ‘3’ in the box on the right
Give the segment a name and click ‘Save’
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Package entire datasets
for deeper analysis.
Saves time
Shows just the data you
need.
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Create and access
Custom Reports from
the ‘Customization’ tab.
Improve your program!
Custom Reports can save you time & effort
Custom Reports can be
scheduled for delivery via
email in a variety of
formats.
Create and manage Custom
Reports (Google)
12 Awesome Custom Reports
Created by the Experts
(Kissmetrics)
5 Google Analytics Custom
Reports FTW! (Kaushik)
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Exercise: Kaushik’s ‘Visitor Acquisition Efficiency’
Go to the ‘Customization’ tab
Click on AK: Visitor Acquisition Efficiency Analysis v2 Goal: one report to “review the efficiency and performance across all
types of traffic:
Search engines
Referring sites etc.
Social Media
Paid media (PPC, Display etc),
You’ll see:
Users, Sessions, % New Sessions, Bounce Rate, Total Events,
Goal Conversion Rate, Per Session Goal Value
…all organized by source and medium.
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Kaushik’s ‘Visitor Acquisition Efficiency’ (cont’d)
Acquisition Source How many / What kind? Concerns Outcomes!
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A conversion is any measureable behavior
with an implicitly (or explicitly) higher value.
Conversion rates are more informative than
merely counting the number of times
something has happened.
Typical conversion goals:
Destination (ex: thanks.html)
Duration (ex: 5 minutes or more)
Pages/Screens per session (ex: 3 pages)
Event (download PDF, play video)
REQUIRES CODE
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Improve your program!
Deeper understanding with Conversion Goals
Studying conversion rates
levels the playing field,
versus merely counting!
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Demo: making a Conversion Goal
Ability to do this depends on your permissions
Go to ‘Admin’ tab
Select a View to add the goal to
Select Goals (third from top)
Select
Give the goal a name, like “Long Sessions”
Select the ‘Duration’ radio button
Click
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Demo: making a Conversion Goal (cont’d)
Assign the desired length of time in minutes (4?)
Click
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Conversion Goals in the GA U-I
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More sophisticated Goals typically involve creating “Events”:
External links
Sign-ups, form submissions
Downloads
Many types of conversion goals
To use Events:
Define and categorize events.
Configure and add the javascript code, usually right in the link (not always).
Many social-share widgets automatically add Events.
Google Analytics Event Organizer (Smithsonian’s Michelle Herman)
The Complete Google Analytics Event Tracking Guide Plus 10 Amazing
Examples (old code, good examples)
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Improve your program!
‘Event Tracking’ is super-important
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Events in the GA U-I
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Display multiple reports at once.
“My Dashboard” (default) included.
Import from the Solutions Gallery.
Share as PDFs.
Schedule for distribution by email.
About Dashboards (Google)
10 useful Google Analytics custom dashboards (Econsultancy)
How Google Analytics Dashboards Can Make Your Life Easier (Kissmetrics)
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Satisfy your boss!
Dashboards are useful, and easy to make
Customize Dashboards by adding / deleting / manipulating widgets (up to 12 per dashboard)
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Exercise: make a dashboard
1) ‘Dashboards’ menu
2) Select ‘+New Dashboard’
3) Select ‘Blank Canvas’
4) Give the dashboard a title
5) Select ‘Create Dashboard’
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Next: adding widgets
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You can add widgets directly from GA reports
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No actionable data Sessions (previously Visits)
Users (previously Visitors)
Pages (a.k.a. Pageviews)
Establish scope / context.
Measure growth / acquisition.
You can’t improve your site by measuring these.
Reporting them out of context can be misleading.
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Satisfy your boss!
The inevitability of “Quantity of Stuff”
Occam's Razor
“All data in
aggregate is crap.”
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AAA wanted to make their content more accessible to younger students.
They worked with Wikipedia to expand their offerings.
We compared segments of Wikipedia visitors to other visitors.
Wiki-referred visitors were increasingly less likely to (need to) visit the AAA site many times.
This contrasts with the stable trend of all visits.
All visits, high
frequency
Wikipedia visits,
high frequency
Validation!
Archives of American Art Wikipedia Case Study
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Here is the bottom line!
Your measurements validate your
tactics (or not).
To work the process and improve
your site, you need meaningful data:
Engagement metrics
Segments
Goal completion / Conversion rates
A-B tests
Qualitative data (surveys)
If your goal is purely audience
acquisition, you can use “quantity-of-
stuff” metrics to tell your story.
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NY Daily News
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New(ish), Game-Changing Features
Source: Keith Srakocic, AP
Virginiasports.com
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Demographics and Interests Reports
Demographics
Age (traffic by age ranges)
Gender (traffic by gender)
Interests – behavior by
Affinity Categories
In-Market Categories
Other Categories
No PII is tracked!
You have to turn the reports on in the U-I, and add a line of code to your pages.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2819948?hl=en
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2444872#trackingcode
You have to modify your privacy policy.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2799357
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Insights from Demographics and Interests Reports
Cyclic Defrost is an online magazine that covers independent electronic music, avant-rock, experimental sound art, leftfield hip hop and everything in between.
