Google Analytics

1.Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic,
currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand.[1] Google launched the service in
November 2005 after acquiring Urchin.[2][3]

As of 2019, Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics service on the web. [4] Google Analytics provides
an SDK that allows gathering usage data from iOS and Android app, known as Google Analytics for Mobile
Apps.[5] Google Analytics can be blocked by browsers, browser extensions, firewalls and other means.

Google Analytics has undergone many versions since its inception. It is currently on its 4th iteration of the platform
which is called GA4.[6] GA4, now being the default Google Analytics installation, is the renamed version for the (App +
Web) Property that Google had released in 2019 in a Beta form. GA4 has currently replaced UA, Universal Analytics.
One notable feature of GA4 is a natural integration with Google's BigQuery a feature previously only available with
the enterprise GA 360. This move indicates efforts by Google to integrate GA and its free users into their wider cloud
offering.[7]

Features

Google Analytics is used to track website activity such as session duration, pages per session, bounce rate etc. of
individuals using the site, along with the information on the source of the traffic. It can be integrated with Google
Ads,[8] with which users can create and review online campaigns by tracking landing page quality
and conversions (goals). Goals might include sales, lead generation, viewing a specific page, or downloading a
particular file. Google Analytics' approach is to show high-level, dashboard-type data for the casual user, and more
in-depth data further into the report set. Google Analytics analysis can identify poorly performing pages with
techniques such as funnel visualization, where visitors came from (referrers), how long they stayed on the website
and their geographical position. It also provides more advanced features, including custom visitor
segmentation.[9] Google Analytics e-commerce reporting can track sales activity and performance. The e-commerce
reports show a site's transactions, revenue, and many other commerce-related metrics.[10]

On September 29, 2011, Google Analytics launched Real-Time analytics, enabling a user to have insights about
visitors currently on the site.[11] A user can have 100 site profiles. Each profile generally corresponds to one website.
It is limited to sites that have a traffic of fewer than 5 million page views per month (roughly 2 pageviews per second)
unless the site is linked to a Google Ads campaign.[12] Google Analytics includes Google Website Optimizer,
rebranded as Google Analytics Content Experiments.[13][14] Google Analytics' Cohort analysis helps in understanding
the behavior of component groups of users apart from your user population. It is beneficial to marketers and analysts
for the successful implementation of a marketing strategy.
 ✓ History

Google acquired Urchin Software Corp. in April 2005.[2] Google's service was developed from Urchin on Demand.
The system also brings ideas from Adaptive Path, whose product, Measure Map, was acquired and used in the
redesign of Google Analytics in 2006.[15] Google continued to sell the standalone, installable Urchin WebAnalytics
Software through a network of value-added resellers until discontinuation on March 28, 2012.[16][17] The Google-
branded version was rolled out in November 2005 to anyone who wished to sign up. However, due to extremely high
demand for the service, new sign-ups were suspended a week later. As capacity was added to the system, Google
began using a lottery-type invitation-code model. Before August 2006, Google was sending out batches of invitation
codes as server availability permitted; since mid-August 2006 the service has been fully available to all users –
whether they use Google for advertising or not.[18]

The newer version of Google Analytics tracking code is known as the asynchronous tracking code, [19] which Google
claims is more sensitive and accurate, and is able to track very short activities on the website. The previous version
delayed page loading, and so, for performance reasons, it was generally placed just before the </body> body close

HTML tag. The new code can be placed between the <head> ... </head> HTML head tags because, once triggered,

it runs in parallel with page loading.[20] In April 2011 Google announced the availability of a new version of Google
Analytics featuring multiple dashboards, more custom report options, and a new interface design. [21] This version was
later updated with some other features such as real-time analytics and goal flow charts.[11][22]

In October 2012 another new version of Google Analytics was announced, called Universal Analytics.[23] The key
differences from the previous versions were: cross-platform tracking, flexible tracking code to collect data from any
device, and the introduction of custom dimensions and custom metrics. [24]

In March 2016, Google released Google Analytics 360, which is a software suite that provides analytics on return on
investment and other marketing indicators. Google Analytics 360 includes seven main products: Analytics, Tag
Manager, Optimize, Data Studio, Surveys, Attribution, and Audience Center.[25]

In October 2017 a new version of Google Analytics was announced, called Global Site Tag. Its stated purpose was to
unify the tagging system to simplify implementation.[26]

In June 2018, Google introduced Google Marketing Platform, an online advertisement and analytics brand.[27] It
consists of two former brands of Google, DoubleClick Digital Marketing and Google Analytics 360.[28]

In October 2020, Google released Google Analytics 4, under the acronym GA4. [29]

Google Analytics is implemented with "page tags", in this case, called the Google Analytics Tracking Code,[30] which
is a snippet of JavaScript code that the website owner adds to every page of the website. The tracking code runs in
the client browser when the client browses the page (if JavaScript is enabled in the browser) and collects visitor data
and sends it to a Google data collection server as part of a request for a web beacon.[31]

The tracking code loads a larger JavaScript file from the Google web server and then sets variables with the user's
account number. [32]The larger file (currently known as ga.js) was typically 40 kB as of May 2018.

The file does not usually have to be loaded, however, due to browser caching. Assuming caching is enabled in the
browser, it downloads ga.js only once at the start of the visit. Furthermore, as all websites that implement Google
Analytics with the ga.js code use the same master file from Google, a browser that has previously visited any other
website running Google Analytics will already have the file cached on their machine.

In addition to transmitting information to a Google server, the tracking code sets a first party cookie (If cookies are
enabled in the browser) on each visitor's computer. This cookie stores anonymous information called the
ClientId.[33] Before the launch of Universal Analytics, there were several cookies storing information such as whether
the visitor had been to the site before (new or returning visitor), the timestamp of the current visit, and the referrer site
or campaign that directed the visitor to the page (e.g., search engine, keywords, banner, or email).

If the visitor arrived at the site by clicking on a link tagged with UTM parameters (Urchin Tracking Module) such as:

https://www.example.com/page?utm_content=buffercf3b2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com
&utm_campaign=buffer

then the tag values are passed to the database too.

1.How to Set up Google Analytics with Blogspot/Blogger?

To track blog traffic and analyze other browsing activities is a must. For this purpose, you can set up Google
Analytics with Blogspot/Blogger. So no need to edit Blogger Theme anymore to use Google Analytics with
Blogspot. If you are using a custom Blogspot theme then you have to do a minor change. More details about the
changes are given below in this post. Blog (Tracking) stats are now available on Blogger dashboard but these stats
include your visits too and these stats are not reliable as Google Analytics. If you want to earn with your blog and
blogging skills then proper tracking and promotion of your blog are very necessary. To track a blog or website Google
Analytics is among the best tools. Most people search through Google Search, Advertise their products and services
with Google Adwords and Publish ads through Google Adsense.

Setup Google Analytics with Blogspot/Blogger

The objective of this article is to learn ‘How to set up Google Analytics with Blogger?’. (For both ‘Version 2’ Blogger
templates and custom designed templates).

For this purpose follow these steps –

1. Open Google Analytics home page- http://www.google.com/analytics.

Further following screenshots will guide you in a better manner –

1 – Create a Google Analytics Account

2 – Use Google account if already have or sign up for Google account

3 – Sign up for Google Analytics accounts

4 and 5 – Fill all the information asked and required to get a tracking code
6 and 7 – Select your country and accept the license agreement

8, 9 and 10 – Get Tracking ID, Do domain settings and Save changes

I believe this will be helpful for a better blogging experience.

Now we talk about a custom Blogger theme in which Analytics Code is not present and tracking is not working…

Fix Google Analytics Tracking for a Custom Blogspot Theme

1. Go to Dashboard › Select a Blog › Template › Edit HTML

2. Now search for the following code

<b:include data='blog' name='google-analytics'/>

3. If this code exists then everything is okay. If the code is not present then copy and paste this code just above
</body> tag
body tag –

</body>
4. Now save this theme.

If you are an advanced user and want to use Universal Analytics Tracking Code then remove the following code from
Blogger Theme and paste universal Google Analytics tracking code in place of this.

<b:include data='blog' name='google-analytics'/>

If still have any query then please leave a comment.

2.Digital Marketing funnel

The Digital Marketing funnel is a strategic model that represents the entire buying journey of the personas, from
the moment they know your brand until the time they become customers.

This concept is widely used among salespeople but has also become a fundamental resource for the success of
marketing actions.

There are numerous approaches to the funnel concept, but the model we will present in this article is divided into six
stages:

• exposure
• discovery
• consideration
• conversion
• customer relationship
 • retention

The funnel serves so marketing professionals can understand what to offer users at each of the stages within this
entire convincing process.

With so much competition among companies for the attention and resources of consumers, it’s necessary to prepare
and, as a consequence, enhance their communication actions, impacting who matters.

The Digital Marketing funnel will guide all strategies that your company should adopt in search of more
conversions.

Why is it so important for your strategy

In practice, why is the funnel concept so crucial in any Digital Marketing strategy?

The first and primary benefit is precisely to perform a better segmentation of your marketing actions, directing
content, ads, and other strategies with messages that will be useful for your audiences throughout the buyer’s
journey.

As a consequence, lead generation work also becomes more efficient, delivering more qualified leads to your sales
team, making the conversion challenge easier.
When the funnel is approached correctly, you get closer and closer to the consumers, always being relevant in their
journey.

Also, the productivity of your entire team tends to increase, once professionals dedicate themselves to, for
example, producing the right content at the right time, without wasting time and resources on actions that aren’t
effective.

Since the main advantage of digital advertising is precisely the segmentation of your communication actions, you will
be able to talk to the right audience and, of course, offer the most appropriate content for each stage.

What’s the point of creating an ebook on a certain subject if your public is not yet prepared for it? What’s the point of
impacting users who don’t understand they have a problem to solve with a more advanced content? You need to be
more precise in your actions.

This would represent a waste of time and resources for your company. The Digital Marketing funnel serves to guide
all these actions, following each step to deliver the most accurate content.

As important as it is to respect the user’s time to leave each stage of the funnel, having this broader view of the
consumer’s journey allows you to urge them to move from one stage to another.

In short, the Digital Marketing funnel is crucial to make better use of your company’s resources and improve
your bottom line.

How to create a funnel for your business

Even though it’s so crucial to the success of your Digital Marketing strategy, not everyone knows what needs to be
done to create a funnel for your business.

The first step is simple: create a goal for your actions — it may be to sell more or increase the Return On Investment
(ROI) of your business. In short, a goal to be achieved.

Then you need to structure the funnel, defining the steps that are part of the sales cycle.

By creating the visual image of the stages, it’s easier to know precisely what is the best model for your business.

With your funnel established, it’s time to understand what you need to do to generate the expected traffic in
each stage.

In this way, your target audience will be impacted by material that is aligned with their level of knowledge.
What is the best type of content for each stage of the funnel

Understanding how Digital Marketing funnel works will ensure that your actions are more accurate, making better use
of your company’s available resources and impacting users who may become consumers of your brand.

That’s why we separated the best type of content for each stage. Check it out!

➢ Exposure

No matter which Digital Marketing funnel is established for your business, it should start with the exposure step.

After all, nothing will work if the consumer doesn’t know your company. What better way to do this than by advertising
and promoting your brand on the right platforms?

On average, there are about 75,000 searches per second on Google. In other words, you need to be present and,
more importantly, be seen within this channel.

Therefore, the idea is to start your Content Marketing strategy by strengthening your presence with Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) techniques or even paid advertisements in search engines.

The important thing is that the user enters a specific keyword, and your page appears among the main results.

At this stage, the goal is to produce content that captures the attention of users, such as educational videos and
infographics. Now it’s time to attract as much traffic as possible.

On your blog, focus on those materials directed to people who don’t know your company or the fact that you can offer
the solution to some of their problems.

The formula for this step is simple: to increase exposure, the company should work with subjects that attract a high
number of people and are related to her.

To do it, they can do researches focusing on a head-tail keyword, with thousands of searches per month.

➢ Discovery

In this next step, it is ideal for focusing on producing content that encourages users to take an interest in your
brand.

