Google Analytics Guide

A step by step guide to a best practice implementation of Google Analytics

August 2012

Contents
This document is an unofficial guide to a best practice standard implementation of Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is the most popular analytics package and is used by 87% of companies and agencies, either exclusively or in conjunction with another tracking tool, to measure online performance (Econsultancy, Online Measurement and Strategy Report 2012). Often the performance and ability of analytics software to accurately record and provide data is affected by the way in which the initial code is set up and administered on the website. This document aims to guide users to a best practice implementation of their Google Analytics account so that they can extract basic information and avoid incorrect or inaccurate recording of data. We will look at:

1.

INTRODUCTION: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START .................................................................3 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. What is Google Analytics? ......................................................................................................................3 Cookies....................................................................................................................................................3 Installing Google Analytics ......................................................................................................................4 Verifying Implementation .........................................................................................................................5

2.

SETUP: WHAT TO DO BEFORE YOUR DATA COMES IN.......................................................................................7 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 2.6. 2.7. 2.8. 2.9. Profiles & Filters ......................................................................................................................................7 Traffic Channel Tracking .........................................................................................................................8 Ecommerce Tracking ........................................................................................................................... 11 On-Site Search Tracking ...................................................................................................................... 13 On-Page Interaction Tracking .............................................................................................................. 14 Goal Tracking ....................................................................................................................................... 16 Goal Funnel Visualisation..................................................................................................................... 17 Regular Expressions (RegEx) .............................................................................................................. 19 Social Media Integration ....................................................................................................................... 19

3.

EVERYDAY ANALYTICS : HOW TO READ YOUR DATA................................................................................. 21 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. Definitions ............................................................................................................................................. 21 Dashboards .......................................................................................................................................... 25 Advanced Segments ............................................................................................................................ 28

Please keep in mind that this guide is designed to fit a wide variety of websites. Further configuration of your analytics account may be required to fit your particular needs. For any questions concerning the content of this document or information on a more customised implementation, please contact DBD Media at analytics@dbdmedia.co.uk or call our web analytics team on 020 7240 0100.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

1. INTRODUCTION: What You Need To Know Before You Start 1. INTRODUCTION: What You Need To Know Before You Start

1.1. What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics (GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. GA can track visitors from all referring sources, including search engines, display advertising, email marketing and other digital collateral such as links within PDF documents. When integrated with Google AdWords, users can their review online campaign performance by tracking landing page quality and conversions (goals). Goals might include sales, booking enquiries, lead generation, viewing a specific page, or downloading a particular file. By using GA, marketers can determine which ads are performing, and which are not, providing vital information to optimise, expand or cull campaigns. GAs approach is to show high-level dashboard-type data for the casual user, and more in-depth data further into the report set. Through analysis of GA data, website performance can be understood using techniques such as funnel visualisation, referrer source (where visitors came from), how long they stayed and their geographical location. It also provides more advanced features, including custom visitor segmentation. If your website sells products or services online, you can use Google Analytics ecommerce reporting to track sales activity and performance. The ecommerce reports show you your websites transactions, revenue, and many other commerce-related metrics.

1.2. Cookies
GA uses first-party tracking cookies only, which are considered minimally intrusive by the new EU Privacy Directive. To be compliant with the Directive, you need to list these cookies in your privacy policy and request users consent to use them. Cookie Name _utma _utmb Purpose Visitor identifier Session identifier Expiration 2 years When the visitor closes the browser or after 30mins of inactivity When the visitor closes the browser 6 months

_utmc _utmz

Session identifier Stores the campaign tracking values that are passed via tagged URLs Custom visitor segmentation

_utmv (optional)

2 years

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

1.3. Installing Google Analytics

To implement Google Analytics on your website you first need a Google account. If you do not have one, you can create it here: https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount (you can use any email address, not just Gmail). Once youve created your Google account and are logged in, you can access Google Analytics by selecting Products on the left-hand navigation menu. When you set up your Google Analytics account, you will be provided with your Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC) as per the example below. Youll need to install this tracking code across all pages of your website. It is customary to place the code in the header, right before the </head> tag to increase the likelihood that the tracking beacon will be sent before the user leaves the page.

Figure 1: GATC example It is important you carefully select which tracking option suits your website as this will influence the readability of your data.

