HOW TO USE GOOGLE ANALYTICS (for beginners) universal analytics by: Courtney Petty, of DKS Systems adapted from our previous beginner s guide
TABLE OF CONTENTS Part 1. Part 2. How to set up a basic Google Analytics account... 2 Part 3. Upgrading to Universal Analytics..... 4 Part 4. Analytics Data The Basics... 5 Part 5. Digging Deeper Into Google Analytics... 8 Real Time... 8 Audience... 9 Acquisition... 14 Behaviour... 20 Event Flow... 24 Conversions... 25 Part 6. Part 7. Special Universal Analytics Features... 29 Questions? Contact Me... 31 Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn
What is google analytics? What does it offer me? Universal Analytics is a FREE service that provides comprehensive statistics regarding the visitors to a website. Universal Analytics is the new Google Analytics standard featuring additional ways to customize your website data and reports. Data available through Universal Analytics includes all of the previous data within Google Analytics: site visits, page views, bounce rate, average time on site, pages per visit and percentage of new visits plus additional features. Google Analytics tracks referral traffic including search engine, direct visits, website referrals and marketing campaigns (Pay Per Click (PPC), banner advertising, e-mail marketing etc.). Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 1
how to set up a basic google analytics account Follow the instructions and pictures (below) to learn how to set up a basic Google Analytics account. These indata. Advanced Google Analytics configurations will be covered later on. 1. To set up your own FREE Google Analytics account you must start by visiting the Google Analytics website at http://www.google.com/analytics 4. [Note: We recommend having all of your Google account information under one account: YouTube, Gmail, Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Google AdWords, Google+, etc. So, keep that in mind if you re creating a new account.] Complete the verification process and click Back to Google Analytics and then Sign Up. 2. Click on the Access Analytics blue button in the upper right corner of the page. 3. If you already have a Google account, log in. If you do not have a Google account or wish to create a new one for your website then choose Create an account. 5. Choose your tracking type Website or Mobile App. Choose Universal Analytics (all Classic accounts will be upgraded eventually). Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 2
6. Set up your account. Fill out the information required on the following page (site URL, account name, time zone or territory, and time zone). Click the Continue button when finished.! 7. Click Get Tracking ID. Accept Terms & Conditions. 8. Copy and paste your code onto every page on your website. 9. Congratulations! You have successfully created and implemented a basic Google Analytics account. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 3
UPGRADING FROM BASIC ANALYTICS TO UNIVERSAL ANALYTICS Eventually all Classic Analytics accounts will be phased out and rolled into a Universal Analytics (UA) account; however, the new Universal tracking code must be in place before Google stops supporting the Classic version or else you won t receive any website data. To upgrade and take advantage of the new UA features, visit the Universal Analytics Upgrade Center and follow instructions. To see your Analytics type, log into Google Analytics. Navigate to the Admin section by clicking Admin in the upper right-hand corner of Analytics. Under the Property column, you will be able to see the status of your UA upgrade. Click into that section (UA Upgrade) and click the Transfer button. The transfer takes 24-48 hours to be completed and to ensure a full, high-quality transfer you are not to make any changes to your tracking code during that time. After the transfer, your website data (through using the old tracking code) will be processed using the new UA technology. However, to get all of the benefits from the new tracking code you should implement the UA code on your website which is Step 2 of the process. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 4
ANALYTICS DATA THE BASICS Now that you ve successfully registered your Google Analytics account and added the tracking code to every page on your site, it s time to take a look at your data. When you enter into your website profile through Google Analytics, you will land on the Audience Overview tab. The image below will help you navigate the site usage aspect of Google Analytics. -! A: DASHBOARD DATA By clicking on the arrow button next to the date you can sort what dates you want to see data for. The default setting is the last 30 days, but it can be changed to incorporate several months or even a single day. All data is pulled from that date range. In this section, you can also compare to previous periods (and years). Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 5
E: USERS Previously called Unique Visitors. Users have had at least one session within the selected date range (See (A)). This number includes both new and returning visitors. F: PAGEVIEWS Total number of page views (combined from all visitors). Repeated views of a single page by a user is counted. B: DATA OPTIONS In this section of the screen, you can email or export the data within the date specified. You can also create a shortcut of this section to easily reference, or add it to your Google Analytics Dashboard. C: CUSTOM / ADVANCED SEGMENTS Apply segments to you data. Default segment is All Visits but you can apply additional pre-made segments: referral traffic, non-paid search traffic, traffic with conversions and more. Each segment you add will be added in addition to All Visits for easy side-by-side comparison. D: VISITS Previously called Visits. A session is a count of users engaged on your