The largest visitor segment is 25-34 year-olds.
But… older visitors (45-54) engage the content at a higher rate.
Avg. Visit DurationVisits
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Benchmarking Reports!
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Compare your site to others in the same category (or across categories).
Compare by:
Channels (traffic sources)
Location
Devices
How to find it:
Search box, or:
Audience Benchmarking
Use top left pull-down; click ‘Reference’
Scroll down to ‘Libraries & Museums’
Benchmarking Reports (Google)
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Universal Analytics means all new code
We are (still…) in phase three of a four-phased, multi-year rollout.
All GA accounts have been migrated to Universal, but many website pages still carry the old code.
Phase 4: legacy code will be deprecated (date TBD – “in the near future”).
“Data received from deprecated libraries will... be processed for a minimum of two years…”
You should upgrade your code SOON!
You also need to upgrade custom code, e.g., events, virtual pageviews, etc.
Universal Analytics Upgrade Center Vampyre Fangs
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Out with the Old, in with the New!
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What code are you using?
It’s easy to tell!
If your site is newer than mid-2014, you have the new code.
If your site is older, do View Source
Search for:
gaq old code
ga.js old code
analytics.js new code
Scrap for Joy
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Old code versus new code
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<script type="text/javascript">
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript';
ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') +
'.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>
<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBe
fore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXX-XX', 'example.com');
ga('require', 'displayfeatures');
ga('send', 'pageview');
</script>
Old code
New code Red = code for
Demographics reports
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How do I upgrade?
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For a basic set-up (no custom code) upgrading is EASY.
Just replace your old code with the new code, substituting the same “UA” number (e.g., “UA-1234567-8”).
If you have advanced features such as Events or Virtual Pageviews, they must be converted to new formats.
If you are tracking multiple subdomains within a single property (using filters) you have a little more to do (see me)!
If your code is being applied via CMS (Drupal, Wordpress), it should be up-to-date, but you/we should confirm. (It’s possible you still have the old code.)
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Create a view that has no filtering of any kind.
Leave it alone – it is protection against unintended consequences.
GA filters are powerful, but irrevocable – if your data is hosed by a bad or misapplied filter you are out of luck.
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Marquette Educator
An add’l ‘playground’ view is
a good idea too, to test those
new filters (and anything else)
You need an unfiltered backup view
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Filter-out internal-traffic
Admin >> Account or View >> Filters >> +New Filter
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Use Annotations
Super easy – a great way to know at-a-glance what happened historically, launches, promos, etc.
Create new annotationPull-down all annotations
Reveal annotation
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Google’s “Analytics Academy”
Free video-based courses
Digital Analytics
Fundamentals
Google Analytics Platform
Principles
Ecommerce Analytics: From
Data to Decisions
Mobile App Analytics
Fundamentals
Google Tag Manager
Fundamentals
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analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com
A few real world questions, and how @sosarasays might answer them.
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Question: “Is anybody using those resources my department created?”
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Behavior > Site Content > All Pages > search for the web directories in question, e.g. /resources/guides/
Question: “How might we increase the use of these specific resources?”
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New custom segment! Let’s benchmark all of those visitor sessions which include viewing at least one of the “guide” pages
To work on:
1) making the guides more visible in navigation, 2) getting more inbound links 3) optimizing our page metadata for search engine findability (SEO)
Acquisition > Overview
Question: “What parts of our website are most frequently viewed on phones?”
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Apply system segment: Mobile Traffic
Behavior > Site Content > All Pages
Behavior > Site Content > All Pages (con’t)
1. Homepage2. WONDER exhibition page3. Hours & Directions4. Exhibitions Overview5. WONDER online gallery/slideshow6. Collections Search*7. Irving Penn exhibition page8. Highlights from the Collection9. FAQs10.Researching your art*
*Not likely to be in-person visitors. Are people really doing research on their phones?
Raises more questions that need further investigation!
Question: “How about those QR codes we put in the gallery last year? Did anybody scan them?”
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Generate unique custom “campaigns” for each of youradvertising or in-gallery URLs
Google URL Builder
Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns > Castle Gallery/QR Code
Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns > Castle Gallery/QR Code
2,100+ is more QR Code sessions than we would have thought! Likely due to 1) appealing content (hidden drawings on
the versos), and 2) a very straightforward call to action (“Scan this code to see the other side of this drawing.”)
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Resources Google Analytics Academy (Google)
Google Analytics Blog (Google)
Universal Analytics Upgrade Guide (Google)
Absolute Beginner's Guide to Google Analytics (moz.com)
Occam’s Razor (Avinash Kaushik)
Analytics Talk (Google’s Justin Cutroni)
Jeffalytics (Jeff Saur)
Annielytics (Annie Cushing)
Analytics Edge (Mike Sullivan)
Kissmetrics blog
Lunametrics blog / Lunametrics Training
Cardinal Path Training
Discover the Google Analytics Platform (advanced tools)
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Questions?