Figure 2: Advanced GA tracking options We suggest organising websites into Accounts, top-level domains into Properties and subdomains/subdirectories into Profiles (see Figure 3). If you are running Google Analytics on more than one website, be sure to keep a consistent naming convention for clarity.
DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.
www.dbdmedia.co.uk 4

Account

My Site

Property

www.mysite.co.uk

www.mysite.fr

Profile

secure.mysite.co.uk

offers.mysite.co.uk

secure.mysite.fr

Figure 3: Account organisation example

1.4. Verifying Implementation

1.4.1. Checking Reports for Data
Once youve installed your tracking code on your website, it usually takes about 24 hours for data to appear in your reports. The best way to verify that you are receiving data is to simply look at your reports. Select the Home tab, then Real-Time, Overview on the left-hand navigation menu. If you browse on your website at the same time your visit should appear in the report.

Figure 4: Real-Time report After 24 hours have passed, you can also check directly into your Standard Reports, Content, Site Content, Pages and make sure that you see Pageview numbers for each of your pages.

1.4.2. Checking Source Code

You can also view your webpages source code to verify that the tracking code is correctly installed. Navigate your browser to any page on your website. Right click within the browser window and select the View Page Source or View Source option in your browser. This will open a new window that contains the source code for that page. To find out whether Google Analytics Tracking Code is installed, search for ga.js (from the source code menu, select Edit and click the Find option.)

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

If you find the Google Analytics Tracking Code on your page, then you can be sure that Google Analytics has been installed on your website. Repeat this process across any page you doubt is being tracked on your website to make sure that your installation is complete.

Figure 5: Page source code

1.4.3. GA Debugger
If you are using Google Chrome, you can install the Google Analytics Debugger (see Figure 6). Once installed and enabled, open your website in a new window, right-click and select Inspect element. Go to the Console tab: if your GATC is properly implemented, you should see Tracking beacon sent! at the top.

Figure 6: Google Analytics Debugger

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

2. SETUP: What To Do Before Your Data Comes In 2. SETUP: What To Do Before Your Data Comes In

2.1. Profiles & Filters

Google Analytics gives account administrators multiple ways to segment their data according to different desired dimensions. Using filtered profiles is the most accurate way of segmenting data and allows accounts to have access to all reporting features including goal/funnel visualisation. Profiles can also be used to allow a more limited view of your data to a user, for example non-specialist management within your organisation. Filters require a lot of care when applied to profiles. Filters are applied before extracting data from your website and in the order in which they are listed, therefore fundamentally changing the way in which data is collected. Once applied, filters cannot influence historical data and the information excluded cannot be retrieved. Filtered profiles can be created to: Separate traffic data from different subdomains e.g. store.mysite.com and info.mysite.com Separate traffic data from different domains e.g. www.mysite.co.uk and www.mysite.fr Isolate a certain part of your website e.g. www.mysite.com/blog Focus on specific traffic channels e.g. paid vs. organic traffic

Google Analytics provides three commonly used predefined filters. You will see them by selecting the Filters tab on the Admin page. 1. Traffic from the domains Excludes all or includes only traffic from the domain you specify in the domain field directly below the Filter Type dropdown. e.g. isolate traffic coming from your sister companys website 2. Traffic from the IP addresses Excludes all or includes only traffic from an IP address or range of IP addresses entered into the IP address field. e.g. exclude your internal company traffic 3. Traffic from the subdirectories Excludes all or includes only traffic to a specified directory on your website. e.g. track www.mysite.com/blog/ separately As a best practice we recommend you always: Maintain an unfiltered profile to backup your historical data. Keep a test profile for trying out new filters. Exclude your companys internal traffic as well as traffic from any development/media/PR agency you are using which might skew your data.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

2.2. Traffic Channel Tracking

2.2.1. Paid Traffic: Google AdWords Integration
By linking Google Analytics to your Google AdWords account, you can get advanced reporting that measures campaign ROI and on-site performance for paid traffic generation (e.g. bounce rate, time on site, pages/visit...) In order to link both accounts, you first need to add your AdWords username (if different) as an Admin on your GA account. Then, log into AdWords and select Tool and Analysis in the main navigation, then Google Analytics in the drop-down menu. You will be taken to a GA dashboard. Click on the Admin tab on the righthand side and select the GA account you wish to link. Go to Data Sources, select the profiles you want to transfer AdWords data to and click on link. When you link your accounts, enable "Destination URL Autotagging (AdWords main navigation, My Account) to differentiate your paid ads from organic search listings and referrals and see detailed campaign information in the AdWords section of your Traffic Sources reports.