After all, as much as the previous stage means that they already know your company, it is necessary to make them
stay on your page to discover your products, services, and solutions.
There is no point in taking a user to your website if they have no interest in your brand. This will only serve to
increase the bounce rate of your site, which can even harm the stage of exposure.

The main goal of this stage is to turn the visitor into a lead.

And now the first challenge arises: to offer some material or content that encourages the user to leave contact
information, for example.

The most suitable suggestion for this stage is to deliver rich and educational content that presents a problem and
offers a solution.

➢ Consideration

The consumers are at a stage of consideration when they know your brand, and that they have a problem your
company can solve.

It is up to you, then, to deliver materials that facilitate their decision process. Therefore, the most suitable
materials are the ones that explain your company’s differentials and benefits.

At this stage, you already know a little more about the leads and exactly what they are looking for.

Your content must present facts and information that prove the efficiency of your solution.

Present a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) that solve their main issues or relevant evaluations from other
customers.

After all, there is nothing better than the opinion of those who have already tried a certain product or service to make
their decision.

Investing in case studies, for example, is an excellent way to clear up any doubts they have regarding what you offer.

The idea is to deliver everything that serves to confirm the efficiency of your work.

➢ Conversion

Now that you have shown the pros and cons of your offer, it’s time to help them to make the decision. After all, you
want loyal customers.

So, it’s time to focus on more and more personalized content and according to your goals, preferences, and
challenges. It’s time to create customized campaigns.
With sponsored links, you can draw the user’s attention to a specific landing page, focused almost exclusively on its
conversion.

A hint of content for these pages is the free trials, letting the user experience your product or service for a while and
know even more about its advantages and benefits.

In all communications, it is necessary to focus on the results that the user will be able to obtain with your
company’s help, leaving a little of the functionalities aside.

The idea is that he understands, in practice, how what you offer is better than what you offer in the competition.

➢ Customer relationship

With the lead conversion established, the next step is to get closer to your customers.

It’s increasingly essential to leave advertisements for your brand aside and focus on teaching the client how to use
your solution to solve their problems. This closer contact can become a competitive advantage.

Investing in a drip campaign to further educate the customer and clarify their main questions is an excellent
alternative.

Being able to show that you aren’t just interested in getting a conversion but want to help the consumer solve their
problems and make their business prosper.

You can invest your resources on an email marketing strategy, strengthening your ties with the lead even more.

This way, you can establish a direct channel with them and always be at their disposal to solve their doubts. Now that
they know your company and how you can help them, it’s time to stand out from the competition.

Another option is using videos with tutorials to help the consumer use with your products and services, showing that
you care about its performance.

Also, exclusive content to present a product release, for example, is incredibly efficient to get even closer to whoever
is on the other side.

➢ Retention

The work has been long, but it is not over yet. It’s time to think about the actions and content focused on the retention
challenge.
In other words, make the consumer who already knows your brand and has bought your product or service continue
to make new transactions. Especially in the long term, this stage is fundamental.

In addition to continuing the production of content from the previous stage, it’s essential to monitor and analyze
your communications with the lead regularly.

A very efficient way to do that is to interview the client to create a case study to be used in the previous stages.

Creating a Digital Marketing funnel for your business is, therefore, fundamental to develop increasingly accurate
actions and generate an impact on your buyer persona.

With so many benefits of disseminating and promoting your brand digitally, it’s necessary to know and apply all the
concepts required to take advantage of the resources properly.

Now that you know the importance of this concept, and how to create a Digital Marketing funnel for your business,
how about ensuring that you will understand all of the terms of the Digital Marketing ecosystem?

3.Google Analytics Understanding Dashboard

• What is a Google Analytics Dashboard?

A Google Analytics dashboard is a collection of visualizations showing your website data in a well -
organized and digestible format.

These visualizations display real-time data pulled automatically from your website through charts, tables,
maps, scorecards, etc. They give you a quick overview of your KPIs and relevant metrics over a specific
period so you can take appropriate action to improve your performance or seize a growth opportunity.

• How to Create a Google Analytics Dashboard

All you need to create your first Google Analytics Dashboard is a Google account and access to a Google
Analytics property—a website you’d like to monitor. Then, follow these steps.

When you open the main Google Analytics page, click on Customization in the left sidebar.
From the drop-down menu, choose Dashboards.

Click Create from the menu that appears on the screen.

From the pop-up menu, choose Blank Canvas (to build a dashboard from scratch) or Starter Dashboard (to
start with predefined metrics).

If you choose Blank Canvas, you will be able to name your dashboard. From there, you can start adding
widgets (up to 12 timelines, maps, tables, pie charts, and other visualization types) with the desired
metrics.

Name your widgets and choose metrics and dimensions to group them by.
Depending on what type of visualization you’ve chosen, you can customize it in the next step (for example,
choose the number of slices in a pie chart).

In the next step, add any filters to help you narrow down the data.

Link the widget you’re creating to a URL or a report.

After you click on Save, your dashboard will be created.

As an individual user, you can create up to 20 private dashboards. The limit for shared dashboards per
Google Analytics account is 50.
 • How to Access a Google Analytics Dashboard

If you already have a dashboard and want to access it, here’s how to do it:

1. Open your Google Analytics account.

2. From the main page, choose Customization.

3. Click on Dashboards.

4. You will see all your saved dashboards and their details listed on this screen.

When you want to share your dashboard with the team, manager, or clients, do the following:

1. Make sure you have the Editor role. (If you have the Viewer role, you won’t be able to share
the dashboard with the currently displayed data, but only the template.)

2. Select the dashboard you want to share and open it.

3. Click on Share, then Share Object.

4. All users in the same view will be able to see the dashboard now via Shared Dashboards in
the Reports tab.

Be careful before you click to share your dashboard. The only way to unshare it is to delete it.
PRO TIP: Want to Save Time Creating Your Google Analytics Traffic Dashboard?

Yes, you can DIY in Google Analytics, but what if you would prefer a simpler, easier route? After all, once
you learn how it’s done, you still have to choose the right metrics and design your dashboard to answer
the important questions your stakeholders have, for example:

1. How many people are visiting my website?

2. Which sources drive the most website traffic to my website?

3. Which websites refer the most traffic to my website?

4. Which social networks drive quality traffic to my website?

5. Where are my website visitors located?

and more…

Now you can benefit from the experience of Google Analytics experts, who have put together a
great Databox template showing all the most important website traffic KPIs. It’s simple to implement and
start using as a standalone dashboard or in marketing reports, and best of all, it’s free!

With this Google Analytics dashboard, you can quickly learn who is visiting your site and details such as:

You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.

To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Get the template

Step 2: Connect your Google Analytics account with Databox.

Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.

4.Digital Marketing Metrics & KPIs
What is a digital marketing KPI?

Digital marketing KPIs are measurable values that a marketing team uses to track whether or not they are achieving
their objectives. KPIs are laser-focused on a target or objective, like increasing revenue or website referral traffic, and
outline the goals and activities to achieve it.

Digital marketing KPIs can be high-level and focus on how it will impact overall business performance or low-level
and focus on how it will impact the marketing department.

Digital marketing metrics every business should track

Digital Marketing Metrics and KPIs are values that marketing teams use to measure and track the performance of a
digital marketing campaign. Digital marketing teams use a number of platforms and tools to promote their product or
service offering, and tracking the results can be time-consuming and challenging.

When digital marketing teams create specific marketing KPIs and track them on a dashboard, it suddenly becomes
easy to set goals and KPIs, and measure performance against those values.

Top Digital Marketing Metrics and KPIs

Here are the top 10 metrics and KPIs for data-driven digital marketers:

1. Web Traffic Sources

2. Leads
3. Page Views
4. Cost per Lead
5. Returning Visitors
6. Conversion Rate
7. Goal Completion Rate
8. Click-Through Rate
9. Customer Acquisition Cost
10. Customer Lifetime Value

Discover more inspiration for top digital marketing metrics that you and your team can track in PowerMetrics.

What is the most important digital marketing metric?

Revenue is the most important KPI for marketing teams. For marketers, all KPIs should lead to revenue—even if
your primary focus is on MQLs or website traffic. Revenue is the top dog, but most marketers will also have a few
KPIs, like return on ad spend or customer acquisition cost, that measure the levers behind revenue growth.
Revenue provides insight into the income generated across different revenue streams, which is a quick way to look at
the high-performing and under-performing parts of the business. If marketing isn’t generating revenue, it may be time
to re-evaluate your KPIs.

Digital Marketing Metrics and KPI Examples

5.Google Analytics Reports

There are six reports: Overview, Locations, Traffic Sources, Content (or Screens, for Mobile App properties), Events,
and Conversions. All reports display (from left to right):

• the number of active users,

• the number of hits during each of the most recent 30 minutes
• the number of hits during each of the most recent 60 seconds

Click any dimension in the reports to apply a real-time segment based on that dimension. Alternatively, type a value
into the search box to add a real-time segment on that value. Segments persist as you click through the Real-Time
reports. Note that standard Segments do not apply in Real-Time.

1.Overview report

The Realtime Overview shows the top-ten pages on which users are active, the source for the users on each page,
and the number of active users on each page. Active users are those who have sent a hit to Analytics within the last
five minutes. Active users per page is the number of users who have sent their most recent hit from that page.

It also shows the referrals for active users and the pages through which these users entered your site and their
geographic locations. If you are running a 1-day campaign for example, you can see how many active users were
referred by that campaign, whether they are coming in through the appropriate landing page(s) and their geographic
locations.

The Top Social Traffic section uses the same social referral groupings that are used in the Social Reports. This
allows you to see all the social networks that refer traffic.

➢ Locations

Use the Realtime Locations report to see the geographic locations of your active users. You can also see how many
pages/screens were viewed from each city during the past 30 minutes.

➢ Traffic Sources

Use the Realtime Traffic Sources report to see which mediums and sources referred the users who are on your site
right now. This allows you to monitor the percentage of your active users who were referred by a specific site or
campaign.

➢ Content/Screens

Use the Realtime Content/Screens report to see which pages/screens have been viewed during the past 30 minutes.
For example, you can see whether content you posted today is currently popular.
Click Pageviews/Screen Views(Last 30 min), above the table, to see the total number of page views attributed to
direct traffic that each of your pages has received during the past 30 minutes.

➢ Events

Use the Realtime Events report to see the real time firing of events. The table shows the top 20 event categories over
the past 30 minutes, sorted by the number of users who have interacted with that event. The percentage of total
users is also shown on each row. Click an event category in the table to see just the activity for that category.

Click Events (Last 30 min), above the table, to see the total number of events (by event category) during the past 30
minutes.

➢ Conversions

This report only displays conversions from destination and event goals.
Use the Realtime Conversions report to see real time goal completions. The table shows the goals that active users
completed during their sessions, the number of users who completed each goal, and the percentage of total users
who completed each goal. Click a goal in the table to see just conversion activity for that goal.

Click Goal Hits (Last 30 min), above the table, to see the number of conversions (by goal) during the past 30 minutes.

2.Realtime Reports

In today’s world, having a strong online presence is increasingly important across all industries. Without proper
analytics implementation, your business risks falling behind to the competition.

With Google Analytics (GA), there are four default reports that give insights about online users and the actions they
take on your websites. Here is a brief summary of each report:

• Audience: This reporting gives insights on user demographics, location, new vs. returning users, and
technology.
• Acquisition: This report will give insights on the most popular channels, Google Ads, Google Search
Console, social, and any campaigns you create.
• Behavior: This report gives insights on landing pages and exit pages, user actions (events), and A/B
experiments.
• Conversions: This report shows goals, e-commerce, and multi-channel funnels. The conversions report
gives insights to your most important activities related to your business’s KPIs.

You’ll notice another default report called Realtime. While at a glance the reporting may appear limited in what you
can actually track, it’s a very powerful report for testing purposes.
 ➢ What are Realtime Reports?

