One of Service Network's series of smaller interactive workshops is ‘Engage: Understanding Google Analytics'. Presented by Marty Hayes of Venture Stream, the workshop is aimed at people who are responsible for their company's website and already have some understanding of search engine optimisation.

1. Understanding
Google Analytics
Service Network 03.10.2013
Marty Hayes, Digital Director, Venture Stream
marty@venturestream.co.uk
www.venturestream.co.uk

2. A Little About Me…
• Present - Digital Director @ Venture Stream
• Past – Online Marketing Consultant @ Mediaworks
• Past – Ecommerce Manager @ Fashion Union
• Past – Website Manager @ Berghaus
• Past – Digital Marketing Executive @ Ethical Superstore

3. A Little About Venture Stream…
• Founded in 2012
• Based – Westgate Rd, Newcastle
• Vic Morgan – Founder & MD
 Extensive e-commerce and digital
experience as entrepreneur and
consultant in the US and UK.
• Marty Hayes – Digital Director
 Managerial experience in digital
marketing consulting with Mediaworks
and client-side at Fashion
Union, Berghaus, and
Ethicalsuperstore.com.
• Ecommerce & digital marketing
services
 Innovation & design
 User Experience, Design, Development
 Digital Marketing
 SEO, PPC, Analytics, CRO, Training
 Strategy & Leadership
 Outsourced ecommerce / digital leadership
• Digital Ventures
 Focussed on m-commerce & emerging
trends
 Partnerships with clients &
entrepreneurs
 Shopulous

4. What We Will Cover
• Standard Reports
 Date Ranges
 Dashboards
 Real Time
 Audience
 Traffic Sources
 Content
 Conversions
• Admin
 View Settings
 User Management
 Goals
 Filters
• Advanced
 Custom Reporting
 Sharing Reports
 Tracking Online Marketing
Campaigns
 Event Tracking

5. Before All That….
• Think about your site
• Think about your audience
• Relate this info to your business
• Interrupt me – ask questions – make it about you
• Reports do not solve anything – use them as the
foundations for action

6. Standard Reports

7. Date Ranges

8. Date Ranges
• The starting point for all analysis and reporting
• The larger the date range the more data reported:
 Easier to spot trends in data
 Able to reach more logical conclusions, without knee-jerk reactions to anomalies
 Provides a more solid case for a strong hypothesis
• Be sure to choose an appropriate date range for your analysis
 Daily
 Weekly
 Monthly
 Quarterly
 Yearly
 Comparative

9. • The date configurator is consistently located in the top right of the screen:
• Click on the arrow to see your Date Range options:
• Choose from
 Custom
 Today
 Yesterday
 Last week
 Last month
• Compare to
 Custom
 Previous period
 Previous year
Editing Date Ranges

10. Dashboards

11. Dashboards
• Custom Dashboards allow you to view metrics at a glance and tailor
the view to meet your own needs
• Allows for quick progress updates with most important metrics
• Reduces time spent on data collection, allowing you to spend more
time on the impactful, actionable insight
• Dashboards can be used to empower and give control to teams

12. 10 Dashboard Examples
• Content impact dashboard
• Content marketing dashboard
• Blogger dashboard
• Visitor data dashboard
• Site performance dashboard
• E-commerce dashboard
• Mobile commerce dashboard
• Social media dashboard
• SEO dashboard
• PPC dashboard
• Resources:
 http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/62828-10-useful-google-analytics-custom-dashboards
 http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/63372-10-useful-custom-google-analytics-reports-and-
dashboards-for-publishers

13. Real Time

14. Real Time
• Real Time Analytics is just that! Gives you access to analytics at real time.
• Overview
 Active Visitors
 Top Referrals
 Top Social Traffic
 Top Keywords
 Top Active Pages
 Top Locations
• Great for monitoring impact of a timely campaign (email etc.)

15. Audience

16. Audience
• Demographics
 Language
 Watch out for skews in the data caused by ‘browser’ language (Firefox, Chrome = US)
 Location
• Behaviour
 New vs. Returning
 Useful to compare user type and metric
 Better to use segments to apply user type to other areas of analytics
 Frequency & Recency
 Gauge how loyal your audience is
 How often do your visitors visit your site?
 Engagement
 See how ‘sticky’ your content is

17. Audience
• Technology
 Determine any potential technological bottlenecks or issues on your site
 Use the browser report to see if your site has browser compatibility issues
 How do bounce rates compare across devices?
 How do e-commerce conversion rates differ from device to device?

