You cannot get away with NOT reporting on your work, whether you are an agency or in house, someone wants to know if they gave you some cash, what did they get for it! So, you venture into your Google Analytics and may find yourself scratching your head when the numbers just don’t add up, make sense, or are just plain missing. There are a few reasons why this may be the case. This talk was for InOrbit where Jill ventured into the promised land of GA, and the kinks and quirks that come with it, as well as some mistakes you may have in your setup that you may want to get fixed.

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WHEN THE NUMBERS JUST DON’T ADD UP.
KINKS AND QUICKS IN GOOGLE ANALYTICS

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@ColoringIn
WHO IS
JILL QUICK
@jillquick
linkedin.com/in/jillquick01
jill@thecoloringindepartment.com
thecoloringindepartment.com
© THE COLORING IN DEPARTMENT 2018
@ColoringIn

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WHAT WE’LL GO THROUGH IN THE NEXT 30 MIN
Account Structure
Missing Data
Data Discrepancy
Segments
FOUR THEMES

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ACCOUNT STRUCTURE

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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

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@ColoringIn
©
Think of your account level settings as the
roof to your house. It is where you will group
your websites and apps. They will live ‘under
your roof’. Anything you do at Account level
affects the whole house. You will be assigned
an account number eg UA - 12345
Account Level aka
‘The Roof’
Think of your property level as the floor in your house. Your
floor can be your website or your app. At property level, you
will get given your tracking ID which is linked to the roof
(your account) eg UA-12345-1. You will add that tracking
code to your website or app and Google Analytics will start
to independently collect data to that floor. Anything you do
at Property level affects your View (windows).
Property Level aka
‘The Floor’
Think of your View level as the windows to
your floor. By default you get 1 window for
your floor. At view level, you can determine
the specific data you want to see for your
property, aka floor. So you are looking through
the window to see what your website or app
visitors are doing on your floor.
View Level aka
‘Windows’
You determine what you see when you
look through the windows by applying
filters to the view. Think of filters as
dressing your windows with drapes and
blinds which change how you see the data
from your floor.
Filter Level aka
‘Drapes & Blinds”
UA-1234
UA-1234-1
Reporting View 6782672
Exclude traffic from
office IP
HOUSE MODEL©

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BASIC SITE
Basic Site
www.coloringindepartment.com
If you have a website on 1 domain you would
have an account, property and 3 views.
So 1 roof UA 12345, 1 floor UA 12345-1, and 3
windows (test, raw, reporting)
UA 12345
UA 12345-1

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MULTIPLE BRANDS
Company with Multiple Brands
www.coloringindepartment.com
www.coloringincon.com
www.coloringinapp.com
If you have a company and you own several
businesses that all have their own unique
domains, visitors to one website are tracked
separately to another.
UA-12345-1
UA-12345-2
UA-12345-3
UA 12345
UA 12345-1
UA 12345-2
UA 12345-3

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@ColoringIn
MIX OF DOMAINS - ONE CUSTOMER ECO SYSTEM
UA 12345
www.coloringindepartment.com
shop.coloringindepartment.com
account.coloringindepartment.com
UA 12345-1
Multi Domain Website
www.coloringindepartment.com
shop.coloringindepartment.com
account.coloringindepartment.com
If you have a company and you have several domains for
the same user journey, then you need to use cross domain
tracking. So, instead of having several floors where you
wouldn’t see the customer journey or be able to create
goals etc, you use the tracking code for 1 property across
all websites. That way Google Analytics is thinking that all
domains are the same, from a tracking perspective.
UA-12345-1 ON ALL DOMAINS

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If you have an eco system where you need to see
what is going between each sub-domain(s)
domain, you need to setup cross domain tracking
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/
1034342?hl=en
CHECK POINT

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DATA DISCREPANCY

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GO HOME FILTERS, YOU ARE DRUNK

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EXCLUDE STAGING SITES

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TIPS TO FIND IT

15. FIX IT: FILTER OUT STAGING SITES ACROSS VIEWS
INSERT INSTRUCTOR NAME
TITLE, COMPANY
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16. INSERT INSTRUCTOR NAME
TITLE, COMPANY
INSERT
CLASS
TITLE© THE COLORING IN DEPARTMENT 2018
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PAGE VIEWS

17. INSERT INSTRUCTOR NAME
TITLE, COMPANY
INSERT
CLASS
TITLE© THE COLORING IN DEPARTMENT 2018
@ColoringIn
SITE SEARCH

18. INSERT INSTRUCTOR NAME
TITLE, COMPANY
INSERT
CLASS
TITLE© THE COLORING IN DEPARTMENT 2018
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FIND IT

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FRAGMENTED PAGE VIEW DATA

20. INSERT
CLASS
TITLE© THE COLORING IN DEPARTMENT 2018
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FIX IT

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THE FILTER APPLIES TO THE VIEW YOU ASSIGN IT TO

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BUT THE ORDER IMPACTS THE DATA

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Do a quick audit of your account and see what
filters you have.
Are you missing any ?
Do you need to change the view order?
Remember, filters work the day you apply them.
If you have some trashed data, post filter, build a
segment to exclude the data.
CHECK POINT

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MISSING USER DATA

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GDPR- YES THAT AGAIN

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AUG 1st 2016- AUG 31st 2016 :)

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JULY 1st - JULY 31st 2016.FML

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BACKED UP COPY (I AM NOT GOING CRAZY)

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DATE RANGE-INCLUDING GDPR DATE RANGE

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EVENT GOAL DATA - HURRAH!

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NO EVENT DATA - BALLS

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WITHIN DATA RETENTION SETTINGS- BACK TO NORMAL

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CUSTOM DASHBOARD (WITHIN DATA RETENTION)

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CUSTOM DASHBOARD (OUTSIDE DATA RETENTION)

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BYE BYE USERS AND EVENT DATA
(PAST RETENTION DATE)
Standard Reports add segments/ filters data gone
Custom Reports/ Dashboards most not aggregated data
User Explorer Report specific user reports
Flow Vis Reports event flow, goal flow, etc gone

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Check your property settings:
Admin > Property > Tracking Info > Data Retention
Obviously have your standard privacy policy in
place on your site.
CHECK POINT

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SEGMENTS

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SESSION SEGMENT
Session 1
The final session where
the users interacted with
site also includes the
final session that the user
converted
Hit!
USER SEGMENT
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
All the sessions that
belong to that user
Hit!
Hit!
Hit!
And the interactions
they had on the site

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@ColoringIn
USER SEGMENT
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
All the sessions that
belong to that user
Hit!
Hit!
Hit!
And the interactions
they had on the site

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@ColoringIn
SESSION SEGMENT
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
The final session where
the users interacted with
site also includes the
final session that the user
converted
Hit!
Hit!
Hit!

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@ColoringIn
SESSION SEGMENT
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
The final session where
the users interacted with
site also includes the
final session that the user
converted
Hit!
Hit!
Hit!
USER SEGMENT
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
All the sessions that
belong to that user
Hit!
Hit!
Hit!
And the interactions
they had on the site

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SYSTEM SEGMENTS

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SYSTEM SEGMENTS: MIX OF SESSION AND USERS

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Map out your segments and define if they need to
be session or user segments.
Keep a check on the system segments (they are a
mix of the two)
CHECK POINT

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@ColoringIn
Want a load of
templates to do this?
YEAH YA DO!
Go here:
https://thecoloringindepartment.com/
resources/