Google Analytics Guide: Using GA To Evaluate Your Marketing and Improve Your Results

GOOGLE ANALYTICS GUIDE
Using GA to evaluate your marketing and improve your results

Authors: Dr Dave Chaffey and Hugh Gage
Using Google Analytics To Improve Online Marketing

Seven Steps to Success Guide
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking
Contents
Finding problems and opportunities
04 Introduction 07 Step 1. Setup and customisation 40 Step 2. Campaign tracking 48 Step 3. Working with reports to find opportunities and problems 54 Step 4. Understanding your site visitors 65 Step 5. Improving reach to drive quality traffic 77 Step 6. Improving journeys and site engagement 83 Step 7. How can we improve conversion?
Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.
Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Smart Insights (Marketing Intelligence) Limited. Please go to www.smartinsights.com to feedback or access our other guides.
Introduction
About this guide
Setup and customisation
Google Analytics is a fantastic tool from the moment you arrange to have the tracking code installed and you experience the thrill of your first reports appearing showing how real people are interacting with your online business. Most of this guide will show you how to take advantage of the standard features and reports, but to get the maximum from Google Analytics, we recommend you also arrange for some additional setup and configuration. This will help the reports fit your business better, so that you can review performance and really drive results. There are actually so many customisation options that you really need a strategy of what to customise, particularly if there are several team members using the account. Note: Unlike some books on Google Analytics, this guide has been updated to show reports from the new version of Google Analytics introduced as a Beta in 2011 and rolled out in 2012 as version 5. The old version became unavailable in July 2012. Google has made significant changes in 2013 which we cover in this guide. These are: 1. Update to Administration area affecting setup of profiles for different sites (Profiles are now known as Views). 2. Update to Advanced Segments including new reports. 3. Updates to menus changing reports to ABC format.
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
Why another guide on Google Analytics?

Well, because its different this isnt a simple guide on where to find the menus and reports. Instead, its a complete toolkit, a system for site owners and marketers who dont see themselves as analysts, but they have this nagging suspicion that they and their organisation should get much more from their Google Analytics. As we talk to site owners and marketers we find that although most users love Google Analytics, there is a feeling that its not used enough and many of the insights in its reports are being wasted. We think this is because there is limited guidance within the system. To use it to the max, you need to use it regularly so you know the right questions to ask and know where to find the answers. Were here to help you tap into the insight so you dont miss the opportunity by stepping you through the questions you should be asking and pointing you to where to find the relevant answer. This guide shows you how to get the most from Google Analytics out-of-the-box using the standard reports available in the latest update. Unlike most guides, were not going to focus on the setup, the config, the reports, metrics (although we cover those too :) ). Instead were going to start with what we think matters most to marketers how to use Google Analytics to help my business to perform better. 6
Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.
How is this guide structured?

Here are the highlights of each of the 7 Steps: Step 1. Setup and customisation we start our guide with a section reviewing setup of

a site since we find many companies fail to tailor it to their business. We also show you how to setup Google Analytics from scratch. Step 2. Campaign tracking understanding the effectiveness of your campaigns sending traffic to your site starts with tagging them right, here we show you how. Step 3. Working with reports to find opportunities and problems now we get down to the business of improving results showing you how to use the reports in a smarter way. Step 4. Understanding your site visitors marketing is all about understanding and meeting the needs of customers, so we show how you can understand your customer behaviours better. The final steps of the guide look at how you can review your analytics in depth to market better:
Campaign Tracking Setup and customisation
Step 5. Improving reach to drive quality traffic expanding your audience and driving more visitors and customers to your site. Step 6. Improving journeys and site engagement engaging visitors with content and getting them on the path to purchase. Step 7. How can we improve conversion? We look at techniques to boost conversion for all types of site.
Increasing Visitor Value the key to improving business success with Google Analytics
rr Q. Have we reviewed how we can create more business value? Before we get to the first step, wed like to introduce our approach to using Google Analytics. For us, you have to start with how youre using Google Analytics to improve results and we think this is all about value; you also have to be clear on your business goals and how you report performance. To deliver the best results you need to spend almost as much time analysing the continuous and changing needs of the sites stakeholders and how their performance is measured as you do the site itself. By clearly understanding the sites key stakeholders, what their requirements are and what motivates them you will be better equipped to translate those objectives into quantifiable metrics and, more importantly, into action to improve performance. We have more advice in our 7 Steps to Improving results for Digital Marketing Guide. Strategy Recommendation 1 Ensure you can measure the business value created in your online marketing through Google Analytics Google Analytics has measures of value generated for all types of visitor, but you have to work hard to find them. When starting out with Google Analytics or any other web analytics tool, one of the very first questions you should ask is how does our website and our digital marketing generate value for our business? Your whole digital marketing strategy should be based on this, so its a great place to start defining or reassessing your approach. Show me the value! should also be the mantra when creating actionable summaries and dashboards within Google Analytics or your monthly reports. Value is THE measure that our senior colleagues who fund the investment in analytics and digital marketing activities can relate to. They want to see a return on their investment so stand alone metrics like total visits, page views and bounce rates just wont cut it...

Ultimately what the CxOs such as CEOs, CMOs and financial controllers care most about is profit generated by online activities. This is more readily available in some analytics systems if you can import cost data about each transaction, but most will enable you to show revenue if configured correctly.
Where to find the value in Google Analytics. Which measures?

Whereas before it was only possible to import cost data for Google AdWords into Google Analytics, now its possible to import cost data from many other sources and as a result its possible to gather a fuller picture of return on your digital investment. This is a big improvement on the non-value related measures like visits, pageviews or conversion rate that are so often reported in dashboard summaries from analytics. Once youre reporting on value you can then start to find the value levers which referring traffic sources, pages and conversion pathways are generating value and which arent, and armed with that knowledge you can take action. The three key value measures within Google Analytics The three main value measures in Google Analytics (aside from AdWords generated value which uses cost data) are: 1. Page Value. This shows the influence of pages in generating value either through e-commerce transactions or conversion goals with a value assigned. Page value is available within the Top content reports. It shows you the influence of particular pages in generating value if they were part of the path to purchase on the site. So you will see that goal value pages or checkout pages always have the highest page value, but you can evaluate the relative influence of category or product pages within the journey too. Its calculated by summing e-commerce Revenue + Total Goal Value divided by the number of Unique Pageviews for a given page in a visitor session as explained in this post.1 2. Per Visit Goal Value. This is best for non-e-commerce sites which should have a value assigned to conversion goals as we will explain later. Once you have done this, you will then see the Total Goal Value for your reports. Its reported within the Traffic Sources reports for Referring sites, Search Engines and Keywords, so its useful for comparing the value generated by other sites and your search campaigns. NB Its a little hidden since you have to select the Goal Set tabs within these reports (under where it says Explorer):
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.
3. Per Visit Value. This is best if you have a transactional e-commerce site. You can see Per Visit Value measures within Traffic sources on the e-commerce tab if you have e-commerce tracking enabled. Because both of these are a little hidden, Id recommend surfacing them within custom reports which can also show variation in value generated across days or weeks a handy application of custom reports. You can then compare actual value to target value if you have 1 Google Analytics: Explanation of calculation of Page Value.
targets set. Best Practice Tip 1 Create custom reports showing value for regular campaign reporting You should regularly review value to see how well the site and campaigns are working for you. Use custom reports to make this more straightforward.

Step 1
rr Q. Have we reviewed our Google Analytics customisation?
You can certainly get a lot of value from reporting and analysis using the standard setup of Google Analytics and well show you how in this guide, but to really drive results for your business, youre much better off spending some time on customisation. Strategy Recommendation 2 Customise Google Analytics for your business Take time to review the customisation options so you can better understand user behaviour. In this section, we will step you through different customisation options. You can use this guide for first time setup or reviewing an existing setup. We have a separate customisation audit template you can use to review customisation or you can work through the checkboxes in this section. Weve seen lots of companies where there hasnt been any customisation that can give problems of accuracy or mean that time is wasted, for example: Not setting up on-site search so you dont know how many of your sites visitors are using the site search tool and what they are searching for. Not excluding employees so these numbers skew reports (a particular issue for small companies with relatively few visitors). Not recording details of documents downloaded which can be important for business-tobusiness sites. User interactions not recorded with interactive options like videos or application processed which dont involve a separate page being created.
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach
Automatic alerts not setup so time wasted looking for significant changes. Not setting up e-commerce tracking so that revenue data can be recorded on e-commerce sites to help more accurately evaluate ROI. With each passing month there are more customisation options available in Google Analytics, so we believe you really need a strategy of what to customise, particularly if there are several team members using the account. This section gives our recommendations on a customisation strategy based on consulting work I have done and typical usage of Google Analytics by attendees on training courses.
Improving journeys and site engagement
Understanding how Google Analytics can customise setup for different sites
Before we review the different customisation steps its useful to have an idea of how Google structures its information about digital marketing effectiveness. The diagram shows that its a tree-like structure: You can see that Views are where the action happens - this is where users will review marketing effectiveness, so its important to customise these Views to support the work of different people in a business.
Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Note: From Autumn 2013, Profiles are known as Views. 1. Analytics account. This is most often used for a single business, even if it has multiple websites. If the business has different sites for different countries or a blog, then these should be contained within the single account. Because Google Analytics is a free product theres really nothing stopping you from setting up different accounts for different country sites for a large business, however you will forfeit the option of retaining a rollup account tracking visitors to all sites in all countries, so this may only be practical for the very largest of blue chips who would normally be running a paid for enterprise tool anyway. You can think of Accounts as your Google Analytics representation at the organisation level. 2. Property. Within an account you can set up multiple properties. As you set up each property you will be given a tracking code to add to the property you want to track, generally these are likely to be individual sites or apps. You can think of Properties as your Google Analytics representation at the platform, regional or department level within your organisation. 3. View. Views were called Profiles until September 2013, were not sure this an improvement that was worth making, but... Views are specific to a property. They can be used to filter areas of content, regions, platform (mobile or desktop pages), etc. Most typically theyre used for reviewing the performance of what can be considered different sites based on the URL, e.g. a country site, blog or mobile site. It is always a good idea to have one View that has absolutely no filters applied to it whatsoever and a view for testing changes made to analytics. Best Practice Tip 1 Consider features setup for different groups of users at the View level Users are assigned access to Google Analytics reports and features at a profile level, so its worth planning the common features they need like Advanced Segments and Custom Alerts. Users are given access at all three of the above levels and different Google Analytics features are applied at this level, so its worth thinking through the options for different groups of users at each level. 4. Filter. Filters are available at the Account and View levels and serve as a mechanism to control what data is collected in a View or how data is output in a View. They can be applied to include or exclude data to a single profile or multiple profiles as shown in the diagram above. The most common uses of filters are to:
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