Figure 7: Post-click data on AdWords campaigns

Importing Cost Data from AdWords

Your cost data (clicks and keyword spending information) will be applied once you link your accounts. If you dont want cost data imported into a particular profile, you can edit the profile settings and de-select the cost data option after youve completed the linking process. Make sure both your AdWords and Analytics accounts are set to the same currency so that ROI data is accurately calculated. Note that Google Analytics is only able to import cost data from AdWords, and not from other PPC networks such as Bing, Yahoo...

Data Discrepancies between AdWords and Google Analytics

You may notice differences between the data in your Google Analytics and AdWords reports. The main reason is that AdWords tracks clicks while Analytics tracks visits (see 3.1 Definitions). Here is a list of the most common issues: Some visitors who click on your AdWords ads may have JavaScript, cookies, or images turned off. As a result, Analytics wont report these visits, but AdWords will report the click.
8

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

Youll also see differences between Analytics and AdWords if the Google Analytics Tracking Code on your landing page doesnt execute. In this case, AdWords will report the click but Analytics will not record the visit. Google AdWords automatically filters out invalid clicks (clicks on ads that Google considers to be illegitimate, such as unintentional clicks or clicks resulting from malicious software) from its reports while Google Analytics will still report the visits. AdWords data is only uploaded once a day to Analytics so the results for each may be temporarily out of sync. If the landing pages dont contain the Google Analytics Tracking Code, campaign information will not be passed to Analytics, but clicks will register in AdWords. Make sure that you have autotagging enabled otherwise visits will be marked as Google Organic instead of Google PPC. If your website uses redirects, campaign data can be lost: Analytics wont show the visits as coming from AdWords, but your AdWords report will still report the clicks.

2.2.2. Paid Traffic: Non-AdWords Campaign Tracking (UTM Parameters)

Google Analytics automatically tracks all search queries and referring sources that send traffic to your website. However, if you are running paid advertising campaigns, you should add tags to the destination URLs of your ads in order to identify them as paid traffic channels rather than referring websites, so that you are able to fully understand their performance on-site. UTM tags override the default traffic source (referral) so it is important you only use them on links external to your website to avoid self-referrals. To identify clicks on internal links, see 2.5.2 Event Tracking. There are five variables you can use when tagging URLs. To tag a URL, add a question mark to the end of the URL followed by your tag or use the Google Analytics URL Builder. Source identify the referrer: search engine, newsletter name, or other source Medium identify the marketing medium such as email, cpc, display... Campaign identify a specific product promotion or strategic campaign Term (optional) identify the paid keywords Content (optional) used for A/B testing and content-targeted ads to differentiate ads or links that point to the same URL Example 1
Analytics Guide

Example 2
Analytics Guide

Example 3
Analytics Guide

email newsletter2

cpc yahoo

social facebook

n/a

analytics setup using word Free

n/a

n/a

n/a

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

Example URL tags 1. http://www.dbdmedia.co.uk/assets/google-analyticsguide.pdf?utm_source=newsletter2&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Analytics%2BGuide 2. http://www.dbdmedia.co.uk/assets/google-analyticsguide.pdf?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=analytics%2Bsetup&utm_content=with %2BFree&utm_campaign=Analytics%2BGuide 3. http://www.dbdmedia.co.uk/assets/google-analyticsguide.pdf?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Analytics%2BGuide It is important to adopt a naming convention that is consistent across all your campaigns, and also with GAs naming conventions, in order not to skew traffic reports. For instance, GA uses by default google/cpc (source/medium) for Google AdWords traffic. When tagging URLs for Yahoo PPC ads, use yahoo/cpc (rather than Yahoo/PPC for instance) in order to group all Yahoo related data under yahoo and all PPC related data under cpc.

organic

yahoo cpc

google
cpc Figure 8: Source drill-down

google Figure 9: Medium drill-down

Figure 10: Traffic Sources / Sources / All Traffic

2.2.3. Organic Traffic: Google Webmaster Tools Integration

Organic search reports are found in the Traffic Sources section under Sources, Search, Organic. This allows you to see which keywords delivered organic traffic to your website and how relevant your landing pages were to the user (e.g. bounce rate). The Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) reports in Google Analytics will show Google search queries which have returned impressions (see 3.1 Definitions) and the proportion of those impressions which resulted in a click to your website (CTR). By identifying the search queries that drive traffic to your website, you can also learn which paid keywords make the most sense for your business objectives. In addition, you can identify how to optimise your website for both content and search quality. To integrate Webmaster Tools, you need to enable Webmaster Tools by editing the Property Settings on the Admin page, and following the instructions (see Figure 9).

