As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Google Analytics
definitely takes some time getting use to.
It’s easy to become wrapped up in all of the numbers and graphs when
first setting up tracking for a website, which is exactly what I did when I was
first introduced to the tool six weeks ago.
But, each week I have found it easier and easier to navigate the
dashboard and have become much more comfortable with the overall layout of GA. I have also gained a much better
understanding of the valuable information each of the different measurements
and metrics has the potential to provide and how different metrics can be used
together to provide even more in-depth data.
This week’s lesson examined Google’s customizable goals,
funnels, and filters, which really helped me to put the last few missing puzzle
pieces together and see the “big picture”.
Understanding the basic concepts of page views, unique visitors, bounce
rate, etc., is definitely important in order to use the tool effectively, but
those metrics alone can’t provide you with the data needed to determine the
success of your website. Plus, the
critical factors for determining success are unique to each business, which is why
using goals, funnels, and filters are so important.
Goals
Google defines goals as being “a versatile way to measure
how well your site or app fulfills your target objectives” (About Goals,
2013). In other words, goals allow you
to tell Google what to keep track of based on what’s important to your
business. GA provides four ways for
users to track goals:
- URL destination
- Visit duration
- Pages/visit
- Events
URL Destination
This goal allows you to track specific URL’s by specifying a
page’s unique URI (Uniform Resource Identifier), which are the characters that
come after the domain name. For example,
if the URL is www.mybusiness.com/aboutus,
the “Goal URL” you would enter into Analytics would be “/aboutus”. Each time someone visits that URL, they will
trigger the goal (Lofgren, 2012). This goal
type is often used for tracking sales by using the confirmation page URL or for
tracking new subscription or account sign-ups via a Thank you for registering webpage.
Visit Duration
The visit
duration goals allow you to track how many people stay on your site for a
specified amount of time. This goal
gives you the option to track whether visitors stay "less than" or "greater than" the amount of time you specify. For
example, a support site looking to answer customers’ questions as quickly as
possible might want to track how many visitors stayed less than 5 minutes. On the other hand, a company that has just
made design changes to its site may want to track how many users stay longer
than 2 minutes to help determine whether or not the changes made are leading to
a higher level of customer engagement.
While this
goal type can be very useful, one thing to keep in mind is how Google tracks
visit durations. GA only creates a
timestamp when a visitor loads a page but not when a visitor leaves a page. So,
in order to calculate the time spent on one page, two timestamps (one when the
first page visited is loaded and another when the second page visited is
loaded) are needed. Ultimately this
means Google Analytics is unable to calculate the visit duration for exit
pages.
For example,
if a visitor enters a website on the homepage, spends a minute or two browsing,
then clicks to another page on your site, Google will calculate the time spent
on the homepage by subtracting the timestamp created when the second page was
loaded from the time when the homepage was loaded. But, if a visitor only
visits one page and leaves, Google doesn’t have a second timestamp to calculate
the time spent on the first page. If a
visitor visits 3 pages, only the visit duration for the first and second pages
can be calculated. Google documents the time for page visits with only one
timestamp as 00:00:00 regardless of how long the visitor actually remained on
the page.
According to
the KISSmetrics blog post, 4 Google Analytics
Goal Types That Are Critical To Your Business, this will likely
result in the time on site metric being very different than the actual amount
of time people spend on your site.
However, you can still gain valuable from this
goal type by comparing the metric over time and looking for any trends in how
the metric changes month-to-month or over an extended period of time (Lofgren, 2012).
Pages/Visits
This goal type is very straightforward and tracks the number of
pages a visitor visits before leaving your site. Similar to the visit duration goal, you
have the option of tracking greater than, equal to, or less than the number of
pages visited that you will specify during the goal set-up. The “greater than” condition is typically
used to measure visitor engagement and the “less than” condition is often used
by support sites to measure the site’s effectiveness (Lofgren, 2012).
Events
Google defines events
as “user interactions with content that can be tracked independently from a web
page or screen load” (About Events, 2013).