exclude employee site access from statistics; limit data reported to part of a site, such as a subfolder for a blog or product category; add information about the domain name to reports when the same tracking code is used across several sites which will make it difficult to distinguish between pages with common names on different profiles.
Here is a summary of the most common ways you will use Admin features to customise Google Analytics:
Account
Scope Typically one company with one or more web properties.
Main customisation available Time zone. Data sharing. Account id has common 8 digits X UA-XXXXXXXX-Y plus each web property is unique because of additional id.
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities
Property
Different properties for different web entities such as regional sites and mobile apps. Each web property has one or more profiles.
Tracking code is applied at this level Remarketing lists are also setup at this level.
Understanding your visitors
View
Different report scope, typically for different content areas or data output options in Google Analytics.
Goals, funnels, on-site search are setup at this level. User customisations like Advanced Segments, Annotations and Custom Alerts are applied at this level.
Improving reach
Filter
Include or exclude certain types of traffic to one or more profile.
Include information for single site or part of site. Exclude employees.
Best Practice Tip 1 Use change tracking to review updates to your setup It is also worth noting that there is a change tracking feature available at this level that records what changes were made to the account at any level and when. So, thats our overview of the way Google reports information for different parts of the site. Now lets look at the different customisation or setup steps we recommend.
Step 1. Create new account/review account settings

rr Q. Have we set or reviewed the time zone and data sharing settings for the account? Account creation is relatively straightforward if you have a single site or a limited number of

sites operating in a single country. But you should pause for thought at this point if you are using Google AdWords. In the unlikely situation that you are not using Google Analytics with AdWords its best to create your Google Analytics account through Google AdWords so that tracking is linked. To create an account, simply click the + New Account button from the Account Administration Screen which you access using the cog button top right. Strategy Recommendation 3 Ensure your Google Analytics account is linked to Google AdWords correctly If youre using Google AdWords, it makes sense to create your Analytics account within Google AdWords account administration to link tracking. Note that Google Analytics inherits time zone settings from AdWords, so make sure those are set to your time zone. This is how you add a new account. 1
If you want to review an account that has already been setup, view the Account Settings to
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change the Account Name and Data Sharing settings. 1. Account name. The Account name will typically cover one or more sites for a business, so enter the main brand name or business name to describe this. 2. Property details. The website name and URL should be for your main site, e.g. http://www. domain.com. You will add other details for viewing results from other sites such as country sites or blogs later. 3. Time zone. Its important to select your local time zone for meaningful tracking of response through the day. As noted above, if your account is linked to Google AdWords this time zone will be used. You can also change this for each web property within your account. 4. Data sharing settings. We recommend that you select these options. Although it may suggest all data is shared, your site wont enable others to directly compare to your site its anonymous, meaning that the data is shared with other similar types of site within the sector. Note. In 2012 Google withdrew benchmarking, but with a promise it may return. It is also worth noting that there is a change tracking feature available that records what changes were made to the account at any level and when.
Step 2. Add tracking code to pages

rr Q. Has a tracking code been added (including domains and sub-domains if appropriate)? Google Analytics prompts you with the relevant tracking code to add to pages after you have created a new account. If youre using a content management or blogging system, its usually straightforward to include the identical tracking code in all page templates used on the site. However, its important to note at this point, that there are two main versions of the Google Analytics tracking code you can see in the account setup screen above: rr 1. The new version for Universal Analytics2. rr 2. The classic version which can be Asynchonous (faster loading) or an original version.
Understanding your visitors Improving reach
Best Practice Tip 2 Review current use of tracking code and select appropriate version Universal Analytics is the future direction of Google Analytics, so we recommend using this on all new sites. For existing sites running standard Google Analytics Classic code we recommend the faster loading, more accurate asynchronous code and running this in parallel with Universal Analytics. Google have announced that Google Classic Analytics will be retired in future. What is it? Universal Analytics A new version of Googles tracking code introduced in 2012 which enables new features including: Import of data, e.g. sales data from offline and other online services using the Measurement Protocol to import data Tracking across devices types, e.g. mobile and desktop for logged in users Customised dimensions and metrics similar to custom variables in Classic Analytics If you have an existing site tracked with the Classic Analytics code, check you are using Asynchronous tracking code was introduced in 2010 to enable faster page loading and 2 Smart Insights review: Universal Analytics vs Classic Analytics
Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.
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more accurate measurement of page loads. If youre not using this, you should upgrade your site to this for page download speed improvements as recommended in the Google site migration guide. Googles Tag Manager Google launched a free tag manager tool in 2012 that aims to simplify the process of adding and updating tracking code to a site. What is it? Google Tag Manager In common with other tag management systems The Tag Manager uses whats known as a Container tag to which tracking from different systems can be added without the need to ask developers to update the tracking on site. Tags can be added to specific sections or pages individually.
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities
The Tag Manager has particular benefits for large sites analysing complex campaigns in different markets, but it is not required for a small business site. As Chris Soames explained in our post when we launched it... If most of your visits are currently referred by direct visits plus paid or natural search, social or email marketing its likely overkill and the basic Google Analytics tag setup is sufficient to track and report these through Google Analytics. For larger companies and their agencies managing complex sites using a range of media investments to drive visits it could save a LOT of time (and expense from using paid tag management solutions). This general rule of thumb holds true, although dynamic startups like Smart Insights may prefer to Where to place the tracking code Before asynchronous tracking was introduced, Google advised entering tracking code at the foot of the page. Now it is recommend that you include it at the top of page. Best Practice Tip 3 Insert tracking code at the top of the web page If youre using asynchronous tracking or Universal Analytics, then this tracking code should be before the end of the </head> section of code. You can also review your recommended tracking code on the Advanced tab of the Account Name settings page:
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Special case 1 for tracking code: if your site contains multiple domains or sub-domains You can see from the screen and examples above, that if you have a single domain site then this is straightforward since there is a simple version of the tracking code. If you have multiple domains or sub-domains, then this is a special case for which additional lines of code will be added to the tracking script when the relevant sections are made: Strategy Recommendation 4 You need a special version of tracking code if you use sub-domains or multiple top-level domains Check that if you have different sites that the correct versions of the tracking code are used. If you have multiple top-level domains that you want to share data for, its important to change the hyperlinks between sites and also add a filter to identify the separate domains for the case when file names are the same. Note that the new Universal Analytics removes the need for additional tracking code for sub-domains.
Improving reach Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
For one domain with multiple sub-domains, this line is added to the code: _gaq.push([_setDomainName, none]); and for multiple top-level domains (and sub-domains): _gaq.push([_setDomainName, none]); _gaq.push([_setAllowLinker, true]); NB. In this second case, you also have to changes links between sites and create a filter to show domain names this is particularly important where pages such as the home page have the same name otherwise they will all be grouped together. Special case 2 for tracking code: e-commerce tracking The reports summarising e-commerce transactions and revenue within Google Analytics require inclusion of additional tracking code on the checkout completion page specifying order and product information. Since this is a major step, but not relevant to all types of site, we describe this in a separate step Step 9.
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Special case 3 for tracking code: custom variables Custom variables is an advanced feature which can be used to store information about the type of visitors. We cover them in Step 10.
Step 3. Create views

rr Q. Have the views been reviewed? AGoogle Analytics viewwill typically be used to produce reports limited to an individual site, sub-domain or sub-folder. To create new profiles you have to click on the Views dropdown and select Create new View.
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Setup and customisation
Since there is a risk of making errors within data it is good practice to have a master view to which no filters are applied. Best Practice Tip 4 Define common approaches for data integrity within each view Each property should have a master view which has no filters applied, a test view and a reporting view. For users who are assigned a profile to review marketing activity there are these common assets that can be shared between multiple users at View level: There is also a fourth type of asset, which is a Custom report, but these arent viewable within the Profile setup you have to select the custom report tab. Use of these assets should be reviewed in profile setup. Once a profile is created, there are additional optional setup stages including: Setting up on-site search tracking. Turning on e-commerce tracking. We will look at these as separate steps. First, we want to highlight the importance of creating
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filters to apply to the profile so that we are only collecting the data we need.
Step 4. Create and apply filters

