Seminar Week 3: Google Analytics - Basic Reports

Dr Birgit Altrichter

9th in the UK for Business and Economics & 61st in the world 9th in the UK for overall student satisfaction
Times Higher Education 
World University Rankings 2022
1
 Agenda

• Introduction to Google Analytics

• Google Analytics 4 Property
• Default Reports
• Demographics: Who are your customers?
• Acquisition Reports

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Google Analytics Certification: Why?

• By the end of this module, you will have completed the Google Analytics Certification
• Showcase your ability to use Google Analytics to gain valuable insights and make marketing decisions
• Certified users will demonstrate an understanding of Google Analytics, including how to set up and
structure a property, and use various reporting tools and features
• Collect the data you need for your business
• Use the various reporting tools and features
• Recognize key measurement features that can show the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts

• All courses and resources are free, so if you want to expand on your skillset and improve your employability
beyond this module, then feel free to do so

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Have you completed the self-guided courses?
• Complete the tasks under “Use Google Analytics to
Meet Your Business Objectives”:
https://skillshop.exceedlms.com/student/path/297729-us
e-google-analytics-to-meet-your-business-objectives?sid
=b8c41028-0a02-4235-bf2f-ac09de3d431f&sid_i=1 Self-guided learning in
• Additionally, navigate to Unit 1 and Unit 2 in the Google preparation for today’s
Analytics for beginners course: seminar!
https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/course/6
• How to Use the Analytics Demo Account:
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6367342#zi
ppy=%2Cin-this-article

• Please ensure to work with the Google Analytics 4

property: Google Merchandise Store (web data) or
Google Analytics 4 property: Flood-It! (app and web
data); do not use Universal Analytics property
• Deadline for nominating and submitting individual
members of groups: Teaching Week 3, i.e., Friday,
Dr Birgit Altrichter th
 Google Demo Account

• The Google Analytics demo account is a fully functional Google Analytics account that
any Google user can access
• It contains one Universal Analytics property and two Google Analytics 4 properties 
please ensure to work with the Google Analytics 4 property:
• Google Merchandise Store (an ecommerce site that sells Google-branded
merchandise; web data) or
• Google Analytics 4 property: Flood-It! (a strategy puzzle game available for
download on Android and iOS; app and web data)
• Do not use Universal Analytics property
• The demo account is a great way to look at real business data and experiment with
Google Analytics features

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the

latest version of Google
Analytics. Since it is the fourth
version, it is called GA4.

Dr Birgit Altrichter
Google Analytics Interface Demo
 Google Analytics 4

• Today, people expect to interact with businesses however it's most

convenient for them — for example, researching a product on their phone,
then purchasing it later on their computer
• Getting insight into these user journeys is critical to predict your customers’
needs and provide great experiences
• This is why the latest version of Analytics — Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
properties — is built to handle various data sources

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Analytics has evolved over time

Universal Analytics property type

Until recently, the default Analytics property type for websites was called
Universal Analytics; it is an older property type

Google Analytics for Firebase

Specifically designed for apps

Google Analytics 4: app, web, or both

The new Analytics property type; it combines web and app reporting into one
seamless measurement experience

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Default Reports

• Demographics: Who are your customers?

• Acquisition: Where are your customers coming from?
• Engagement: Which content are your customers engaging with?
• Monetization: What is your customers' shopping activity?
• Retention: Are your customers coming back?
• Tech: What technology are your customers using?

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Google Analytics Academy User Report

Who came on our site?

Demographics Report (formerly known as Audience Report)

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 The Audience/User Report – Who?

Demographics
• Gender
• Age

Geographic
• Where are they located? (e.g., country or city)
• What language do they speak?

Technology
• What devices are they using when visiting our website? (e.g., tablet, mobile or desktop)
• What browsers are used the most?

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Secondary Dimensions
• Secondary dimensions allow to break down primary dimensions into meaningful and relevant data
• In the demo account (remember to use one the the GA4 demo accounts), start out in a table report,
such as the User or Traffic Acquisition report
• Select the secondary dimension you want to analyse by clicking on the plus icon at the righthand
corner of the primary dimension field

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Google Analytics Academy User Report

Who came to our site?

• Descriptive analysis
• Who are they? From which country? Which language?
• What technological devices are they using? What are their interests?

Google Analytics Academy Audience Report

• Potential implications (some of):
• Which device they use: UX user experience implications, location-based marketing
• Interest: targeting of display ads
• Which country or region that creates more traffic
• … Remember in the group assignment
you are required to describe/analyse
AND deduce relevant
implications/recommendations!

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Dimensions and metrics

Dimensions
• Answer the question “who, what, or where?”
• For example: “What device is most commonly used?”

Metrics
• Metrics answer the question “how many?”
• For example: “How many users visited my site yesterday?” 

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Google Analytics Academy Acquisition Report

How did they get there?

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 The Acquisition Report – where from?

• The acquisition report allows us to

explore where our visitors have come
from online
• What was their starting destination
before they reached our website?
• Did they arrive to our website from
paid or organic means?
• Did they arrive from a specific
campaign?

