Most digital marketers should be familiar with Google Analytics (GA). It is definitely one of the most widely used analytics platforms out there. The key reason for this is that the GA platform is accessible (free!) and relatively easy to pick up. However, just because it’s free and easy to use does not mean that the tool is lacking in features. In fact, some marketers are not fully utilizing the comprehensive features of this powerful tool.
While GA is not a magic tool that is able to resolve all your digital marketing woes, it is important to understand how it works. When you invest time and effort in understanding the tool, you will be more aware of its limitations too. This will then allow you to get critical insights into your business.
With that in mind here are a few tips on how to make the most out of your GA setup.
1. Optimise your accounts and tracking structure
The first tip is to ensure that your GA account’s hierarchy is structured as simply as possible.
1a. Open GA and click on the drop down at the top left.
1b. See your account’s hierarchy of accounts, properties and apps, and views.
Accounts, at the highest level, determine the user access permissions to their properties and views.
Properties, at the middle level, represent the apps and websites themselves that you’re tracking. They also have user permissions and can be linked to other platforms like Google Ads.
Views, at the lowest level, are customisable, filtered data segments with user permissions. By default all new properties have ‘All Web Site Data’, an unfiltered view.
So an account may have multiple properties, and each of those properties may have multiple views.
Most businesses or webmasters will only need a single property; the exception is for agencies who need access to multiple clients’ GA accounts or for large holding companies with multiple businesses under them.
If your GA has, for example, an account for each property when there’s no reason for it, you’ll have to manage access for each separately at the account level. This can create unnecessary work for companies with multiple properties.
The best approach is to have the least number of accounts necessary (one for each client/company), and only one property for each website/app. Views are less troublesome so have as many as you need.
2. Master Advanced Segments
Advanced segments allow you to compare stats on your site with different segments of user behaviour.
2a. Click on a report on the left side, for example, Audience/Overview.
2b. Next to ‘All Users’, click ‘Add Segment.
2c. Choose a segment from the list.
2d. Now you can see a comparison of the two segments for all data on the report.
You can also filter Advanced Segments by:
- All Visits
- New Visitors
- Returning Visitors
- Paid Traffic
- Non-paid Traffic
- Search Traffic
- Direct Traffic
- Referral Traffic
- Visits with Conversions
3. Analyse both users and sessions
Sessions are not users, users are not sessions; a user can create multiple sessions. GA defines a session as a user entering your site and spending 30 mins or less. A session also expires and resets at midnight (your GA account time zone.
When you filter, like below, you may choose users or sessions but not both–a minor inconvenience to be aware of with GA.
4. Explore sequential segments
Sequential segments are one solution to the previous conundrum. They allow you to build a funnel of steps that filter users or sessions that have completed a specific path.
For example, users that have made an account, added an item to the cart, and then abandoned the checkout process. You could then copy that segment and change users to sessions.
5. Events are better than goals
Events are not goals, goals are not events. An event is triggered when a user takes a specified action on your site, like clicks on the call to action button. This action triggers an event as specified by your tag setup.
Goals, by default, aren’t assigned to events but they are designed to be assigned to events that you deem the most important. Goals are counted as unique so if a user clicks on the call to action button twice it only triggers one goal.
As such, we prefer to avoid spending too much time looking at goals and focus on the raw event data instead.
6. Don’t neglect Google Data Studio
Google Data Studio is a free data visualisation platform that you can link directly to your GA account. It allows you to build far user-friendlier interactive dashboards than what GA offers out of the box. It’s perfect for clients.
Conclusion
While Google might be pushing its new product, Google Analytics 4, we still highly recommend sticking to the standard GA as it is more stable at this point in time. Thus, this guide was put together to provide you with some key takeaways that you can immediately implement in your GA account. The objective was to step up on your analytical skills as a marketer by using the tools that you already have at your fingertips.
Good luck!
