understanding the user interface - elfdesigns.net€¦ · web viewa word about bounce rates...

ELF DESIGNSMONITORING YOUR WEBSITE WITH GOOGLE ANALYTICS

ContentsUnderstanding the user interface..................................................................................................2

Setting up your Google Analytics account..............................................................................2

Tracking Code and where to place it.........................................................................................3

Adding the tracking code to your site.....................................................................................3

Check the code has been added to the site...........................................................................3

Verifying the code is active in your site..................................................................................4

Adding users to access analytics...............................................................................................5

Add users...............................................................................................................................5

Permissions............................................................................................................................5

Modify users...........................................................................................................................5

Delete users...........................................................................................................................6

Monitoring Web activity with Google Analytics..............................................................................8

Dashboard Screen Overview.....................................................................................................8

Understand your Visitors.............................................................................................................11

Audience overview...................................................................................................................11

Acquisition Overview................................................................................................................13

Behaviors Overview.................................................................................................................14

Understanding Reports................................................................................................................15

How to Generate Reports........................................................................................................15

Generated Monthly Performance report..................................................................................15

Creating a custom report.........................................................................................................15

Emailing reports.......................................................................................................................16

Saving reports as shortcuts.....................................................................................................17

Exporting a Report...................................................................................................................18

1 | P a g e - Using Google analytics – Elf Designs web tips

UNDERSTANDING THE USER INTERFACE

Google analytics provides insights into visitors to your website, what they did where they came from

Setting up your Google Analytics accountTo set up your own Google Analytics account you go to the Google Analytics website at google.com/analytics

Click on the "Access Analytics" blue button in the upper right corner of the page. Click on the "Add a new account" button in the upper right corner. Find the "Sign Up" button on the lower left corner. Fill out the information required on the following page. (Site URL, account name, time zone or territory, and time

zone.) Click "Continue" button when finished. Adding your last name and first name is optional but the country or territory is a required field. Read the Google Analytics Terms of Service, check the "yes, I agree to TOS" and finish registration by clicking on

"Create New Account". Copy the JavaScript code given to you on the following page and click "Save and Finish"

<script>

(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){

(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),

m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)

})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');


ga('create', 'UA-29568279-1', 'auto');

ga('send', 'pageview');

</script>

After clicking "Save and Finish" you should be directed to the account overview for the site you just set up. Notice how under 'status' there is an error. This is because we haven't installed the code you just copied to your website.

Tracking Code and where to place it

Adding the tracking code to your site It is very important that the Google Analytics JavaScript code be pasted right before the body tag (within the code) for every page in your website. See the image below for an example of a correct implementation.

When completed you have successfully created and implemented a basic Google Analytics account. Wait a couple days (at least one) and re-visit your Google accounts to start seeing your site data.

The Tracking code uses a unique id which is used to monitor only your website e.g. UA-29568279-1 depending on the type of website you are working on will determine how to add the code, if you are using a dynamic site such as WordPress – you will need to add it to the footer of the website this can be done via the template file or by using a plugin (note when using a plugin – usually you need to add the unique identified UAXXX

The code for the website is placed in the genesis framework theme settings in the admin area of the website - to verify the code is in the website you can look in 2 places

Check the code has been added to the site In the admin area of the website go to Genesis/Theme settings

Scroll down to Header/Footer scripts


In the footer script you will see the tracking code has been added

Verifying the code is active in your site Open your website in the browser

Then place your mouse anywhere on the page and right mouse click from the menu click on View page Source a new window will open and you will see all the code for your site

The code is located in the footer area so you will need to scroll down to see tracking code look for the UA ID and you should see the code in full as shown below


Adding users to access analytics You need to have full admin rights to be able to edit and users to access analytics for your website – to become a user you need to have a google account and know the email associated with the account ( you do not need a password just the account email address)

When a user is added it gives them access to your analytics when they login to google analytics using their google account credentials

Add usersYou can add as many users as you need. To add a new user to an account/property/view:

Sign in to your Google Analytics account. https://www.google.com/analytics/web/#home/ Select the Admin tab and navigate to the desired account/property/view. In the ACCOUNT, PROPERTY, or VIEW column (depending upon whether you want to add the user at the account,

property, or view level), click User Management. Under Add permissions for, enter the email address for the user's Google Account. Select the permissions you want.

PermissionsYou can assign user permissions at the account, property, and view levels. To assign permissions, select the Admin tab, and click User Management in the ACCOUNT, PROPERTY, or VIEW column.

Four permissions are available that you can apply singly or in combination:

Manage Users: Can manage account users (add/delete users, assign permissions). Does not include Edit or Collaborate.