18. Mobile & Tablet

19. Mobile & Tablet
• Google has predicted that mobile search will overtake desktop in the next
few years
• Rapid growth in searches from mobiles and tablets over the last 12-18
months
• Now accounts for approx. 30% of site traffic in the UK
• How well does your site perform on mobiles & tablets?
 Traffic
 Conversions
• How do mobile & tablet visitors differ from desktop?
 Intent
 Local
 Information

20. Traffic Sources

21. Traffic Sources
• Sources
 See how people found your site – visits, bounce rate, exit, time on site, revenue,
conversion etc.
• Direct Traffic
 People who already know you – loyal
• Referral Traffic
 People who have come from another site – affiliates
• Organic Traffic
 Impact of SEO – segment to see ‘brand’ vs. ‘non-brand’
 Landing page relevancy, low vs. high converting keywords
 Keyword length – importance of longtail traffic
 (Not Provided)

22. Traffic Sources
• Paid Traffic
 PPC campaigns
• Campaigns
 Email marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
 Reports require link with Google Webmaster Tools
 Can show query data and rankings in Google Analytics
• Social
 The social relationship
 The value of social media marketing

23. Content

24. Content
• See how your visitors interact with your site
 Identify poor performing areas
 Explore opportunities
• Site Content
 View key metrics for each page – pageviews, time on page, bounce rate, exit rate
• Landing Pages
 How well do your key landing pages perform
 Is the content relevant to the search?
 Bounce Rate, Conversion Rate – segment by source
• Exit Pages
 Identify issues on-site – why are people leaving from particular pages?
 Could be a good thing – have they found what they were looking for?

25. Content
• Site Speed
 Page load speed affects organic search performance
 Page load speed affects the user experience
 Identify and fix issues with Speed Suggestions report
• Site Search
 Incredibly powerful data locked away in site search reports
 See how your audience searches for things relevant to you
 Use data to inform content strategy, merchandising, information architecture etc.
• In Page Analytics
 See what % of people click on each link on any page of your site
 To be used with caution – counts links, not elements
 A category could appear in the main menu and the footer – the stats shown count for clicks
through to the relevant link – does not tell you which link was clicked

26. Conversions

27. Conversions
• Where the magic happens…. Or doesn’t!
• Goal Set-up

28. Conversions
• Funnel Visualization
 Identify bottlenecks
 See where potential conversions
are being lost
 Identify abandonment rate, as
well as conversion rate
• Ecommerce
 Conversion Rate
 Transactions
 Revenue
 Average Value
 Product Performance
 Sales Performance
 Time to Purchase

29. Conversions
• Multi-Channel Funnels
 Allows for a holistic view of marketing
efforts
 See how users interact with different
sources, mediums etc.
 See the path people take from first
interaction to last interaction
• Multi-Touch Segmentation
 Delve deeper into attribution modelling

30. Admin

31. View Settings

32. View Settings
• Specify name of profile
• Specify Website URL
• Specify Time Zone Country
• Ensure that Ecommerce tracking in on (if relevant)
• Ensure Site Search tracking is on (if relevant)
 Include query parameter

33. User Management

34. User Management
• Add users to an account
• Apply permissions at the account, property or profile level
 Manage Users
 Edit
 Collaborate
 Read & Analyze

35. Filters

36. Filters
• Apply Filters to view
• You can exclude traffic from
particular IP addresses
• Most common use is to
exclude data from the IP
address of the business to
avoid bloated figures and
inaccurate reporting

37. Advanced

38. Custom Reporting

39. Custom Reporting
• If the standard suite of reports, segments, and filters is not enough for you,
take a look at Custom Reporting
• Create your own bespoke reports
• Include Metrics
 Time on Page, Visitors etc.
• Include Dimensions
 Landing Page, Source etc.
• Can also include Filters
• Most reporting needs will be covered in the standard suite

40. Sharing Reports

41. Sharing Reports
• Email Reports
 Send attachments of report export
 Daily
 Weekly
 Monthly
 Quarterly
• Useful for top level figures and reporting up / sharing key info
• Export Reports
 Export to CSV, PDF etc.
 Allows for further manipulation of data
 Good for bringing in other data sources

42. Tracking Campaigns

43. Tracking Campaigns
• Track all online / offline campaigns using Google’s URL Builder
• Appends key info to normal URL
• Allows data to pour in to Analytics, showing Campaign Source, Campaign
Medium and Campaign Name
• Best used in Email Marketing and Online Advertising

44. Event Tracking

45. Event Tracking
• Track user interactions independently from a web page or screen load
• Requires an extra piece of code / development
• Examples of when to use Event Tracking
 Basic tracking of clicks / interactions
 External links
 Internal banners
 Sign-ups
 Downloads
 Mid-range tracking
 Video plays
 Social sharing interaction
 Advanced tracking
 Form completion progress
 Scroll reach

46. Summary

47. 5 Top Tips

48. 5 Top Tips
1. Log in!
2. Get into a rhythm – make it a habit
3. Have a purpose – don’t get lost
4. Identify your own key reports
5. Share – share reports, share knowledge

49. Any Questions?
Service Network 03.10.2013
Marty Hayes, Digital Director, Venture Stream
marty@venturestream.co.uk
www.venturestream.co.uk