website for a period of time. All usage data (events, goals, pages per session, time on site, etc.) is associated with a session. G: PAGES / SESSION Previously Pages per Visit. The average amount of pages a single visitor has viewed during a session. Remember, this is an average, some visitors view many pages and some view less. Repeated views of a single page are included. H: AVG. VISIT DURATION The average time spent on the website by visitors. Similar to Pages/Visit, some users spend a - lot of time, and some spend a short time on your site. I: BOUNCE RATE % Percentage of people who visit your site but leave after only viewing one page. Bounce Rate can be determined by this mathematical formula: Bounce Rate = total # of visits only viewing one page / total number of visits. J: % NEW SESSIONS Previously called % of New Visits. New sessions is an estimate of percentage of first time visits. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 6
J: % NEW VISITS New visits are classified by sessions (where unique visitors are classified by visitors). New visits are sessions in which the user hasn t browsed your site previously. Google places a unique cookie within your browser for every website you visit. When you visit a site and Google doesn t find the cookie they report your visit as a new visit within your analytics. - Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 7
DIGGING DEEPER INTO GOOGLE ANALYTICS DATA STANDARD REPORTS By clicking on some of the left hand navigation links we really start to dig into some of the more involved data that Google Analytics offers. Google divides your web data into five categories: Real-Time, Audience, Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions. Let s walk through each of these categories and identify ways you can utilize your data. REAL-TIME In the Real-Time section, you re able to see real-time data about the visitors that are on your website. A: OVERVIEW See the general real-time data overview. This section is a short summary of the more detailed reports within this section. B: LOCATION Locations of the active visitors are highlighted in this report. Click into each country to narrow down into data divided into Cities. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 8
C: TRAFFIC SOURCES Traffic sources broken out into medium and source for the current active visitors on your website. D: CONTENT Pages in which your current active visitors are on. You can view the Active Page and Page Title (SEO meta tag) of the page. Click on the Page URL to dive deeper: see the Active Page, Medium and Source. E: EVENTS If you have any website elements in which you have added additional event tracking code (ie: submission form) you re able to see the real time event tracking data in this section. Click on the event to dive deeper into the event action and event label. AUDIENCE Within the audience tab we can get a better understanding of our audience or website visitors. We can process demographic information along with the technology their using to access the site. A: OVERVIEW The default landing screen when logging into analytics. Covered on page 5, Analytics Data: The Basics. B: DEMOGRAPHICS To see this data in your account, you must modify your tracking code to support display advertising. F: CONVERSIONS Real-time conversion data! In order to see real-time data in this section, you must set up goals in Analytics. C: INTERESTS To see this data in your account, you must modify your tracking code to support display advertising Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 9
D: GEO - Language This tab will allow displays what default language visitors have shown to them on their browser. This data could be a fantastic indicator of whether you should offer your website in multiple languages. - Location Scroll over any country and Google Analytics will tell you how many visits came from that country within the time you specified. Add a second dimension of data by adding in the source in which the language came from. Next to Secondary dimension: Click on Select and what additional faucets of information you d like to receive. If you re running a local SEO campaign, segment your data by using the City tab, and monitor what city your traffic is coming from. This information could also be applied to your paid search campaigns. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 10
E: BEHAVIOR F: TECHNOLOGY - New vs. Returning How many regulars does your website have? This sub-section will show how many visitors are returning, how many are unique and the way they use your website and convert. - Frequency & Recency Data showing the frequency (count) and recency (days since last visit) of your website visitors. - Browser & OS This data shows how many visits are coming from a particular browser and in-depth information on the operating system. By switching tabs, you can discover the most common operating systems for your website visitors, screen resolutions, screen colors and more. This data allows you to better develop your site to provide a positive experience for all your web visitors. - Engagement The visit duration is displayed. You re able to see how engaged people are on your site and how long they re staying by a percentage total. Websites look and sometimes operate differently in different browsers. Browser-test your site within the top browsers your visitors are using. Add a secondary dimension to your visitorbrowser data by seeing which version your visitors are using. It s not uncommon to have cart or conversion errors in older browsers. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 11