Realtime reports measure live user activity as they move throughout the site. Additionally, the report will measure the
last 30 minutes of activities. With realtime reports, you can get a glimpse of all of the four common GA reports. Here
are the following attributes you can measure:

• Location: This report comes from the audience report. You can see the country the user is in.
• Content: This report comes from the behavior report. You can see the top landing pages and page title the
user lands on.
• Events: This report also comes in the behavior report. You can see the current events the user goes
through.
• Conversions: This report comes from the conversions report. You can see the goals (pageview or events)
and goal titles that were passed through the site.

• Testing Realtime Reports

It normally takes a couple of hours before data starts appearing in GA. Therefore, it’s important to test your site right
away to avoid missing valuable insights.

That’s where realtime plays a key role. Within a matter of seconds of setting up GA or any configurations within GA or
Google Tag Manager (GTM), realtime allows you to test the site.

Here are a couple ways you can do testing through realtime:

➢ Pageview Tracking

When creating GA tags in GTM, it’s important to test the site early on to ensure that GA is populating data as the user
navigates through the site.

There are a few steps using realtime you should follow to ensure GA is collecting data:

1. Check if your configurations are correct. It’s recommended that you create GA tags in GTM and install the GTM
code on the page vs creating hard-coded GA. This example below would be how to set up a Google Analytics
Pageview tag. Here is more info on deploying Universal Analytics in GTM.
2. Refresh the site and GA page.

3. Go into the Overview section under Realtime Reports. You should see at least 1 Desktop user at the center. The
screenshot below shows you what realtime should look like if your site is collecting data properly. Having just 1 user
on the site confirms that GA is firing properly in GTM and that data on your site is being collected in GA.

If you are seeing a 0 on the Overview report, then you know data is NOT being collected for your site. It could be one
of the following reasons:

• GA tag isn’t set up correctly in GTM or the hard-coded GA codes aren’t set up correctly in the page source
 • GTM is not on the page
• There is a filter created in GA that prohibits the site to be tracked.

By using realtime, you can spot these common errors quickly and work to fix any tracking issues rather than waiting
days and missing valuable data.

➢ Test New GA Tag Configurations in GTM

Similar to testing if GA is collecting data on the site, you can also test out different pageview and event tags in GTM
or the dataLayer. You can utilize the traffic sources, content, events, and conversions report to test out different
configurations.

➢ Traffic Sources

The traffic sources report allows you to see what source and medium your user is on. You can use the traffic sources
report to make sure GA is reading the correct source as you navigate the site.

The screenshot below shows how a source/medium would populate in realtime.

➢ Pageviews

In the content and events report, you can test out pageview hits on your site. This would be useful if you created a
pageview tag for a specific page on your site; you can ensure the specific page is collecting property by checking the
content report.

➢ Events

If you wanted to see if specific user actions were being tracked on your site, then you can click through the specific
user actions on the site and go under the events report to see if the events populate.

Here’s an example of how you can test a user event on the site.
In the first screenshot is a common dataLayer custom event for the site; the user wants to track a “Header Click” (ie.
when a user clicks on any of the header links at the top of the site). In GA, you would need to the event category and
the event action to match the dataLayer Category and Action

In the screenshot below, it shows the realtime event report for the same site with the dataLayer event. You would go
under the events report and check to see if there’s a hit on the page, and then look at the active users table at the
bottom. If the category and action matches either the dataLayer or GTM, then you know the event is firing properly.

➢ Conversions

The conversion report can be used to validate your most important actions/KPIs for your site. You would just follow
the same steps as you would to test out an event and go under the conversions section. In this report, you can see
the goal names that were completed.

Here is a screenshot of how goals that were passed would appear in realtime. You would check if there is a user hit
on the site, check that the goal name is appearing correctly, and if that specific goal you tested is showing as “active.”
While Google Analytics provides you the opportunity to improve user experience, without proper testing, you won’t be
able to leverage those opportunities. This can result in losing months of valuable insights. Realtime Reports allows
you to validate all your pageview hits, user interactions, and goals/KPIs configured in Google Analytics.

3.Audience Report

Nowadays, majority of people prefer digital marketing as compared to the last few years. Digital marketing is the web
channel that helps us create awareness of our brand, products, and services. In recent times, the approach has led to
high competition in various fields. This scenario validates the need to track customer behaviour towards the product
and continue a brand’s hold over the niche.

Are you wondering how this is possible? Well, Google analytics helps you with all the detailed reports about the
visitors on a particular website. Let us have a look at the Google Analytics – Audience Report.
Read our article on What is Google Analytics?

➢ Audience Report
Audience reports in Google Analytics help in understanding user perceptions. Audience reports contain sections like
Active users, Lifetime value, Cohort Analysis, Audiences, User Explorer, Demographics, Interests, Geo, Behavior,
Technology, Mobile, Cross-Device, Custom, Benchmarking and Users Flow. All these fragments give you a complete
overview of the websites and allow you to initiate comparative analysis on the projects.

➢ Overview
The overview in the audience reports provides the essential data that can be viewed in a single glance. The overview
report shows various metrics such as the users, new users, page views, sessions, average sessions, bounce rate,
and many more. The date range here is set to week by default, but one can change it to month wise view in the
calendar drop-down menu (as per your analysis requirements). The overview data can be checked on an hour-by-
hour, day-by-day, week-by-week, and month-by-month basis.
 ➢ Active Users
This report gives the number of new users who have visited your website in a particular period – 1day, 7 days, 14
days and 28 days, respectively. This is the most crucial report since it helps one to understand marketing
effectiveness. If the number of users at day 1 is high, but the number is dropping off the expectations for the long
term, it shows that one needs to make appropriate decisions in sustaining long term user engagement.

➢ Lifetime Value
The lifetime value (LTV) helps marketers determine which campaigns are successful and which new tactics can be
used to gain more customers back to the website. These measures could be through paid search, social media,
organic, affiliates, and many more channels. LTV provides the data of users acquired in recent times based on a day,
week or monthly view. LTV consists of various metrics such as Pageviews Per User, Sessions Per User, Sessions
Duration Per User, Transaction Per User, Goal Completion Per User, and Revenue Per User.
Customers Lifetime Value (LTV) = Customer Value x Average Customer Lifespan
 •
➢ Cohort Analysis
Before understanding cohort analysis, it is essential to understand what ‘cohort’ means. ‘Cohort’ is a sort of person
who shares the same characteristics and behaviour of the user. Cohort analysis in Google Analytics depends on the
‘Acquisition Date’. It is segregated into four main sections:
1. Cohort Type – This decides the base on which cohort needs to rely on. Google Analytics default gives only
one option for this as ‘acquisition date’.
2. Cohort Size – This provides the data on the basis of days, weeks and months, respectively.
3. Metric – The actual data represented in the form of user retention based on various aggregated data like –
goal completion per user, pageviews per user, revenue per user, and so on.
Date Range – For analysis of this report, one can choose the date range from the last 7 days, 14 days, 21 days, and
30 days.
 •
•
•
•
➢ Audiences
Audiences in analytics reports are the users with the collective behaviour and interests that help you in your business.
These audiences could be any of the buyers or shoppers. The included users are the ones who have 0 product
views, and the excluded users are those who have 0 purchases. You can set the data according to your needs. For
example: Which user purchased a product within a month or 12 months?
 ➢ User Explorer
To view this report, you first need to set the user-ID feature in your properties. Once you set up the ID, you can see
the data for each client with the initial data such as Sessions, Average Sessions, Revenue, Bounce Rate,
Transaction, and Goal Conversion Rate. By analysing the user behaviour through this report, you can customise the
customer service and product specification as per their interest.

➢ Demographics
The Demographics in Google Analytics is the most crucial part of the report, as it helps in understanding the
attributes of the users visiting your website, along with their behaviour. Demographics are categorised into two main
sections: Age and Gender.
The overview section in the demographics shows the overall data of age and gender. The ages are divided between
18-24 yrs, 25-34 yrs, 35-44 yrs, 45-54 yrs, 55-64 yrs, and 65+years.
Whereas, gender is divided as Male and Female. The age and gender report show detailed information about the
behaviour of the user according to their age. The information includes the average sessions, bounce rate, session
duration, etc.

➢ Interests
The interest reports in Google analytics are the place with the most beneficial information. Interest reports are divided
into three categories: Affinity, In-market segments, and other categories.
The Affinity data shows the user level of interest in televisions, cooking enthusiasts, and sports fans, basically the
lifestyle. The In-market segment shows the user with purchase interests. The other categories show the data by
prioritising according to the users’ interests.

➢ Geo
The Geo report shows the language and the location of the website. Language section shows the data for the
acquisition, behaviour, and conversions for the user preferring different languages. This report is essential if you are
running an international business or are planning to do it in the near future. The location section features users from
different countries, cities, continents, and subcontinents. The analysis of this location report will help you understand
whether the marketing efforts have been taken in the right place and correct manner. The location metric also shows
a representation of the map.

➢ Behaviour
The Google analytics behaviour report shows the actions of the user on the site. The behaviour report includes
metrics such as New vs Returning users, Frequency & Recency, and Engagement. This report tells you more about
how long a user stays on your website, how often new visitors visit the site, or how many pages are viewed by the
user.

➢ Technology
The technology report in Google analytics reveals the data on the type of browser that the user uses to visit your
website. This information could be essential if one wants to build any application or add an extension in the browser
to know the compatibility with the browser. The report shows the sessions, users, new users, and many more, coming
from different browsers. One can also check the operating system, screen resolution, screen colours, flash version,
and many more in the primary dimension metrics of the technology report.

➢ Mobile
The mobile report shows the devices used by the audience to visit your website. The overview section of this mobile
report gives you a brief on the device categories. The report shows the acquisition, behaviour, and conversion for a
mobile, desktop, and tablet. It also reveals specific insights into the devices the user uses to visit the website. This
report is beneficial to look at if you are developing mobile applications for any particular OS such as Android or Apple.
 ➢ Custom
Custom reports in Google Analytics are the reports that you create. You can select any metrics such as sessions,
page views, bounce rate, etc. while building the custom report. This is a more advanced report. One dimension and
one metric is essential while developing the custom reports.

➢ Users Flow
This is a unique report in Google analytics. It shows the path users take to navigate the entire website. It helps you in
getting a clear perception of audience behaviour by observing which pages are losing interest in or getting stuck. The
drop-down in the top left corner allows you to select the country, city, network domain, operating system, etc. and
delivers the data accordingly.

Google Analytics contains essential information that your business holds, and our SEO experts use it for various SEO
services. How do you track your performance? Let us know your answers in the comments below!
4.Acquisition Reports

There are 10 separate reporting sections under Acquisition in your website’s Google Analytics profile.

The Acquisition section tells you where your visitors originated from, such as search engines, social networks or
website referrals. This is a key section when determining which online marketing tactics are bringing the most visitors to
your website.

Google Analytics left sidebar menu with Acquisition section.

Now, let’s dive into the Acquisition reports section of Google Analytics. You can access it using the menu in the left
sidebar of your Google Analytics dashboard.

1: Overview

The Acquisition Overview gives you a quick view of the top channels sending visitors to your website, as well as the
associated acquisition, behavior and conversions details for each channel.
The Acquisition Overview report.

If you have Google Analytics goals set up, the Acquisitions Overview report will show you how well each channel
drives conversions. In the above example, conversions mostly come from custom campaigns (the Other channel),
followed by traffic from other websites (the Referral channel).

Below is a list and short descriptions of the top channels Google Analytics uses to track your traffic sources.

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Paid Search—Visitors who come to your website from an AdWords or other paid search ad

Direct—Visitors who come to your website without a traceable referral source, such as typing your URL into their address
bar or using a bookmark on their browser

Referral—Visitors who come to your website from another website by clicking on a link

Social—Visitors who come to your website from a social network

Other—If you use UTM parameters for custom campaign tracking, the traffic linked to those campaigns is listed here

#2: Channels

The Channels section is similar to the Acquisition Overview, except it gives you a graph to go along with the acquisition,
behavior and conversions details.
The Channels report under Acquisition.

You can click any of the channel links to see related standard reports with more details.

Organic Search takes you to the Keywords report; Direct takes you to the top landing pages for direct visitors; Referral
takes you to your top referring websites and Social takes you to your top-referring social networks.

