5 Analytics You Should Be Watching
1. Acquisition: Channels
The search acquisition menu helps you understand how you are acquiring the traffic coming to your website. Google provides you with the following default channels when you first set up an Analytics account:
You can edit these existing channels or define additional ones through Custom Channel Grouping settings. For example, if your company has a specific newsletter they send out, you can add “Monthly Newsletter” as a channel to monitor how much traffic it is driving to your website. You can also watch specific paid advertisements to see which ad campaigns are paying off for you.
Ideally, you’ll want to see positive results from all channels you put effort into. Monitoring traffic channels allows you to see which are succeeding and which are falling behind so that you can react accordingly. For example, if your social media measurement is failing, but you throw a lot of resources at it, it may be time to reevaluate those efforts and try a new approach.
The search acquisition menu helps you understand how you are acquiring the traffic coming to your website. Google provides you with the following default channels when you first set up an Analytics account:
- Organic Search
- Paid Search
- Display
- Direct
- Referral
- Social
- Email
- (Other)
You can edit these existing channels or define additional ones through Custom Channel Grouping settings. For example, if your company has a specific newsletter they send out, you can add “Monthly Newsletter” as a channel to monitor how much traffic it is driving to your website. You can also watch specific paid advertisements to see which ad campaigns are paying off for you.
Ideally, you’ll want to see positive results from all channels you put effort into. Monitoring traffic channels allows you to see which are succeeding and which are falling behind so that you can react accordingly. For example, if your social media measurement is failing, but you throw a lot of resources at it, it may be time to reevaluate those efforts and try a new approach.
2. Acquisition: Referrals
Acquisition referrals display the external sites that feed traffic back to your site, excluding advertising and organic search. This data reveals which of your campaigns an content are paying off. Some common examples of external sites may be:
Ideally, you should be putting effort into the sources that have a high return rate. If you’re paying a lot to appear in a business listing, for example, but it is not showing up in your referral Analytics, it may be time to redirect that cost somewhere else.
Acquisition referrals display the external sites that feed traffic back to your site, excluding advertising and organic search. This data reveals which of your campaigns an content are paying off. Some common examples of external sites may be:
- Press releases
- Social media
- Guest posts on external blogs
- Business listings
Ideally, you should be putting effort into the sources that have a high return rate. If you’re paying a lot to appear in a business listing, for example, but it is not showing up in your referral Analytics, it may be time to redirect that cost somewhere else.
3. Behavior: All Pages
Behavior Analytics is a great visual tool with which to familiarize yourself. Under the behaviors tab, you can view the “journey” users are taking through your site, page by page, through a series of colorful nodes. You can draw some useful conclusions about your site through these visual nodes. For example, if users are landing on your home page, going to your product page and immediately to checkout, you have a well-oiled ecommerce machine. If you find that users are dropping off before a purchase, pinpoint where and uncover why this may be happening. Maybe a link is broken, or some copy is misleading, or your design is frustrating. Either way, tracking user behavior flow will reveal what does or does not work your site, page-by-page.
Behavior Analytics is a great visual tool with which to familiarize yourself. Under the behaviors tab, you can view the “journey” users are taking through your site, page by page, through a series of colorful nodes. You can draw some useful conclusions about your site through these visual nodes. For example, if users are landing on your home page, going to your product page and immediately to checkout, you have a well-oiled ecommerce machine. If you find that users are dropping off before a purchase, pinpoint where and uncover why this may be happening. Maybe a link is broken, or some copy is misleading, or your design is frustrating. Either way, tracking user behavior flow will reveal what does or does not work your site, page-by-page.
4. Conversions: Goals Overview
The conversions feature allows you to set specific goals you want users to complete on your site. Defining these goals is really up to you. Here are a few examples of goals:
Over time, as customers complete them, your overview page will fill with completion metrics and allow you to track the data most important to you.
The conversions feature allows you to set specific goals you want users to complete on your site. Defining these goals is really up to you. Here are a few examples of goals:
- A specific destination
- Visit duration
- Page visits
- Downloads
- Newsletter signups
- Contact form submissions
Over time, as customers complete them, your overview page will fill with completion metrics and allow you to track the data most important to you.
5. Conversions: Ecommerce
If you run an online store you should enable ecommerce tracking. This will track specifics, such as:
In addition, every transaction that takes place, including SKU and transaction number is complied in an inventory list. Since this data can get massive, ecommerce Analytics includes a feature to track only specific products, and view reports with only the data that is important to your sales performance.
Google Analytics is a massive data collecting tool that can yield a ton of important information. Although this list barely scratches the surface of it capabilities, hopefully it has helped you gain some insight. If you have yet to set up Google Analytics or need help tracking or understanding any of these performance metrics, please give us a call. We have an experienced digital marketing team who will help you make the most of your efforts so that your business can thrive online.
If you run an online store you should enable ecommerce tracking. This will track specifics, such as:
- Ecommerce conversation rate (total transactions divided by total website sessions)
- Number of transactions
- Revenue
- Average order value
- Unique purchases
- Overall and average quantity
- Average price
- Average revenue
- Per session value
In addition, every transaction that takes place, including SKU and transaction number is complied in an inventory list. Since this data can get massive, ecommerce Analytics includes a feature to track only specific products, and view reports with only the data that is important to your sales performance.
Google Analytics is a massive data collecting tool that can yield a ton of important information. Although this list barely scratches the surface of it capabilities, hopefully it has helped you gain some insight. If you have yet to set up Google Analytics or need help tracking or understanding any of these performance metrics, please give us a call. We have an experienced digital marketing team who will help you make the most of your efforts so that your business can thrive online.
About Mira Brody
Mira Brody is an editor, writer, and marketing expert with 12+ years of experience. She has worked as a local news reporter, a writer/editor, and as a leader in large-scale branding strategy. Mira worked at JTech as the staff writer and editor for internal and client projects from March 2015 to December 2019.
More articles by Mira: The Pastas of Programming | The Good, Bad and Ugly of Company Slogans | Note Taking Improves Workplace Skills