- Network Do you want to know what network providers your visitors use? How about hostnames or even their connection speeds? This data can help when completing future development for your site. - Devices This tab allows you to see the mobile carriers of your visitors, along with usage-metrics specific to each carrier. G: MOBILE - Overview Offers mobile data with side-by-side comparison to tablet and desktop data. Use this information to optimize your site for the mobile devices that most frequent your site. Apple phones operate differently that Android, so if you have a strong mixture, create a mobile-friendly site for both operating systems Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 12
H: CUSTOM I: CUSTOM - Custom Variables This section of the report provides site-usage information and impact on revenue (ecommerce) distributed by custom variables that you have added to your code. One example of a custom variable is session-level custom variables. If visitors can log into your website, you can use custom variables tied to the session level for that user-login status. You can then segment visits from those that are logged in from those that are anonymous. Learn more, here. Another example is adding custom variables based on user type: members vs. guests. You can see and drill into site usage and conversion data based on the user types you ve identified. Similar to custom variables, you can add custom visitor segments to your tracking code. Custom visitor segments allow you to track information from a visitor input. For example, if a visitor fills out a form in which they provide their role in their company as manager you can capture & store that information, segment and view data for managers separately. More information. J: VISITORS FLOW Visitors flow report details how visitors move through your site. Google defaults to country/territory and pages of your website, but you can choose different categories and level of detail. You are able to segment this data to include just paid traffic, only organic traffic, returning visitors, new visitors, etc. Add interaction phases, too. This is great insight for visitor flow, and the information could be used to determine Call-To-Action s or user-experience adjustments. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 13
ACQUISITION The acquisition tab is all about how your visitors have found and landed on your website. Whether they came from a paid search or display campaign, organically searching in Google or Bing and what keywords your visitors are using. A: OVERVIEW This tab contains all of the online channels that are leading visitors to your website. Each channel holds the user and conversion data. B: CHANNELS Similar to the overview tab, this section allows you to drill deeper into each channel. You can also switch between source/medium, source, medium or other. Add a secondary dimension of Social Network to see which social channels are successful for your website and result in conversions. In the image below, you will see Pinterest is sending triple the amount of traffic; however, visitors aren t as productive as Facebook referral traffic. Use this data to find out where to spend your time on social networks and how to make current referral traffic convert. In this view, you have the option to edit your channel groupings within your analytics property. C: ALL TRAFFIC An older version of the newer Overview and Channels tabs. In this view, you can compare data to previous time periods; whereas, in the newer tabs you are unable to do so because the channel and overview data was not available prior to July 25, 2013. Click on Default Channel Grouping in order to edit or create a new channel. You can specific paid search campaigns, specific keywords and search queries, social source referrals and so much more! D: ALL REFERRALS Reporting for only the online sources that are referring traffic to your website. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 14
E: CAMPAIGNS Data from campaigns from your AdWords account. In this report, you can view the source of your campaigns (for example, if you re doing display advertising on websites) and the traffic medium (cost-per-click, images, email campaigns and more). F: KEYWORDS G: COST ANALYSIS If you re running a lot of paid campaigns, this section is particularly helpful to see all of them at a glance with a side-by-side comparison among conversion metrics. Revenue Per Click (RPC), Return On Investment (ROI) and Margin are helpful metrics if you have conversion values or ecommerce tracking in your analytics account. Segmented into paid and organic categories, view which keywords are top-performers for your website. (not provided) in your organic keyword report are keywords in which a user who is searching Google while logged into a Google account (YouTube, Gmail, Google+, etc.). Whenever a user is logged in and searching the internet, they are securely searching; therefore, Google does NOT pass that keyword data to your account (they keep it secure). In 2014, Google is moving towards 100% (not provided) organic keyword data. H: ADWORDS - Campaigns acquisition, behavior and conversion reports broken down by AdWords campaign name. - Bid Adjustments adjustments (made in AdWords) based on device type are broken down in this section under each specific campaign. Click the arrow next to the campaign name to see your bid adjustments. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 15