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

10

Figure 11: Enabling Google Webmaster Tools

2.3. Ecommerce Tracking

If your website sells products or services online, you should use GA ecommerce reporting to track sales activity and performance. The ecommerce reports show you your websites transactions, revenue, and many other commerce-related metrics.

Figure 12: Conversions / Ecommerce / Overview Some examples of the kind of information you can get from the ecommerce reports include: The products that were purchased from your online store Your sales revenue Your ecommerce conversion rate The number of times people visited your website before purchasing

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

11

2.3.1. Setting up ecommerce

1. Enable ecommerce reporting within your Analytics profile by selecting Yes, an ecommerce website in the drop-down menu 2. Ensure the Google Analytics Tracking Code is tagged on your confirmation page or transaction complete page 3. Add ecommerce tracking code to your confirmation page so that you can capture the details of each transaction you will need the help of a developer and the Google Developers tutorial. Heres an example of what the ecommerce tracking code on your confirmation page might look like:

Figure 13: Ecommerce tracking code example

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

12

2.3.2. 3rd party shopping basket

For many ecommerce websites, the checkout process occurs on a separate domain or subdomain. For example, if you send customers from www.mystore.com to basket.mystore.com, youre sending them to a subdomain, and if the checkout process sends them from www.mystore.com to www.mysecurecheckout.com, you are sending them to a different domain. If either of these scenarios applies to your website, youll need to add some code to some of your pages so that you can track activity across domains and subdomains. The specific methods youll use are listed on the Google Developers tutorial.

2.4. On-Site Search Tracking

Google Analytics provides internal Site Search reports that allow you to see how people search once theyve arrived at your website. By analysing your Site Search reports, you can find out which products or items visitors are looking for, where visitors started their search and where they ended up after searching and whether searches resulted in conversions. Remember: Google Analytics reports use search term when referring to internal Site Searches and keyword, when referring to search engine queries.

2.4.1. Setting Up Site Search

In order to set up Site Search tracking for your website, youll need to configure your Profile Settings. 1. Select the profile on which you want to set up internal search 2. Once the Profile Settings page appears, select the Profile Settings tab 3. In the Site Search Settings section, select the Do Track Site Search radio button. 4. In the Query Parameter field, enter the letter, word or words that designate an internal query parameter (see 2.4.2 Query Parameter)

Figure 14: Enabling site search

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

13

2.4.2. Query Parameter

To find out what the query parameter is, perform a search on your website. The query can be found in the search result URL.

For example, if you search on analytics training on our website, you will see your search query preceded by ?s=. Therefore, our query parameter is s In the example above, the query parameter is s, and the query is analytics training. If you have a particularly large website, some sections of your website may use different query parameters. You may provide up to five parameters, separating each parameter by a comma.

2.5. On-Page Interaction Tracking

Google Analytics tracks interactions via pageviews. However, some types of interactions dont generate additional pageviews, such as video players, Flash games, file downloads or clicks outbound clicks. There are two ways to track such on-page activities: virtual pageviews and event tracking (discussed below).

2.5.1. Virtual Pageviews

You can create a virtual pageview through the _trackPageview() function to represent practically any kind of activity or interaction you want. Its virtual because youre telling Google Analytics to register a pageview even though no new page has actually been loaded. You can use virtual pageviews to track whitepaper downloads on your website, Flash events, pop-ups, iframes etc. To create a virtual pageview provide any name you want as the argument to the _trackPageview() method as per the example below (e.g. /whitepaper/analytics-guide.pdf). Then insert the snippet in the code of the call-toaction you want to generate a pageview when clicked. _trackPageview,/whitepaper/analytics-guide.pdf Since virtual pageviews appear along with standard pageviews in reports, you may wish to create a duplicate profile where you filter out the virtual pageviews. To make this easy, you might organise all of your virtual pageviews under a specific subdirectory (e.g. here /whitepaper/).

2.5.2. Event Tracking

The second way of tracking actions that dont generate pageviews is through event tracking. This method is particularly useful to record interactions with video players and calls-to-action (add to basket, download PDF, etc.) as well as identify clicks on ads and internal links to understand what calls to action grabbed your visitors attention. One advantage of using Event Tracking is that you can easily organise your events into categories, actions, and provide labels and even values for each event you track. Also, event tracking wont inflate your pageview count. All of your events show up in the Events reports within the Content section. To use _trackEvent(), choose your event structure as per the example below and insert the snippet into the code of the call to action or link that you want to generate an event when clicked.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

