Technical
Implementation of Google Analytics
The majority of people with websites
who use Google Analytics are just taking the tracking code and adding it to
their pages. And this is where the implementation ends. You go and check the
big metrics on your standard reports, set up a goal or two and that’s all. Here
I’ll try to show you the wide range of possibilities to implement GA tracking
correctly on your sites and prepare for an effective analysis.
This guide is not only for a new website. You can also make some
or all of the changes described below on your existing website, but a best
practice to have in mind is to make the changes on the 1st of the month. This
way you’ll have whole months of data without a lot of discrepancies. Also, it’s
useful to add an annotation in GA interface, so you know when these have been
made.
As this guide came out pretty long, you can quickly navigate using
the contents:
1.
Google Tag Manager
2. Tracking code
3. Check the implementation
4. Profiles and filters
5. Settings
6. Goals setup
7. Virtual page views and events
8. Campaign tracking
9. Advanced segments and custom reports, Dashboards.
10. Custom alerts
2. Tracking code
3. Check the implementation
4. Profiles and filters
5. Settings
6. Goals setup
7. Virtual page views and events
8. Campaign tracking
9. Advanced segments and custom reports, Dashboards.
10. Custom alerts
1. GOOGLE TAG MANAGER
Google Tag Manager allows you
to implement just one script (container) on every page of your website and
through an easy to use interface to manage all your tags – web analytics,
AdWords re marketing and conversion tracking, other vendor’s scripts and any
custom tags. Here’s how easy it is to sign up, install your container and set
up Google Analytics with it.
·
Sign up – you can use your existing Google account.
·
Create your account and
container
- Get the code and add it to all your pages: It’s recommended to add the code right after the opening <body> tag on all your pages. If you’re using a CMS, you should insert it in the template that serves all pages.
- Create the Google Analytics tag:
- Create a new version, test it and publish:
2. TRACKING CODE
For all tracking code examples we’ll use the GA asynchronous
tracking code. If you’re using Universal Analytics please check the Universal Analytics Tracking Code Implementation article.
Adjusting
bounce rate
The bounce rate is a really important
metric used to evaluate the quality of traffic and landing pages. It shows how
relevant your content is for the visitors and how engaged they are with your
website.
How to
Implement Adjusted Bounce Rate
It is pretty
straightforward to get set up; you just need to add the following line to the
bottom of your Google (Universal) Analytics code:
setTimeout("ga('send','event','adjusted
bounce rate','page visit 30 seconds or more')",30000);
In-Page Analytics – Enhanced
Link Attribution
The In-Page Analytics report is available under the Content
section and it’s a visual representation of how visitors interact with your
pages. It gives us information about the design layout usability, are visitors
focusing on the right content and are they engaging with our call to actions,
and what are they clicking on the page.
Additionally,
to enable enhanced link attribution:
§ Click Admin at the top of any GA page.
§ Click Property Settings tab.
§ In the In-Page Analytics section, select the Use enhanced link attribution
option.
§ Click Apply.
3.
CHECK THE IMPLEMENTATION
When you install the GA tracking code
on your website you can visit the real time reports right away to check if data
is being collected. If you have a new website just open it in a browser and go
to Real-Time -> Overview under Standard Reports and see if GA shows you.
4. PROFILES AND FILTERS
The truth is that
when you’re done with adding your tracking code to your website, having just
one profile is not enough to do proper work. Here is a list of profiles you
should have for one ID:
§ one untouched profile – the raw data profile
§ one live profile
§ one SEO profile – exactly as the clean one, but show (not provided)
landing pages
§ separate profiles for each domain / sub domain if you have such
§ multiple profiles depending on the number of goals / conversions
5. SETTINGS
So you have
your code up and running, now it’s time to look at the settings. It’s important
to note that they’re set by profile.
6. GOALS SETUP
About Goals
·
Goals measure
how well your site or app fulfills your target objectives. A goal represents a
completed activity, called a conversion that contributes to the success of your
business.