- AdWords Keywords acquisition, behavior and conversion reports broken down by targeted keyword. - Matched Search Queries Let s clear up any confusion about keywords and search queries. Keywords are words or phrases that you have chosen to show your ads. Search queries are what the user searches for, and depending on the match-type of your keyword, you may have a lot of search queries that aren t relevant. Use this data to monitor what your ads are showing for, add more keywords, or delete some. If you see a lot of search queries that don t apply to your products or services, add them as negative keywords in AdWords. For example, if you re running an AdWords campaign for a cloud hosting or server product, and choose to use online desktop as a broad-match type, then a lot of your search queries might be completely irrelevant and contain words such as: girls, puppies, free, etc. Add those words as negative keywords into AdWords to prevent those queries from showing your ads. Make adjustments as you go. - Day Parts Look at your campaign data (clicks, page visits, etc) in a 24 hour period, by days of the week or other. This data is helpful to see if your ads aren t running in the afternoon because of an exhausted budget, or maybe they are getting high bounce rates at a particular time. - Destination URLs Destination URLs are the URLs that your ads are landing on. Around the hours from 11-1 are highly competitive hours. If your keywords are highly competitive, and are competing against big brands, consider pausing keywords during those hours to avoid precious budget spend. Use this data to weed out weak landing pages. If one landing pages has a really high bounce rate, try changing around some of the elements or delete it. PPC campaigns involve a lot of testing. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 16
- Placements Use this data to compare automatic and managed placements on the Google Display Network, the domains on which your ads are place and specific URLs on which your ads are placed. This data is only available for campaigns using the Google Display Network, and no data will show for those using Search Network. I: SOCIAL In this section of analytics, you re able to gauge the impact your social efforts have on your website, conversions and more. - Keyword Positions This data lets you see what positions (on Google search results) those ads appeared (and what keywords triggered your ads, and number of visitors brought to your site). - Overview The general breakdown of referral traffic and conversion metrics from social sources. - Data Hub Activity Google Analytics has a huge list of social data hub partners in which they monitor to see if any content from your website or blog was shared on those sites. Some of their data hub partners include: Reddit, Google+, Disqus and more. - Landing Pages This section reports on the top pages from your website that are shared or talked about within the social community. It s essentially a list of your website s top performing social content. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 17
- Trackbacks Trackbacks are links to your website from social sources like Google + or other blogs around the web. The key to social media is to be social. Use this section to talk with others that are talking about your brand. If someone links to your website from their blog, go to that post, read it and make a meaning comment. This is the networking and relationship building aspect of social media. - Visitors Flow In a flowchart view, see which networks are bringing in the most visitors and what other pages (or drop offs) they are going to within your website. Click on More and View This Trackback to be taken to the user s post that links to your website. - Conversions Conversions and conversion value are broken down by network in this report. - Plugins The default report tab for this section is Social Entity which provides information on what pages from your website are associated with social actions (likes and shares). Flip over to the Social Source and Action tab if you re using a social plugin like Add This (social share plugin) to see the source (plugin) and action taken by the visitor (Facebook like). Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 18
J: SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION To utilize this section of Analytics, your Google Webmaster Tools account and Google Analytics account must be linked. For information on how to link your accounts, click here. - Queries See the top search queries in which visitors are searching for and landing on your website. In this section, you re able to see the Click-Through-Rate (CTR) of organic search keywords which is valuable information to have in your SEO arsenal. - Landing Pages Top impressions and clicks from organic search users and which landing page they clicked on from the search results page. If a highly visited landing page has a very low Click-Through-Rate (CTR) relative to other pages, perhaps the keywords targeted or user experience is less than desired. Use that information when making updates or A/B tests to your website. - Geographical Summary Impression and click data based on country. Keyword positions are dependent upon the user and the user s location. Someone searching for educational toys in Minnesota will likely have different results than someone searching for educational toys in California. Search is now more personal (more than ever!), especially with a focus on social and local. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 19
BEHAVIOR What is the behavior of your visitors? What pages and websites do they interact with? In this section learn more about the behavior of your visitors and how website elements like videos and site speed affect visitor behavior. C: SITE CONTENT - All Pages See behavior site metrics for all pages on your website. The All Pages section is organized by the amount of page views. A: OVERVIEW The overview tab gives a snapshot of the number of page views, how long people are staying on a page and the percentage of people would leave after one page. B: BEHAVIOR FLOW See the top landing pages and the most popular paths users take within your website. - Content Drilldown The content drilldown section is organized by the first page path. Common path types: /pr/ or /product/ for product pages /cr/ or /category/ for categories /blog/ for blog post pages /checkout/ for checkout process pages The default behavior flow is landing page; however, you can choose event interactions, advertising categories and more. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 20