14

_trackEvent(category, action, opt_label, opt_value, opt_noninteraction) Category a name that you supply as a means to group objects (usually user interface elements that you want to track) Action name you want to give to the type of interaction youre tracking Label (optional) allows you to provide additional information for the event you are tracking Value (optional) use it to assign a numeric value to a tracked page object Non interaction (optional) generates a bounce on a page a user landed on and exited from even if their visit generated an event (yes/no argument)

Naming Convention
It is important to use a clear and consistent naming convention when creating events so that the reports are readable and provide actual insights. The best approach is to determine in advance all of the kinds of events that youll want to track, so as to create a hierarchy of Categories, Actions, and Labels that will grow with your needs. Work with everyone who uses GA reports to make sure that the hierarchy makes sense. For example, instead of just seeing how many times a video clip was played on your website, you can analyse how people use your video player, and see how different events correlate with website usage and ecommerce metrics. Examples

Figure 15: Shopping behaviour event structure

Figure 16: Whitepaper interaction event structure

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

15

2.6. Goal Tracking

Every website has an objective, usually in the form of a specific action that it pushes the user to complete: buy a product, fill in a form, read a page, view an ad... These actions are the main conversion points which need to be tracked in order to measure your websites performance against your objectives. There are also multitudes of other measurable interactions which help direct the visitor towards the main conversion point. Tracking them can help you understand how you can help your visitors to convert more easily as well as how the different parts of your website are being used. Here is a non-exhaustive list of microconversion points: Newsletter subscriptions Content sharing via social media Video plays Use of interactive tools (calculators, quizzes...) Product customisation Add to basket

You can track all of these conversion points in Google Analytics by setting up goal tracking. To set up a goal, first go the Admin page, select the profile for which you want to configure a goal and select the Goals tab. You can create up to 4 sets of 5 goals each.

Figure 17: Setting goal tracking

2.6.1. Goal Types

URL Destination triggers a conversion when a visitor views the page youve specified. For an account signup, this might be the Thank You for signing up page. For a purchase, this might be the confirmation page. To define a URL Destination Goal, you dont need to enter the complete URL, simply the request URI (Uniform Resource Identifier, which is what comes after the domain or hostname, including the /). e.g. www.dbdmedia.co.uk/thank-you/ or www.dbdmedia.co.uk/about-us/
DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.
www.dbdmedia.co.uk 16

Visit Duration triggers a conversion when a visitor spends more (or less) time on your website than the threshold you specify. Pages/Visit triggers a conversion when a visitor views more (or fewer) pages than the threshold youve set. Event triggers a conversion when a visitor performs an event you are tracking on your website (e.g. play a video, download a file...)

2.6.2. URL Match Types

If you set goals by URL Destination, you will need to select the type of match for the entered request URI. Head Match indicates that the URL of the page visited must match what you enter for the Goal URL, but if there is any additional data at the end of the URL then the goal will still be counted. For example, some websites append a product ID or a visitor ID or some other parameter to the end of the URL. Head Match will ignore these. Exact Match means that the URL of the page visited must exactly match what you enter for the Goal URL. In contrast to Head Match, which can be used to match every page in a subdirectory, Exact Match can only be used to match one single page. Regular Expression Match gives you the most flexibility. For example if you want to count any sign-up page as a goal when sign-up pages exist in various subdirectories. You can create a regular expression that will match any sign-up page in any subdirectory (see 2.8 Regular Expressions (RegEx)).

2.6.3. Case sensitive Setting

Check the Case Sensitive box if you want the URLs you entered into your goal and funnel to exactly match the capitalisation of visited URLs.

2.6.4. Goal Value

For non-ecommerce websites, goal value allows you to assign a monetary value to goals. For example: you are tracking visitors who complete and send the contact form on your website. You know that one in 10 leads becomes a customer and your average order value is 200. So you can attribute a goal value of 20 for that goal. The use of goal value is not restricted to non-ecommerce websites though, as you might want to assign a value to actions which are not ecommerce transactions, such as clicks on a partners advertisement. By setting a goal value, you make it possible for Google Analytics to calculate metrics like average per-visitvalue, page value and ROI. These metrics are calculated based on a combination of goal value and transaction value (revenue), so you need to be careful to only assign goal value to actions which arent already recorded by ecommerce tracking.