·
Examples of
goals include making a purchase (for an ecommerce site), completing a game
level (for a mobile gaming app), or submitting a contact information form (for
a marketing or lead generation site).
·
Defining goals
is a fundamental component of any digital analytics measurement plan. Having
properly configured goals allows Analytics to provide you with critical
information, such as the number of conversions and the conversion rate for your
site or app.
·
Without this
information, it's almost impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of your
online business and marketing campaigns.
Setting up Goals
Create a new goal:
Navigate to your goals:
•
Sign in to Google Analytics.
•
Select the Admin tab and navigate to the desired account,
property and view.
•
In the VIEW column,
click Goals.
•
Click + New goal or Import from Gallery to
create a new goal, or click an existing goal to edit its configuration.
3 basic options for creating goals:
•
using a goal template
•
creating custom goals
•
creating Smart Goals
Option 1: Goals from a template
- Select a Template from
the list.
- Click Next
step to continue setting up your goal.
•
Goal templates are designed to help you set actionable goals that meet
standard business objectives. You can edit any template field before saving a
goal.
•
The goal categories (Revenue, Acquisition, Inquiry, Engagement) are the larger business objectives that motivate
the goal templates.
•
Use them as an organization tool to help you think about the purpose of
your goals. Try to create at least one goal for each category to get a better
understanding of how users interact with your content. These categories don’t
affect any data or your reports.
Option 2: Custom goals
- Select Custom from
the list of options.
- Click Next
step, then select a goal Type.
- Click Next step again to
continue setting up your goal.
Option 3: Smart Goals
•
If your account meets the prerequisites, you will have the
option to select Smart Goals.
- Select Smart
Goals (if available).
- Click Next step to continue setting up your goal.
7. VIRTUAL PAGEVIEWS AND EVENTS
As mentioned in the Goals setup section, there are a number of
situations where you need to implement additionally a special tracking like
virtual page views or events. It’s very important to determine in advance all
elements you want to track and adopt a consistent and clear naming convention –
this will help create a clear reporting structure. You can use event tracking
for any flash element, AJAX elements, page gadgets, file downloads, load times
for data, etc.
Event: Event is the user’s interaction /activity with a webpage element that is being tracked in Google Analytics.
Following are the examples of
users’ interactions/activities that can be tracked in GA:
1.
Downloading a file
2.
Loading of a
dynamically generated webpage
3.
Loading of a video
on a webpage
4.
Scrolling down the
page
5.
Viewing of a video
6.
Clicking on an
image or an external link
7.
Log-ins
8.
Sharing/printing a
blog post, article, video or image
9.
Clicking on a
button.
10.
Movement of mouse
8. CAMPAIGN TRACKING
It’s very important to track all of
your campaigns so you can attribute traffic properly. With campaign tracking
you add parameters to your URL which are variable-value pairs and contain the
campaign information you define for source, medium, campaign, term and content.
You can either write them manually or use Google URL builder to build them for you.
9. ADVANCED SEGMENTS AND CUSTOM
REPORTS. DASHBOARDS
Now that you have everything setup and you can start collecting
and analyzing your data, the advanced segments and custom reports in Google
Analytics can be very valuable. Here are some of them that you can setup from
the start. The advanced segments allow you to slice the data in your GA
profile. There are some default segments like new visitors, Returning visitors,
Search traffic, Visits with Conversions, etc. But we can also create our own
segments by clicking Advanced Segments and the button + New Custom Segment.
10. CUSTOM ALERTS
Custom alerts are very useful if you don’t check your Google
Analytics data and all the metrics every day. There are two ways to setup a
custom alert:
1.
Go to Admin, drill
down to the profile you want to create the custom alert for, and choose Custom
Alerts from the Assets tab, or
2. From reporting tab, choose Intelligence Events -> Overview; it will
show the Automatic Alerts tab by default, switch to the Custom Alerts tab and
click the Manage custom alerts button.
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