rr Q. Have the filters been reviewed? AGoogle Analytics filteris applied to modify data from one or more profiles so that it shows a sub-set of data within the profile. This can be created as an include or exclude filter. See Google Analytics Help on Filters. The most common uses of filters are: to exclude site access statistics that are generated by employees and other external supplier stakeholders. to limit data reported to part of a site, such as a sub-folder for a blog or product category. to add a domain reveal filter which will result in information about the domain name being inserted into reports when the same tracking code is used across several sites which will make it difficult to distinguish between pages with common names on different profiles. 1. Excluding employees rr Q. Have we taken steps to exclude employees and other external supplier stakeholders? This configuration is relatively simple if you have a single office IP address. You dont want visitors from a company skewing the results, so these should be excluded unless you want to artificially boost your visitor numbers and have difficultly understanding visitor behaviour. Single IP address
Understanding your visitors Finding problems and opportunities Campaign Tracking Setup and customisation
Select Filter Manager. Select exclude all traffic from IP address as follows:
2. Range of IPs A filter can also be created to exclude a range of IP addresses for company employees and contractors working in different offices. Use the IP address tool and instructions here.3 3. Exclude by cookie 3 Google Analytics IP tool.
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Alternatively, if staff have a range of IP addresses or dynamic IP addresses when working out of the office, then setting a custom variable on a page used by staff only (e.g. Intranet home page or login page) can be used to update a cookie to filter staff out. Both strategies are explained below:
Google Analytics Help Excluding internal traffic / Employees
Step 5. Setup goals and funnels

rr Q. Have goals and funnels been setup to track business contribution? Well look at Google Analytics setup separately for transactional e-commerce sites and other types of sites which dont have a checkout or application process. This is a detailed section since its so important to get this right. Its possible to define up to 20 goals in 4 groups.
Campaign Tracking
Goal-tracking for e-commerce sites If youre running an e-commerce site, then the tracking of sales transactions in Google Analytics is almost always setup by the e-commerce provider, although there are often teething problems with accuracy or managing international sites. If you need to know about e-commerce tracking this is the relevant GA help page or feel free to ask questions online. For an e-commerce site, your main site goal is simple, its to achieve a sale registered through the checkout completion page. But thats only the end of the funnel process, so you also need goals for other points in the funnel, for example: Category/list pages. Browse products. Search products. Add-to-basket. Start checkout. Individual checkout steps. These are sometimes known as micro-conversion steps. What is it? Micro-conversion An intermediate step on the path to purchase. Through improving micro-conversion rates we increase overall conversion rates. This graphic shows steps at different levels in the funnel:
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Strategy Recommendation 5 Set up goals for the full funnel It should be possible to view the top of the funnel, i.e. what proportion of visitors view category, product and search pages as well as the more obvious bottom of the funnel, i.e. add to basket/cart and checkout.
In previous version of Classic Analytics it was possible to structure your goals clearly in different groups to show different parts of the funnel as with this example:
Structuring of goals in this way is not practical within the new analytics since new goals are added in sequence and automatically applied to groups. However, it is possible to add some structure through custom reports to create horizontal visualisation of funnels. Best Practice Tip 5 Use a custom report to review funnel steps horizontally A custom report can be created where you each funnel step as a column with each row showing how many in each funnel step for a week or month or different traffic sources.
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Goal-tracking for non-e-commerce sites

For non-e-commerce sites its more difficult to think of different goal types. So often we see that theyre not setup when we review client accounts. However, a goal is simply a record of a page you specify being viewed or a button being clicked which shows that a visitor has engaged with your website showing interest in your products and services.
In the examples below you will see that goals can and should be set for all types of site, including non-e-commerce sites. Tick off and then set up the ones which apply to you but that you dont already have set up. Strategy Recommendation 6 Goals should be setup for all site types Visits to page types which indicate a visitor has engaged with your site (or brand) and progressed along the path to purchase should be setup for all types of site.
Campaign Tracking
Q. Why do I need to setup goals in Google Analytics?

All sites should have some kind of measurable purpose or outcome; in most cases goals are used to track these outcomes. We often find that goals arent set up in Google Analytics because they require some configuration. Because of this some time will need to be invested to set them up and get them working. How do you justify this? Setting up goals in Google Analytics is indispensable for any business looking to get the most from their digital marketing because with them you can: Go beyond measuring visits and start measuring events on the site that show how, and the degree to which, customers have engaged with your business. Track the value that the site is generating for your business via these events. See which traffic sources youve invested marketing in give rise to these goals. Review which content types and customer journeys on the site are helping achieve the goals.
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
Q. Which types of goals can we use?

Different goal types to consider, as shown in the example above, are prompted by these questions: Q. Do we have goals for lead-generation and email communications? rr Q. Contact Us or phone call-back thank you page goal? rr Q. Lead-generation thank you page goal? rr Q. Goals for content marketing pages which generate leads, e.g. whitepapers, guides? Q. Do we have site engagement goals? rr Q. Time on site engagement goals? rr Q. Pages viewed engagement goals? These is a special class of Google Analytics goal where you can set hurdle rates for engagement. Best Practice Tip 6 Set hurdle rates for engagement Hurdle rates are the proportion of customers or prospects that fall within a particular level of activity. For example, the percentage of members of an e-mail list that click on the e-mail within a 90-day period, or the number of customers that have made a second purchase.
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Q. Do we have top of funnel product engagement goals? If you can encourage site visitors to view product-related pages theyre closer to buying, so you should assess the success of the site in getting visitors to these types of goals: rr Q. Product search page viewed? rr Q. Category page viewed? rr Q. Product page viewed? How easy it is to set these up will depend upon the URL structure used as part of the sites specification. As an example, if product pages include /product_id or products they will be relatively easy to identify within a goal. Q. Do we have checkout process goals? The need for goals for checkout may be obvious but are often not setup since e-commerce sales can be tracked without goals being setup. But goals are essential to create a purchase funnel. rr Q. Add-to-basket goal? rr Q. Start checkout goal? rr Q. Intermediate steps as part of checkout process, e.g. credit card payment? rr Q. Checkout complete goal? For some types of goals where there isnt a separate web page Google Analytics Events4 or virtual page views need to be setup and goals can be assigned to these. More details, if you need them, in Step 6. Q. Do we have social engagement or participation goals? Encouraging participation helps develop social proof to new visitors that youre a credible brand to do business with. Goals in this category to set or track include: rr Blog comments. rr Product comments, reviews and ratings. rr Favouriting or sharing of pages through social bookmarking. rr Sharing content or linking through to social presence like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Q. Do we have content engagement goals? Video is a powerful tool that is increasingly being used to support the sales and marketing message. Event tracking can be used to measure interaction with key areas of content such as video. Goals can also be set up to track events which in turn may be set up to track interaction with video content such as Start, Stop or Pause a video which has a bespoke player. Q. Have we included offline events? rr Q. Have offline events been included? Up to this point, we have reviewed online events. But dont forget value events such as sales generated by phone numbers. You should aim to track these through using unique phone numbers, perhaps for different parts of the site.
Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l. Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking
4 Smart Insights: Google Analytics Event tracking and Event Goals.

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Best Practice Tip 7 Track offline sales Remember to take into account telephone sales influenced by the website when assessing a sites contribution to a business. Q. Have we assigned value to our goals? rr Q. Has a value been assigned to goals? Once you have worked out which are the best goals for you, the next step is to assign a monetary value to them. As well see in the next section, if you set a value youll then be able to report the value your site is generating to your colleagues, even if its a non-commercial site! Youll also be able to compare how good your different traffic sources or pages are at generating value so you can boost the good value sources and fix the poor ones. Setting the precise value is difficult, but its not that important for comparing relative value. The best way to set a value is to work back from a business event which you can put a value on. For example, if youre looking to set a value for Add-to-Basket, you know that the average order value is 100 and that if conversion from Add-to-Basket to Sale is 10 percent, then you would set the Add-to-Basket conversion goal at 10. Similarly, if youre setting a value event for a lead such as a brochure or PDF download and you know the value of each lead on average is 100, then set this at that level. If youre not sure what value to set, as with an enewsletter signup, then we recommend setting it to a nominal value of 1 if you want to include that in a value calculation, but you may not in this case since you cant really attribute it to business value. Customisation instructions assigning value to your conversion goals To assign value to conversion goals you should again go to Analytics Settings and then assign the value. Relevant Google Analytics Help page: GA Help page. 1
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
Worked example of goal setup for a Google Analytics page