Edit: Can perform administrative and report-related functions (e.g., add/edit/delete accounts, properties, views, filters, goals, etc., but not manage users), and see report data. Includes Collaborate.

Collaborate: Can create personal assets, and share them. Can collaborate on shared assets, for example, edit a dashboard or annotation. Includes Read & Analyze.

Read & Analyze: Can see report and configuration data; can manipulate data within reports (e.g., filter a table, add a secondary dimension, create a segment); can create personal assets, and share them, and see shared assets. Cannot collaborate on shared assets.

Parent permissions are inherited by default (account > property > view). For example, when you set permissions for a user at the account level, that user then has those same permissions for all the properties and views in that account.

As you progress down the hierarchy, you can give more permissions, but not fewer, e.g., if a user has Read & Analyzepermission at the account level, you can then also grant Edit permission at the property or view level; but if a user has Editpermission at the account level, you can’t limit permission to just Read & Analyze at the property level.

Select Notify this user by email to send a notification to each user you're adding.

Click Add.

Modify usersYou can modify the permissions for any user at any level in an Analytics account. For example, if you have given a user Read permission for only a single view, you can subsequently also give the user Edit permission for only that view. Or you can give that user Edit permission at the property level, and thereby also give Edit permission for every view in that property.


https://www.google.com/analytics/web/#home/

You can give a user more permissions as you move down the account hierarchy, but you cannot give a user fewer permissions than you assigned at higher levels. For example, if you assign a user Edit permissions at the account level, then that user also has Edit permissions at the property and view levels (and you cannot revoke those permissions at the property or view level). Conversely, you can assign a user Edit permissions at the view level, but assign no permissions at either the property or account level.

To modify permissions for an existing user:

Sign in to your Google Analytics account. Select the Admin tab and navigate to the desired account/property/view In the ACCOUNT, PROPERTY, or VIEW column (depending upon whether you want to modify permissions at the

account, property, or view level), click User Management. Use the search box at the top of the list to find the user you want. Enter a full or partial address( e.g.,

[email protected] or janedoe). Use the selector in the Account Permissions column to add or remove permissions for the user. Click Save.

Delete usersAlthough you can add users at any level in the account hierarchy, you can delete users only at the account level.

To delete a user:

Sign in to your Google Analytics account. Select the Admin tab and navigate to the desired account In the ACCOUNT column, click User Management. Use the search box at the top of the list to find the user you want. Enter a full or partial address( e.g.,

[email protected] or janedoe). Click delete for the user you want to delete.


https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6099198

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6099198

MONITORING WEB ACTIVITY WITH GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Dashboard Screen Overview

When you first login you will see the dashboard

These are some of the words used frequently by google

Dimensions—a dimension is a descriptive attribute or characteristic of an object that can be given different values. Browser, Exit Page, Screens and Session Duration are all examples of dimensions that appear by default in Google Analytics.

Metrics—Metrics are individual elements of a dimension that can be measured as a sum or a ratio. Screenviews, Pages/Session and Average Session Duration are examples of metrics in Google Analytics.

Sessions—a session is the period of time a user is actively engaged with your website, app, etc., within a date range. All usage data (Screenviews, Events, Ecommerce, etc.) is associated with a session.

Users—Users who have had at least one session within the selected date range. Includes both new and returning users.

Pageviews—means the total number of pages viewed. Repeated views of a single page are counted.

Pages/Session—Pages/session (Average Page Depth) is the average number of pages viewed during a session. Repeated views of a single page are counted.

Avg. Session Duration—The average length of a session.

Bounce Rate—Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e., visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page).

New Sessions—an estimate of the percentage of first-time visits.

Goals—Goals let you measure how often users take or complete specific actions on your website.

Conversions—Conversions are the number of times goals have been completed on your website.

Campaigns—Campaigns (also known as custom campaigns) allow you to add parameters to any URL from your website to collect more information about your referral traffic.


Behavior—Behavior data helps you improve your content.

The Dashboard is where you can view the data providing insights for your website

The opening view is a daily view which can be changed

Dashboard Date & View - By clicking on the arrow button next to the date you can sort what dates you want to see data for. The default setting is for one month’s data but it can be changed to incorporate several months or even a single day.

You can change how you view the data by the hour – the day the week or the month

Summary of the current data is listed and if you hover over each title a tool tip will explain what that data is about

A word about bounce rates

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who come to your website and leave without viewing any other pages on your website. If you look into your Analytics, you will see a percentage. If you’re average bounce rate, for example, is 75%, this means that 75% of the people who come to your website leave after only viewing the page they entered on, whether it was your homepage or an internal page.


Change view

Change date

On the left sidebar, there is a search box to help you find specific reports and a list of links to important areas of your Google Analytics.