- Landing Pages The top landing pages from your website. See which landing pages are bringing in the most conversions or revenue. Then, look at those pages and see if there is any trust, social or content elements that could be helping visitors convert. Apply those opportunities to other popular landing pages. D: SITE SPEED - Overview See the general site speed metrics for your website. - Page Timings - Exit Pages The top exit pages for your website. See how fast or slow pages load for your users. Each page (sorted by the most page views) is compared to the site average by default. If you see green, that means the specific page is that much faster than the average. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 21
- Speed Suggestions based off Google s Page Speed Insights Tool (for desktop and mobile websites), you can get the same suggestions on a page-by-page basis. Google also gives you a PageSpeed score for each page so you can see how specific pages rank based upon the speed potential of your own website. D: SITE SEARCH - Overview Site Search overview provides basic site usage information for your visitors that used a search functionality within your website (if you have one). - User Timings User timings on certain elements on your website need to be set up in order to see data in this section. If you want to track the time it takes for particular resources to load, view instructions on how to set up user timings. - Queries In order to see data here, you must turn site search on in the Admin > View Settings area of your account. View search queries that people using, the amount of impressions each query has and the number of clicks per search query. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 22
- Landing Pages Following the same concept as search queries, you can also view the top landing pages (URLs) and the amount of impressions and clicks each landing page receives. View the average position for each landing page and use that knowledge to better optimize specific landing pages if you want to see specific pages higher in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). D: EVENTS - Overview If your site has any event tracking code added to specific events such as a Subscribe button, etc. then your metrics will appear in this section. - Geographical Summary This data breaks down which countries your organic search traffic is coming from. You can see the amount of impressions, clicks and the CTR of each country Website elements like videos, downloads, clicks on links that leave your website and more can be tracked with additional tracking code called event tracking. If you have not implemented event tracking code on your website, you will not see any data in this section. Evaluate impressions verse clicks. Impressions are how many times someone saw your listing, and clicks how many people clicked on it to go to your site. If impressions are really high, and clicks are low, try changing around your meta description and title tag. If clicks continue to suffer, try targeting different keywords. Recently, Google created Google Tag Manager in which you can add a code to your website and non-developers (like marketers or web managers) can add and update website tags including analytics, remarketing and more. Sign up here. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 23
- Top Events View data for your top events under this tab sorted by the number of events that occurred. - Pages View events that occurred on your website and which pages the most events occurred. G: EXPERIMENTS If there are pages on your website that you want to improve, this might be an important section/report for you. Follow the prompts to use Google s Experiments section to test which page design is more effective for visitors. This is primarily helpful for landing pages or goal pages. I: IN-PAGE ANALYTICS If you are offering a free e-book, and place that offer on multiple pages, add event tracking and see which pages are converting the most visitors. Some pages may be more effective than you think. Once your trial is over, keep that offer on the highest converting pages. In-page analytics allows you to see where people are clicking on your site. EVENT FLOW Report on how visitors that partake in events flow through your website and web pages. G: ADSENSE If you use AdSense on your website, you can view that data in this category. Before viewing data, you must enable analytics for AdSense. If you re logged into analytics, and visit a URL within your website (in the same browser)- you will see in-page analytics for that page. Note that if you have multiple links to the same URL on one page, the click metrics are combined. For example, we have links to About DKS in our top navigation and in our footer navigation. Each link shows the same percentage of clicks because the data is combined. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 24
CONVERSIONS This tab contains all data on conversions and goal tracking. When you set up goal values and funnels, you can view that report under this tab. Set up goals in the Admin area of your Analytics account under the View column. A: GOALS - Overview Chances are, you have something on your website that you want your visitors to do. Is it filling out a contact us form, or visiting a particular page? Set up that goal and monitor its success in this area. - Goal URLs This report provides information about the number of goal completions and the cumulative value of each goal completion on a page-by-page basis. - Reverse Goal Path This section gives you the navigation path used to reach the selected goal. - Funnel Visualization See where users enter and exit the funnel for your goal. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 25