#3: All Traffic

All Traffic lists your top traffic sources from all channels combined. Instead of separating search engines from social
networks from referral websites, they are all listed based on the number of visitors they sent to your website.

All
Traffic shows you all of your traffic sources in one place.

The All Traffic section lets you quickly analyze where most of your traffic comes from—it may be a particular search
engine, a publication you contribute to or even a directory you advertise with.

#4: All Referrals

All Referrals leaves out search engines and direct traffic, and only shows website domains (including social networks) that
have referred traffic to your website.
All Referrals shows you the website URLs visitors to your website have come from.

You can click on any of the domains—some let you see the specific pages that referred traffic. This is helpful if the
referral source is a blog, for example. By clicking on the domain, you can see the specific posts that are sending visitors to
your website.

#5: Campaigns

Campaigns (the Other acquisition channel) tracks visitors who come from campaigns you (or a third-party application)
have set up. Campaigns, as we discussed before, use UTM parameters appended to the end of a URL a visitor would
click on.

The three required parameters needed to track campaigns in Google Analytics are the campaign name (utm_campaign),
the campaign/traffic source (utm_source) and campaign medium (utm_medium).

For example, when someone clicks on a link shared by the Buffer app, they’ll see the following in their browser’s address
bar:
http://iqtell.com/2014/02/are-we-managing-our-to-do-lists-all-wrong/?
utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

In that UTM, ‘buffer’ is the name of the campaign. When you look at your Campaign report in Google Analytics, you’ll see
the campaign name listed in the left column.

Campaign tracking within Google Analytics.

When you click on a campaign name (e.g., buffer), you can see the source and medium referred to in the URL’s
UTM parameters.

Campaign source and medium details within Google Analytics.

When you use campaigns, you have a detailed record of visitors who came to your website from just about
anywhere—right down to those who clicked the third link in an email you sent to your mailing list on May 15 promoting
your summer specials campaign.
#6: Keywords

The Keywords report breaks down the keywords visitors used to find your site—both from organic and paid search.

Unfortunately, thanks to Google’s decision to encrypt keyword data, these reports aren’t always useful because the
majority of keywords are listed as (not provided).

Keyword reports within

Google Analytics with mostly (not provided) keywords.

To see your organic search keywords from Google, you can look at your Google Webmaster Tools (look under
Search Traffic > Search Queries) and third-party tools like HitTail.

While neither of these tools helps you link your traffic to conversions with keywords, you’ll at least have an idea of the
keywords people are using to find you.

#7 and #8: Cost Analysis and AdWords Sections

These sections are similar. The Cost Analysis section allows you to measure sessions, costs and revenue
performance for paid advertising campaigns. You can connect your Google Analytics to Google AdWords to see
AdWords reporting, or upload data from other advertising sources.

The AdWords section shows you data about the visitors who click through your AdWords campaigns. Like the Cost
Analysis section, you can connect Google AdWords to this section as well.

#9: Social

The Social section gives you more in-depth details about social activity related to your website. The Social Overview starts
by giving you a summary of conversions linked to social networks and traffic from specific networks.
 The Social Overview
report.

This section offers seven additional reports so you can drill down to find more specific data.

➢ Network Referrals

The Network Referrals report shows you the top social networks driving visitors to your website. This report doesn’t focus
on conversions so much as visitors’ behavior on your website. This can show you whether visitors from one network
are more involved with your website than visitors from another.

You can click on any of the networks listed to find out which website pages they are sending traffic to—and how
long people are staying.

The Network Referrals

report.
In the example above, StumbleUpon sends a lot more traffic than other social networks, but those visitors typically only
spend an average of 9 seconds on the website, which means the likelihood that they’ll be meaningful for your business is
slim.

➢ Data Hub Activity

The Data Hub Activity report shows you activity from Google Partner networks. These include Delicious, Diigo, Disqus,
Google+, Livefyre, Reddit and several others.

The Data Hub Activity

report.

➢ Landing Pages

Want to know which pages on your website receive the most traffic from social networks? You can find that in the
Landing Pages report.

The Landing Pages report.

When you click on the pages from your website, you’ll see a breakdown of which social networks sent the most traffic to
that specific page.
 ➢ Trackbacks

If you own a blog, you may already be familiar with trackbacks. Trackbacks are notifications from your blogging platform
(such as WordPress) telling you someone linked to your blog post. Google Analytics offers a Trackbacks report that
shows you similar information.

The Trackbacks report.

The Trackbacks report is useful for identifying popular publications that have linked to your content. On the flipside, it can
also identify content scraping sites that have stolen your content.

Tip: When you write a new article, it’s a good idea to include a link to one of your older posts. That way you’ll get pinged if
a content thief is linking back to your older post.

➢ Conversions

If you want to take a quick glance at which social network traffic is leading to the most conversions on your
website, you can find that data in the Conversions report.
The Social Conversions report.

➢ Plugins

By default, Google Analytics tracks any clicks to the Google +1 button and Google+ profile/page badges on your website
and shows that data in the Plugins report.

Click the Secondary dimension drop-down and choose Social Action from the menu to see which pages led visitors to
take action (+1 or circle).

The Social Plugins report.

If you want to track other social buttons in Google Analytics, such as the Facebook Like button, you have to add
some custom code to your website.

➢ Users Flow

Last in the Social section is Users Flow report. This is where you’ll find the path visitors take after coming to your
website from a social network.
The Social Users Flow report.

This report goes as far as 10 interactions and beyond, depending on how many pages your visitors visit after arriving from
a particular social network. It’s a great way to visualize how people navigate your website.

#10: Search Engine Optimization

Last but not least is the Search Engine Optimization section. Here you’ll find a set of reports with data from Google
Webmaster Tools, which is a free Google product that lets you monitor your website’s health in Google search.

When you click on one of the three reports in the Search Engine Optimization section (Queries, Landing Pages or
Geographical Summary), you’re prompted to set up Google Webmaster Tools data sharing.

If you haven’t used Webmaster Tools before, be sure to use the same Google account you use for Google
Analytics when you set it up. When it’s ready to go, return to this section to connect your Analytics to Webmaster Tools.

You’ll have to do this for each website you own that’s using Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools.
Google Webmaster Tools setup details.

When you click on the Setup button, you go to a settings page within Google Analytics. Scroll down to the Webmaster
Tools Settings and click the Edit link. This will direct you to your Google Webmaster Tools, where you can choose the
website you want to link to Google Analytics.

Give it a few days to start pulling in data to view the following reports.

➢ Queries

As mentioned earlier, Google Webmaster Tools can uncover some of the keywords that people use to find your
website in Google search. The Queries report brings that information into Google Analytics for you, along with the
number of impressions, clicks and click-through rates for each keyword.

Google Webmaster
Queries Report inside Google Analytics.

Unfortunately, you can’t tell which keyword queries led to conversions. But there is a workaround.

If you see that a visitor from Google search made a conversion on your website and you want to know which keyword led
the person to complete that goal, look at the keywords that received clicks on that particular day—you may be able to link
them together (depending on the number of clicks/queries you have per day).

➢ Landing Pages

The Landing Pages report shows you the pages that receive the most impressions and clicks from search, along with their
click-through rate and average position in search.
Google Webmaster Landing Pages report inside Google Analytics.

If you want more details about visitor behavior based on landing pages, look under Behavior (left sidebar) > Site Content >
Landing Pages.

➢ Geographical Summary

Finally, there is the Geographical Summary report. It gives you insight into where search engine users are located and
which ones are most likely to click on the links they see.

Google Webmaster
Geographical Summary report inside Google Analytics.

If you want more details about visitor behavior based on location, look under Audience (left sidebar) > Geo > Location.

In Conclusion

As you can see, Google Analytics shares a lot of data about how website visitors discover you. The Acquisition reports
give you insight into which online marketing tactics are driving the most traffic to your website, as well as the tactics that
bring in the most qualified, converting leads.

What do you think? Do you check your Acquisition reports regularly? What insights do you get from the
reports? Please share in the comments!
5.Behavior Reports

The Behavior section reveals what your visitors do on your website. Specifically, the reports tell you what pages people
visit and what actions they take while visiting.

You can access Behavior reports using the menu in the left sidebar of your Google Analytics dashboard.

Google Analytics left sidebar menu with Behavior section.

There are nine separate reporting sections and tools under Behavior in your website’s Google Analytics profile. Let’s dive
into them.

#1: Overview

The Behavior Overview report provides a graph showing the amount of traffic your website receives and additional
metrics.
The Behavior Overview report.

Look below for a brief description of the data you’ll find in the Behavior Overview report.

Pageviews—The total number of pages viewed. This number includes repeated views of a single page. In other words, a
single person may view the same page several times and each view is counted as a pageview.

Unique Pageviews—The number of individual people who have viewed a specific page at least once during a visit. For
example, if a single user views a page more than once during the same visit, only the original view is counted (whereas
general Pageviews count each visit). The Unique Pageviews metric counts each page URL + Page Title combination.

Avg. Time on Page—The average amount of time users spend viewing a specific page or screen, or set of pages or
screens.
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Bounce Rate—The percentage of single-page visits or the number of visits in which people left your website from the
same page they entered on. For example, if you visit a single article or page on a website and then leave, that’s counted
as a bounce and is factored into the Bounce Rate.

% Exit—The percentage of users who exit from a page or set of pages.

Look beneath the quick overview graphs and you’ll find links to reports for top content page URLs, top content
page titles, search terms, event categories and AdSense revenue. I will cover these reports in more detail later in the
article.

#2: Behavior Flow

The Behavior Flow report lets you see the path visitors commonly take on your website—from the first page they
view to the last page they visit before leaving your site.
The Behavior Flow report.

This report gives you a visual guide to how long visitors stay on your website and where those visitors end up leaving.

#3: Site Content

The Site Content section contains the following reports about how visitors engage with pages on your website.

All Pages

You can use the All Pages report to quickly see your top content along with the average amount of revenue each
page generates. This report helps you determine what content performs best on your website.
The All Pages report.

The All Pages report displays the top pages on your website based on traffic, as well as each page’s pageviews, unique
pageviews, average time on page, entrances, bounce rate, % exit and page value.

Page value is the Transaction Revenue + Total Goal Value divided by Unique Pageviews for the page or set of pages.

➢ Content Drilldown

The Content Drilldown report is helpful for websites that have subfolders such as domain.com/blog/ and
domain.com/support/ or something similar.

This report allows you to see the top folders of content on your website and the top content within that folder.

The Content Drilldown report.

While it looks similar to the All Pages report, the distinguishing feature here is the ability to see top content sections
instead of just top content pages.
 ➢ Landing Pages

The Landing Pages report lets you see the top pages on your website where visitors enter.

The Landing Pages report.

Metrics for landing pages include Acquisition (sessions, % new sessions and new users), Behavior (bounce rate, pages
per session and average session duration) and Conversions based on your website goals.

With this data you can determine which pages on your website are most likely to convert visitors into leads or
sales.

➢ Exit Pages

The Exit Pages report shows the last pages people visit before exiting your website. These are the pages you want to look
at to see what you can do to keep visitors on your website longer.

The Exit Pages report.

The best way to keep visitors on your site is to add more links to other pages on your website. And be sure the listed exit
pages have clear subscription options so visitors can receive emails or easily follow your business on social media.

➢ #4: Site Speed

Want to know how your website performs in terms of speed? The Site Speed section has crucial reports that identify
areas of your website that you may need to optimize.

Site Speed Overview

The Site Speed Overview report displays a graph of the average load time of all pages throughout your website.

The Site Speed Overview report.

See below for a brief description of the metrics you’ll find under the Site Speed graph.

Avg. Page Load Time—The average amount of time (in seconds) it takes for pages to load from initiation of the
pageview (e.g., a visitor clicks on a page link) to load completion in the browser.

Avg. Redirection Time—The average amount of time (in seconds) spent in redirects before fetching a page.

Avg. Domain Lookup Time—The average amount of time (in seconds) spent in DNS lookup for a page.

Avg. Server Connection Time—The average amount of time (in seconds) spent in establishing TCP connection for a
page.