Examples of actions you can track as events include downloads, video
plays, mobile ad clicks, widget usage, social media buttons, etc.
However, before you are able to track an event goal, you
must first take the time to set up event tracking and have created at least
event category.
Funnels
A funnel can help take a URL destination goal to the next
level by tracking the path visitors take towards the end goal. Because there are typically several other pages
preceding the goal page that are designed to push visitors towards the goal,
funnels can help pinpoint any problems along visitors’ conversion paths, giving
you the chance to make any necessary changes.
According to Fettman (2012), funnel tracking can help:
- · Identify any steps creating trouble or confusion for customers
- · Determine if there is any language or copy that is causing changes in customers’ emotional behaviors during sign-up or checkout
- · Detect any bugs, browser issues, or any other technical troubles
Additionally, funnels can help you see how often visitors
abandon a goal and where these visitors go after abandonment.
Funnels can be especially beneficial for ecommerce sites
because visitors typically follow only a few paths before landing on the confirmation
page. By using funnels, you can see if
there are any pages along the path to conversion that consistently result in
shopping cart abandonment. If a trouble
page is identified, you can revisit the page and make any necessary adjustments
in order to make the checkout process easier and more streamlined. By monitoring the funnel tracking, you can
then determine whether or not the changes made to a specific change are
resulting in more or less shopping cart abandonment than before.
Filters
In her article Going Beyond
Standard Reporting with Google Analytics Filters, Segments, Reports, and
Dashboards, Hines (2013) explains, “View Filters allow you to include or
exclude specific information in your Google Analytics reports, focus on a
specific subdomain or directory, or rename URLs to make them easily
recognizable.”
There are 3 predefined filters, which include:
- · Traffic from domains: This filter allows you to include or exclude traffic from a specific domain.
- · Traffic from IP addressed: You can use this filter to include or exclude clicks from certain sources. This can be a single IP address or a range of addresses. This filter is commonly used by companies to exclude traffic from internal IP addresses in order to avoid measuring traffic from employees or an IT person conducting site maintenance.
- · Traffic from subdirectories: Through this filter you can include or exclude traffic from a specific subdirectory (such as www.example.com/education).
In addition to these predefined filters, Google Analytics
also provides numerous custom filters.
Some of these filters include the Lower/Uppercase
filter, which converts all field contents to either all lower or all uppercase
letters, and the Search & Replace
filter, which allows you to search and replace a confusing pattern within a
field and replace it with an alternate form that is easier to recognize.
Conclusion…
Goals, funnels, and filters can help you go beyond the
standard reporting offered by Google Analytics.
- · Goals allow you to track the data most important to your company
- · Funnels are an extension of Destination goals that allow you to see the number of people that move through each step of your specified marketing process to help determine pages that may need to be fixed
- · Filters allow you to modify your traffic data by using the 3 predefined filters to include/exclude traffic from a specific domain, IP address or addresses, and particular subdirectories
These traffic parameters can greatly benefit businesses by
providing valuable information that can be used to track the most important
factors for a company’s site, quickly identify problems in a key process to
help create a better user experience, and to customize reports in order to
effectively analyze and share in-depth data.
References:
Fettman,
E. (2012, November 26). The google analytics conversion funnel survival
guide. Retrieved from
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/conversion-funnel-survival-guide/
Google.
(2013). About events. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033068?hl=en
Google.
(2013). About goals. Retrieved from
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1012040?hl=en&ref_topic=1007030
Google.
(2013). About view filters. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033162?hl=en
Google.
(2013). Goal types. Retrieved from
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3046660?hl=en&ref_topic=1007030
Hines,
K. (2013, August 27). Going beyond standard reporting with google analytics
filters, segments, reports, and dashboards. Retrieved from http://blog.kissmetrics.com/beyond-standard-reporting/
Lofgren,
L. (2012, May 01). 4 google analytics goal types that are critical to your
business. Retrieved from http://blog.kissmetrics.com/critical-goal-types/
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