/advanced-google-analytics-notes

Notes on the Advanced Google Analytics course

Advanced Google Analytics (2017)

Notes on the Advanced Google Analytics course on lynda.com

Warning: Content of this course is outdated. Google Search Console has been updated since this course was published.

Prerequisites

  • Google Webmaster Tools (Search Console)

Problem

  • Google demo account doesn't allow creating new views

Things to do

  • Set up Search Console
  • Create segments

SEO performance measurement

  • Search Console
    • link to find market share of organic search
    • IDEA: see high bounce rate on landing pages
    • page load speed
    • EXAMPLE:
      • Segment: mobile and tablet traffic (vs all)
      • Landing pages and avg session duration
    • indexing and crawl statistics
      • Search Console > Crawl errors
        • to find technical issues on site
  • IDEA: Use search engine traffic as segment
    • to compare performance of different search engines

Advanced setup

  • TODO: Use views for subdomains
  • advanced filters and views
    • Admin > View > Filter > custom filter
    • IDEA: Create filter for a specific location (e.g. Mountain View, USA)
    • Can use advanced filters with wildcards definitions and regex
    • Can combine two advanced filters and custom filters
      • e.g. filter out users referred from LinkedIn AND PayPal
  • custom dimensions and metrics
    • Admin > Property > Custom definitions > Custom dimensions/metrics
      • requires implementation in code, automatically generates code snippet
        • must follow google developers guide
      • will then be available in reports

Doing more with analytics

  • Weighted sort
    • to filter out statistically insignificant results
    • not available for all metrics
    • TIP: set row number to maximum, export to excel, then use excel filter to apply weights (e.g, greater than 100)
  • User intent
    • Q: what keywords, search terms are being used?
    • Q: Are there any search patterns?
    • Q: Top internal searches?
    • Q: What page did users search on? What page path?
    • Q: Which site is the referrer?
    • Q: Did search improve goal conversion?
      • users who search vs users who don't search
    • Q: can we run an experiment to steer users?
    • Q: What is the page depth? What did users go to after a search?
    • Q: What is the bounce rate on search pages?
  • IDEA: Set up site search
    • site search is set up for each view
    • Admin > View > View Settings > Site search Tracking > ON
    • enter query parameter
    • report shows up in Behavior > Site search > Search terms/pages
    • IDEA: Site Content > All pages > Secondary dimension: Previous page path > search bar: query parameter (e.g. s=)
      • this lets you see search terms
  • Page Analytics tool - Chrome extension
    • for in-page analytics
    • can view metrics for different parts of page for actual page being viewed
    • beware of differences based on when parts of page are updated
    • set date range to avoid issues
  • TODO: Using content grouping
    • use to group content
    • Admin > View > Content grouping
    • NOTE: not retroactive. So create early
    • Once set up, groupings will show up in reports as a primary dimension
    • 3 ways
      • modify tracking code on pages
      • extract content based on URL
      • rule definitions
  • Using regex
    • e.g. to exclude all IP addresses for all employees
    • metacharacters (link to video)
      • , |, ?,
    • TODO: Learn how to use regex

Advanced reporting

  • Custom team reports
    • can search shared custom reports in gallery
    • or create your own from precise metrics required
    • e.g. avg page load time (metrics group), device category (dimension)
    • can use multiple metrics groups
    • can select dimensions and order dimensions in dimensions drilldown
    • TODO: look at gallery of custom reports and customize for myself
  • Build operational dashboards
    • Can select widgets and metrics for individual purpose
  • C-level dashboards
    • broad level, global view
    • can get more specific as we go down
    • widget examples
      • total visits
      • avg visit duration
      • visit by device category (pie chart)
      • changes in bounce rate (%)
      • visits and avg vist duration by country
      • world map
      • list of top performing countries

Cross-domain tracking and site linking

  • View users movement between two sites (two domains) as a single session
  • "Site linking"
    • if user goes to site A then goes to site B it will be counted as a single user and session
    • if you have multiple domains and various subdomains and want one integrated analytics report
    • if you have iframes on other sites - you can use site linking
  • Setting up site linking (see developer guide)
    • requires JavaScript and HTML
    • need to modify tracking code
    • Step 1: primary domain - edit code
    • use auto link plugin
    • Step 2: secondary domain - also requires changes
    • Step 3: Create a copy of the reporting view by adding an advanced filter to the new view
    • Step 3 (option 2): Modify code in Tag Manager (not covered)
  • Fault reporting with segmenting
    • to answer questions from management
    • create segments (e.g. bing and google search results)
    • then compare against previous period
    • then share report with management

Conversion rate analysis

  • What to investigate
    • Page timings
    • Referrers and bounce rates
    • referrers and time on page
      • quality metric
    • exit rates vs bounce rates
    • content experiments
  • Behavior > page timings
    • avg page load time
    • can search for specific pages
    • TODO: secondary dimension - page views
      • third column change to avg page load time
        • to see pages with highest load times
        • go to speed suggestions and find individual pages
      • Add segment for mobile and tablet
      • Then compare all users vs mobile
  • Referrer and bounce rate analysis
    • Acquisition > All traffic > Referrals
      • Sort by bounce rate
      • Add secondary dimension: landing page
        • optional: switch to pivot table
          • pivot metrics: select bounce rate
    • Acquisition > All traffic > Source/Medium
      • may want to export data to Excel and analyze with filters in spreadsheet
      • Sort by avg session duration
      • Select secondary dimension to landing page
      • From report click edit to see metrics and can save as custom report
  • Exit page analysis
    • Behavior > Site content > Exit pages
    • consider relationship between page views and exits
    • create segment for users that haven't left within 5 seconds (i.e. didn't bounce)
  • pay-per-click traffic analysis
    • measures AdWords traffic
  • Content experiments
    • Behavior > experiments
    • Create experiment
    • Use goals set up for site as measurement
    • Specify how much of your traffic this applies to, how long the experiment will last for
    • Configure experiment with URL (page) variants
    • This creates code with experiment ID and key
    • Add code to the page

Conversion reports

  • Multi-channel funnel reports
    • track user across multiple channels
    • can see conversion path data
  • Attribution models
    • Attribution > Model comparison tool
      • allows you to give credit to marketing efforts
      • Models
        • last interaction: attributes to last channel user interacts with
        • Non-direct click: last non-direct interaction
        • first interaction
          • can place premium on keywords or channels that were first exposure
        • linear: equally distributed
        • time decay: attributes more value to nearest channel of interaction
        • position based: weights first and last interactions higher
  • Custom attribution models
    • Create default custom model
      • lookback model: specify time before
      • adjust credit
      • apply custom credit rules