8 Must Follow Google Analytics Tips To Understand The Data Better

You are running a business online and have a huge data to manage and obtain meaningful results from. There are many tools that have come up in the market to solve this problem but why to waste money when Google is generous enough to provide effective tools such as Google analytics that is available easily and free of cost. It is not a tool to be sniffed at as it has proved to highly useful for small businesses with nearly 90% businesses opting for it to measure the web data accurately. Learn the skills of using it right and set the stage for quick business growth. Read on to get an answer to all your questions regarding Google analytics. This blog discusses 8 different ways in which Google Analytics can be helpful and do not let you falter at any stage.

1) Clear goals are necessary

The first thing to do is to know what you want from the website visitors. Is it something as simple as signing up for a newsletter, downloading a pdf or watch a video and so on. With clear goals emerge clear actions that result in meaningful data and detailed analysis of the same for the fulfilment of the business purposes. It is easier to gauge the number of leads and/or conversions that emerged from a particular route you included in the website. So, do not blame web analytics for not giving the right kind of results but set a clear goal and implement it on priority.

2) Know how the visitors reach you

There are branded as well as non-branded traffic that becomes the source of the leads. It is not difficult to find out how the visitors found the company when it is using non-branded ad words with the help of Google analytics. Google analytics can help you find out the traffic source so that you can save your money that was otherwise invested in using the expensive keywords for the PC campaign. Search engine optimisation can be done at a much lower costs with web analytics tools that analyse the data and pave the way for finding good solutions for the same.

3) Dashboard is necessary

The data obtained through Google Analytics tool is large enough and it is not an easy task to manage it all without a proper platform where it is displayed in a comprehensible manner. A dashboard is the answer for the problem of not being able to manage the data effectively. It manages the data well and not only shows the source of web traffic but also gives the data on the keywords that are used by the visitors to reach a company’s website. The referring websites also come in the ambit of Google analytics. If it is desired to understand the results obtained from a recently launched campaign, set up a dedicated dashboard for the same.

4) Be present on social media

It is not just necessary to be present on social media but also track the campaigns on the same. Google analytics can be set up to know the most fruitful social media campaign and the account that is bringing in the maximum leads. Social media is complex and until and unless there is some handy and meaningful information, you cannot optimise the same.

5) Track the campaigns for better results

Say you have launched multiple campaigns viz. email marketing, mobile marketing or PPC campaign on different platforms. The first step to increase the return on investment is to know what type of audience is responding to the campaigns and how are they interacting with the brand. Google analytics is the tool that can be set up at the website and used to extract the necessary information. Just use a URL for the campaign and let the tool guide you further to know the results obtained from the campaign.

6) Website visitors’ behaviour understood better

When a visitor comes to a company’s website it is to fulfil an agenda. A clear analysis of the website visitors’ behaviour is very helpful and a prerequisite for designing the future marketing strategy. The keywords that the visitor is entering into the search bar and the pages he is surfing are all determined by the Google Analytics for the good. A web analytic tool is mandatory to understand the mindset of the web visitor and formulate the strategy to interact in a more fruitful manner.

7) Track all domains without fail

Google analytics will serve the purpose well only if each and every online activity is tracked appropriately. The content may be floating on various platforms and hence it is essential to track it all to understand the diverse nature of the people interacting with it. The only thing that must be remembered is that there must be unique tracking code designed for the purpose and the parties involved are using it for sure. The third party websites, blogs on social media or any other platform or your own website that invites visitors can be tracked accurately with the tools like Google Analytics. The number of visitors that come in and the percentage that is converted into leads and the final sales data are all relevant when we talk of Google Analytics.

8) Track the video usage

Nowadays, the businesses are using videos to interact with the potential customers in a lively way. Google Analytics makes it easy to know how many times the video has been watched or how interactive it proved to be with the users. The number of times the pause and play buttons are played are all recording by the tool. It also shows the time spent on the video and lets the company understand the success level with the video. It can make the necessary changes in the same and use it further to get more and more leads. 

One bonus tip to leverage Google analytics is to not include the time spend by the company and its team on the website as the tool will include it if it is not altered that way.

