Breaking down Google Analytics — Review
It’s more than just signing up for an account, it’s configuring it so that it works properly
We’ve come to week five of the Growth Marketing minidegree program by CXL Institute and this week, it’s all about analytics. Google Analytics (GA) that is. Whilst it’s become an important tool in any and every business we know of today, the potential of such a powerful analytics tool remains largely untapped simply due to the lack of understanding on how to utilise the tool. In my write up today, I will briefly unravel (because there’s just way too much to unravel!) and its amazing benefits is in five sections: Getting to Know GA, Understanding Traffic, Understanding Results and Analysing Reports.
Getting to Know GA
GA is a web analytics tool offered by Google aimed at analysing website traffic. For most if not all companies, a website serves as a central hub for digital presence and traffic. Think about it — the first thing one does when trying to find out about something be it a product or service is to search for its website to retrieve more information.
So when does one use GA? Well, if you wanted to understand user behaviour, that enough is a reason for you to consider getting on GA. What this nifty tool does is help you measure the “how” and think of the behaviours behind what drives the numbers. I mean, wouldn’t you wanna know why you were only selling 500 shoes per month instead of your competitor who sells 2,500 shoes per month? The data that gets tracked on GA becomes incredibly insightful and can lead you to better understand what goes on behind the minds of your users.
Some of you may have heard of Google Marketing Platform. So what’s the difference between that and GA? There are actually two versions of GA — GA which is for small businesses and is completely free (yes, you read that right) and Analysis 360 which is targeted towards large-scale enterprises and is a paid tool.
GA is really good at is storing info i.e. stores behaviour. What it does is collects, stores and reports key behaviours. Given that the Google Marketing Platform extends into various tools including GA, Data Studio, Optimize and Surveys to name a few, how exactly does GA fit into the measurement ecosystem? Well, as amazing as GA is, it does only one thing incredibly well which is storing data. If you’re looking for a tool that collects data, you can give Tag Manager a go. If you’re looking for a reporting tool, Google Data Studio would be your best bet. So essentially, these three tools effectively coexist.
Within GA, there are various areas that you can look into to make sense of user behaviour such as Realtime Reports, Audience Reports, Acquisition Reports, Behaviour Reports and Conversion Reports. Each will address certain questions you have in mind but also has its limitations. For a guide to better understand some of these reports, check out the reference links below:
a) Audience Reports: https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2018/03/29/a-guide-to-the-standard-reports-in-google-analytics-audience-reports/
b) Real-time Reports: https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2018/03/01/a-guide-to-the-standard-reports-in-google-analytics-real-time-reports/
c) Demographics Reports: https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2014/07/16/guide-to-google-analytics-demographics-reports-age-gender-interests/
d) Acquisition Reports: https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2014/01/28/how-to-make-the-most-of-google-analytics-acquisition-reports/
The first step is for you to then setup your GA account. For a step-by-step guide, check out this link: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1008015?hl=en
Understanding Traffic
Once you’ve setup your GA account, you can start diving into what your website traffic tells you. What you want to do first is look into the GA default which is the Acquisition > All Traffic > Source Medium. The information you find here will be very informative and indicative of how users stumble upon you. Once you’ve taken a look at understanding your acquisition, you need to then customise your traffic in a manner that’s most useful for you.
Whilst going through this process, you’ll be able to figure out information that you can act upon such as what’s bringing you the most traffic and what specific pages referrals are coming from.
Understanding Results
So now it’s time to look into the results through setting goals.
What are goals?
When a web visitor lands on one of your web pages, you need to have a specific action in mind that you want said visitor to make. It could be downloading an ebook or clicking on “Learn More” about your product or service. You can set each individual goal within GA in order to track how well your site is accomplishing it.
Why setup goals?
By tracking goals, you’ll get a much clearer picture of which aspects of your website are bringing in the dollars and which aspects need to be improved. After tracking your goals, you will be able to identify common patterns of behaviour which lends you credible insight into what works and what doesn’t.
A model that’s useful for setting goals is the ACE model which stands for Aware, Complete, Engage. As long as the goals that you set cover these spectrums, you’re on the right track. In terms of types of goals, there are various ones that you can set including Destination Goals (where people land up on your website), Duration Goals (how long people spend on your website), Pages per Session Goals (how many pages of your website do people visit), Event Goals (identify a specific event as a point of conversion) and Ecommerce (a report that allows you to analyse purchase activity on your site or app). It’s important to track these goals as it each website page will have its own call to action and knowing which pages are triggering the most actions is key to improving in the future.
Analysing Reports
An analysis framework you can follow is QIA which stands for Question, Information and Action.
a) Question — This is where you find the story. When crafting your question, think about what you’re really trying to uncover.
b) Information — What information do you come across that answers the questions to your story? Look at the relationship between the numbers, and not the number alone. Looking at a number alone is not indicative enough of the outcome.
c) Action — Here’s the part that matters most. What action will you take once you get your answers? Knowing the action makes analysis easier.
In conclusion, never go into GA unarmed. The QIA frameworks gives you a purpose, so make use of that purpose.