Avg. Server Response Time—The average amount of time (in seconds) your server takes to respond to a user request,
including the network time from the user’s location to your server.

Avg. Page Download Time—The average amount of time (in seconds) to download a page.

With these metrics you can work toward improving page load time and page download time by optimizing the
content on your website. A few improvements you can make include reducing the size of images, reducing the number
of add-ons (widgets, plugins, etc.) used on a page and so forth.

Under the Site Speed metrics, you’ll see quick reports on load times based on the browser the visitor uses, the
location of the visitor (country) and the page the visitor lands on.
Page Timings

The Page Timings report displays how long your most-visited pages take to load compared to the overall average load
time for your website.

The Page Timings report.

You should review pages with a higher-than-average load time to see what optimization options you have.

Speed Suggestions

The Speed Suggestions

report.

The Speed Suggestions report gives you detailed advice from Google on how to optimize specific pages on your website
and includes steps for each suggestion.

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Detailed suggestions to fix

page load time.

Depending on the number of pages you have on your website, it may seem impossible to fix all of your load time issues. I
suggest you start with your highest-traffic pages and work your way down the list.

User Timings

The User Timings report allows you to measure how fast specific elements on a page load and determine whether it
affects the user experience.

Note: To use the User Timings reports, you need to implement custom code on your website.

#5: Site Search

One of the most frustrating changes to Google Analytics in recent years is the loss of organic keyword data. Fortunately,
you can still capture some valuable keyword data using Site Search.

Setting up Site Search metrics for your website is simple. Use your website’s search box to perform a search on your
website, and then follow the steps in Google Analytics Help to configure Site Search in your website’s Analytics
profile. You will then be able to use the following reports.

Site Search Overview

The Site Search Overview report displays the overall metrics for visitors who use the search box on your website.
Beneath these metrics, you can view quick reports for the terms searched, categories and the pages where visitors
initiated a search.

The Site Search Overview report.

Usage

The Usage report breaks down the number of visits where someone used the search box on your website versus the
number of visits where the search box wasn’t used.

You can quickly see whether having a search box increases or decreases factors like bounce rate, average time
on your website and conversions.

Metrics for the pages users land on as a result of their search include Acquisition (sessions, % new sessions and new
users), Behavior (bounce rate, pages per session and average session duration) and Conversions based on your website
goals.

Search Terms

The Search Terms report displays the keywords entered into your website’s search box. Along with the terms, you’ll find
metrics for the total number of searches, % search exits and additional details about visits related to a search
term.
Pages

The Pages report displays the same metrics mentioned above for search terms, but in this case the metrics are focused
on pages where searches originated.

The Pages report.

#6: Events

The Events section in Google Analytics allows you to track specific interactions on your website, such as clicks on
external links, file downloads and video plays.

To use Events reporting, you’ll need to set up event tracking code on your website. Once it’s set up, you’ll be able
to use the following reports.

Events Overview

The Events Overview report displays a summary of the visitor interactions you’re tracking. Values are calculated based on
the event value you specify in your event tracking code.

Under these metrics, you’ll find quick reports showing the number of events based on category, action and
label (all of which are specified in the event tracking code you set up).
The Events Overview report.

Top Events

The Top Events report.

The Top Events report displays the events with the most visitor interaction. For example, if you’re tracking outbound link
clicks using this piece of event tracking code, then you can click on Outgoing Links from this report to see the specific
links that visitors are clicking on when they leave your website.
Outbound link clicks tracked with Google Analytics Events.

Tracking your outbound link clicks helps you learn what resources your visitors are most interested in. This
information is especially helpful for publishers. Say you write a post on 50 top tools for content marketing. If you notice that
a lot of people click on a particular tool, you might want to follow up with a post on how to use that tool.

Top Events reporting is also valuable for businesses with online portfolios, such as web designers or freelance writers.
Seeing what example links people click on most would show you the work your potential clients like best. When you notice
a particular portfolio item never gets clicked on, you’ll know to remove it from your site.

Pages

The Pages report shows you the top pages where visitors interact with the events you’re tracking. Let’s go back to the
earlier example of a business with a portfolio. If you have several portfolio pages and you track outbound link clicks, you
can see which portfolio pages not only receive traffic, but also get the most clicks to your example work.

Events Flow

The Events Flow report displays the path visitors take on your website from when they arrive to when they interact with
your event.
The Events Flow report.

The default view shows event interactions from visitors in particular countries. You can change the view to show event
interaction flow from landing pages and other dimensions offered in the drop-down menu above the first column.

#7: AdSense

Many websites use Google AdSense to generate income from visitors who click on ads published by Google AdWords
advertisers. You must link your Google AdSense account to your Google Analytics account to use the following
reports.

AdSense Overview

The AdSense Overview report displays the revenue you’ve generated from Google AdSense on your website along with
additional metrics including click-through rates, revenue per thousand impressions and overall impressions.

The AdSense Overview report.

AdSense Pages

The AdSense Pages report displays the top pages on your website that generate the most AdSense revenue for you.
The AdSense Pages report.

Additional metrics show the number of ads clicked, click-through rates, revenue per thousand impressions and overall
impressions per page.

AdSense Referrers

The AdSense Referrers report shows you the referring URLs driving visitors to your website who click on AdSense ads.

The AdSense Referrers report.

If your website generates revenue through ad clicks, this report helps you determine what traffic sources to focus on
for increased earnings.

#8: Experiments

Experiments in Google Analytics allow you to conduct simple A/B testing to see which landing page variations
perform best at meeting specific conversion goals.
 The Experiments Results report.

If you want to optimize for conversion goals such as increased subscribers, leads and sales, then Experiments can help
you perfect your landing pages to convert more visitors.

#9: In-Page Analytics

The final component of the Behavior section, In-Page Analytics, lets you view your web pages along with your Google
Analytics data. To use this feature, you must install the Page Analytics Google Chrome extension.

In addition to the metrics shown at the top of the page, you’ll see percentages next to each link on the page. Hover
over the link to display the percentage and number of clicks the link receives.

In-Page Analytics displayed on a website.

This view of your website allows you to see which areas get the most attention. If you notice a particular area gets a lot
of clicks, make sure it includes links that aid in conversion goals for your business.

Conclusion
Google Analytics reveals a lot of data about how visitors engage with your website’s content. The Behavior reports give
you insight into your top pages and top event interactions, as well as the ability to improve your conversion rates with
Experiments and In-Page Analytics.

6.Conversions Reports

The Conversions section shows you the path your customers take on your website, from the entrance to making a
purchase or becoming a lead.

Google Analytics left sidebar menu with Conversions section.

Conversions reports are broken into four sections. While some conversion reporting areas look similar to the standard
reports you will find elsewhere in Google Analytics, many are customized to the data they represent. Each data set is
based on the reporting period you define in the date range drop-down menu.

Ready to learn more about them? Let’s get started with a list of terminology.

Goal Completions—The total number of conversions.

Goal Value—Total Goal Value is the total value produced by goal conversions on your site. This value is calculated by
multiplying the number of goal conversions by the value that you assigned to each goal.

Goal Conversion Rate—The sum of all individual goal conversion rates.

Total Abandonment Rate—The rate at which goals were abandoned. Defined as Total Abandoned Funnels divided by
Total Goal Starts.

Assisted Conversions—The number of conversions for which this channel appeared on the conversion path, but was
not the final conversion interaction.

Assisted Conversion Value—The value of the conversions assisted by this channel.

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#1: Goals

The Goals Overview report gives you a quick summary of the total number of goal completions made on your website.
 Google Analytics Conversions Goals Overview.

You can quickly view the pages where goal completions are made or click the Source/Medium link to see where
converting traffic originates. To dig deeper, you can click through the following detailed reports.

➢ Goal URLs

The Goal URLs report shows the URLs on your website where visitors convert. If you use the Destination goal type, this is
the URL visitors land upon once a goal has been completed, such as a thank-you or confirmation page.

To find out which pages on your website lead to the most conversions, use the Secondary Dimension drop-down and
select Goal Previous Step – 1. The goal URL report will then display the page a visitor was on before landing on the
Destination URL.
See which pages lead to the most conversions.

➢ Reverse Goal Path

The Reverse Goal Path report displays up to four steps in the goal completion journey. In the example below, you can see
that some people started on the home page (represented by the /), submitted a contact form from the freelance-writing
and contact-2 pages and landed on the thank-you page to complete the goal.

Find out where converting customers started on your website.

This report shows you two things. First, it shows you the most popular pathways people take to complete a goal on your
website. Second, it shows how many steps people take to complete a goal.

For example, the majority of people who complete a goal only go through three pages at maximum, from entrance to
completion. If this is the case, you may want to shorten other pathways through your website to get people to the goal
faster.

➢ Funnel Visualizations

If you set up your Destination goal to track multiple steps in the conversion process, you will be able to see the
steps your visitors take in the Funnel Visualization. If you setup a Destination goal with one URL, your funnel will look
like this.

Google Analytics Conversions Destination goal tracking with a single URL.

Funnel visualization is critical for those sites with multiple steps in the goal completion process. You can find out where in
the conversion process people drop out before making a purchase.

If you set up multiple steps, such as those a visitor experiences with a shopping cart, your funnel will look like this.

Google Analytics Conversions Destination goal tracking with multiple URLs.

In the example above, only 35% of people who add a product to their shopping cart continue on to make a purchase. This
means that you should work on optimizing that part of the sales process to increase conversions.
Goal Flow Visualization

The Goal Flow displays the goal completion paths of visitors in a flowchart.

Conversions Goal Flow Visualization.

You can use the drop-down to show traffic sources and other dimensions that drive visitors who complete a goal.
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#2: Ecommerce

For businesses that sell products through an ecommerce shopping system, Ecommerce reports will give you insights into
your shoppers’ journey from entry to conversion. You must specifically set up ecommerce tracking to use these
reports.

Ecommerce Overview

The Ecommerce Overview report summarizes your ecommerce conversion rate, transactions, revenue, average order
value, unique purchases and the quantity of product units sold.

Beneath the main graph, you can see data about your top revenue sources—products, product SKUs, product
categories and traffic sources.

You can also click through to the following detailed reports.

Product Performance—The quantity, unique purchases, product revenue, average price and average quantity sold per
transaction for products, product SKUs and product categories.
Sales Performance—The total revenue, conversion rate and average order value on a daily basis.

Transactions—The revenue, tax, shipping and quantity of items per transaction.

Time to Purchase—The amount of time from when visitors arrive on your website to when they make a purchase.

You also have the option to turn on Enhanced Ecommerce through the use of specific ecommerce tracking codes.
Enhanced Ecommerce gives you access to 10 ecommerce reports that cover behavior analysis, coupons and affiliate
codes. Learn more about Enhanced Ecommerce reporting here.

#3: Multi-Channel Funnels

Google Analytics typically attributes conversions to the last referral that brought the visitor to your website to make the
conversion. Multi-channel funnels help you understand the full journey of customers who convert on your website.

Ultimately, from the Multi-Channel Funnel reports, you will discover that it’s not just one type of marketing that helps your
business, but all types together.

For example, someone who visits your website from a social network may later decide to buy because they see your
name again in a blog post. Someone who visits your website from search may later decide to buy because they see an ad
on Facebook. The possible combinations are endless.

Multi-Channel Overview

The Multi-Channel Overview report gives you a summary of each marketing channel that works to drive converting visitors
to your website.
Google Analytics Conversions Multi-Channel Overview.

Assisted Conversions

Assisted Conversions are the number of conversions for which this channel appeared on the conversion path, but was not
the final conversion interaction.

The Assisted Conversions report shows the top channels that contributed to conversions.

See which online channels send converting traffic.

To see specific referral sources that act as assisted conversion sources, you can use the Primary Dimension
links.

Top Conversion Paths

The Top Conversion Paths report shows the source paths followed by visitors who convert.

For example, the first row shows the most popular conversion path, where visitors discover the website through organic
search and then visit the website again directly (not from search or a website link).

See the path converting visitors take.

You can dig deeper into the conversion path by selecting Source/Medium Path as the Primary Dimension.