If you liked this article you may also like these: 

10 Google Analytics Reports that Show Where Your Store Loses Visitors 

Using Analytical Analysis to Help Improve Conversions 

A Beginners Guide to Website Analytics 

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Google Analytics Tutorial for Beginners

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How to Track Marketing Campaigns with Google Analytics

When it comes to tracking online success, Google Analytics is really good at doing that and it can help you get insights from your data.

All you have to do is just make sure that you use the proper metrics to measure the outcomes and not look at plain data. The secret is to check the outcomes from the data you have available.

If you are not sure how to do it, don’t worry, by the time you will finish reading this article, you will be able to easily apply my advice for your data.

When I say tracking online marketing campaigns, I am referring at a promotion for your eBook, at your latest newsletter, a tweet which promotes an article or your affiliate link shared on Facebook.

You can also track:

• Facebook advertising campaigns
• AdWords campaigns
• LinkedIn ad campaigns
• Microsoft adCenter campaigns

All these can be tracked and measured with Google Analytics, so you can see the performance of your online marketing campaigns.

Once you have data in Google Analytics (GA), you can see the conversion rate for different sources and mediums, check which campaign performs better and where you should put your efforts next time.

To do that, you need to tag your campaigns. Actually you need to tag the URLs that you will be using.

Tag Campign ULs

That’s a really easy and straight forward process and you can use the URL Builder tool from Google to do it. From that page you can easily build the URLs which you can later share on different mediums (email, ppc, referrals).

To make it easier for you to understand, I will use this tool to build an URL for this article, which I will share with my subscribers in the next newsletter.

First, you need to enter the URL that you want to promote.

Then, there are 3 mandatory fields that you need to fill out when building your campaign URL, fields that contain information which Google Analytics will gather and display in the reports:

• Campaign Source – this field is used to identify the source where the traffic is coming from. It can be: google, twitter, facebook, newsletter or a referral name.
• Campaign Medium – this field is used to identify the medium used by your visitors: organic, ppc, email, referral, friend etc.
• Campaign Name – this field should contain an easily identifiable name for your campaign.

Campaign Term and Campaign Content are optional and they are mainly used in AdWords and A/B testing.

Once you fill all the fields, just press the [Generate URL] button and you will get the URL which you can use in your marketing campaign.

Additionally, you can use a service like bit.ly to shorten the URL and hide those campaign parameters.

For my example, the main url is http://www.eugenoprea.com/google-analytics-campaign-tracking/ and here’s what I will use on each of the mandatory fields:

• Campaign Source – [Eugen Oprea - Free Updates] (this is the name of my newsletter)
• Campaign Medium – email (this is the medium used)
• Campaign Name – GACampaignTracking (an easily identifiable name)

The final URL is this one: http://www.eugenoprea.com/google-analytics-campaign-tracking/?utm_source=%5BEugen%2BOprea%2B-%2BFree%2BUpdates%5D&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GACampaignTracking

As you can see towards the end of the URL, is better to use only letters & numbers, so avoid using special characters and white spaces.

Check the Google Analytics Campaigns Reports

Based on the data above, here’s how the final result will look like:

Now, once I have some data into my Google Analytics account I will be able to see how many visitors landed on this articles from my campaign and analyze different metrics based on that.

To access the [Campaigns] reports in Google Analytics, go to [Traffic Sources] > [Sources] > [Campaigns].

There you will be able to see how visitors that are coming from that campaign behave on your site and also analyze your conversion rates based on those campaigns.

All these details will help you better understand what are your most successful online marketing campaigns and where you should focus next time.

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You will learn what it takes to promote your content using email, social media, guest blogging and how to measure the results. Click here to find out more about “Blog Post Promotion: The Ultimate Guide”.

I own Kristi’s eBook, I consider it really valuable and that’s why I’m happy to promote it as an affiliate.

Over to you

I hope that this article makes your job easier and help you get started measuring your campaigns using Google Analytics. If you have questions or if you would like to share with us the way you’ve build your campaign, please use the comments section below.

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