Lets bring all these ideas together with an example. Lets take the example of a brochure download. Here you simply specify the thank you page address, give the goal a name and your goal is set up. Many will do this, but often not set a value against it based on the conversion of brochure downloaders to sale and average order value. How to setup goals the right way Weve seen many cases when goals arent setup the right way, although the form is quite straightforward. Here are the three steps for goal setup we recommend and our tips of the common traps to avoid.
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1 First Step. Enter Goal information. Goal name. Straightforward, but be as explicit as possible to make it obvious to others what it refers to, so dont make it too short. Goal Type. This will usually be the default of the Destination like the thank you page after the page has been downloaded. It may also be an Event goal as explained previously or you can set a goal as a level of engagement which might be used by a publisher or community manager. Goal Activation. When you create a goal it will automatically be set to the ON position, i.e. it will automatically be activated. Second Step. Goal details. This is where it starts getting tricky and where mistakes are commonly made, so think this through carefully. Here are some of the fields to pay particular attention to on the goal setup form: Destination: Equal to/Begins with/Regular expression (formerly Match Type). This tells Google Analytics to record a goal for a condition when the page viewed by the site visitor matches your goal URL. Several options are available here to give you flexibility to match a single URL which is most common for a thank you page after a form submission or a range of pages such as product pages. Generally, you are best to avoid the Equal to / Exact match option since this could exclude pages, for example with additional tracking parameters in the URL query string to a landing page. Instead, use Begins with, a head match which will include the first part of a URL and page name, but if there are other parameters such as ?campaign_id=email then the page will still be included. Remember that, confusingly, the match type also applies to the URLs you use in funnel steps so it is a good idea to think in advance about what URLs you will want to include in these steps and make sure they will all work with the match type you have selected. Goal URL. For a thank you page this will simply be the web address of the landing page. If you want to include several pages within a head match, it could be the first part of the URL, for example, /category-pages - you dont include the domain name. Including a trailing slash page/ can exclude URLs without a trailing slash, so its best not to include this to capture all goals. Case Sensitive. Generally it is best to avoid the case sensitive option since this may exclude some pages. Goal Value. This is often not set, but as we have explained, its best to apply it for major goals such as leads from brochure downloads since it will give you an idea of the differences in value generated through different traffic sources (via the Goal Value per Visit metric) and different page types (via the $Index value metric). Ideally, you should base the value on a known calculation of conversion rate from lead to sale with an average order value. Even if this isnt possible, setting a lead goal to an arbitrary value of 10 can be useful to understand value. Setting the precise value is difficult, but its not that important for comparing relative value. The best way to set a value is to work back
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.
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from a business event which you can put a value on. For example, if youre looking to set a value for Add-to-Basket, you know that the average order value is 100 and that if the conversion rate from Add-to-Basket to Sale is 10 percent, then you would set the Addto-Basket conversion goal at 10. Similarly, if youre setting a value event for a lead such as a brochure or PDF download and you know the value of each lead on average is 100, then set this at that level. If youre not sure what value to set, as with an enewsletter signup, then we recommend setting it to a nominal value of 1 if you want to include that in a value calculation, but you may not in this case since you cant really attribute it to business value. Third Step. Goal funnel Here you can enter a series of up to 20 steps to reflect the number of a steps in a conversion process such as checkout. If you have more than 20 steps you may as well give up and go home, but it does happen... In a brochure download, contact us or enewsletter signup page, this is relatively straightforward. You need to specify a single URL which is the signup form page, so simply specify this URL. The only complexity is the Required Step check box. This is usually left unchecked, but you can use it if you only want to show visitors that included this point in the funnel. It is most commonly used to make the first step in the funnel mandatory. But confusingly checking Required Step doesnt affect the number of goals recorded, only when viewed in the funnel visualisation report will you see a volume of conversions that reflect the including of the mandatory step. Mistakes to watch out for Here is a summary of common mistakes to avoid: Gotchas 1. The match type for the page URL also applies to the funnel, so take care if using exact match. Gotchas 2. Not actually referencing for URL correctly, so start with /<page>. Gotchas 3. Including a trailing slash / can exclude URLs without a trailing slash, so its best not to include this to capture all goals. Gotchas 4. Missing/wrongly assigning goal value. You know were keen on assigning values to key goals. Gotchas 5. Required step may exclude some behaviour e.g. entry deeper into funnel and cause confusion in the funnel visualisation.
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
Step 6. Setup tracking for interactions and goals that dont involve a page view using event tracking, event goals and virtual page views
rr Q. Have the options been reviewed for monitoring interactions and goals that dont involve a page view? We have shown how goals are used to record outcomes where a completed action involves a page being viewed e.g. a brochure download form or checkout process. While this works fine for these types of interactions, there are other kinds of visitor interaction on a site where no page view is registered such as a button click or a checkout process where the page is refreshed at each step without a new page/URL being loaded. Other types of interaction are recorded through event tracking or virtual page views, both of these can be assigned to a goal.
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What is it? Event goals and virtual page views An example of where you could use an Event goal or virtual page view is where you have an add-to-basket button which, as its clicked on, refreshes the current page to show the item added to basket. This cant be recorded as a goal conventionally. Likewise if a visitor clicks on a button taking them to a separate transactional site, this can be recorded as a goal. The options are: 1. Event goals. An event is fired when a user clicks on a button and its assigned to a group with different levels of labelling as in this example for a click on a carousel button. 1
2. Virtual page views. Here, when the button is clicked, a specified page view is sent to the tracking service. Here the example is for the first step in a checkout process which doesnt have its own unique page view because of the way it has been implemented.
Best Practice Tip 8 Use event tracking or virtual page views to record Add-to-Basket Goals or social engagement Sometimes, and following best practice, sites are designed such that adding a product to a basket dynamically updates a basket showing the product added. Since no new page view is produced these cant be tracked as a goal unless a Google Analytics Event is generated which can then be tracked as an Event Goal. For this you will need to ask your e-commerce supplier, agency or IT team to setup event tracking. Alternatively you can assign a virtual page view to these pageless actions meaning that they can be tracked both in goals AND as steps in a conversion funnel. Strategy Recommendation 7 Review tracking of additional on-site user interactions that dont involve page views To truly understand user behaviour and the effectiveness of your communications on the site you have to record other significant user interactions. Check that you are using event tracking or virtual page views to do this. For example, we may have goals involving: A stage in an application process for which there is no corresponding page because the content on the existing page is simply refreshed. When an item is added to a shopping basket. Video or rich media interactions. PDF downloads or emails from mailto: links on pages. Outbound or external links. In fact, there are many more types of interaction its useful to measure: here is a checklist:
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Checklist tracking interactions and goals that dont involve a page view
Here we list 16 different interactions which you should consider measuring. They cover different types from blog to retail sites. Interaction with rich media rr 1. Video plays and duration.The original example in Google. A subtle benefit of creating events is that when you trigger an event within code the visit is no longer counted as a bounce, which is appropriate since the user has engaged. For example, a video on a landing page with traffic on AdWords its important to know if someone engages with the ad. rr 2. A carousel with different panels as often used on home pages. With event tracking, you now know which options are popular since you can fire an event when theyre viewed or the panel is clicked upon. This is especially important as we often see instances in which these carousels have been tracked using standard campaign tracking techniques that are normally used in tracking external referring traffic. This causes all kinds of issues from artificially high traffic level to artificially low conversion rates. Interaction with navigation rr 3. Identifying engagement with different navigation elements linking to the same page. While Googles Enhanced Link Attribution update to the In-Page Analytics report helps with this to some extent, by tracking key links separately using event tracking the level of available insight becomes much deeper because events can be used in customer segments which automatically expands the data universe that is available for analysis. rr 4. Tabbed navigation options. When a landing page has a tabbed widget event tracking needs to be used to measure the volume and nature of interactions with each tab. Response to call to action rr 5. Buttons and links v banners. For example, in our right sidebar we have a link to a partner site in different formats and through event tracking I know that the MPU format gets 70%+ of the links, so thats what I should optimise. Social sharing and user-generated content rr 6. Join a social network button. Our example at the start of the article. rr 7. Product or article star reviews or ratings. Register an event when these are clicked and add the product name or SKU to the event label. rr 8. Comments on a blog. Simple! rr 9. Document downloads. If you are offering Word or Powerpoint documents for download, for example. rr 10. PDF downloads.An important one for professional B2B sites offering many PDF downloads. Again you can write the item downloaded as a label for the event. rr 11. Mail To Links.Not so important for most, Ive grouped this here since often included in scripts to make it easier to track PDFs. Usually an additional script is required for tracking downloads and outbound links. This was originally implemented through generating additional or virtual page views, but care has to be taken that these dont contribute to the overall event title. Here are two of the best established options for recording these events.5 5 http://gaaddons.com, Advanced Web Metrics - tracking downloads and outbound links.
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E-commerce processes Last, but not least, we have: rr 12. Add-to-basket. Crucial for retail sites of course, this can now be analysed as an event goal, so session Add-to-Basket conversion can be recorded more readily in the new version. rr 13. Steps in a checkout when page addresses arent updated since the same page is updated dynamically. As in the example above where there was an application quote with pages with the same address. rr 14. Login button. This is particularly useful when linking to a domain tracked separately since this would be recorded as a bounce even though someone has engaged. rr 15. Form field abandonment. You can trigger an event when a user interacts with each new field showing how far they have progressed through the form. rr 16. Form-field error messages. These can be written to an event with a label. More detail on options for tracking non-page outcomes 1 event tracking rr Q. Have we reviewed options for event tracking? Within Google Analytics, events apply to interactions with content made by visitors, so if they are setup, they are found within the Content reports section of Google Analytics. Here are more details of why and how to set these up - you may want to skip this section if you dont feel these are relevant. What is it? Event tracking A method within Google Analytics of tracking user interactions when they click on links or buttons on a web page. When you use events, its worth being aware of these implications: When an event is recorded a visit will not be recorded as a bounce. Take the example of a visitor hitting a landing page and then playing a video tracked as an event. Without event tracking this would be tracked as a bounce, but its not with event tracking which is right since the user has engaged with the site. Its useful for AdWords if youre sending visitors to a landing page where a video is played. Another useful application is when a visitor clicks a log-in button that takes them to another company site which is tracked independently. In the previous version of Google Analytics, events couldnt be recorded as goals since no page specification was possible. Now this is possible as described in the next section on event goals. There is still the limitation that events cant be used in funnel stages though. In this case youre still best using virtual page views which are described in the following section. The Google documentation shows that event tracking must be configured using at least three different parameters included in the _trackEvent() method, these are Category, Action and Label. The values from these parameters then appear in the Analytics Reporting interface under the Content section. The following is an example from Smart Insights in which we used events to track the relative popularity and growth of shares to social networks through the buttons at the bottom of this panel. Best Practice Tip 1 basket for example
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l. Campaign Tracking
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Best Practice Tip 2 Best Practice Tip 3 Best Practice Tip 4 Best Practice Tip 5
Using this approach enabled us to see which is popular through Google Analytics heres how theyre shown (in 2011, Event reports are laid out the same today):
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach
Clicking on the category of Social media then shows the breakdown of different events.
To create an event that will be recorded in Google Analytics, is relatively straightforward. It involves taking the hyperlink reference and adding a Javascript onClick function which has a specific order of parameters as shown above, i.e.
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Categories (required). Actions (required). Event labels (optional). Values (optional). In our example, we are just using the first three parameters: <a href=http://www.twitter.com/smartinsights title=Follow us on Twitter onClick=_gaq.push([_trackEvent, Social media, External link, Twitter]); >Follow us on Twitter</a> Adding the event to the HTML code of a site can sometimes be made within a Content Management system if it is a simple link within the body copy of an article, but if its part of code on the server it may need an IT request to make it. This is a further example from Google help: <a href=# onClick=pageTracker._trackEvent(Videos, Play, Baby\s First Birthday);>Play</a> In this case, the reports for events would display Videos as the Category, Play as the Action, and Babys First Birthday as the Label. You can read more on the technical implementation in the Google Documentation.6 1
rr Q. Are we tracking social interactions properly?
It should be noted that while Google Analytics now automatically tracks interactions with +1 buttons the preferred method within Google Analytics for tracking interactions with other social trigger points such as the Facebook Like button. Options for tracking non-page outcomes 2 Event Goals rr Q. Have we reviewed event goals? Event goals were introduced into Google Analytics in the 2011 interface revision where events could be included as goals; a previous limitation. This is helpful in situations where you might want to record outcomes as goals which dont have an associated page view in analytics, but are recorded through Events. Examples might include: PDF downloads Shopping Cart Adds / clicks on the buy now button Exit links to other sites such as a separate customer extranet in B2B marketing Be aware, though, that you still cant use events as part of a funnel, in that case you will still have to use our third option of virtual page views. What is it? Event goals Event goals are a specific class of goals where an event which doesnt generate a page view on a site, such as a PDF download are assigned to a goal with a value if required. It is straightforward to record as a goal an event that you have already setup. As the screengrab below shows, Google has added event as a fourth option to its goals creation 6 Google Analytics: Event tracking guide. * https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1316556. ** https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/gaTrackingSocial.
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form. When you select event, it gives you the opportunity to enter the group or specific you want to be recorded as a goal.
The method of setting up event goals is very flexible in that you can specify an individual goal with a label or a group of goals indicated by an Action or Category. Thats what we have done here by selecting the category of social media this includes all visits to different social media sites from our sites, so grouping them together. You can also attach a value associated which the goal. For example, you may want to assign a PDF download a nominal value of 1 so that you can then see which media and pages are contributing as assists to generate this value. Options for tracking non-page outcomes 3 virtual page views rr Q. Have we reviewed options for virtual page views? We have seen that event tracking has some limitations that make it impossible to visualise in funnels. For this reason many still prefer to use virtual page views (VPVs). What is it? Virtual page views A page view is simulated within Google Analytics for an interaction with the site that doesnt naturally create a page view. To create virtual page views requires a similar approach to creating an event. They can be created by calling the Google Analytics _trackPageview function which is part of the code snippet on every page when a page is loaded. Using our example from event tracking, we can track a click on our link to Twitter using: <a href=http://www.twitter.com/smartinsights title=Follow us on Twitter onClick=_gaq.push([_trackPageView, /Social_media/ External link/Twitter]); >Follow us on Twitter</a> When a site visitor clicks on these links, this will create a new page view using this folder structure. One limitation, or rather feature of virtual page views you need to be aware of is that these will inflate your page view figures. In this example this is misleading since a page isnt being viewed rather a link is being clicked. However, when a visitor downloads a file like a PDF you may consider that the PDF download is equivalent to a page view.
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Best Practice Tip 6 If you use virtual page views be aware of the impact on increasing page views to the site You may choose to remove additional page views using a filter in conjunction with different profiles if you feel they are misleading.
If this is a concern then you will have to create a separate View with a filter applied to include these.
Step 7. Setup users and personalised reporting features