Identify top converting paths.

In this view, instead of seeing only that you’re getting traffic from a referral source (another website), you can see the
exact website that is part of the conversion path.

Time Lag

The Time Lag report shows the amount of time in days from when visitors first visit your website until they make a
conversion.

Find the average

converting times.

Path Length

The Path Length report shows the number of interactions a visitor makes on your website before converting.

See how many interactions a visitor takes before converting.

#4: Model Attribution

The final section, Model Attribution, contains one report that helps you understand the difference in conversions
attributed to the last interaction versus other attribution models, such as the first interaction.
Google Analytics offers the following example. Someone finds your site by clicking one of your AdWords ads. She returns
one week later by clicking over from a social network. That same day, she comes back a third time via one of your email
campaigns, and a few hours later, she returns directly and makes a purchase.

Google Analytics
Conversions attribution comparison.

In the case above, the Last Interaction attribution is 100% credited to the direct return (the Direct Channel). The First
Interaction attribution is 100% credited to the AdWords ad (the Paid Search Channel). The Linear attribution is credited
evenly among Paid Search, Social Media, Email and Direct. Other attribution models are defined on this page.

Wrapping Up

Google Analytics Conversions reports offer a number of ways to view and analyze the way people navigate your website
on their way to converting. Use the reports in this article to drill down on pathways with a high conversion rate to
identify and adjust pathways that aren’t performing well.

What do you think? Will you take a deeper look into your conversion data? How do you think conversion data
can inform your marketing? Share your comments and questions below!
1.How to Create a New View in Google Analytics

Looking to add a new view in Google Analytics? With Google Analytics, you can have up to add up to 25 views to a
single property. In this article, we’ll show you how to add a view to one of your website properties in Google Analytics.

What is a view in Google Analytics?

A reporting view is a place in an Analytics account where you can view reports and analysis tools.

Google Analytics automatically creates an unfiltered view for each property in your Google Analytics account. But you
can setup up to 25 views on a single property.

Any data sent to a Google Analytics property automatically appear in all views associated with that property.
(Excluding data removed with filters.)

Why Create Another View in Google Analytics?

The following are some common reasons why you’d need to create multiple views for a website:

• You need to add a filter of any kind. You should always maintain an unfiltered view in case an error is
made when creating the filters. Filters are destructive, and the data is unrecoverable. So keeping an
unfiltered view will serve as insurance that you still are able to see the data in case of an accident.

• You need to add a filter to remove referral spam. (How to Block WordPress Referrer Spam in Google
Analytics)

• You need to create a User-ID View for seeing users logged into your membership site. If this is your
goal, then please instead follow our guide: How to Set Up User Tracking in Google Analytics.

• You need to add a filter to only view traffic from a subdomain such
as blog.yoursite.com or shop.yoursite.com

• You need to add a filter to only view traffic from a directory such as yoursite.com/en/ or yoursite.com/de/

Understanding Properties, Accounts, and Views in Google Analytics

Your Analytics profile for your websites consists of 3 different components: accounts, properties, and views.

• Account: You need to have at least 1 account to access the analytics report.

• Property: A property can be a website or a mobile app that you’d like to track in Google Analytics. For
usage with MonsterInsights, each property (associated with a unique UA code) will be associated with a
website.

• View: A view is the access point for your reports. For example, within a property you can have different
views for viewing all the data for example.com, viewing only a specific subdomain, like
 blog.example.com or viewing only logged-in User-ID traffic. For complete instructions, please see our
guide: How to Set Up WordPress User Activity Tracking in 3 Easy Steps.

If you are looking to add create a new view in Google Analytics, you’ll need to already have set up a Property for that
site. If you haven’t done that yet, please see our guide: How to Add a Property in Google Analytics.

Now let’s take a look at how to add a new view in Google Analytics.

How to Add a New View in Google Analytics

Prerequisites: You have already created a property for your website. If you haven’t yet created a property for your
site, please see our guide: How to Add a Property in Google Analytics.

Step 1: Navigate to analytics.google.com.

Step 2: Navigate to the Property for your site and select a view.

Step 3: Navigate to the Settings area for that Property.

Step 4: Click to create a new View.

Step 5: Complete the relevant information including a descriptive name for this view and the correct time zone.

Step 6: Click “Create View.”

That’s it! You’ve now created a new view for your Google Analytics Property. With your new view, you can now Block
Referrer Spam Google Analytics or add filters safely (so long as you’re sure to always maintain your existing
unfiltered view of your data as well.)

2.Create and customize Dashboards

Customize your dashboards and widgets for the best account overview.

Every view in Analytics comes with a default "My Dashboard." While the default Dashboard may suffice, the real
usefulness of Dashboards lies in your ability to create and customize them the way you want.

Dashboards contain one or more widgets (up to 12 per Dashboard) that give you an overview of the dimensions and
metrics you care about most. The steps outlined in this article will teach you how to create and customize a new
Dashboard. (You can follow many of these steps to edit existing Dashboards, as well).

Create your Dashboard

To create a Dashboard:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.

2. Navigate to your view.
3. Open Reports.
4. Click CUSTOMIZATION > Dashboards.
5. Click Create.
6. In the Create Dashboard dialog, select either Blank Canvas (no widgets) or Starter Dashboard (default set of
widgets).
You can also import Dashboard configurations from the Solutions Gallery.

Create dashboard pane.

 7. Give your Dashboard a descriptive title, then click Create Dashboard.

Add widgets to your Dashboard

A Dashboard can have one or more instances of the following kinds of widgets:

• Metric: displays a simple numeric representation of a single selected metric.

• Timeline: displays a graph of the selected metric over time. You can compare this to a secondary metric.
• Geomap: displays a map of the selected region, with the specified metric plotted on the map. Hover over the
map to see the actual metric values.
• Table: displays up to 2 metrics describing the selected dimension, laid out in tabular format.
• Pie: displays a pie chart of the selected metric grouped by a dimension. Mouse over a slice to see the
specific metric values.
• Bar: displays a bar chart of the selected metric grouped by up to 2 dimensions. Mouse over a bar to see the
specific metric values.

Widget editor.

Standard vs. Real-time widgets

Some of the available widgets can display their data in real-time. These widgets update the metrics automatically
(standard widgets, by comparison, update when you load or refresh the Dashboard).
Real-time widgets can display only the Active Users or Pageviews metrics, depending on the widget. The following
widget types are available as real-time widgets:

• Counter: displays a count of the active users on your site. You can optionally group these users by a
selected dimension.
• Timeline: displays a timeline graph of pageviews on your site for the past 30 to 60 minutes.
• Geomap: displays a map showing where your active users are coming from.
• Table: plots a table of your active users against up to 3 selected dimensions.

To add a widget to a Dashboard:

1. Create a new Dashboard and select Blank Canvas, or click + Add Widget on an existing Dashboard to open
the widget editor.
2. Select the type of widget.
3. Configure the widget’s dimensions, metrics and other options. These vary depending on the type of widget.
Scroll or use the search box to locate the specific metric or dimension you want.
4. You can limit the data shown by the widget by clicking Add a filter. Filters let you include or exclude data in
the specified dimension that match your filter criteria. You can add multiple rows to your filter definition. All
conditions must be met for the filter to work.

Report and Dashboard filters are not the same as view filters. View filters permanently change your data,
while report and Dashboard filters only limit the data displayed in the report or Dashboard. Dashboard filters
are specific to the Dashboard in which you define them.

5. You can link the widget to a report or a URL. Doing so makes the widget title a link, taking you to the
specified report or web page. To link to a report, begin typing a report name. Analytics will autocomplete
your entry, trying to match it to an existing report. Alternatively, you can copy and paste the report’s URL into
this field.
6. Enter a Widget Title or accept the suggested title.
7. Click Save.

Edit a widget

To modify an existing widget, mouse over the widget title, then click the Edit (pencil) icon.

To delete an individual widget, mouse over the widget title, then click the Close (X) icon.
 Edit a widget.

Note: you cannot undo deleting a widget.

Clone a widget

You can create an exact copy of a widget using the Clone widget link. This is convenient when you want use one
widget as a base for another.

Clone a widget.

Add segments to your Dashboard

As in Analytics reports, you can add segments to your Dashboard, allowing you to compare and contrast metrics
generated by different session or user groupings.
To edit an existing segment, click the segment label at the top of your Dashboard. To add a segment, click the
empty +Add segment label.

Learn more about segments.

Customize the Dashboard’s layout

Click the Customize Dashboard link to change how your widgets appear and how they are arranged on the page.

Customize Dashboard layout.

Delete a Dashboard

You can remove a Dashboard entirely by clicking the Delete Dashboard link on right side of the page, under the date
picker.

Delete a Dashboard.

3.COHORT ANALYSIS

Google has a report that's somewhere in-between complete cold traffic and individual user data, Cohort Analysis.

Cohort Analysis is a subset of a larger behavioural analytics ecosystem. Rather than looking at users as a whole, it
breaks them down into related groups for analysis. These groups or cohorts are usually categorised because of some
common characteristics or experiences within a defined timespan.
 ➢ The Cohort Report

Below is an example of what a Cohort Report looks like in Google Analytics:

The Cohort Analysis Report displays the following:

• Cohort type
 • Cohort size
• Metric
• Date range
• Table
• Acquisition date cohorts (by metric)
• Segments

• Cohort type

This is the dimension that’s the basis of the cohorts. You can only select one dimension at a time. The Cohort
Type corresponds to the table column that includes the total number of users in a cohort. For example, if you
select Acquisition Date, the cohorts are grouped based on when users started their first sessions. Acquisition Date is
the only option available.

➢ Cohort size

This determines the size of each cohort. The Cohort Size corresponds to the date and number of users in each
cohort cell in the dimension column. For example, if you select Day, the cells in the dimension column display a
single date and the number of users organised into the cohort for that day. If you change your selection to Week, a
date range appears, and the number of users organised into the cohort for that week also appears.
 ➢ Metric

This is the Metric being measured for each cohort. You can only select one metric at a time. The metric corresponds
to all columns in the table, except the Cohort Type column, which displays the dimension. For example, if you
select Session Retention, each Day displays the percentage of users in each cohort that had a session that specific
day.
 ➢ Date range

The time boundary that determines what data appears in the report. Date Range corresponds to the number of rows
in the table. For example, if you select the Last 7 Days, there'll be a total of 8 rows in the table: one for each of the
past seven days, and one for the sum of all cohorts.

➢ Table

This represents the metric chosen in the Metric and Cohort Size in the dropdowns above it. Table calculates the
average for the chosen period and breaks it down by how they performed through the chosen date range.
 ➢ Acquisition date cohorts (by metric)

This drop-down allows you to compare up to four cohorts in the chart.

➢ Segments

You can also choose a Segment and analyse the cohort analysis. Do this by adding a segment in the top left of the
screen to compare against different segment types.
 • Benefits of Cohort Analysis
• Analyse a group of users and how they're interacting over a period
• Helps identify times when engagement on site drops
• Provides an opportunity to study user or customer churn rate
• Businesses can measure granular customer engagement
• Provides data to calculate customer lifetime value
• Delivers valuable insights into user-retention

To access the Cohort Analysis report, log into your Google Analytics account, and on the left-hand side the Cohort
Analysis can be found under Audience Report.
Using the Cohort Analysis report in Google Analytics

The Cohort Analysis report uses two important metrics:

1. Segmentation
2. Per user metrics

1. Segmentation

The Segmentation report provides a view into how a cohort performs each day, week or month after acquisition
date. The primary categorisation is the acquisition, which makes it hard to view as it’s an aggregate collection.

