7 Stepsgoogleanalyticsguidesmartinsightspart 1

GOOGLE ANALYTICS GUIDE
Using GA to evaluate your marketing and

improve your results
Authors: Dr Dave Chaffey and Hugh Gage
Setup and
customisation
Using Google Analytics

To Improve Online Marketing
Seven Steps to Success Guide
Campaign
Tracking
Contents
07 Step 1. Setup and customisation
48 Step 3. Working with reports to find opportunities and problems
65 Step 5. Improving reach to drive quality traffic
83 Step 7. How can we improve conversion?
Improving journeys and

site engagement
77 Step 6. Improving journeys and site engagement
Improving
reach
54 Step 4. Understanding your site visitors
Understanding your
visitors
40 Step 2. Campaign tracking
Finding problems
and opportunities
04 Introduction
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.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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).
Understanding your
visitors
2. Update to Advanced Segments including new reports.

3. Updates to menus changing reports to ABC format.
Why another guide on Google Analytics?
Improving
reach
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.
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.
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.
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

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.

site engagement
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.
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 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.
Setup and
customisation
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.
The final steps of the guide look at how you can review your analytics in depth to market
better:
Step 6. Improving journeys and site engagement engaging visitors with content and
getting them on the path to purchase.
Increasing Visitor Value the key to improving business success

with Google Analytics
rr Q. Have we reviewed how we can create more business value?
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.
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...

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.

site engagement
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.
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
Before we get to the first step, wed like to introduce our approach to using Google Analytics.
Finding problems
and opportunities
Step 7. How can we improve conversion? We look at techniques to boost conversion

for all types of site.
Campaign
Tracking
Step 5. Improving reach to drive quality traffic expanding your audience and driving
more visitors and customers to your site.
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.
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.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Setup and
customisation
Where to find the value in Google Analytics. Which measures?
The three key value measures within Google Analytics
1. Page Value. This shows the influence of pages in generating value either through
e-commerce transactions or conversion goals with a value assigned.
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
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.

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.

site engagement
NB Its a little hidden since you have to select the Goal Set tabs within these reports
(under where it says Explorer):
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
The three main value measures in Google Analytics (aside from AdWords generated value
which uses cost data) are:
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.
Setup and
customisation
Campaign
Tracking
Finding problems
and opportunities
Understanding your
visitors
Improving
reach
site engagement

Step 1
Setup and customisation
rr Q. Have we reviewed our Google Analytics customisation?
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.
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 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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
We have a separate customisation audit template you can use to review customisation or
you can work through the checkboxes in this section.
Campaign
Tracking
Strategy Recommendation 2 Customise Google Analytics for your business

Take time to review the customisation options so you can better understand user
behaviour.
Setup and
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.
User interactions not recorded with interactive options like videos or application
processed which dont involve a separate page being created.
Not setting up e-commerce tracking so that revenue data can be recorded on
e-commerce sites to help more accurately evaluate ROI.
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.

Understanding how Google Analytics can customise setup for

different sites

site engagement
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
reach
Automatic alerts not setup so time wasted looking for significant changes.
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.
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:

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.

site engagement
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.
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
Campaign
Tracking
Note: From Autumn 2013, Profiles are known as Views.
Setup and
customisation
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.
Account
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
Goals, funnels, on-site search are setup

at this level.
Understanding your
visitors
Include or exclude certain

types of traffic to one or
more profile.
Include information for single site or part

of site.
Different properties for

different web entities such
as regional sites and mobile
apps.
Tracking code is applied at this level
Each web property has one

or more profiles.
View
Filter
User customisations like Advanced

Segments, Annotations and Custom
Alerts are applied at this level.
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

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.

site engagement
Exclude employees.
Improving
reach
Remarketing lists are also setup at this

level.
Different report scope,

typically for different content
areas or data output options
in Google Analytics.
Property
Campaign
Tracking
Scope
Typically one company with
one or more web properties.
Setup and
customisation
Here is a summary of the most common ways you will use Admin features to customise
Google Analytics:
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.
This is how you add a new account.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Setup and
customisation
To create an account, simply click the + New Account button from the Account
Administration Screen which you access using the cog button top right.
Finding problems
and opportunities
Understanding your
visitors
Improving
reach
site engagement
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.
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.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Setup and
customisation
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.
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.
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.
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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
Step 2. Add tracking code to pages
rr 2. The classic version which can be Asynchonous (faster loading) or an original version.
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
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Import of data, e.g. sales data from offline and other online services using the
Measurement Protocol to import data

site engagement
What is it? Universal Analytics

A new version of Googles tracking code introduced in 2012 which enables new features
including:
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.
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
As Chris Soames explained in our post when we launched it...
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).
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.
12

You can also review your recommended tracking code on the Advanced tab of the Account
Name settings page:

site engagement
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.
Improving
reach
This general rule of thumb holds true, although dynamic startups like Smart Insights may
prefer to
Understanding your
visitors
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.
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.
Campaign
Tracking
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
Google launched a free tag manager tool in 2012 that aims to simplify the process of adding
and updating tracking code to a site.
Setup and
customisation
Campaign
Tracking
Special case 1 for tracking code: if your site contains multiple domains or sub-domains
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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:
Note that the new Universal Analytics removes the need for additional tracking code for
sub-domains.
Improving
reach
For one domain with multiple sub-domains, this line is added to the code:
_gaq.push([_setDomainName, none]);
_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.
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.
13

Special case 2 for tracking code: e-commerce tracking

site engagement
and for multiple top-level domains (and sub-domains):
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

AGoogle Analytics viewwill typically be used to produce reports limited to an individual
site, sub-domain or sub-folder.
Setup and
customisation
rr Q. Have the views been reviewed?
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
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:
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
14

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.

site engagement
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.
Improving
reach
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.
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?
The most common uses of filters are:
Setup and
customisation
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.
to exclude site access statistics that are generated by employees and other external
supplier stakeholders.
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.
Campaign
Tracking
to limit data reported to part of a site, such as a sub-folder for a blog or product category.
1. Excluding employees
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
rr Q. Have we taken steps to exclude employees and other external supplier stakeholders?
Single IP address
Select exclude all traffic from IP address as follows:
Understanding your
visitors
Select Filter Manager.
Improving
reach
site engagement
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.
15

2. Range of IPs
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
rr Q. Have goals and funnels been setup to track business contribution?
Setup and
customisation
Step 5. Setup goals and funnels

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.
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.
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:
Browse products.
Search products.
Add-to-basket.
Start checkout.
Understanding your
visitors
Category/list pages.
Finding problems
and opportunities
If you need to know about e-commerce tracking this is the relevant GA help page or feel free
to ask questions online.
Campaign
Tracking
Goal-tracking for e-commerce sites
Individual checkout steps.
This graphic shows steps at different levels in the funnel:

site engagement
What is it? Micro-conversion

An intermediate step on the path to purchase. Through improving micro-conversion rates
we increase overall conversion rates.
Improving
reach
These are sometimes known as micro-conversion steps.
16

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.
Setup and
customisation
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:
Campaign
Tracking
Finding problems
and opportunities
Understanding your
visitors
site engagement
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.
Improving
reach
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.
17

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.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Setup and
customisation
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.
Q. Why do I need to setup goals in Google Analytics?
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:
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.
Different goal types to consider, as shown in the example above, are prompted by these
questions:
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. 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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rr Q. Time on site engagement goals?

site engagement
Q. Do we have goals for lead-generation and email communications?
Improving
reach
Q. Which types of goals can we use?
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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?
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. 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.
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.
Campaign
Tracking
Q. Do we have checkout process goals?
Setup and
customisation
rr Q. Category page viewed?
rr Q. Add-to-basket goal?
rr Q. Intermediate steps as part of checkout process, e.g. credit card payment?
rr Q. Checkout complete goal?
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:
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
rr Q. Start checkout goal?
rr Blog comments.
rr Favouriting or sharing of pages through social bookmarking.
rr Sharing content or linking through to social presence like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
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.
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.
4 Smart Insights: Google Analytics Event tracking and Event Goals.
19

Q. Have we included offline events?

site engagement
Q. Do we have content engagement goals?
Improving
reach
rr Product comments, reviews and ratings.
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.
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!
Setting the precise value is difficult, but its not that important for comparing relative value.
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.
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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Setup and
customisation
Q. Have we assigned value to our goals?
Relevant Google Analytics Help page: GA Help 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.
How to setup goals the right way
20

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.

site engagement
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.
Improving
reach
Worked example of goal setup for a Google Analytics page
First Step. Enter Goal information.
Setup and
customisation
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.
Second Step. Goal details.

This is where it starts getting tricky and where mistakes are commonly made, so think this
through carefully.
Finding problems
and opportunities
Goal Activation. When you create a goal it will automatically be set to the ON position,
i.e. it will automatically be activated.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Here are some of the fields to pay particular attention to on the goal setup form:
21

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

site engagement
Case Sensitive. Generally it is best to avoid the case sensitive option since this may
exclude some pages.
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Setup and
customisation
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
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.
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.
Understanding your
visitors
Mistakes to watch out for
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
Campaign
Tracking
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...
Gotchas 2. Not actually referencing for URL correctly, so start with /<page>.
Gotchas 4. Missing/wrongly assigning goal value. You know were keen on assigning
values to key goals.
Step 6. Setup tracking for interactions and goals that dont involve a
page view using event tracking, event goals and virtual page views
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.
22

rr Q. Have the options been reviewed for monitoring interactions and goals that dont
involve a page view?

site engagement
Gotchas 5. Required step may exclude some behaviour e.g. entry deeper into funnel
and cause confusion in the funnel visualisation.
Improving
reach
Gotchas 3. Including a trailing slash / can exclude URLs without a trailing slash, so its
best not to include this to capture all goals.
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.
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:
23

When an item is added to a shopping basket.

site engagement
A stage in an application process for which there is no corresponding page because the
content on the existing page is simply refreshed.
Improving
reach
For example, we may have goals involving:
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Setup and
customisation
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:
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.
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 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
Social sharing and user-generated content

rr 6. Join a social network button. Our example at the start of the article.
rr 8. Comments on a blog. Simple!

rr 9. Document downloads. If you are offering Word or Powerpoint documents for
download, for example.
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.
24

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.

site engagement
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.
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
Interaction with navigation
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Setup and
customisation
Interaction with rich media
E-commerce processes
Last, but not least, we have:
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.
Setup and
customisation
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 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 16. Form-field error messages. These can be written to an event with a label.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
More detail on options for tracking non-page outcomes 1 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.
When you use events, its worth being aware of these implications:
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
25
basket for example

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.

site engagement
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.
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
rr Q. Have we reviewed options for event tracking?
Best Practice Tip 2

Best Practice Tip 3
Best Practice Tip 4
Best Practice Tip 5
Setup and
customisation
Campaign
Tracking
Finding problems
and opportunities
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):
Understanding your
visitors
Improving
reach
Clicking on the category of Social media then shows the breakdown of different events.

site engagement
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.
26

Categories (required).
Actions (required).
Event labels (optional).
Values (optional).
<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>
This is a further example from Google help:

<a href=# onClick=pageTracker._trackEvent(Videos, Play,
Baby\s First Birthday);>Play</a>
rr Q. Are we tracking social interactions properly?
Options for tracking non-page outcomes 2 Event Goals

rr Q. Have we reviewed event goals?
PDF downloads
Shopping Cart Adds / clicks on the buy now button
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.
6 Google Analytics: Event tracking guide.

* https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1316556.
** https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/gaTrackingSocial.
27

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

site engagement
Exit links to other sites such as a separate customer extranet in B2B marketing
Improving
reach
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:
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Setup and
customisation
In our example, we are just using the first three parameters:
form. When you select event, it gives you the opportunity to enter the group or specific you
want to be recorded as a goal.
Setup and
customisation
Campaign
Tracking
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).
Using our example from event tracking, we can track a click on our link to Twitter using:
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.
28

<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>

site engagement
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.
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
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.
Setup and
customisation
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
Once you have the core tracking features of your profile setup you should then setup access
for different types of employees and agencies.
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.

site engagement
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:
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
Campaign
Tracking
rr Q. Has user access been setup?
You can then drill down into each user at the account level and set separate permission
29

levels for them against each property or profile as indicated in the screengrab below.
Setup and
customisation
Campaign
Tracking
Setting up shared customised reporting assets

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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
rr Q. Have the options for shared reporting for Google Analytics users been setup?
Improving
reach
site engagement
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
30

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.
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?
1
Setup and
customisation
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.
rr Q. Annotations setup?
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:
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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]?
Campaign
Tracking
2. Shared reporting option 2: Annotations
Improving
reach
site engagement
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?
31

So the steps to create an Annotation are simple:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Improving
reach
Paid Search increase or decrease by more than five percent daily. For example, goal
conversion rate decreases by five percent daily.
Understanding your
visitors
Examples of useful custom alerts are:
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Setup and
customisation
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.
You setup Custom alerts for each profile from the Assets tab.
32

However, Googles changes to Not Provided search data makes this less useful than
previously.

site engagement
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.
Campaign
Tracking
4. Shared reporting option 4: Custom reports
Setup and
customisation
rr Q. Have custom reports been setup?
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:
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
Improving
reach
site engagement
33

This report is created using this type of Edit form:
Campaign
Tracking
Features available in custom reports are:
Setup and
customisation
1. Tabs. Reports have separate tabs in which you can have separate reports with different
information grouped for different people.
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.
6. Sharing custom reports. They can be shared amongst other profiles by using the Sharing
button at the bottom of the edit page.
Types of custom reports

Often, the biggest challenge with custom reporting is thinking through the right type of report.
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
34

Here are some reports to consider which arent readily available in the main reports of
Google Analytics:

site engagement
7. Migrating previous reports. You have to migrate existing reports to the new (May 2011
version of Google Analytics).
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
2. Metric Groups. Within each tab you can have additional reports or if you prefer groups of
measures.
Product categories
Countries
3. Role-based reporting.
Setup different tabs for different types of people or marketing activity.
5. Shared reporting option 5. Dashboards
Setup and
customisation
This post by Google Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik may also inspire further ideas for
custom reports.7
rr Q. Have Dashboards been setup?
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Improving
reach
site engagement
7 Avinash Kaushik - Custom report examples
35

The widgets are added using this simple tool:
Setup and
customisation
Campaign
Tracking
Metric. A numerical metric shown as a single number. These help focus attention on
headline data.
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.
Bar charts: Can be used to display one metric against two dimensions utilising up to nine
bars.
Improving
reach
Pie charts: Can be used to display one metric against one dimension with up to six
segments.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
How these individual widget style are used to display data is up to each individual.
rr Q. Has on-site search been setup?
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.
36

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.

site engagement
Step 8. Setup on site search (if relevant)
Setup and
customisation
Campaign
Tracking
We have more information on how to use this in our Site Design 7 Steps Guide and in Step 7
of this guide.
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.
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.
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
Two main actions are necessary to track an e-commerce site:
Finding problems
and opportunities
Step 9. Setup on e-commerce setup (if relevant)

site engagement
37

Setup and
customisation
Campaign
Tracking
Finding problems
and opportunities
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
Understanding your
visitors
Improving
reach
8 Google Analytics migration guide.
38

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,

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.
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

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.
Care must be taken not to store information about individuals, since this is against Googles
terms of service for privacy purposes.
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.
Customer v non-customer.
Different customer segments or demographic profile variables like male or female or
membership levels for a membership site.
Understanding your
visitors
Options for setting these variables include:
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
Campaign
Tracking
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?
Setup and
customisation
rr Q. Have custom variables been setup?
Segmenting visitors according to landing page.

Categorising different content types.
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

site engagement
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
Improving
reach
Recording referral source attribution.
9 Google Conversion Room guidance on Ecommerce tracking by country.

10 Google Analytics guide to custom variables.
11 E-nor: Multiple custom variables.
39

Step 2
Campaign tracking
Setup and
customisation
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.
What does Google track by default?
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
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.
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
site engagement
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:
40

Affiliate
Display ads
Email
Social
Setup and
customisation
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.
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

You can get more detailed tracking information on campaign source in Google Analytics by
adding additional marketing source codes. Heres how.

site engagement
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.
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
Social traffic All the main social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus,
etc.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
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.
Variable
utm_campaign
Explanation
The name of the marketing campaign, e.g. Spring Campaign.
Recommended
utm_medium
Setup and
customisation
The table explains each of these five dimensions which refers to this example:
Media channel (i.e. email, banner, CPC, etc).
utm_source
utm_term
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).
Optional
This is not always used and is NOT included in the above example.
Optional
Affiliate marketing.
Display advertising.
Email marketing.
Social media marketing.
12 Google URL Builder.

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.

site engagement
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:
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
To understand the way this works, we recommend you use the Google URL Builder12 that
can help with creating these links.
42
Finding problems
and opportunities
Required
utm_content
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.
Campaign
Tracking
Required
Setup and
customisation
Campaign
Tracking
Finding problems
and opportunities
Understanding your
visitors
Medium
43
Campaign
(Site name)
(Campaign
name)
Not used
Not used
Search
engine name
Search
engine name
AdWords
campaign
name
Content
Ad version
Term
Search
term used
by user
User
search or
search
term
triggering
ad

(Media
channel)
Natural search Organic
(label within
segments)
Paid search
cpc
Source

site engagement
Digital media
channel
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.
Affiliate
network,
aggregator or
voucher site
Ad network
or publisher
name
Referring
site
Offer
Product
Display
advertising
Display
advertising
Campaign
name
Ad
identifier
Email
type, e.g.
Campaign
name
Ad
placement
or testing
version
Location of
link in email
or offer if
testing
Offer?
Email
marketing
Email
marketing
Social media
marketing
Social media Social

network
name
Campaign
name
Subject line
Name of
message
Understanding your
visitors
Improving
reach
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
Campaign
Tracking
Affiliate
marketing
Setup and
customisation
Affiliate
marketing

site engagement
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.
Setup and
customisation
This example14 shows how a B2B company is able to show the value in Referrals from
partner sites and social networks in generating leads:
Campaign
Tracking
Finding problems
and opportunities
Offline campaigns
rr Q. Have offline campaigns been tracked?
Some will argue that this isnt worthwhile since so few use the URL. But we would argue that
its still worthwhile since:
Improving
reach
To track an offline campaigns effectiveness ideally requires use of a specific campaign URL
within offline communications like Print or TV ads.
Understanding your
visitors
You can access this report from the Conversions menu in the left sidebar it is labelled
Multi-channel funnels, Assisted conversions.
You get a good idea of the relative effectiveness of campaigns.

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
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

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.

site engagement
It stops offline media being grouped within the Direct category.
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.
Setup and
customisation
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.
Example: http://www.domain.com/<value-offered>
Campaign
Tracking
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.
3. Redirecting campaign specific folder URL with Google Analytics tracking codes
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.
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:
Recommended
utm_medium
Required
utm_content
Optional
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.
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

Optional
utm_term
For an offline campaign this should be print, TV

or direct mail.

site engagement
Required
utm_source
Explanation
The name of the marketing campaign, e.g. Spring
Campaign.
Improving
reach
Variable
utm_campaign
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
Example: http://www.domain.com/<campaign-name>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} .*
RewriteRule .*
http://www.mysite.com/?utm_source=magazine&utm_medium=print&
Setup and
customisation
utm_campaign=March%20print%20ad [R=301,QSA]
</VirtualHost>
Other sources to find out more about offline campaign tracking.
Offline or multichannel tracking was also explained well by Avinash in his 2008
post:Multichannel Analytics: Tracking Online Impact Of Offline Campaigns.
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 campaigns report in Google Analytics will then enable you to compare media.

site engagement
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.
Improving
reach
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.
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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:
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).
47

Step 3
Setup and
customisation
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:
Campaign
Tracking
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.
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.
Many of the features you will know, or they are self-explanatory, but there may be some you
do not know about.
Understanding your
visitors
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:
Finding problems
and opportunities
A. Overview of reporting
Improving
reach
site engagement
48

On the next page, see our summary table of how to use the different report elements
highlighting tips to get the most from each.
Feature
Purpose
Date selector Select fixed periods of weeks

or months or custom periods.
Analytics
Education
Report
1. Customize - template for
management custom report based on this
data.
Additional Help Guidance
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.
Setup and
customisation
Tips
Campaign
Tracking
2. Email - Setup up scheduled

emails for this report
3. Export - save as Excel or
PDF
Advanced
Segments
Explorer
report:
Select report
types
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.

Graph by
This is a good short cut to see which

dimensions are.

site engagement
49
Compare
metric
These are valuable to see behaviour of

specific audiences, so we cover them in
detail elsewhere.
Improving
reach
Understanding your
visitors
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).
Finding problems
and opportunities
4. Add to Dashboard
Feature
11
Secondary
dimension
Search
14
Data view
type
Measures
and sort
16
Select Plot
Rows.
18
Best to use 50 or 100 for analysis of

pages or keywords.
Go to available, but we suspect this isnt
used much.
B. Selecting different time periods
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

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.

site engagement
Report page
display
number
Number of rows to display in

table.
Select the page.
Improving
reach
17
New.
Show Rows.
Understanding your
visitors
15
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
13
For example, you can choose Landing

Page as a secondary dimension in this
report.
Campaign
Tracking
Sort Type
This inserts an additional

column for you to break down
the primary dimension further.
Tips
Setup and
customisation
12
Purpose
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
Setup and
customisation
Comparing time periods
Understanding your
visitors
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
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.
Campaign
Tracking
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!
Improving
reach
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.
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
51

You select Views using the option on the Right Side of the interface:

site engagement
C. Using reporting Data views including Pivots
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.
Setup and
customisation
6. Pivot. We think this is the most useful of the Data View Tools. A Secondary dimension is
selected using the Pivot By Box.
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
Understanding your
visitors
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.
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.
52

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.

site engagement
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.
Improving
reach
D. Using Filters or Searches to narrow results
Setup and
customisation
Campaign
Tracking
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.
Finding problems
and opportunities
We describe these in the first Step under 3. Shared reporting option 3: Custom alerts
(Google Analytics Intelligence).
Understanding your
visitors
Improving
reach
site engagement
53


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GOOGLE ANALYTICS GUIDE

Using GA to evaluate your marketing and

Using Google Analytics

07 Step 1. Setup and customisation

48 Step 3. Working with reports to find opportunities and problems

65 Step 5. Improving reach to drive quality traffic

83 Step 7. How can we improve conversion?

Improving journeys and

77 Step 6. Improving journeys and site engagement

54 Step 4. Understanding your site visitors

40 Step 2. Campaign tracking

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

2. Update to Advanced Segments including new reports.

Why another guide on Google Analytics?

How is this guide structured?

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Improving journeys and

Increasing Visitor Value the key to improving business success

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Improving journeys and

Step 7. How can we improve conversion? We look at techniques to boost conversion

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

The three key value measures within Google Analytics

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Improving journeys and

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Strategy Recommendation 2 Customise Google Analytics for your business

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Understanding how Google Analytics can customise setup for

Improving journeys and

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Improving journeys and

Note: From Autumn 2013, Profiles are known as Views.

exclude employee site access from statistics;

Main customisation available

Goals, funnels, on-site search are setup

Include or exclude certain

Include information for single site or part

Different properties for

Tracking code is applied at this level

Each web property has one

User customisations like Advanced

Step 1. Create new account/review account settings

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Improving journeys and

Remarketing lists are also setup at this

Different report scope,

This is how you add a new account.

Strategy Recommendation 3 Ensure your Google Analytics account is linked to Google

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

change the Account Name and Data Sharing settings.

If youre using a content management or blogging system, its usually straightforward to

Step 2. Add tracking code to pages

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Improving journeys and

What is it? Universal Analytics

As Chris Soames explained in our post when we launched it...

Where to place the tracking code

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Improving journeys and

What is it? Google Tag Manager

Seven Steps Guide to Google Analytics

Special case 2 for tracking code: e-commerce tracking