Setting up user access rr Q. Has user access been setup? Once you have the core tracking features of your profile setup you should then setup access for different types of employees and agencies. Google Analytics has significantly updated this process with the Summer 2013 changes to the admin area. It is now possible to assign four different types of user permission at each level of the account, namely Account, Property and Profile. The four user types are: Manage Users, Edit, Collaborate and Read and Analyse. We recommend assigning all users to either the Collaborate or Read and Analyse levels only unless they have been trained in managing profiles, filters, goals and funnels as described in earlier steps. Best Practice Tip 7 Take care on who you assign Edit access to We recommend limiting Edit access as a safeguard against the accidental deletion or corruption of collected data as a result of filters and profiles not being setup or used correctly. In a smaller business, though, where a single business owner, webmaster or marketer is managing the site then you will want to have full Edit access, but take care with accessing the reports. You invite new users to use the system by adding their email address into the field as shown in the screengrab below, selecting the permission level and clicking Add. You can notify the user by email by checking the appropriate box:
You can then drill down into each user at the account level and set separate permission
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levels for them against each property or profile as indicated in the screengrab below.
Setting up shared customised reporting assets rr Q. Have the options for shared reporting for Google Analytics users been setup? Users can share different ways of customising reports for their organisations. This can help novice users take advantage of some of the more powerful features of Google Analytics which can be setup by power users. Strategy Recommendation 8 Give access to shared reporting assets for users To help get value from Google Analytics arrange for shared reporting techniques for different users.
These are accessed through the generically named Personal Tools and Assets feature in the Google Analytics profile admin area. At the bottom of this list there is a link to Share Assets, clicking on this reveals a full list of sharable assets associated with the profile together with a simple means of sharing typically through a link. Changes made by the recipient arent reflected in the update. The main sharable assets that will be found in this list are segments, custom reports and dashboards but there are other assets which can be shared but which are not present on this
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list, these include Annotations and custom alerts. Well now look at these five options in turn: 1. Shared reporting option 1: Advanced Segments rr Q. Advanced Segments setup?
Advanced Segments give a powerful way of identifying the behaviour and business contribution of different types of visitors from different sources. They are created for use on a single profile or can also be shared with other profiles when saved. We cover how these can be used in depth in Step 4 on Understanding Visitors and Step 5 on Improving Reach. 2. Shared reporting option 2: Annotations rr Q. Annotations setup? Introduced in 2010, Annotations are overlaid at the foot of the trend graphs in each report. They can be used to show things like when new campaigns started, when new content was added to the site or when a piece of new publicity hit, in fact anything at all. And because they are date specific it is simple to use them in evaluating changes in traffic or conversion. Quite often they provide the why [has it happened]? to complement the what [has happened]? What is it? Annotations Annotations are ideal for overlaying a reminder of the start of new marketing activities to jog your memory or to share with colleagues. The method of selecting Annotations are subtle you need to be aware that the pull-down arrow at the base of the trend line can be clicked on to reveal the box for adding a new Annotation:
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
So the steps to create an Annotation are simple: Pull down the Annotation editing box using the arrow at the base of the chart. Enter the date and comment. Set to shared for other users in the profile, or Private just for you. To review Annotations, simply click on the speech bubbles at the base of the trend line or pulldown the Annotation bar. 3. Shared reporting option 3: Custom alerts (Google Analytics Intelligence Events) rr Q. Have custom alerts been setup?
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Introduced in the October 2009 Google Analytics updateCustom Alerts are a feature that looked helpful in battling the information overload from web analytics. The idea being that they provide automatic alerts relating to any significant changes in the data patterns of a sites metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly and monthly periods. What is it? Custom Analytics Intelligence The Intelligence feature of Google Analytics currently gives you automated or custom alerts relating to changes in visitors from different sources like an individual country, search engine or another site. While the automated intelligence alerts are useful, unless you reduce the sensitivity, which is worth experimenting with, a lot of spurious reports can be generated, for example for against a single city or a country. Instead its better to setup some custom alerts of your own and then you can be emailed when there is a problem that is specifically relevant to your situation or area of interest. To setup events select Home in Google Analytics, choose Intelligence Events from the menu in the left sidebar and then select the Custom Alerts tab at the top. Strategy Recommendation 9 Setup Google Custom Alerts to save time and identify problems Create custom alerts to email and text you or colleagues about major problems or opportunities indicated by week-on-week or day-on-day changes. Examples of useful custom alerts are: All Traffic, Visits increase or decease of more than 10 percent week-on-week. Natural Search overall or strategic keyword increase or decrease by more than five percent daily. Paid Search increase or decrease by more than five percent daily. For example, goal conversion rate decreases by five percent daily. All traffic visits will be subject to daily spikes, for example when a newsletter is sent, so it makes sense to do a week-on-week comparison. You setup Custom alerts for each profile from the Assets tab.
Improving journeys and site engagement Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach
The next example shows the most useful type of alert when you have a problem such as with traffic or conversion, you need to see when the value decreases by an amount compared to the same day over the previous week. However, Googles changes to Not Provided search data makes this less useful than previously.
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4. Shared reporting option 4: Custom reports rr Q. Have custom reports been setup? Custom reports enable you to produce reports that are different from those that you are provided with as standard. They can be built using almost any combination of metrics and dimensions that are available in Google Analytics and because of that they can be tailored to your specific needs. Strategy Recommendation 10 Create relevant custom reports for your business Custom reports are one of the best ways to make Google Analytics more actionable by applying reports that reflect the way your business works. Here is an example of a simple custom report. Its purpose is to show engagement in different countries and then enable drilldown showing different further information about each:
This report is created using this type of Edit form:
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Features available in custom reports are: 1. Tabs. Reports have separate tabs in which you can have separate reports with different information grouped for different people.
2. Metric Groups. Within each tab you can have additional reports or if you prefer groups of measures. 3. Segments. The green-colour coded segments describe how you break down the data. In this example were breaking it down by Country Google Analytics is relatively limited in reports with this type of breakdown. 4. Report format. You can create your report in explorer format which enables you to drill down as you would with any other standard report, or you can create flat tables in which all data is shown in one screen. Flat tables can make use of only two dimensions whereas explorer reports can utilise up to 5. Finally you can also create Map overlay reports in which the dimensions are effectively limited to geographical location and zoom level. We generally recommend the Explorer format as it affords greater flexibility. 5. Filters. You can apply a filter, for example to just look at data for a visitor segment, for example first time visitors, individual countries, etc (May 2011 version of Google Analytics). The choice is similar to that which you have for Advanced Segments. 6. Sharing custom reports. They can be shared amongst other profiles by using the Sharing button at the bottom of the edit page. 7. Migrating previous reports. You have to migrate existing reports to the new (May 2011 version of Google Analytics). Types of custom reports Often, the biggest challenge with custom reporting is thinking through the right type of report. Here are some reports to consider which arent readily available in the main reports of Google Analytics: 1. Time reporting. Use a dimension of week/month to compare performance over time more easily. 2. Value reporting. Report the value of different contributors: Keywords Landing pages
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Product categories Countries 3. Role-based reporting. Setup different tabs for different types of people or marketing activity. This post by Google Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik may also inspire further ideas for custom reports.7 5. Shared reporting option 5. Dashboards rr Q. Have Dashboards been setup? Dashboards are a great way to surface key data for individual stakeholders or stakeholder groups. They also act as signposts for both standard and custom reports. Up to 12 widgets can be added to each dashboard and these can be added either directly from a report or by setting up the widget from the dashboard. As a way of quickly displaying key data in an actionable format they are generally very good. Importantly they save time that can be better spent in taking action to improve performance. Strategy Recommendation 11 Set up dashboard to summarise key data Dashboards are one of the best ways to create customisable, easy to read and digestible data summaries for key stakeholder groups in your organisation. Here is an example snippet of a dashboard designed to show at a glance the volume of visits, conversions and conversion rate as well as a trended view of performance over time. Each of these widgets can be linked through to a report that will deliver more detail.
The widgets are added using this simple tool:
7 Avinash Kaushik - Custom report examples