The first way to make sense of this is by analysing Segments. This will give you the opportunity to understand
exactly which customer type is performing well on the website. For example, mobile traffic, traffic from a specific
campaign, logged-in users, unauthenticated users etc. You can also add more than two types of segments to
compare best performing customer types.
2. Per user metrics

One interesting feature about the Cohort Analysis Report is its ability to break down metrics per user. Currently the
report allows you to breakdown by:

• Goal Completions per user: Total number of goals completed by cohort, divided by total cohort size
• Page Views per user: Total number of views (page or screen views) made by cohort, divided by total cohort
size
• Revenue per user: Total revenue generated by cohort divided by total cohort size
• Session Duration per user: Total time spent (hh:mm:ss) by cohort, divided by total cohort size
• Sessions per user: Total number of sessions sorted by cohort, divided by total cohort size
• Transactions per user: Total transactions by cohort, divided by total cohort size
Conclusion

The Cohort Analysis Report gives businesses the power to better understand their user’s behaviour in groups and
individuals. This is mainly possible by comparing segments and drilling deeper into understanding per user behaviour
and performance for a more advance use compare segments and their individual user performance.

Our Digital Experience Team has helped many customers get started with Google Analytics. To find out more about
how we can help set up Cohort Analysis for your Sitecore website, or if you need help understanding how to get the
best out of Google Analytics and other analytics and marketing tools, then get in touch.
Topics
4.Google Analytics Annotation

What are Google Analytics annotations?

Annotations are short notes that you can add to dates within your Google Analytics reports. Here we
can see an annotation being used to document a spike in traffic for a particular marketing campaign:

You can create private annotations which are only visible when you log into Google Analytics.

If you have ‘Collaborate’ access to Google Analytics you also have the option to create shared
annotations which can be seen by anybody with access to the reporting view.

You have the option to star important annotations and each annotation is associated with the email
address (login) that was used to create them. You can also edit and delete annotations.

➢ How to add an annotation

To create an annotation in Google Analytics:

1. Click the small tab below the timeline.

2. Click ‘+ Create new annotation’.
3. Select the date for the annotation.
4. Enter your note.
 5. Select the visibility of the annotation (if you have ‘Read & Analyze’ access you will only be able
to create private annotations).
6. Click ‘Save’.

Your annotation will now be saved and you will see a small icon on the timeline which allows you to
quickly see that there is a note attached to the date within the Google Analytics interface.

➢ When should you use annotations?

You can use annotations to mark important dates within your reports. Since annotations are all about
providing context, you should consider creating them for any changes that might impact your data.
Anything that has caused a spike or dip in traffic is usually important to add as an annotation. Here are
some suggestions to get you started:

• New marketing campaigns that you’ve launched

• Email campaigns that you’ve sent
• Offline advertising, especially TV or any media reaching a large audience
• Major website changes, including launching a new website or adding lots of new content
• Digital advertising campaigns, including search, display and social
• Website problems, including server issues
• Seasonal events and holidays

• Is there anything you can’t do with an annotation?

As we’ve seen, annotations are a great way to provide context, but there are some things they simply
can’t do. Here are the current limitations (which is also on our feature request list for the incredible
Google Analytics team):

• Annotations aren’t included when you export your reports (if you choose the PDF export option
there is a little icon, but we don’t get to see the details for the annotation).
• You can only create annotations for individual dates, there is no option to include a time, or
create an annotation for a week, a month or a custom date range.
• There is no option to automatically import annotations from a Google Calendar (but how
awesome would this be!).

5.How to Create a Goal in Google Analytics to Track Conversions

Looking to optimize your website for conversions? To do that, you’ll need to track conversions by setting up a goal in
Google Analytics. This could be tricky for beginners, but what if there’s an easier way?
This is where MonsterInsights WordPress plugin comes in handy. It automatically tracks conversions on your website
and provides actionable insights so you can see what’s working and what’s not.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to create a goal in Google Analytics to track conversions using two methods. And
also highlight how MonsterInsights addons can streamline the process.

✓ What Are Goals in Google Analytics?

Goals in Google Analytics allow you to track specific user interactions on your site. These user interactions can be
anything including form submissions, product purchases, collection of leads, and more.

When a website visitor performs the specific action that you’ve defined as a goal, Analytics records that as a
conversion. You can check out our detailed guide about the difference between Google Analytics goals and events.

Let’s take a look at how to set up goals in Google Analytics and why MonsterInsights is much easier to use.

✓ How to Track Google Analytics Goals Using Monster Insights?

MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics WordPress plugin available. It allows easy event tracking and displays
reports right in your dashboard to see the conversion rate.

This way you can make data-driven decisions, analyze which event as goals are performing better, and make
appropriate changes.

One of the biggest advantages of using MonsterInsights is that you don’t have to manually set up goals in Google
Analytics. It does this automatically for you!

And its made possible through the amazing addons offered by MonsterInsights. Let’s take a look.

✓ Track eCommerce Conversions

MonsterInsighs eCommerce Tracking addon gives you a complete view of how your audience is interacting with your
store.

It sets up goals for your eCommerce store automatically and gives you a report on the conversion rate, transactions,
revenue, top-performing products, average order value, and much more.
That’s not all. With MonsterInsights, you see the referral sources from where your visitors are accessing the store and
the exact revenue they send your way.

Using this data, you can now push your products and promote your store where it matters.

You can also measure the total Add to Carts and Removed from Cart to track conversions. This way you can see if
your goals on track and make the right decision.

✓ Easy Forms Tracking Addon

Now if you have several forms on your website, creating goals for each of them can be a difficult and time-taking task.
But using MonsterInsights Forms Tracking addon, you can track each form without messing with any code or going
through the manual set up process of creating a goal.

The WordPress plugin tracks all the forms that are on your website and displays their impressions, conversions, and
conversion rate in a simple report.

As you can see, goal tracking is simple with MonsterInsights. Now, let’s look at the manual process of creating a new
goal in Google Analytics.

✓ How Do You Set Up Goals in Google Analytics?

Once you know how to add Google Analytics to WordPress, you can set up goals in Google Analytics by following
these steps:

Step 1. Sign in to your Google Analytics account and select the website for which you’d like to create a new goal.
Step 2. In the left panel, click Admin and in the View column, click Goals.

Step 3. To create a new goal, click the +New Goal button.

Step 4. Now you’ll be prompted to enter a description and the details of your goal. You can enter a suitable name and
choose the right goal type.

Which Goals are Available in Google Analytics?

You’ll see four goal types in Google Analytics. They are:

• Destination: You can choose this goal type if you want to treat a pageview or screen view as a
conversion.

• Duration: You can measure user engagement by treating time spent on a page as a conversion.

• Pages/Screens per session: This is another way to measure user engagement. You can measure the
number of page views per session as a conversion.

• Event: You can treat user interaction like button click, video play, form submission, ebook download as a
conversion.

Let’s specify the name of your goal as Form Submission, and choose the Event type.

After you’ve chosen your options, click Continue.

Now you’ll be asked to enter the goal details and event conditions. For Category, you can enter forms. And
for Action, you can add Conversions.

If you’re using a forms plugin like WPForms and have multiple forms on your website, you’ll have to enter form ID for
each, like wpform-form-187846.

As for the Value option, you can leave it as it is.

But if needed, you can create monetary value for conversions. For example, if you’re setting up the goal for tracking
ecommerce transactions, you can specify the goal value to measure the revenue each transaction generates.
You can also click on the Verify this Goal link if you want to measure how often this goal would have converted on
your data from the past 7 days.

Once you’ve entered these details, click Save.

You’ve successfully created a goal in Google Analytics.

That’s it!

We hope you enjoyed our article on how to create a goal in Google Analytics to track conversions. You might also
want to check out our guide on tracking links and buttons in WordPress.

And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more useful Google Analytics tutorials about tracking.

5.How to Use the New Google Analytics Advanced Segments

Advanced Segments allows you to isolate specific types of traffic within your Google Analytics reporting. For
example, you can see your Google Analytics standard reporting data for visitors from only the United St ates if
that’s what you want to do. In this post, we’re going to look at how you can create and use Advanced
Segments in the new Google Analytics.

What You Can Do with the New Advanced Segments

So what is all the fuss about the new Advanced Segments in Google Analytics? Here’s an overview of some
of the new and best and ways to use Advanced Segments.

• View all of your Google Analytics standard and custom reports for users and visits that match
specific criteria.

• Create custom segments with the new easy-to-use interface that will guide you through five
types of custom segments – Demographics, Technology, Behavior, Date of First Visit, and Traffic
Sources.

• Include demographic data (age, gender, and interests) in your data segmentation.

• Import custom segments made by the Google Analytics team and other Google Analytics users.

• Share your custom segments with others using a custom link.

Let’s dive in to how you can start using Advanced Segments today. ( This is applicable for both people
familiar with the old setup and those who are new.)
How to Use Advanced Segments

To access Advanced Segments in the new Google Analytics, you’ll need to click on the dropdown arrow
next to the default All Visits view.

This will toggle the Advanced Segments screen.

The default view will show you all of your advanced and custom segments. You can use the tabs to see
only built-in segments, custom segments you created, or favorite segments you have starred. You also can
search your advanced and custom segments.

To select segments to view, just click on them or drag them to the allotted spaces at the top. You can view
up to four segments at a time.
When you’re finished selecting your segments, click the Apply button at the bottom to view your data.

To remove a segment from your view, click the “x” at the top right of each circle box.
How to Create a Custom Segment

To create a new custom segment, click the +New Custom Segment button. Next, you will be able to name
your custom segment and choose from five types of segments.

• Demographics – Segment your users by demographic information such as age, gender,

language, affinity category, and location. In order to use the age, gender, and categories, you
will need to go to the Audience > Demographics > Overview to see if you need to update your
Google Analytics code to support the new Google Analytics data options. Even if you aren’t
planning to use Advanced Segments, you’ll want to get this done right away.
• Technology – Segment your users’ visits by their operating system, browser, screen
resolution, device, and mobile.
• Behavior – Segment your users by how often they visit and conduct transactions (number of
visits, days since last visit, and visit duration).
• Date of First Visit – Segment your users by when they first visited.
• Traffic Sources – Segment your users by how they found you using campaign, medium,
source, and keyword fields (such as the ones you would add as UTM parameter tags on your
URLs).
If you would prefer to set up your custom segment similar to how it was done before, click on the
Conditions option under Advanced. This will let you add up to 20 and/or filters to your custom segment.

You can even create custom segments to segment users and their visits according to sequential
conditions.
Once you have set up your custom segment, you can preview the results, test it to make sure it works, and
then save it. You can always edit it later by clicking on the settings wheel icon on the segment itself.

You also will get the option to share your custom segment with others using a custom URL. Only the
configuration of the custom segment will be shared, not any of your website data.

Import from Gallery

If you are not ready to make your own custom segments just yet and would like more options than the 22
built-in segmenting options, you can use the Import from Gallery button to get more segments created by
the Google Analytics team and other Google Analytics users.
When you click the Import button on one of these segments, you will be taken to a screen to confirm that
you want to import them into your Google Analytics profile.

When you want to view your imported segments, you will find them under the Custom segments view.

Segment Applications

There are thousands of ways you can use Advanced Segments to learn more about your website traffic.
Here are just a few fun examples that you can create and view simultaneously to learn more about users
and visits throughout your Google Analytics.

• Create custom segments for traffic from social media networks, search engines, and other
channels of traffic to see which drive the best traffic.

• Create custom segments for different age groups to see which pages they visit most and how
long they stay on your website.

• Create custom segments for specific keywords you are targeting on AdWords.

• Create custom segments for different campaigns you are tracking with UTM parameters.
You’ll get plenty of great ideas by visiting the Google Analytics Custom Solutions Gallery, selecting
Advanced Segments from the Analytics Solutions menu, and perusing what the community has provided.
You can even import, modify, and make them work for you and your business.
Have you tried out the new segmentation? What are your thoughts or most useful segment ideas?

6.Which attribution model is used in the standard reports?

The first thing to point out is that the standard reports inside Google Analytics all use the same
attribution model. This is the Last Non-Direct Click attribution model. What this means is that when
you’re looking at the standard reports and you see a conversion (or conversion rate), for example in
this report…

All of the credit for these conversions is given to the last known channel used to find you r website.

So if we continue our example where someone came from Google, Twitter and then email before
converting, then our reports would say that email provided 1 conversion, while Google and Twitter
provided 0 conversions.

And to give one more example, if someone cam e from Google, then the following day remembered our
URL and typed it into their browser (which would be a direct session) we’d see that Google provided 1
conversion and direct provided 0 conversions.