Dashboards allow you can create customized views of your Google Analytics data using widgets. It’s a great way to see specific subsets of data without having to navigate through your standard reports.

Shortcuts are links to your favorite Google Analytics reports.

Intelligence Events are alerts you can set up within Google Analytics that email you when a specific event occurs.

Real-Time gives you access to knowing whos on your site right now

Audience Get to know your users - where they are, how often and how long they engage with your content, and what devices are most popular. The Audience reports give you a sense of the users that engage with your content

Acquisition Use the Acquisition reports to discover how users arrive at your web site and how often your app is downloaded and installed. You can also use these reports to learn more about your traffic - if they arrive directly to your site or use a search engine - and how successful certain marketing campaigns are in attracting users.

Behavior The Behavior reports help you discover how users interact with your site or app. You can use these reports to find out the total number of screens seen per session, the order in which screens are viewed, and how long a typical session lasts. You can also use these reports to see data on other actions unique to your site or app, like a social recommendations, ad clicks, and video plays. In the Behavior reports in app reporting views, you can also find out the number of technical errors, including app crashes and how long individual app elements take to load.

Conversions If you’ve set up Goals and Ecommerce in your Analytics account to track objectives like account sign-ups and product sales, you can use the Conversion reports to track your performance and revenue targets.


UNDERSTAND YOUR VISITORS

Within the audience behavior and acquisition tab we can get more details regarding new vs returning visitors, languages, trending, loyalty, browser capability, network properties and even mobile data.

Audience overview

Where did users come from? Country – city, What Browser did they use? Did they use mobile devices

To get more information you click through to go through the different layers and remember you can always modify dates to and do comparisons

Active UsersTrack active users for increments of 1, 7, 14, and 30 days, and stay abreast of the level of user enthusiasm for your site or app

Lifetime ValueUnderstand how valuable different users are to your business based on lifetime performance across multiple sessions. For example, you can see lifetime value for users you acquired through email or paid search. With that information in hand, you can determine a profitable allocation of marketing resources to the acquisition of those users.

Cohort AnalysisA cohort is a group of users who share a common characteristic that is identified in this report by a Google Analytics dimension. For example, all users with the same Acquisition Date belong to the same cohort.

Demographics (Age, Gender)


Understanding the age-and-gender composition of your audience gives you an opportunity to precisely tailor your content and advertising, from the graphics, language, and technical sophistication you employ on your site to the creative contents and placements for your ads. Interests (Affinity Categories, In-Market Segments, Other Categories)Interest information gives you context for expanding your advertising into related markets (Affinity Categories), and for focusing your advertising on exactly the users who demonstrate a likelihood to consume your content or purchase your products.

Geo (Language, Location)It’s important to know whether you’re getting a response from users to whom you direct different language versions of your advertising, but you also want to know what kind of traffic you’re getting from users outside those targets. Maybe you’re advertising in English and Spanish, but also getting high-conversion users who speak French and Italian, indicating an opportunity to localize your ads to those languages and speak more directly to a lucrative market.You want information from the areas you already target in your advertising, but you should also know about traffic from other geographic areas whose users exhibit a natural interest in your products.

Behavior (New vs. Returning, Frequency & Recency, Engagement)Measure the gravitational pull of your site, and the extent to which you’re encouraging first-time users to return. You can also see the economic impact of new vs. returning users (e.g., the 30% of users who are returning account for 45% of total transactions).

Technology (Browser & OS, Network)Understanding the technologies users employ to reach and consume your content lets you fine tune current versions, and plan upcoming implementations. For example, you want to be sure your site is fully functional in current browsers, but you also want to stay abreast of the extent to which users are migrating away from desktop to mobile browsers and apps, and plan your development accordingly.

Mobile (Devices)As your users migrate to mobile devices, understanding which devices they use, the input methods they use to interact with your content, and the screen sizes on which they're viewing your content lets you tweak current versions, and plan for future development.

Custom (Custom Variables, User Defined)You can use Custom Variables to extend the scope of your Segments. User-level custom variables let you identify users by aggregate behavior over a date range rather than by discrete, single-session interactions with your site.

BenchmarkingBenchmarking allows you to compare your data with aggregated industry data from other companies who share their data. This provides valuable context, helping you to set meaningful targets, gain insight into trends occurring across your industry, and find out how you are doing compared to your competition

Users FlowUsers Flow is a graphical representation of the paths users took through your site, from the source, through the various pages, and where along their paths they exited your site.


Acquisition Overview The Acquisition reports provide a window on your users’ Acquisition-Behavior-Conversion (ABC) cycle: how you acquire users, their behavior on your site after acquisition, and their conversion patterns.