2.7. Goal Funnel Visualisation

For each URL Destination goal that you define, you can also define a funnel. A funnel is the set of steps (or pages) that you expect visitors go through on their way to complete the conversion. A sales checkout process is a good example of a funnel. The product category page, product page and the page where the visitor enters credit card information are all examples of the funnel steps.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

17

So, the goal page signals the end of the activity such as a thank you or confirmation page and the funnel steps are the pages that visitors encounter on their way to the goal. Knowing the stage at which would-be customers abandon the process allows you to eliminate bottlenecks and create a more efficient conversion path. For example, if you notice that many of your visitors never go further than the Enter delivery information page, you might focus on redesigning that page so that its simpler for them to use. When you use Regular Expression Match (as set up under 2.6.2 URL Match Types), the value you enter as the goal URL as well as each of the funnel steps will be read as a Regular Expression. Remember that regardless of which option you choose, Google Analytics is only matching request URIs. In other words, the domain name is ignored.
How visitors enter the funnel How visitors move through the funnel How visitors exit the funnel

Figure 18: Conversions / Goals / Funnel Visualisation While ecommerce tracking reports on shopping basket abandonment rate, it is not possible to visualise conversion drop-outs at a page level. That is why we recommend setting purchases as a goal with a funnel, particularly for multipage checkout processes.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

18

2.8. Regular Expressions (RegEx)

A regular expression is a set of characters and metacharacters that are used to match text in a specified pattern. You can use regular expressions to configure flexible goals and powerful filters. To exclude a range of IP addresses, you can use GAs RegEx generator. RegEx can be tricky so be sure to test them on a separate profile before applying them to your data. Metacharacter . \ [] ? + * () | ^ $ Purpose Match any single character Use special characters as literal characters Signal a range of characters Match any single character contained within the brackets Match the preceding pattern element zero or one times Match the preceding pattern element one or more times Match the preceding pattern element zero or more times Group a string of characters Separate alternatives Signal the beginning of an expression Signals the end of an expression Example Act. U\.S\. Holiday [a-z] [abc] colou?r ab+c ab*c (G|g)oogle gray|grey ^US Holiday US Holiday$ Match Act1, Act2, Act9 U.S. Holiday Any lowercase letter, once a, b or c color, colour abc,abbc, abbbc,... ac, abc,abbc, abbbc Google or google gray or grey US Holiday 2012 2012 US Holiday 2012 US Holiday US Holiday 2012 ac Does not match Act10, Act21 UfSd Holiday A, aa, B, ab... d, e, f

2.9. Social Media Integration

Social Media reports allow you to understand social activities happening both on and off your website as well as identify the real revenue value of your social presence. All of your Social data show up in the Traffic Sources reports within the Social section. Traffic data, on-site activity and conversions from referring social networks are automatically recorded.

Figure 19: Traffic Sources / Social / Sources

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

19

To track on-site social interactions via social plugins however, you will need to use the _trackSocial() function. Google+ is automatically integrated. _gaq.push([_trackSocial, network, socialAction, opt_target, opt_pagePath]); Network social network being tracked (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn...) Social Action social action being tracked (like, share, tweet...) Target (optional) URL or resource which receives the action (if undefined, page on which the action took place) Page Path (optional) page from which the action occurred (generally the source of the social action only really necessary if you are using virtual pageviews)

Figure 20: Traffic Sources / Social / Social Plugins

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

20

3. EVERYDAY ANALYTICS: How To Read Your Data 3. EVERYDAY ANALYTICS : How to Read your Data

3.1. Definitions
Dimension A dimension is a descriptive attribute or characteristic of an object that can be given different values. Dimensions appear in all of your reports, though you might see different ones depending on the specific report. Use them to help organise, segment, and analyse your data. In some reports, you can add and remove dimensions to see different aspects of your data. Metrics Metrics are individual elements of a dimension that can be measured as a sum or a ratio. Although dimensions and metrics can stand alone, they usually are used in conjunction with one another. The values of dimensions and metrics and the relationships between those values is what gives meaning to your data. For the greatest insights, dimensions are often associated with one or more metric.

3.1.1. Dimensions
Action action for the event being tracked (e.g. Play, Pause or Stop for video interactions) Ad Content 1 line (headline) of your PPC ad Ad Group ad groups that you or your campaign manager have identified for your online ad campaigns Browser Type name of the browser used by visitors to your website (e.g. Internet Explorer or Firefox) Browser Version version of the browsers used by visitors to your website (e.g. 2.0.0.14) Campaign names of the online campaigns that you or your campaign manager use for your website Category category pertaining to the event being tracked (e.g. Videos for video interactions) City visitors city based on IP address Connection Speed network connection speed of visitors to the website (e.g. DSL, Cable, Dialup...) Continent visitors continent based on IP address Country/Territory visitors country or territory based on IP address Days to Purchase number of days between users purchases and their first visit to your website Depth of Visit number of pages visited by users to your website in a session (visit) Entrance Page request URI where the resultant page is the entrance or landing page for your visitors Exit Page request URI where the resultant page is the last or "exit" page for your visitors Flash Versions versions of Flash supported by visitors browsers, including minor versions Hostname hostnames visitors used to reach your website Java Support browser capabilities for visitors Keyword keywords (both paid and organic) used by users to reach your website Label optional label you can apply to a particular event you are tracking (e.g. [movie name] for video interactions)
st