So just remember, the default reports will give 100% of the credit for the conversion to the last non -
direct channel someone used to find your website.
Here’s what you need to begin using attribution...

In order to use the attribution reports, you’ll need to make sure you have goals or transactions reported
into Google Analytics. If you don’t have goals already configured, then this is an absolute must (and
not just for attribution), so take a moment to learn how to correctly c onfigure goals.

You’ll also need to make sure that you’re using campaign tags for all of your inbound marketing and
that you have Google AdWords linked to Google Analytics if you’re running any AdWords campaigns.

So do a quick double-check to make sure you’re covered. If you don’t have goals or ecommerce
configured, that’s okay, but make sure you check them off your list You’ll then need to wait for accurate
data in your reports before you can begin using the attribution models.

7.What are the default attribution models inside Google Analytics?

If you want to play with the attribution models inside Google Analytics, you’ll need to head to the Model
Comparison Tool within the ‘Conversion’ reports under ‘Attribution’.

The Model Comparison Tool allows you to compare up to three attribution models to see how they
impact your conversion figures.

Here we’re comparing the Last Non-Direct Click model to Loves Data's Model (more on that later).
We can see that the Time Decay model reduces the credit being given to ‘Other’ (which is for custom
marketing channels), and additional credit is given to ‘Direct’ and ‘Social Network’.
This allows us to see if we’re overvaluing or undervaluing particular touchpoints in comparison to what
we see inside the standard reports.

Which attribution models can we compare?

There are seven default attribution models available within Google Analytics. You also have the option
to create your own custom attribution models. (And if you’re using Google Analytics 360, then you have
the option to use the Data-Driven model too.)

Watch this video for a rundown of the models (and I'll walk through them below too)...
✓ LAST INTERACTION

This model gives all of the credit to the final touchpoint. It’s super important to flag that this isn’t the
same as the attribution model used in the standard reports (which is Last Non -Direct Click). It’s a little
bit different because it will give credi t to people who come in directly to your website and convert.

Don’t get tripped up on this one – it’s fairly common for people to compare this model to the standard
reports and since it’s a different model your data won’t be the same. Instead, you shoul d use the next
model...

✓ LAST NON-DIRECT CLICK

This is currently the attribution model that you’ll find in the standard reports.
If the final touchpoint was direct, then it will step back in the conversion path and look for a touchpoint
that isn’t direct.

✓ LAST ADWORDS CLICK

This model will give all of the credit to the last touchpoint (just like the Last Interaction model), but if
there is a paid click from Google AdWords in the conversion path, then AdWords will receive 100% of
the credit for that particular conversion.

Here’s an example of a path someone could take before they convert…

They’ve gone from AdWords, direct and then email before converting. If we use the Last AdWords Click
model, then all of the credit goes to AdWords.

And here’s one more example where someone didn’t have AdWords in their conversion path…

They went from Twitter, to email and email again. The Last AdWords Click model will give all of the
credit to the very last touchpoint (since there is no AdWords touchpoi nt), so email receives the full
credit for the conversion.

✓ FIRST INTERACTION

This model gives all of the credit to the first known touchpoint that lead to a conversion.

I’d recommend avoiding this attribution model for two reasons. The first reason is th at you’re limited to
the historical data available for the conversion (this is called the lookback window). But the real
problem is that it completely ignores the importance of the channel that closes (or completes) the
conversion. So I’d skip this one.
 ✓ LINEAR

Next up, we have the Linear attribution model. This is a multi (or mixed) attribution model because it
splits the conversion value across more than one touchpoint. The Linear model is simple to understand
because it evenly divides the value across all of the touchpoints.

If you had a conversion worth $10 and there were 5 touchpoints in the conversion path, then each
touchpoint would be given a value of $2.

✓ TIME DECAY

The Time Decay model is one of my preferred default attribution models inside Google Analytics.
Greater credit is given to the touchpoints that are closest to the conversion action being completed, but
credit is still given to the preceding touchpoints.

I like to think of the value cascading backwards. It all starts to get a bit c omplicated, but the model is
based on exponential decay which means the more recent the interaction, the more value it receives.
Let's keep things simple and look at this example…
This shows us how the Time Decay model is working, with each earlier touch point receiving half the
credit of the one prior.

✓ POSITION BASED

Finally, we have the Position Based model where the majority of the credit is split between the first and
last touchpoints. Here you can see how the model works…

The final touch point receives 40% of the credit, the middle touchpoints share 20% of the credit
(divided evenly) and the first touchpoint receives 40% of the credit.

What attribution model should you use?

When you head into the Model Comparison Tool, I recommend starting with the Time Decay and
Position Based models. These will provide you with attribution that isn’t tied to a single marketing
touchpoint. You can then compare these to the Last Non -Direct Click model (from the standard
reports).
Now that you’re using the tool, you can begin to look at the difference between the model you’ve
applied and the Last Non-Direct Click model. This will allow you to see the change in conversions as a
percentage.

Look for channels that you’re undervaluing and overvaluing. These will be flagged with red and green
arrows. This can then be used as the starting point for testing how you prioritize and assign budgets to
your marketing channels.

Let me run through the Model Comparison Tool with you in this video...
You can take things to the next level by creating a custom attribution model inside Google Analytics. If
you want to fast-track your custom model, then you can begin with Loves Data’s Model which I’ve
based on Time Decay model.

The model has an adjusted half-life of 14 days, instead of the default of 7 days, so that more credit is
given to the most recent touchpoints. The default lookback window is set to 70 days which will include
just over two months of historical data. Credit for impressions has been reduced by 50% a nd credit is
increased for people who engage with content (based on page depth).

You can add the custom attribution model to your account now .

Conclusion

Sharing the credit for conve rsions between your marketing touchpoints allows you to understand how
your channels are interacting and where you should focus your efforts.

You’ll find the Multi-Channel Funnels reports are helpful in understanding how people are finding and
engaging with your website. I encourage your to support your use of the Model Comparison Tool with
the Top Conversion Paths report – it visualizes the paths people take…
You’ll find attribution is a combination of art and science, so don’t feel like you need to get it right from
the very start. Begin by looking for channels that are undervalued and overvalued and go from there.

8.Create and manage custom alerts

Create, edit, and delete custom alerts.

When you create a custom alert, that alert is visible only to you in your current reporting view and in any other views
to which you apply the alert.

✓ What Are Google Analytics Custom Alerts?

Custom alerts tell Google Analytics to send notifications (email or text) when signals you’ve predetermined on your
website are triggered. You set the standards, and Google will let you know if there’s a deviation from those standards.

Custom alerts are relatively simple to set up, can monitor just about anything related to your ecommerce website, and
can absolutely save your bacon should a situation be ready to mushroom into a potential catastrophe.

✓ Why Should You Worry About Custom Alerts Anyway?

Unless you have the time, team, and energy to monitor every data point on your ecommerce website 24/7 and can
interpret changes in the flow at lightning speed, you’re a candidate for custom alerts.

Custom alerts are like having a strategically placed network of warning signals embedded in your website. If traffic
dips too quickly or too far, if sales begin to flag (or soar), or if your Facebook ad suddenly stops working for you,
custom alerts will let you know immediately.

That’s much better than finding out the hard way.

 ✓ How to Access Google Analytics Custom Alerts
We’ve got good news: Creating custom alerts is one of the simplest things you can do in Google Analytics. This guide
will show you exactly how to get started.

The screenshot above shows how to access Custom Alerts in Google Analytics. Thanks to TenCoats for allowing us
access to their analytics dashboard to illustrate this guide.

Here’s how to access custom alerts settings:

1. Log in to Google Analytics and navigate to the property you want to view.
2. Click on Customization.
3. Click on Custom Alerts.

The first thing you’ll see after following the path above is the Custom Alerts dashboard. To get started with Custom
Alerts, click the “Manage custom alerts” button (see the next screenshot).
Once that opens, click the “+ NEW ALERT” button (see the screenshot below), and you’re good to go.

You’ll need to name the alert, determine which reporting views you want it to work with, choose the alert reporting
frequency (period), and enter the email address and/or mobile phone number (USA only) to which you want alerts
delivered.

You then choose the Alert Conditions and save the alert.

We’ll walk through the steps of creating an alert soon, but first, you must decide which Google Analytics Custom
Alerts will serve you best.
 ✓ Which Custom Alerts Do I Need?
Google Analytics is essentially a robust table of dimensions and metrics gathered by bits of code you place on your
ecommerce website pages. Dimensions are attributes—for example, City, Page, and Browser Type (see screenshot
below). Metrics are the quantitative measurements, such as the number of pageviews. Reports and Alerts are ways
you can view and manipulate the information collected.

While the possibilities are extensive, some of the popular custom alert types we’ve seen are notifications for
significant changes in:

• Website traffic
• Pageviews
• Sales
• Bounce rate
• Conversion rates
• Traffic source types
• Page load speed

Basically, if a metric is important to your ecommerce business and you want to know when deviations from the
standards you set occur, custom alerts will serve you well. Set up the critical alerts first (checkouts, conversion rates
at essential points along the path to sales, traffic to your site, etc.), then add non-essential alerts later.
Google Analytics is a robust table of dimensions and metrics.

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How to Set Up a Google Custom Alert for Checkout Completions

The process for creating custom alerts is the same for every metric on which you desire notifications. After you click
the “+ NEW ALERT” button (see How to Access Google Analytics Custom Alerts above), you’ll have several options
for creating custom alerts.

We’ll walk through the selections for our example account (TenCoats.com), and then you can log into your Google
Analytics dashboard and practice setting up custom alerts for your site.

In the screenshot above, you can see the options TenCoats.com selected when setting up there alerts. Here’s some
more information about your options when creating alerts:
Alert name: Use something significant to you. It’s not uncommon to have a dozen or more custom alerts set. When
one fires, you want to immediately know which of your KPIs it is tracking.

Apply to: The default is your current view, but you can choose other views or even other properties to apply it to as
well.

Period: Choices are Day, Week, and Month. TenCoats.com chose to monitor daily checkouts, but we could have
also set custom alerts to inform us about significant changes to weekly and/or monthly checkouts.

Send email: You can choose to have alerts sent to you only or to multiple email addresses. The From address for
custom alerts is noreply@google.com.

Setup mobile phone: This is currently for U.S. phones only. It allows you to get text messages when alerts
(Intelligence Events) fire.

Alert Conditions: This is where the process can get a little tricky. You’ll need to choose the traffic dimensions you
want the alert to apply to, and then set the conditions that trigger the alert.

When determining the traffic dimensions, you can choose All Traffic (as we did in the custom alert shown above), or
you can limit the alert to track by Custom Segments, Users, Acquisition, Behavior, E-commerce, or Systems. Click
the box at the bottom of the drop-down list to view all choice possibilities alphabetically.

The best way to get familiar with Alert Conditions is to experiment. Before you get too involved in the sandbox,
though, be sure to configure the primary custom alerts most important to your business. Your basic alerts shouldn’t
be difficult to choose, but more complex settings are certainly possible.

Click “Save Alert,” and you’ve set your first custom alert!

To edit or delete a custom alert use this path: Admin > Customization > Custom Alerts > Manage custom alerts.

Google Analytics Custom Alerts and Your Ecommerce Website

You’ll need to adjust your custom alerts over time. It won’t take long to determine whether a certain alert is firing too
often or not often enough. You may also find additional metrics you want to observe.

As long as your alerts are significant to your own key performance indicators and are set at meaningful levels, you
can’t go wrong.

Here’s why:

The alerts you set are visible only in your current reporting view and the other views to which you choose to apply
them. You determine who should be alerted and whether that alert should be delivered by email or text message.
That means you don’t have to spam anyone else with custom alerts. You can direct them only to yourself until you’re
confident of the settings and are ready to share the capability with others.

The only way we know of to really mess up with Google Analytics Custom Alerts is to not configure them at all.

If you’ve experienced headaches with your prior attempts to set up Google Analytics features, we definitely
understand. You don’t have to deal with it alone, though. Call The Good and speak with one of our analytics
professionals.