More detailed information can be found on google’s help site https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/3125765?rd=1


https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/3125765?rd=1

Behaviors OverviewKnowing how visitors move through your website and interact with your content lets you optimize your website performance and conversions.

Pageviews—The total number of pages viewed. This number includes repeated views of a single page. In other words, a single person may view the same page several times and each view is counted as a pageview.

Unique Pageviews—The number of individual people who have viewed a specific page at least once during a visit. For example, if a single user views a page more than once during the same visit, only the original view is counted (whereas general Pageviews count each visit). The Unique Pageviews metric counts each page URL + Page Title combination.

Avg. Time on Page—The average amount of time users spend viewing a specific page or screen, or set of pages or screens.

Bounce Rate—The percentage of single-page visits or the number of visits in which people left your website from the same page they entered on. For example, if you visit a single article or page on a website and then leave, that’s counted as a bounce and is factored into the Bounce Rate.

% Exit—The percentage of users who exit from a page or set of pages.


UNDERSTANDING REPORTS

You can set up your account to create monthly performance reports – standard settings they can be emailed to stakeholders each month or at anytime you can create a report - email it export or save as a shortcut

Or for more advanced monitoring you can create custom reports that can show different types (layouts) and you can do comparisons and review different types of metrics - the custom report is more beneficial if you are doing ad campaigns – tracking social media – monitoring product purchase

(you would also probably need also add metric tracking for other sources such as Facebook pixel)

How to Generate Reports

Generated Monthly Performance report

The Monthly Performance report is an email that’s sent once a month summarizing the previous month's data for one of your Google Analytics properties. To receive the report, you must:

have selected the "Performance Suggestions and Updates" checkbox in your user settings (see instructions, below) have US English or UK English selected as your language preference (also in your user settings) have access to a property with data for the previous month live in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, or Ireland.

To opt-in to receiving the Monthly Performance report:

1. Sign in to your Google Analytics account. 2. Click the gear icon (top right) and select User Settings. 3. Select the “Performance Suggestions and Updates” checkbox. (Unselect the checkbox if you wish to stop receiving the

Monthly Performance report.)

Creating a custom report Sign in to your Google Analytics account.

Select the Customization tab, at the top of any page in Analytics.

Click +New Custom Report from the top of the table. If you don’t see this option, select Custom Reports > Overview in the left navigation.

Enter a Title.

(Optional) Click +add a report tab.Every report has at least 1 tab, but you can add more. When you add more tabs, all the following information applies to the tab that’s currently highlighted. Click the image to expand and see what this looks like.

You need to select a new report type for every tab you add to the report. Each tab can have a different report type. For example, you could create Tab 1 as a Map Overlay and Tab 2 as a Flat Table. This would allow you to have multiple tabs to have different visualization types in one report.


1. Explorer: The standard Google Analytics report. Includes a line graph and a data table that includes dynamic elements like a search/sort option and secondary dimensions.

2. Flat Table: A static, sortable table that displays data in rows.3. Map Overlay: A map of the world. Different regions and countries display in darker colors to indicate traffic and

engagement volume.

Define your dimension and metrics.

Click Save.

Emailing reports You can also set up the screen to review data and email the contents as a report for example when reviewing audience overview for the week


Click on the email tab at the top Then complete the details and send to stakeholders

To save repeating actions for reports in the future you can create shortcuts

Saving reports as shortcuts

You can create a shortcut to any Standard or Custom report that has the Shortcut option (below the report title).

Access and manage your shortcuts in the Shortcuts section in the left pane. See details about all of your shortcuts at once in the Overview report, or click an individual shortcut’s name to view or edit it. If you have the Edit permission, you can also manage your personal shortcuts as assets in the Admin section.

Each shortcut is only visible to the user who created it but can be shared using the Emailing and Exporting Reports function.


Creating Shortcuts

1. Sign in to your Google Analytics account.2. Navigate to your view3. Find a report that you regularly access from either the Reporting or Customization tab.4. Configure the report (e.g., apply an advanced segment, change the dimensions and metrics, etc.).5. From the menu bar above the report, click Shortcut.6. Enter a name for the shortcut.7. Click OK to save. Saving a shortcut automatically takes you to the Shortcuts section in the left pane.

To edit a shortcut:

1. In the left pane, click Shortcuts, then click the name of the report you want to edit.2. Make your changes (e.g., add or remove an advanced segment, etc.).3. Click Save from the menu bar to update the shortcut's configuration.

Exporting a ReportYou can also export a report in a format that works best for you to track

Such as google doc – pdf or csv file

Go the report view that you want to be in and then click on Export

Select the type of report you need


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