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

21

Landing Page see Entrance Page Language users browser language returned in a 2 or 4 character code (e.g. en-br for British English) Medium This field identifies the type of referral to your website. Thus, while a referring source (URL) to your website might be a search engine, there are two possible mediums that can be used from a search engine referral: organic (from a search result) and cpc (from an online ad). Operating System operating system used by your visitors (e.g. Windows, Linux, Macintosh) Operating System Version version of the operating system of your visitors (e.g. XP for Windows or OSX for Macintosh) Page see Request URI Page Title <title></title> field of the HTML header area for your pages Position position of the advertisement as it appears on the hosting page (e.g. side or top) Product product name Product Category product category as defined in your websites ecommerce structure (e.g. lighting, furniture or flooring) Product SKU product code as defined in your ecommerce structure (e.g. #1234325) Provider Domain fully-qualified domain of the service provider of visitors to your website Provider Name name of the service provider of visitors to your website Referral Path referral URI (path and page, generally) of the referring site Region visitors region based on IP address Request URI page or a set of pages on your website by path and/or query parameters (e.g. the request URI for the URL www.mysite.com/about-us/ is /about-us/) Screen Colours screen colour depth of visitors monitors, as reported by the browser HTTP Request Header Screen Resolution screen resolution depth of visitors monitors, as reported by the browser HTTP Request Header Search Category categories used for the internal search (e.g. lighting furniture or flooring) Search Refinement subsequent keyword search terms or strings entered by users after a given initial string search using the internal site search function Search Terms keywords used via your websites internal search function Source used in reporting traffic sources to your site, identifies the domain of the referring source (e.g. google or bing) Sub-continent visitors sub-continent based on IP address Sub-region visitors sub-region based on IP address Time On Site visitor session duration for the day Transaction ID transaction ID for the shopping basket purchase as defined in your ecommerce structure (e.g. booking number, order number...) Visitor Type number of visitors to your website who are new or returning

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

22

Visits number of visits to your website, calculated by determining the number of visitor sessions (e.g. if a visitor comes to your site, exits their browser, and returns 5 minutes later via the same browser, that is calculated as 2 visits) Visits to a Transaction number of visits made to your website before a user makes a purchase

3.1.2. Metrics
% Exit percentage of site exits that occurred from a page or set of pages % New Visits percentage of visits from new visitors Average Value average value of an ecommerce transaction Avg. Visit Duration average time spent per visit on your website Bounce Rate percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your website from the entrance page/landing page) Bounces number of single-page visits to your site over the selected dimension (e.g. if you apply this metric to the Campaign dimension, itll display the number of single-page visits to your site by users that reached your site via a particular campaign) Clicks number of clicks that your ads received Cost campaign cost CPC or cost per click average price you paid for each click on your search ads CPM or cost per mille cost per thousand ad impressions CTR or click through rate clicks to impressions ratio Entrances number of entrances to your website or page Exits number of exits from your site or page Goal Conversion Rate the percentage of sessions on a website that include a conversion goal being reached Goal Conversions number of overall goals completed by visitors Goal1-20 Completions total number of visitors who have completed all elements defined for a particular goal Goal1-20 Start total number of visitors who have completed the first goal step for a particular goal Goal1-20 Value total cumulative value for a particular goal Impressions number of times your ads were displayed New Visits number of visits by people who have never been to the website before Page Value average value for a page a user visited before converting (Revenue + Goal Value, divided by Unique Pageviews for a page viewed before the conversion occurred) formerly known as $ Index Pages/Visit number of pages viewed by users per visit Pageviews total number of pageviews for your website when applied over the selected dimension Per Visit Goal Value average value of a goal completion (calculated as Goal Value divided by Visits) Per Visit Value average value of a visit to your website (calculated as Revenue divided by Visits) Product Revenue revenue generated per item (calculated as Price multiplied by Quantity)