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The edit tool incorporates both standard widgets and real time widgets that will show continually updated data as with the standard real time reports. There are six possible widget options: Metric, Timeline, Geomap, Table, Pie Charts and Bar Charts. For each widget there is also a field which can be use to link it to a more detailed standard or custom report. Metric. A numerical metric shown as a single number. These help focus attention on headline data. Timeline. This offers a standard trendline of any one or two selected metrics. Unfortunately its not possible to smooth these trendlines by week or month. Geomap: These show single metric data set out in a small thumbnail map. They are likely to be more useful to multinational web presences although the shading limits their utility unless the spread of data is highly variable. Table: A flat table of data incorporating a maximum of one dimension and two metric across ten rows. Pie charts: Can be used to display one metric against one dimension with up to six segments. Bar charts: Can be used to display one metric against two dimensions utilising up to nine bars. How these individual widget style are used to display data is up to each individual.
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
Step 8. Setup on site search (if relevant)

rr Q. Has on-site search been setup? On-site search is relevant to most sites. On-site search reports on searches performed in the search box on your site. This is not setup as often as would be expected in my experience, but it is usually easy you simply specify the search parameter which is a text string used to tell the search engine what the query term is. For example, my sites use the Google custom search engine which like Google.com uses the search parameter q. If your site does not reveal the internal search query string parameter in the search results pages URL then it would be a good idea to either ask for it to be revealed or to create a virtual URL that reveals it in Google Analytics and which can then be used to set up site search with. Once you have on-site search setup you will be able to access the report from the Content Menu. Here you can see where searches start.
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We have more information on how to use this in our Site Design 7 Steps Guide and in Step 7 of this guide.
Step 9. Setup on e-commerce setup (if relevant)

rr Q. Has the e-commerce tracking been setup (if relevant)? Although this is a crucial step for transactional sites, many non-transactional sites wont include this, so its an optional step. Two main actions are necessary to track an e-commerce site: 1. Tell Google to enable e-commerce reports. This is achieved via the settings for each profile: 2. Add special e-commerce tracking code to the transaction completion page. This tells Google Analytics when the order was placed, the items that were ordered and their value so that the transaction information can be included in the e-commerce reports of Google Analytics.
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If you are coding this or inserting manually (e.g. for event tracking), in addition to the standard tracking code, the order details _addTrans() and line item _addItem() Javascript functions need to be included on the page as in this example from Google.8
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
If you are managing an international e-commerce site then there is a limitation to be aware of if using profiles to report transactions for an individual country. You cant use filters for transactions as you can for pages. So instead, you have to filter with affiliation or Order ID by writing a unique identifier for each country to that field. Alternatively you can choose to create a separate Google Analytics account for each country and then create an aggregate rolled-up account using a separate web property id. Google Analytics now supports multiple currencies and if need be these can be converted into a single base currency, if you do this you should use a separate profile for it. However converting into a single base currency is a double-edged sword from an analysis point of view because it takes the exchange (from Google Billing) rate at the time of the conversion, 8 Google Analytics migration guide.
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that means a drop in revenue could be either due to performance issues or possibly a shift in the currency markets as this excellent post from Brian Clifton explains. You can see that each method has its own limitations.9
Step 10. Setup custom variables / Custom Dimensions

rr Q. Have custom variables been setup? Custom variables apply to Visitors, so they are found within the Visitor reports section if they have been implemented. In our experience they are rarely set up since they need careful consideration to see how best to use them; they also need to be implemented on the server requiring input. That said, custom variables are powerful since they enable us to learn more about visitor characteristics. For example, how does customer behaviour differ from non-customer. What are the demographics of different users? Care must be taken not to store information about individuals, since this is against Googles terms of service for privacy purposes. Strategy Recommendation 12 Use custom variables to find out more about customers Custom variables enable you to distinguish between customers with different characteristics rather than treating all visitors as anonymous. Custom variables have been added to with Custom Dimensions and metrics in Universal Analytics where they can be used to bring additional data into Google Analytics. Options for setting these variables include: Customer v non-customer. Different customer segments or demographic profile variables like male or female or membership levels for a membership site. Segmenting visitors according to landing page. Recording referral source attribution. Categorising different content types. Custom variables were originally specified through a call to a function called _setVar, but are set through _setCustomVar. This post gives the relevant function specification from Google.10 They are most often used for defining specific segments based on the profile detail identified through a form or consuming particular content. This post from US analytics specialist E-Nor gives great detail on how a retailer can review different customer types.11
Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l. Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
9 Google Conversion Room guidance on Ecommerce tracking by country. 10 Google Analytics guide to custom variables. 11 E-nor: Multiple custom variables.
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Step 2
Campaign tracking
rr Q. Has the marketing campaign setup been reviewed? Today there is an incredible range of different media that can be bought online and offline. From traditional TV and print ads to Google AdWords ads and video ads there is no shortage of choice. Ideally, to check the return on investment in your promotional efforts, these need to be reviewed for effectiveness. Although digital media have been called the most measurable ever extra effort is still required to setup campaign tracking. Defining a standard set of online marketing source codes is essential to determining the value of different referral sources such as ad campaigns or email campaigns. Strategy Recommendation 13 Set standard marketing source codes for use in reporting Through using standard marketing source codes you can get a much better idea of where to focus your marketing campaign spend. What does Google track by default? When you select either the Overview or the Channels report in the Acquisition menu you get a good idea of what Google Analytics will track by default and, importantly, how it groups traffic sources. The introduction of Channels came with the arrival of the Multi Channel Funnels reporting. These are not dissimilar to the Medium grouping in Google Analytics although some such as Social are new to the Channels categorisation. Channels can also be user defined. If you have linked your Analytics account to your AdWords account Google Analytics will track your AdWords performance data by default and will not need any additional campaign configuration. To review the marketing channels that Google is currently tracking, view the Acquisition Overview. The left most group will show you the channels that are tracked.
Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l. Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
Which do you think are missing here? For a business like a retailer we can suggest that these channels may be missed either since they are not being used or they have not be tracked specifically. These are:
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Affiliate Display ads Email Social

