Google Analytics

Web Analytics

• Web analytics is the thermometer for your website. It is

constantly checking and monitoring your online health.

Analytics Taxonomy

• Descriptive analytics -• Tell me what happened and why; Tell me what’s happening

right now and why?

• Predictive Analytics• Tell me what is likely to happen and why?

• Discovery Analytics• Tell me something important… even without me asking specific

questions.

• Prescriptive analytics• Tell me what my options are. Tell me what I should do.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is

Descriptive Analytics

Google Analytics Reports

• Once you have successfully linked up your website with

Google Analytics, the data will start collecting quickly.

• Google analytics has many many interesting reports.

Analytics tracking – data collection

• TWO MAIN APPROACHES

• Log files

• Page-tags

• Log files• Uses files stored on Server

• Page-tags

• Uses Client-side tracking

• Uses JavaScript files embedded on every web

• Generally uses cookies

Log file analysis

• Code usually is based on your own servers and usually

set up by your own IT team. Uses a proprietary

software.

• Creates small text files on server

• Very accurate

Page tagging

• Client-side tracking

• Every page of your website is tagged

• Good for companies that do not maintain their own web

server

• It can be free!! – Google analytics!

Goals and Conversions

• A conversion happens when a visitor

completes a desired goal on your website

Conversion Funnel analysis

Events or

micro-conversions

A Conversion Funnel is a

defined path that visitors should

take to reach the final

objective.

Examples of metrics you can

gather

• How many daily visitors you receive

• Your average conversion rate

• Your top visited pages

• Bounce rate

• How much revenue your site is generating

• What are your top-selling products

• Did your target visitor reach the desired destination

URL?

How does it apply to your business

• What is your goal?

• What are you going to measure to analyze your

success (KPIs)?

KPI - Key performance metrics

• KPI’s can be of two different types

• COUNT

• RATIO

• For example:

• # of Unique Visitors (COUNT)

• Conversion rate (RATIO)

Key Metrics – Visit characterization

• Entry Page

• The page that visitors used to enter your site. The first page of the

visit.

• Landing Page

• The page identified as the beginning page of a user experience

resulting from a defined marketing effort

• Exit Page

• last page a visitor was on before they exited the website

• Average Time on site

• How long did the visit last

• Pages/visit

• Number of webpages viewed in a particular visit

Key Metrics – source of visitors

• Where are the visitors coming from

• Referrers

• Internal referrer

• External referrer

• Search referrer

• Referring Keywords

• Which search terms your visitors used to find you

• Click-through rate

• The click-through rate is the number of times a click is made on the advertisement divided by the total impressions (the times an advertisement was served):

Page Views and Page hits

• Earlier, many websites used hit counters

• Page hits are number of times a request is made to your server and occur, for example, if there are multiple images on a page.

• Every image load registers as a page hit. NOT USEFUL.

• Page Views describes the numbers of times an entire page is called by a browser

• Use Page Views and NOT page hits!!!

Bounce and bounce rate

• When a visitor comes to a landing page and leaves

immediately it is called a bounce.

When does it typically register as a Bounce

• Clicks the back button (most common)

• Closes the browser (window/tab)

• Types a new URL

• Does nothing (session time out)

Bounce rate

Bounce Rate was designed to tell you if you have the right

audience coming to your pages and if you are meeting their

expectations.

You want a low bounce rate.

A low bounce rate means the visitor is staying on the page.

Exception….

• When is having a high bounce rate not a bad thing?

• What if the visitor found the information …like a phone number

or an address…exactly what was being sought…then bounce

rates could be high and not bad at all!!!

Building your brand

If your content is engaging visitors will want to come back.

As you rank higher consistently, your brand will gain recognition and visitors will bookmark your site.

Direct Traffic refers to visitors who arrive

at a site by typing the URL into a browser

or clicking on a bookmark link.

Viewing the Reports, Analyzing your

data• GA provides many different views of your data and many

different dashboards and reports. Stay focused.

WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

Use a 3-pronged approach

1) Analyze behavior data – what was the intent of the

visitor (internal searches)

2) Analyze outcome metrics – how many visitors

performed the goal actions (conversions)

3) Finally – user experience - study the data – (patterns)

Types of Data

• The data itself can be viewed in 3 different ways.

HOW MANY?

• Aggregate: All traffic to the web site for a defined

period of time

• Segmented: A subset of all traffic according to a

specific filter

• Individual: The activity of a single visitor for a defined

period of time

Goal Types• There are four types of Goals.

Goal Type Description Example

Destination A specific location

loads

Thank you for

registering page is

loaded

Duration Visits that last a

specific amount of

time

10 min or longer is

spent on a support

site

Pages/Screens A visitor views a

specific number of

pages

5 pages or screens

have been loaded

Event A defined event

action is triggered

Social

recommendation,

video play, ad click

Examples that follow

show only one of these

Get started on analyzing data

• Where did they come from?

• Conversion rates tied to paid search

• Check if your conversions are tied to your paid search effort or are

you just paying dollars for bounce visits!!

• What keywords were they searching for?

• Identify which keywords are bringing in the visitors and

adjust your organic SEO keywords to include them!

• What are people doing on your site?

• Clarity on what paths are leading to your conversions can

help you improve content on your website

Outcomes: meeting expectations

• At the end of the day, you want people who visit your

website to perform an action which increases the

website’s revenue or meets your objectives.

• Which outcomes were successful?

• Which parts of your website are being used and

which are gathering dust?

• How successful is your social media?

• Which of your SEO strategy/campaigns was most

successful and why?