Google analytics concepts introduction
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This document provides an overview of Google Analytics, including what it is, how it works, its applications and advanced features. It discusses how GA collects data through JavaScript tags, generates metrics and reports, and how these can help businesses measure and improve website traffic and performance. It also covers setting up and configuring GA, as well as advanced topics like custom reports, filters, goals, funnels, campaign tracking, benchmarks and event tracking.
Google analytics concepts introduction
- 1. Google analytics By D Balaji
- 2. Agenda • What is GA • Why do we need GA • How it works • Applications • Advanced level ones
- 3. What is Google analytics • It’s a free application from Google to measure webpage traffic • Analytics generate metrics • Metrics help businesses to measure things • Good measurements can help you get better results • Analytics collects data from client side through javascript. • It also makes the data collected into something easily understandable like reports
- 4. Other ways to collect data from client side • Cookies • Page counters • On the server side • Log analysers • Stack reporting
- 5. Types of data in analytics • Real time • Helps you be reactive • Like heavy traffic etc • Historical • Helps you be proactive • Better planning etc
- 6. History of Google analytics • Till 2005, Google priced its analytics at 200$ • It buys a company called Urchin • Later the product was released for free • It had 0.25 million new registrations in 2 days
- 7. Pre-requisites • Basic HTML, JS • Google account • Sign up for analytics by giving your website details • Got time or serious business user, read terms of data use
- 8. How Google identifies your site • You need to copy and paste the Javascript code on every page of your application • The JS code has a unique key that is tied to your website • Once the script is set, Google starts tracking each visitor anonymously • Its advisable to put Google analytics in head section of the page. • If you put GA code at the bottom of the page, some visitors may not wait for the page to load. They may exit even before analytics loads
- 9. Topics to discuss • I have 2 websites, should I have one google analytics account or two? • Other than page load, can I capture events like mouse clicks? • I have a team, how can I give google analytics access to them? • Is the tracking information on GA up to date?
- 10. Understanding terms/Jargon • Visitor – any human/crawler visiting the website from a standard IP address. • Visits – interaction by a user on a website • Unique visitor – An unique individual visiting our site • New visitor – first ever visit to the website • Repeat visitor – activity containing 2 or more visits in the duration mentioned • Return visitor – Any one who has visited to site earlier in any time frame
- 11. Contd • Visit duration – how long visitors spend time on the site • Bounce – an ultra short visit is a bounce. User has not interacted with the site • Keywords – terms used by the visitors to find your website. Types of keywords • Paid e.g. google ads • Organic e.g SEO • Funnel – path taken by user to reach the goal
- 12. Traffic sources • Direct traffic – people who type URL in the browser • In this case, the referrer shall be ‘no referrer’ • If user clicks on a link from a website ‘medium.com’, then the referrer shall be set as ‘medium.com’ • Organic or search engine
- 13. Metrics on ecommerce site • Site usage • Ecommerce overview • Goal conversion rate • Average order value • Products • Transactions
- 14. Metrics on static site • Site usage • Top content • New vs Returning • Bounce rate • Depth of visit • Map overlay
- 15. Custom reports • Custom reports is a convergence of 2 different types of data • Dimensions • Metrics • Dimensions • They are usually attributes of a visitor • Text based measurements • For example, if interested in tracking users by city. Then city is a dimension • Metrics • Measurement of attributes, i.e. numbers
- 16. Filters • Filters help us in selectively removing a section of the user data. E.g. Visitors from the development team can be filtered by their IP address • Types of filters • Standard filters • Custom via regex or pattern matching • Some filters can also help you include information • Filters can be applied on multiple domains at the same time via filter manager • Filters are applied in an order in which they were applied
- 17. Goals • Nobody tracks website metrics without a reason. That reason is based on their goal. • Management speak/Lingo • Objectives – big picture, how the product should perform or fit into. They are the long term goals • Goals – short term aims, e.g. increase sales by 20% every year • Specifics – what you want to accomplish. That’s the result of the funnel. More people on the order confirmation page
- 18. Goal information • Goal status – on/off • Match type • URL • Header match • Regex • Goal URL • Goal Name • Is URL case sensitive • Goal value • Funnel
- 19. Funnel • Mapping user behaviour or flow • Define landing page • Second or more steps. Think about newsletter example. Filling form and activating email are the steps • Final step – confirmation page • Funnels should cover as many steps possible so we get accurate data • Non standard funnels is one where all the steps are not a part of the same website
- 20. Other analytics vendors • Omniture site catalyst • Coremetrics • Webtrends • ClickTracks • Unica netinsight
- 21. Dimensions of campaign tracking • Source – site that brought traffic • Medium – medium through which you acquired visitor. Could be CPC, email or banner • Campaign – Bucket the visitors based on some campaign name • Term – refers to keyword used in marketing campaigns • Content – URL tagging, refers to URL contents • Sample URL - http://www.yoursite.com/landing- page.html?utm_source=yahoo&utm_ medium=cpc&utm_term=green- shirt&utm_content=discount+ad&utm_ campaign=shirts+and+wearables • Source, medium & campaign are required dimensions • URL can be built using url builder tool
- 22. AdWords related jargon • RPC – Revenue per click • CPC – Cost per click • ROI – Return of investment • Margin –Usually a %. Its difference between expenditure on ads and income divided by revenue. • Visits and clicks – if user visits a page from ad, it’s a click. If user had bookmarked a link and visits later, then it’s a visit. • GCLid – Google click identifier used to pass adwords information to analytics • CTR click through rate
- 23. Tracking subdomains and multiple domain • Use the same user identification id
- 24. Reports • We have setup google analytics to collect data. We will present the collected data in the form of reports • Reports show us what is working correctly and what is not • Popular reports • Visitor • Traffic sources etc • Overview review gives us a quick version of the important data • GA uses cookies to track visitors on a site. When user clears his cookies, then he is counted as a new user
- 25. Benchmarking • As people we compare things, we say his car is not a Ferrari. We were able to do this because we know his car and Ferrari • Same with websites, if we share our data with google. Then google gives the industry benchmark to compare with • To enable this feature we need to turn on a feature to share data with google • Once enabled it takes upto 2 weeks to get enough data. • Recency – how frequently a visitor returns to a site
- 26. Event tracking • Helps to track user activity • Sample pageTracker._trackEvent(“Videos”, “Play Button”, “Transformers Trailer”, “37”); • Tracking affects bounce rate calculation • Google can track 500 events per session
- 27. Data hierarchy • Account – highest level access • Property – source of data could be an app or site • View – specific set of data from property
- 28. Types of access • Read & Analyse • Collaborate • Edit • Manage users
- 29. Jargon & rules • Hit – data about a specific type of interaction sent to GA • Session – collection of hits called session • Dimension – some attribute that describes data • Report – data presented to user • Personal identification like names, emails etc should not be collected as part of GA • Property id – the number which identifies your GA account
- 30. Placement of GA code • Put it in the head section or beginning of the body • Its async so it would not cause any blocking • Google analytics generally uses a cookie to track users • Cookie name would be _ga • If you don’t want cookie based solution then provide client id everytime
- 31. Goals in GA • Goals are a type of user interaction which we want to consider as a conversion • Types of goals • Destination • Session duration • Pages per session • Event goals
- 32. Next part to be contd.