You can see that the main traffic sources reported at the channel level in Google Analytics by default are: Search traffic This groups both natural and paid search (AdWords) and with the new channel groupings reports splits out into Generic Organic and Generic Paid search. Referral traffic This is traffic from other sites which have direct links to your site. Direct traffic Direct traffic results from URL type ins, bookmarks or when email marketing isnt tracked. As an unwritten rule this source also incorporates any visits that GA cannot identify for one reason or another, as such affiliate traffic can also quite often fall into this bucket on the grounds that affiliate networks own tracking tends to strip out badly implemented Google Analytics campaign tracking. One final point to mention about the Direct source of visits is that in September 2012 with the launch of iOS6 Apple started redirecting all organic searches made from the iOS6 platform through a secure server. This also had the effect of stripping out referral information which GA relies on to identify source and in many cases the volume of organic search visits dropped while the volume of Direct visits increased, this problem remains unsolved at the time or writing. Social traffic All the main social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc. Google Analytics gives you good search campaign tracking by default. Most companies using AdWords will track it through its automated integration enabled from Google AdWords, this reports on paid search. Your natural search is also tracked by default and you will see it when you look in the acquisition menu. Both of these forms of search marketing can be reviewed through Advanced Segments. Organic search can also be tracked using your sites webmaster tools feed which can be streamed into Google Analytics. When we first wrote this guide, we said that its a good idea to get this set up because you will be able to look at position rank by search term or phrase as well as landing page or landing page grouping. Now we say its essential to set up since this provides you with keyword information in the Search Engine Optimization menu reports. If you check here and there is no data, you need to set this up. Strategy Recommendation 14 Link your webmaster tools data to your Google Analytics account Linking webmaster tools and Google Analytics accounts brings useful data about your organic search efforts into Google Analytics. You can get more detailed tracking information on campaign source in Google Analytics by adding additional marketing source codes. Heres how.
Using Google Analytics marketing source codes

rr Q. Have marketing source codes been used in Google Analytics? To track other (non-search) campaigns requires you to use a standard notation which needs to be defined and then added to all links involving media placements or campaigns. Google Analytics uses five standard dimensions for a campaign which need to be
41

incorporated into the query string of the URL for each ad placement as this example shows: http://www.domain.com/landing_page.php?utm_campaign=spring-sale&utm_ medium=banner&utm_source=handbag.com The campaigns report in Google Analytics will then enable you to compare media. The table explains each of these five dimensions which refers to this example: Variable utm_campaign Recommended utm_medium Required What is the distribution method that is used to get our message out to our clients? Who are you partnering with to push your message? A publisher such as handbag.com, or for paid search, Google, Bing, etc. The version of the ad (used for A/B testing) or in AdWords. You can identify two versions of the same ad using this variable. This is not always used and is NOT included in the above example. The search term purchased (if the link refers to keywords). This is not always used and is NOT included in the above example.
Understanding your visitors Setup and customisation
Explanation The name of the marketing campaign, e.g. Spring Campaign. Media channel (i.e. email, banner, CPC, etc).
Campaign Tracking
utm_source Required utm_content Optional utm_term Optional
To understand the way this works, we recommend you use the Google URL Builder12 that can help with creating these links. Best Practice Tip 8 Use the Google URL builder and spreadsheets to create campaign source codes Use the URL builder to setup campaign tracking on one-off campaigns. For more regular activity, use a spreadsheet to automatically create the URL strings. For other types of vendor tools used to create and manage campaigns, the marketing source codes can be added automatically if you enable this option. This is worth researching when you get new systems or ask your existing providers of support for: Affiliate marketing. Display advertising. Email marketing. Social media marketing. An example of the Google URL Builder for a newsletter is shown next. You can manually add this information to each link, but this is obviously time consuming, so many email service providers will automatically add this now. Check with your ESP that they add this information.
12 Google URL Builder.

42
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach
To summarise this section, this is our summary of how campaign tracking codes can be used these are only suggestions campaign, content and term are flexible with how they can be used. Digital media channel Medium Source (Site name) Search engine name Search engine name Campaign Content Term
(Media channel) Natural search Organic (label within segments) Paid search cpc
(Campaign name) Not used Not used
AdWords campaign name
Ad version
Search term used by user User search or search term triggering ad
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Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing
Display advertising
Display advertising
Affiliate network, aggregator or voucher site Ad network or publisher name Email type, e.g.
Referring site
Offer
Product
Campaign name
Email marketing
Email marketing
Campaign name
Social media marketing
Social media Social network name
Campaign name
Ad placement or testing version Location of link in email or offer if testing Offer?
Ad identifier
Subject line
Campaign Tracking
Name of message
Best Practice Tip 9 Use Social Analytics to isolate the impact of social media marketing The Social report in the Traffic Sources menu enables you to see all social media visits and conversions grouped together. It reduces the need for campaign tracking with a social media-specific code, but this is still good practice so that visits from social applications like Hootsuite are tracked. In 2012 Google introduced a feature called Social Analytics which has reduced the need for separate tracking of social media URLs, but we would still recommend this as a good practice since clicks on links from desktop or mobile phone apps may not be tracked - and these are a large proportion of mobile phone clicks. Read our post on Social Analytics13 for more details. You can access the Social Analytics feature under the Acquisition menu. The most important point to note is that it can be used to show assisted conversions where a visitor was referred by social media at some point in the journey to purchase, not just the last click. This can be helpful in proving the value of social media.
13 Smart Insights post on Social Analytics.

44
Strategy Recommendation 15 Use multi-channel funnels to help prove the value of media throughout customer journeys Use multichannel funnels to show how social media marketing or display advertising contributes assists to sale earlier in the path to purchase.
This example14 shows how a B2B company is able to show the value in Referrals from partner sites and social networks in generating leads:
You can access this report from the Conversions menu in the left sidebar it is labelled Multi-channel funnels, Assisted conversions. Offline campaigns rr Q. Have offline campaigns been tracked? To track an offline campaigns effectiveness ideally requires use of a specific campaign URL within offline communications like Print or TV ads. Some will argue that this isnt worthwhile since so few use the URL. But we would argue that its still worthwhile since: You get a good idea of the relative effectiveness of campaigns. It stops offline media being grouped within the Direct category. There are several choices with which URL to use, here are the advantages and disadvantages: 1. The standard home page address. Example: http://www.domain.com This is a common approach by advertisers since its the simplest. The main disadvantage from a measurement point-of-view is that there is no way to directly track this. Although you can review an increase in direct traffic arriving at this URL through a segmented landing page report. From a marketing point-of-view this also has the disadvantage that their is no value indicated in the URL to encourage the clickthrough. So for a major campaign its best to avoid this, but many marketers argue that its their preferred method since it gets the primary URL in the prospects mind and so few remember 14 Smart Insights: Example of applying Multichannel funnels.
45
and type the URL anyway. I would argue that it will be less effective since the design of most home pages will make it difficult for the users to find the offer, so conversion rate will drop. Campaign landing pages are more effective. 2. Static campaign specific URL. Example: http://www.domain.com/<campaign-name> The use of a campaign URL (CURL) is a common approach, where a promotional URL or so-called vanity URL is used in offline Print ad, Direct Mail and TV campaigns to make it easy for the customers to fulfil the offer. Best Practice Tip 10 Encourage use of vanity URLs through a specific offer Use a value offer within the campaign URL to encourage type-in and make it memorable. For example, freememory for a computer retailer. Example: http://www.domain.com/<value-offered> 3. Redirecting campaign specific folder URL with Google Analytics tracking codes Example: http://www.domain.com/<campaign-name> In this case, the URL is the same as the previous two examples, but the server setup is different. A 301 redirect should be created by the server administrator so that the visitor is automatically redirected to the landing page. The trick here to tracking is that when the redirect happens, the same campaign tracking codes format should be used as for other sources as explained in this post on online campaign tracking. As with digital campaign tracking, offline campaign tracking should use standard codes for medium, source and campaign name. The table explains each of the five dimensions referring to an offline campaign example: Variable utm_campaign Recommended utm_medium Required utm_source Required utm_content Optional utm_term Optional Explanation The name of the marketing campaign, e.g. Spring Campaign. For an offline campaign this should be print, TV or direct mail. Who are you partnering with to push your message? It will typically be generic, such as magazine, unless you have a specific code for each publisher such as Forbes. Not usually used in offline campaigns, but could be used for offer code. Again not usually used in offline campaigns, but could be used for offer code.
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l. Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking
This example of the server code for a print ad is taken from Brian Cliftons whitepaper and book listed below which I recommend for delving into the details. <VirtualHost>
46

RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} .* RewriteRule .* http://www.mysite.com/?utm_source=magazine&utm_medium=print&

utm_campaign=March%20print%20ad [R=301,QSA] </VirtualHost> Other sources to find out more about offline campaign tracking. 1. Brian Cliftons whitepaper on Tracking Offline marketing with Google Analytics is an adaptation of Chapter 11 from his book: AdvancedWeb Metrics with Google Analytics, second edition by Brian Clifton (Wiley 2010). Offline or multichannel tracking was also explained well by Avinash in his 2008 post:Multichannel Analytics: Tracking Online Impact Of Offline Campaigns. The core technique is to use a 301 redirect which appends a campaign code. He describes the example ofhttp://www.dell.com/tvwhich redirects and appends a (non Google Analytics) tracking code referencing TV: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/tv?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&keycode=6Vc 94&DGVCode=TV&dgc=TV&cid=11510&lid=985367 4. Redirecting campaign-specific domain name The approach here is similar to the third approach, but this time a completely new campaign URL is used. For example, some time ago, insurer Aviva used the URL http://www. quotemehappy.com for its communications campaign that redirected to a landing page on the main site. We recommend a redirection since if a new separate domain is used, it can take the search engines a long time to include in the index meaning that searchers look for the campaign name will be forced to use the paid search ad since there isnt a natural listing. However, if the campaign page is within an existing site it should, of course, be at the top of the natural listings. Defining a standard set of online marketing source codes is essential to determining the value of different referral sources such as ad campaigns or email campaigns. The campaigns report in Google Analytics will then enable you to compare media. One final note of caution regarding campaign tracking. We have seen many businesses use campaign tracking to monitor on-site promotions. This is a grave mistake to make because it artificially hikes the count of visits to a site and correspondingly reduces conversion rates. On-site campaigns should only be tracked using event tracking. 2
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Step 3
Working with reports to find opportunities and problems

Q. Have methods of reviewing reports been improved? This is a short step since Google Analytics is easy to use in comparison to many Analytics tools. Google also has an excellent animated tutorial on using the interface you can view. In this step well cover: A. Overview of reporting and working with data tables. B. Selecting and comparing different time periods. C. Using reporting Views including Pivots. D. Using Filters or Searches to narrow results. E. Using custom reports.
A. Overview of reporting
Reports are where all the analysis action happens in Google Analytics. Its worth getting to know them well since there are a lot of short-cuts to save time and find opportunities where you should focus your efforts. A fair few changes were made to the reports in the new 2011 version of Google Analytics, so we thought it would be helpful to summarise them in the context of what you scan on screen: Many of the features you will know, or they are self-explanatory, but there may be some you do not know about.
On the next page, see our summary table of how to use the different report elements highlighting tips to get the most from each.
48

Feature 1
Purpose
Tips We have more information below on how to use this for time period comparison below. This is on by default, so switch it off so it doesnt get in the way of the data except when you need it.t Many of these options are particularly useful for custom reports.
Date selector Select fixed periods of weeks or months or custom periods. Analytics Education Additional Help Guidance
Report 1. Customize - template for management custom report based on this data. 2. Email - Setup up scheduled emails for this report 3. Export - save as Excel or PDF 4. Add to Dashboard 5. Shortcut - Save time by adding to Shortcut Advanced segments enable you to select a subset of visits, e.g. New visits or a specific traffic source. Report variation in dimension by site usage or commercial performance (goals or e-commerce).
3 These are valuable to see behaviour of specific audiences, so we cover them in detail elsewhere. This is a good short cut to see which dimensions are.
Advanced Segments
Understanding your visitors
Explorer report: Select report types
Compare metric Graph by
Graph mode
Annotations
10
Primary Dimension
NB. New. For some reports: Pages, Landing pages there is an additional choice of report type that is useful for analysis of an individual page (Navigation Summary and Entrance Paths). Select from the list to compare Often useful to compare volume against to another measure. engagement, in this case to bounce rate. Used for selecting Day, Week Week and month are best for evaluating or Month. long-term trends. Hourly is available for Audience reports. Apart from the standard Line Motion charts work best for chart, this also offers the interpretation over a longer period of Motion chart or X-Y format. week or month, but this isnt an option, so these are rarely used. Add annotations as personal Examples might be campaign start date reminders or to share with or changes to AdWords accounts. colleagues. The primary dimension can be Switching from the default Medium / changed. Source view to Medium is a great way to reduce noise in your report.
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Feature 11 Secondary dimension
Purpose This inserts an additional column for you to break down the primary dimension further.
Tips For example, you can choose Landing Page as a secondary dimension in this report.
12
Sort Type
13
Search
14
Data view type
15
Measures and sort
16
Select Plot Rows. New. Show Rows. Report page display number
For us, the pivot table arguably gives a better visualisation for this. Weighted sort or Absolute Only applies when some columns change for comparisons. such as bounce rate are selected. Automatically highlights data points that are exceptions, but important by volume. Filters the results to those Think of this as a filter. Can be useful to matching criteria. find opportunities for example, highest volume pages with the highest bounce rate. Changes from the standard We think the Pivot table is the most table view to graphical or pivot useful alternative view. Comparisons views. and pie-charts can be useful though. We have more details on these below. The measures reported in the Click on the column heading to order by table. this measure. Watch the % variations between periods when you have comparison selected. Also compare to site averages when an individual page or referrer is selected. Tick the boxes for these to be Useful for isolating problem pages or compared as line graphs using referrers. 18. Number of rows to display in table. Select the page. Best to use 50 or 100 for analysis of pages or keywords. Go to available, but we suspect this isnt used much.
17 18
Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
B. Selecting different time periods

The most basic customisation you can do is to change the way default reports are displayed. For example, changing or comparing time periods or variables or the number of results displayed. Most readers will be doing this already because the system is intuitive and you have to use it for basic analysis. Changing time units By default the time units are daily, but many managers want to see trends across weeks or months. To change these simply click on the relevant option directly above the trend line.
Hourly data is only available in some of the views.

50
Using the calendar/time period options to select different date ranges The calendar time period options are easy to use. You can select the current month by clicking on the month above all the dates. Showing year-to-date takes a while though. You should also take care with todays date
Best Practice Tip 11 Know how to show todays date Unlike other systems, Google Analytics isnt a real-time system that displays information about current users straightaway. Instead there is a lag of several (around three hours), so for this reason Google doesnt show todays date. To display this you have to click on it within the time-selection widget. Googles Real Time charts give some information which they have added to since the service was first launched. Its invaluable for checking tracking for new campaigns or new customisations to Google Analytics! If you need real-time analytics we recommend Getclicky (www.getclicky.com) or Chartbeat (www.chartbeat.com). A simple real time feature has been introduced into Google Analytics which is good if you want to see an immediate impact of changes to a page, but it isnt available across all reports. You can access this from the Real Time menu option in the left sidebar when Home is selected. Comparing time periods Comparing time periods is now a relative breeze just check the Compare to: box and then select the required time frame in the drop down to its left. This is a particularly nice new feature as it makes month-on-month and year-on-year comparisons a snap. To compare custom periods just select the Compare to past box and select the time period. But its always worth checking that each time period starts on the same day. Here its a Monday.
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
C. Using reporting Data views including Pivots

We have separated Views as one of the main reporting features to learn about since weve found that many just go with the default data table view. But theres hidden gold in the different views and especially Pivots. You select Views using the option on the Right Side of the interface:
Lets have a quick look at each view and what it works best for: 1. Data (table). The default view, used for comparing different metrics in different columns. 2. Percentage. Creates a pie chart for the primary measure. Tends only to be useful for
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referrers. 3. Performance. Presents a bar chart for the primary dimension. Also of limited value. 4. Comparison. After 1 and 6 this is the most useful of the data view options we think. 5. Term Cloud. Mainly of value for Keywords under Search.
6. Pivot. We think this is the most useful of the Data View Tools. A Secondary dimension is selected using the Pivot By Box. Best Practice Tip 12 Learn how to use Google Analytics views and especially the Pivot view The Pivot view enables you to compare performance of different dimensions through breaking them down further. In this example we are pivoting by a secondary dimension of Country/Territory to see breakdown of revenue by country - a custom report would be better for listing countries though. 3
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach
D. Using Filters or Searches to narrow results

When working with reports, the Search option which is number 11 in the graphic at the start of this section is useful for zooming in on problem pages which are your opportunities. Best Practice Tip 13 Use Filters or Searches to identify opportunities The Search option enables you just to show the results for similar pages or keywords and then isolate the most important of those with scope for improvement. If such filters are used to select pages or referrers which are performing poorly since they have a high bounce rate or low value, then this can be combined with popularity to find the biggest opportunities. This example shows how The drop down box is used to select Pages containing the term browse, filtering on this to show category pages on this site.
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E. Using custom reports

The other type of report we wanted to flag up in this section are the customised reports you set up for your business. We describe these in the first Step under 3. Shared reporting option 3: Custom alerts (Google Analytics Intelligence). 3
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GOOGLE ANALYTICS GUIDE

Using GA to evaluate your marketing and improve your results

Using Google Analytics To Improve Online Marketing

Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors

Why another guide on Google Analytics?

How is this guide structured?

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Finding problems and opportunities

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Where to find the value in Google Analytics. Which measures?

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Improving journeys and site engagement

Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Scope Typically one company with one or more web properties.

Understanding your visitors

Include or exclude certain types of traffic to one or more profile.

Include information for single site or part of site. Exclude employees.

Improving journeys and site engagement

Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Step 1. Create new account/review account settings

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking

Step 2. Add tracking code to pages

Understanding your visitors Improving reach

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Step 3. Create views

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Step 4. Create and apply filters

Step 5. Setup goals and funnels

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Goal-tracking for non-e-commerce sites

Q. Why do I need to setup goals in Google Analytics?

Q. Which types of goals can we use?

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

4 Smart Insights: Google Analytics Event tracking and Event Goals.

Worked example of goal setup for a Google Analytics page

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Setup and customisation

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Setup and customisation

Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Setup and customisation

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach

rr Q. Are we tracking social interactions properly?

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics