Google Analytics 2/2 – Review
Table of Contents
Intermediate Google Analytics
In the second part of my Google Analytics blog, we go a bit more in detail, which parameters you can set up in GA to better understand how to filter, segment, get your customized reports and finaly how to configure marketing channels. Also I want to share the concept about Cross-Domain-Tracking and few other notices with ressources to look up.
Clean Data: Filtering Out SPAM
- Setup basic defenses
- Enabling bot detection
- Filters (Hostname, Source, Passwords (advanced)
Ressources:
Filter Domain Referrals
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1034842
https://juliencoquet.com/en/2016/06/17/how-can-handle-google-analytics-referrer-spam/
Filtering Out Junk Traffic
https://moz.com/blog/how-to-filter-junk-traffic-google-analytics
Removing SPAM from GA
https://www.optimizesmart.com/geek-guide-removing-referrer-spam-google-analytics/
CXL Playbook: https://cxl.com/institute/playbook/identify-and-remove-spam-fro-m-ga/
Clean Data: Removing Internal Hits
- Set filter for removing internal hits by cities or UTM source=test or original source=test
- It makes sense to set up 2 different views with different filters (remove internal hits) to see 1 view with all traffic and the other one without the internal hits
Ressources:
Excluding by IP Address
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1034840
Google Analytics Opt-Out Extension
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-analytics-opt-out/fllaojicojecljbmefodhfapmkghcbnh
Cleaning GA with GTM
CXL Playbook: https://cxl.com/institute/playbook/remove-internal-hits-on-ga/
Clean Data: Cross-Domain Tracking
- Cross-domain tracking
- Sub-domain tracking is included in GA
- Non-cross domain tracking > GA story is not clear here
- Need to be fixed with GTM and linking the correct user ID through the process
- This is how it looks when you link user ID correctly
- Tracking Info > Referral Exclusion List
- For example paypal.com
- Unknown sessions for a user becomes direct/none for the source/medium
Ressources:
Google’s Guide to Cross-Domain Measurement
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1034342
Google Analytics Debugger Extension
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-analytics-debugger/jnkmfdileelhofjcijamephohjechhna
How to Set Up Cross-Domain Tracking
https://www.jeffalytics.com/cross-domain-tracking/
Finding Answers: Funnel Tracking
One important point at funnel tracking is the analysis of source/medium reports in GA.
With source/medium reports you can measure the performance of your traffic sources in term of:
1. Acquisition (number of users, numbers of new users and number of sesseions)
2. Behavior (bounce rate, pages per session, avarage session duration)
3. Conversions (Ecommerce conversion rate, transactions, revenue, goal conversion rate, goal completions, goal value)
In GA under Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium
regular expressions (examples):
Ressources:
6 Ways to Set Up Funnels In GA
https://conversionxl.com/blog/funnels-google-analytics/
Funnel Visualization vs Goal Flow
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2976313
Learning Regular Expressions
CXL Playbook: https://cxl.com/institute/playbook/track-a-funnel-on-ga/
Finding Answers: Segments
- Practice QIA + Segments
- Come up with questions where the information you´ll need to take action can best be found using segments
- Example Sequence
- Start with LP (use regular expressions that the entry point is really the landingpage)
Ressources:
About Segments In GA
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3123951
Analyzing Data With Segments
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3125360?ref_topic=3123779
Building Segments In GA
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3124493
CXL Playbook: https://cxl.com/institute/playbook/use-built-in-segments-on-ga/
Finding Answers: Custom Reports
Ressources:
About Custom Reports
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033013?ref_topic=1012046
Users vs Sessions in Custom Reports
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2934985?ref_topic=1012046
Tips & Tricks: Saved Reports & Alerts
- Customize your report with filters, sequences and other individual settings and save it as an report to come at a later time in ‘Customization’ > saved reports for faster overview with prefilled filters and sequences
- Customization > cusotm alerts:
- Create an alert for example when you page has an 404 error ‘page not found’ and trigger when more then 5 users are affected for example
Ressources:
About Saved Reports
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2676996
Create & Manage Custom Alerts
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033021
Tips & Tricks: Channels
- Channel grouping vs. Custom channel grouping (beta)
- Custom channel grouping is used on a personal level
- Channel grouping is used on a global level
- (marketing) Channel is a group of several traffic sources with the same medium
- For example ‘oragnic search’ is a marketing channel. It can be made up of following traffic sources as long as the medium is ‘organic’
- Can be google (as in google/organic), yahoo (as in yahoo/organic) and so on..
- For example ‘oragnic search’ is a marketing channel. It can be made up of following traffic sources as long as the medium is ‘organic’
- Other marketing channels can be:
- Paid search (traffic source can be cpc, ppc and paid search as medium and google or bing)
- Display ( traffic source can be cpm, banner and display as medium and expedia, tripadvisor or bbc )
- direct, (traffic source can be from website bookmarks, direct search goal in the search bar, direct link from email or spreadsheet; medium is none or not set)
- Referral (can be any traffic source as long as the medium of the traffic sources is ‘referral’ e.g. facebook/referral or tripadvisor/refarral)
- social (can be any number of traffic sources as long as the social source referral exactly matches yes or the medium is social, social-network, social-media, sm, social network, social media; traffic sources are the common known like facebook, youtube instagram, twitter, pinterest and so on)
- Email (can be made of any number of traffic sources as long as the medium is ’email’; for example as traffic sources can be activecampaign, getresponse, mailchimp or other email provider
- Other (other marketing channel can be made up of any number of traffic sources as long as the medium is one of the following: cpv, cpa, cpp, content-text or defined by a user via custom tracking parameter ‘utm_medium’ or (not set) if the user didnt set the utm_medium)
- Notice: you should avoid chaning the definition of a default marketing channel as this can skew your analytics reports for good.
Ressources:
About Channel Groupings
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6010097?ref_topic=6010089
Understanding Channels in Google Analytics
https://www.optimizesmart.com/understanding-channels-in-google-analytics/
The Definitive Guide to Channels in GA
https://www.annielytics.com/guides/definitive-guide-to-channel-groupings-google-analytics/
Tips & Tricks: Multi-Channel Funnel Reports
Ressources:
About Multi-Channel Funnels
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1191180
Details of Multi-Channel Funnel Data
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1319312?ref_topic=1191164
Tips & Tricks: Attribution
Ressources:
Attribution Models in Google Analytics
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1662518
Guide to Attribution Modeling in Google Analytics
https://www.optimizesmart.com/attribution-modeling-google-analytics-ultimate-guide/
Tips & Tricks: Measurement Protocol
Interesting for offline meassurements (for offline events like phone call, meetins e.g.)
Ressources:
Measurement Protocol Overview
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/v1/
Google Analytics “Hit Builder”
https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/hit-builder/
Personal feedback about the Google Analytics course:
I really enjoyed the course from Chris Mercer about Google Analytics. His ‘hands on’ approach with google demo account and showing practical use cases combined with own illustrations in lucid charts for understanding the basic concept makes it pritty nice to follow him. The motivation stays high! Really appreciate and enjoyed his course.
Also I love how Chris Mercer structure his course and going through the details like showing the roadmap, next steps, lesson recap and in the videos on the timeline different chapters.. excellent!
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