Google
Analytics is a free web analytics tool that provides insight into website
performance through measurement of multiple metrics. Google Analytics data can be segmented into
four groups; audience, content, conversions, and traffic sources. Each group provides valuable, actionable data
to improve site performance. We will
examine each group and the reports available in more detail.
Audience
Audience
data measures unique variables about the visitors to a website. Some of the most important metrics in this
section include visits, unique visitors, pages per visit, average visit
duration, and percentage of new visits.
These metrics can shed light on the level of engagement users are having
with a site. For example, pages per
visit measures how many pages on average are being viewed during a visitor’s
session. If this number is increasing
over time, users are viewing more content on the site. If this number is decreasing, then users are
not exploring multiple pages and ways to increase engagement should be
explored.
The
percentage of new visitors is also a useful metric, identifying new visitors
compared to returning ones. Measuring
the number of returning visitors shows how much loyalty users have to the
site. Reports can also show other
dimensions segmented by new or returning visitors, such as pages per visit and
average visit duration. This data could
show whether returning visitors spend more time or view more pages than new
visitors. If returning visitors do have
higher engagement, then focus should be on converting new visitors into
returning visitors.
Lastly,
the audience segment includes a breakdown of the technology used to get to the
site. Visits can be segmented by
browser, device, and network. This
information can be used to test how the website looks on each browser to ensure
the user experience is as good as possible.
Device data can be used in multiple ways. For example, when deciding to create a mobile
site or application, data on which pages are accessed the most on mobile
devices can be a great starting point for the content that should be included. Also, if the majority of mobile traffic comes
from iPhones, an iPhone application should be created with priority over the
Android platform.
Traffic
Sources
The traffic
sources section provides useful information about how users arrive at the
site. Google Analytics has a great
feature that displays a pie chart outlining where traffic came from bucketed
into search traffic, referral traffic, direct traffic, and campaigns (or paid)
traffic. Then one can drill down to
learn more specifics about each bucket.
For example, drilling down into search traffic will display the
percentage of organic versus paid, as well as the keywords searched. This data can help SEO efforts or be used to evaluate
how well paid search is performing.
Drilling
down into referrals can help users understand what other sites are driving
traffic to a site, including social. The
referral report can identify where users are sharing the site link on Facebook
or blogs, and how many people are visiting from those sources.
The
campaign traffic section pulls together any paid advertising a company is
running. It can track how display,
video, mobile, or social advertising is driving traffic to the site. In looking at all the traffic source reports,
Kaushik (2013) states “you quickly end up with a robust understanding of all
the things the company is doing and a detailed understanding of paid and
organic search performance” (para. 17).
Content
Content
is one of the most insightful sections for understanding what pages are
performing well and which ones need some improvement. In this section, each page can be analyzed by
the number of visits, pages per visit, average visit duration, and bounce
rate. One useful way to use these
metrics is through the landing page report.
This report shows the top landing pages that users enter on a site. Kaushik (2013) recommends starting by looking
at the top 20 landing pages and analyzing bounce rate. Specifically, the pages with highest bounce
rate means the users came in on that page and left before exploring other
pages. Reasons for high bounce rate can
include missing calls to action, broken links, or not enough content. This is an easy place to see where
optimizations should be made.
The
content reports can also identify which content has the most pageviews and
which pages users are spending the most time.
Using these insights, a company can focus on creating similar content to
the best performing pages. Another
metric under the content section is site speed, which can identify pages that
are not loading quickly and could have a negative effect on visits and
engagement.
Conversions
The
conversion section is one of the most important sections for measuring
performance. Goals can be set up in
Google Analytics to track specific actions that a company wants users to take on
the site. These actions can include
downloads, sign-ups, or registrations.
Goal reports can be very effective at tracking return on
investment. Once goals are set up,
reports can show the actions leading up to a goal, number of completed goals,
and the value of those conversions. One
metric that is often used as a key performance indicator with conversions is
conversion rate. Google Analytics makes
it easy to view conversion rates across goals and can depict trends over
time.
Another
report that can help identify how users convert is the conversion funnel
report. This report can show the steps a
user takes leading up to a goal. Through
this report, a company can identify where drop off occurs in purchases or
conversions. Not only can the pages
leading up to the conversion be reported, but also the traffic sources. Knowing that paid search visitors have a
higher conversion rate than social referrals can help determine where budget
should be applied to increase return on investment.
Overall,
Google Analytics provides mountains of data, everything from visitor locations
to highest visited pages to where quality traffic originates. While there are at least 80 standard reports
to view this data, Google Analytics also offers custom reports (Maisner,
2013). Custom reports are a valuable way
to analyze dimensions and metrics that are specifically relevant to a
business. Since goals, conversions, and
KPIs are unique for each company, the custom report feature is a necessity to
successfully analyze performance metrics.
References
Kaushik, A. (2013, January 2). Google Analytics
tips: 10 data analysis strategies that pay off big. Occam’s Razor [Blog]. Retrieved
on June 23, 2013 from http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/google-analytics-tips-data-analysis-reports/
Maisner, R. (2013, May 23). 9 downloadable custom Google
Analytics reports. iMedia Connection. Retrieved on June 24, 2013 from http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/33968.asp
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