- Goal Flow Goal flow is a visual representation of the paths your visitors took to successfully complete a goal. This path starts from the source, through your funnel pages to the end goal. You can also see where your visitor drops off. Read more, here. - Product Performance This section provides information about the top performing products within your website. View the quantity sold, product revenue per product, average quantity people purchase and more. You can also view information by the product name, category and SKU number. Use goal flow for social media campaigns. If you re running a campaign through Facebook, check this section to see if any of your visitors from Facebook are actually converting and accomplishing the goal you have defined. - Sales Performance See ecommerce daily revenue in this section. B: ECOMMERCE - Overview If your site is registered as an ecommerce site, when setting up your analytics, you will see all your ecommerce data in this section. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 26
- Transactions View information about all transactions on your website. This information includes the transaction number, revenue, tax, shipping and quantity. Click on the transaction number to view the products. C: MULTI-CHANNEL FUNNELS - Overview This report summarized total conversions that you have defined and assisted conversions. The area that I highlighted in red is the percentage of conversions through direct, paid search and organic search. All three were necessary for the conversion, and only.34% of total conversion. Include a secondary dimension and add the keyword that the user typed in to find your website and make a purchase. - Time to Purchase View data about number of days and visits it took for a customer to complete a purchase after the initial visit. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 27
- Assisted Conversions Assisted conversions are conversions that required two or more visits to your site before the visitor converted. - Path Length This section shows how many conversions resulted from conversion paths that contained a set amount of interactions. For example, view the difference in data from one interaction and those that had 12 or more interactions. D: ATTRIBUTION This area is perfect for social networks! See how many assisted conversions your website is getting from your social efforts. Finally, a way to see data in reports! - Model Comparison Tool Compare last interaction conversion with other models with Google s tool. - Top Conversion Paths View your top conversion paths in this section. - Time Lag This report gives you the information as to how many conversions resulted from conversion paths that were 0, 1, 2, etc. days. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 28
SPECIAL UNIVERSAL ANALYTICS CONFIGURATION & OPTIONS 2. SESSION & CAMPAIGN TIMEOUT by default in classic, sessions ended after thirty minutes and campaigns ended after 6 months. With UA, session timeouts can be modtified to fit your needs and campaigns. Flexibility ranges from one minute to four hours for sessions and up to two years for campaigns. Universal Analytics is the new operating "standard" for Google Analytics. The new analytics has several technological innovations that improve the way data is collected and displayed in your analytics account (dependent on customizations). 1. ORGANIC SEARCH SOURCES add, delete and reorder the list of recognized search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask and more) that appear in organic search data so you can really drill down to the search and referral traffic you're interested in. 3. REFERRAL EXCLUSIONS this new feature allows specific domains from being excluded in the referral traffic reports. This feature is particularly helpful for websites using a third party shopping cart. 4. SEARCH TERM EXCLUSIONS exclude specific search terms from showing up as organic search traffic. These terms will show up as direct traffic instead. An example would be to exclude brand terms or site name from appearing in organic search traffic. For example, images.google.com and google.com are lumped together in the classic version; however with UA, you can seperate that traffic for your reports. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 29
5. CUSTOMER TRACKING INTEGRATION & OFFLINE CONVERSIONS with UA, you have the ability to associate a customer ID across many different systems (CRM, customer database, etc). With this association, you can link website data (visitor ID) with phone calls (phone number), email marketing information (email address), in store purchases (credit card) and more. With this in mind, you must agree to the Google Analytics terms of service. 6. MOBILE APP DATA mobile app analytics reports app usage metrics including: number of installations, devices and networkes used to access the app geographic location and language of visitors in-app purchase totals customized tracking of special content (ex: videos) number of screens per visit Data can be sent from pretty much any device, which means you can track conversions that occur everywhere. 7. CUSTOM DIMENSIONS & METRICS similar to the default dimensions and metrics in classic, but now you can track more specific demographic information. Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 30
questions? There you have it, folks! I hope you got some insight as to all of the functions and elements of Google Analytics. Play around with your data; dig deep into your numbers. Analytics can be fun! If you have any questions about this document or other analytics questions, leave a message on our Facebook page! Or, email me at cpetty@dkssystems.com. Talk to you soon! Courtney Petty DKS Systems Web Marketing Specialist Tweet this on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn 31