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Key Terminology
• Google Analytics Acquisition report includes information about the traffic
source/medium, channel, and marketing campaign name
• Source is the origin of your website traffic, for example Google (example:
Google/organic  Google is the traffic source)
• Medium is the category of traffic source as defined by Google. It is the vehicle by which
they arrived to the website (example: Google/organic organic is the medium)
• Channel is a group of several traffic sources with the same medium (example: “organic
search” is a channel that can be made up of different traffic sources with the same
medium)
• Campaign is the name of your Google Adwords campaign or custom campaign

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 An applied representation…

So, Maria is looking for a new pair of trousers to wear to the gym, so she
decides to have a search on Google and types in “women's sport trousers”.
She sees an advert in the search results and clicks it.

Her source would be Google….

… her medium would be a CPC (cost per click*) …
… and her channel is broadly defined by Google as “Paid Search”

* Colloquial terminology to describe online paid ad campaigns. Also this is a way to describe a form of
bidding strategy for online paid campaigns.

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 What Referral traffic is not!

Customers referring their friends is not what Google Analytics considers to

be “referral traffic”

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 What Referral traffic IS!

“Referral traffic is the segment of traffic that

arrives on your website through another source,
like through a link on another domain, excluding
major search engines.

Analytics automatically recognizes where traffic

was immediately before arriving on your site, and
displays the domain names of these sites as the
referral traffic sources in your reports.

Essentially referral traffic is traffic sent from other

websites.
Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Other Relevant Terminology
Organic Search indicates visits from organic (unpaid) search results.

Paid Search indicates traffic that arrived through a paid search campaign run in search results. The medium is indicated by cpc
(Cost per click)/ppc (pay per click).

Social indicates visits from social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Google Analytics also places
these in the referral “bucket”.

Display indicates traffic from display advertising, such as Google AdWords remarketing campaigns. The medium is indicated by
display, cpm (cost per thousand), or banner.

Direct or None is applied for users that come directly to your site by typing your URL directly into a
browser or when the sources are unknown.

Email indicates traffic from links clicked in email messages, whether mass email marketing or
individual messages.

Other Advertising indicates traffic from online advertising outside of search and display, such as cost per view video
advertising.
Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Google Analytics Academy Terminology

Paid and Display advertising are used for Remarketing (when you are ‘followed’ by
an ad!)
SEA = Search Engine Advertising
SEO = Search Engine Optimisation

The main model for paying for ads in the

Paid Product Listing Ads
Paid Text Ads
search engines is pay-per-click (PPC)
Retailers have an additional option for paid
search known as Product Listing Ads
(PLAs), which are ads showing product
images and prices that you may have
seen when searching for products

Paid search marketing is an example of

Organic Ads
biddable media, where businesses have
to bid against other businesses to achieve
visibility for their adverts
Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Google Analytics Academy Acquisition Report

How did they get there?

• Descriptive analysis
• What channels are driving the most traffic? Which sites are sending traffic to your site?
• Which Google Ads campaigns are driving the most traffic? How can keywords, search queries and
hour of day inform your marketing recommendations?
• Which Social is driving the most traffic? From which category? Remember in the group
assignment you are required to
describe/analyse AND deduce
relevant
implications/recommendations!
Google Analytics Academy Acquisition Report
• Potential implications (some of):
• Channel and traffic: advertising budgeting, are we wasting money in paid ads?
• Keywords and search query: are we using the correct digital advertising strategy?
• Which social and site are driving the traffic: where does our main target group spend time
online?
• …
Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Secondary Dimensions for Further Insights

You can begin to explore acquisition alongside user demographics/tech data.

For example, you could explore which device was used and from which country
was someone who arrived from Google Paid Search.

Remember in the group assignment

you are required to describe/analyse
AND deduce relevant
implications/recommendations,
informed by data!

Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Exercise

Help Aria find out where her new customers are coming from. Aria runs a fashion blog on a single website.
Last week, she had an uptick in subscriptions, and she wants to see where her new users are coming from.

How should she do this?

From left navigation, select Reports.

In the left navigation, select Acquisition, then Acquisition overview.
From the date range selector in the top right, choose Last week and select Apply.

As a result, all of cards on the page are now reporting on only last week. Aria can see if any new trends
have contributed to her uptick in subscriptions.

28/03/23 27
 Before Next Seminar … have a go!

• Complete the tasks under “Measure Your Marketing

with Google Analytics”:
https://skillshop.exceedlms.com/student/path/359080-m
easure-your-marketing-with-google-analytics?sid=b8c4
1028-0a02-4235-bf2f-ac09de3d431f&sid_i=2
• Additionally, navigate to Unit 3 and Unit 4 in the Google
Analytics for beginners course:
https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/course/
6
• How to Use the Analytics Demo Account:
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6367342#z
ippy=%2Cin-this-article

• Please ensure to work with the Google Analytics 4

property: Google Merchandise Store (web data) or
Google Analytics 4 property: Flood-It! (app and web
data); do not use Universal Analytics property
Dr Birgit Altrichter
 Have you signed up for a group on SurreyLearn?
Deadline for nominating and submitting individual
members of groups: Teaching Week 3, i.e., Friday, 24th
February 2023, 4pm

You need to enrol to a

group on SurreyLearn in
order to receive marks for
the group assignment!

Dr Birgit Altrichter
9th in the UK for Business and Economics & 61st in the world 9th in the UK for overall student satisfaction
Times Higher Education 
World University Rankings 2022