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

23

Quantity total number of items sold for the product (or group of products) Revenue total revenue RPC revenue per click Search Depth average number of pages visitors viewed after performing a search Search Exits number of searches a visitor made immediately before leaving the website Search Refinements number of times a visitor searched again immediately after performing a search Shipping cost of delivery for a transaction Tax amount of tax included in the transaction price (e.g. VAT) Time after Search starting from the first use of internal search, time spent on website until either the session ended or until another search happened Time on Page time a visitor spent on a particular page or set of pages. It is calculated by subtracting the initial view time for a particular page from the initial view time for a subsequent page. Thus, this metric does not apply to exit pages for your site Time on Site time a visitor spends on your website Total Unique Searches total number of times your Site Search was used, excluding multiple searches on the same keyword during the same visit Transactions total number of transactions Unique Pageviews number of visits during which the specified page(s) was/were viewed at least once Unique Purchases total number of times a product was included in a transaction Unique Visitors number of users that visits your website Visits number of times your visitors has been to your website (unique sessions initiated by all your visitors) Visits with Search total number of visits where internal site search was used

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

24

3.2. Dashboards
Dashboards are a great way to get an overview of the key performance indicators (KPIs) for your website. At DBD Media, we provide PPC, SEO, Social Media and CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) services, so we like to have one dashboard for each of these services to quickly showcase their performance.

3.2.1. Search Engine Optimisation

To install this dashboard on your Google Analytics account, log into GA and go to this link: http://tinyurl.com/SEO-dashboard and select the profile you wish to implement the dashboard on. You might need to edit the widget settings to fit your website, such as customising non-branded filters to your own brand name or replacing transactions with goal completions, revenue with goal value and ecommerce conversion rate with goal conversion rate for non-ecommerce websites.
DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.
www.dbdmedia.co.uk 25

3.2.2. PPC Advertising

To install this dashboard on your Google Analytics account, log into GA and go to this link: http://tinyurl.com/PPC-dashboard and select the profile you wish to implement the dashboard on. You might need to edit the widget settings to fit your website, such as replacing transactions with goal completions, revenue with goal value and ecommerce conversion rate with goal conversion rate for nonecommerce websites.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

26

3.2.3. Social Media

To install this dashboard on your Google Analytics account, log into GA and go to this link: http://tinyurl.com/SMedia-dashboard and select the profile you wish to implement the dashboard on. You might need to edit the widget settings to fit your website, such as replacing revenue with goal value and ecommerce conversion rate with goal conversion rate for non-ecommerce websites.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

27

3.2.4. Conversion Rate Optimisation

To install this dashboard on your Google Analytics account, log into GA and go to this link: http://tinyurl.com/CRO-dashboard and select the profile you wish to implement the dashboard on. You might need to edit the widget settings to fit your website, such as replacing transactions with goal completions, revenue with goal value and ecommerce conversion rate with goal conversion rate for nonecommerce websites.

3.3. Advanced Segments

Advanced Segments allow you to isolate and analyse specific kinds of traffic. For example, you might create a segment that only includes visits from users who have made a purchase. You can then browse through your Analytics reports, viewing data only for this segment or even comparing it side by side with data from other segments or data from all visits. You can create your own segments and apply them to your data as well as select from predefined segments. Once you apply a segment, youll see it reflected throughout all reports in the profile. Youll also see it reflected when you look at historical data in the profile. Dont worry about harming or skewing your data; segments are non-destructive, and do not affect any of the core data in your GA account. To see all of your data again, simply select the "All Traffic" segment.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

28

Figure 21: Example of applied advanced segments

Advanced Segments vs. Filtered Profiles

While filtered profiles may also be used to isolate and analyse subgroups of traffic, there are some key differences between using filters and advanced segments: You can examine historical (e.g. last months) data for an advanced segment, even if you only created the segment today. In contrast, a filtered profile will only contain data starting from the date you created it. You can see and compare multiple advanced segments side by side in reports. In contrast, you can only view data for one filtered profile at a time.

A filtered profile is usually the best choice if you want to always exclude a certain kind of traffic from your analysis. For example, while you can create an advanced segment that only includes external traffic, it would be better to create a profile that excludes internal traffic instead. That way, you wont have to remember to apply the segment each time you look at reports. Also, you can always apply other advanced segments to the filtered profile data. If you want to limit some users access to only a subset of data, you should set up filtered profiles for this instead of using advanced segments.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

29

For Google Analytics training, consultancy and advanced configuration Call us:

020 7240 0100

Or email us at: analytics@dbdmedia.co.uk

DBD Media 20 Bedford Street Covent Garden London WC2E 9HP

www.dbdmedia.co.uk www.dbdmedia.co.uk/analytics-implementation-training

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

30