GOOGLE ANALYTICS UW SMC – Spring 2012 Numbers don’t lie.

What is Google Analytics For?  Free web-based program that records activity on your website. It can tell you:  Number of daily/weekly/monthly visitors  Most popular pages on your site  Referral sources (where traffic is coming from)  Geographic location of your users  How long visitors stay on your site  Search keywords people are using to find your site

Pros vs. Cons  Free  Simple interface  Easy implementation  Track multiple sites  Integration with Google Ad Words  Google owns the data  Limited reports  No historical data for new campaigns or initiatives PROSCONS

The Bottom Line Imagine you had an article published in the local paper, and then somehow you found out exactly how many people read the article, how many people looked at the headline but didn’t read it, and how many people started reading it but then lost interest in a few seconds. Would this information change the way you wrote your next article?

Viewing Your Dashboard

Main Menu  Visitors  A person that comes to your site is a visit. That session by a user counts as a visit and as a visitor. Any future visits by the same user count as additional visits.  Unique Visitors  Same as above, but all additional visits by the same user don’t count as a new visitor.  Page Views  Total number of pages viewed on your site. A visit can contain multiple page views.

Main Menu  Pages/Visit  The number of pages a visitors sees during a session.  Average Visit Duration (Time on Site)  How long a user stays on your site before leaving.  Bounce Rate  Users that only see one page per visit are said to “bounce” off your site.  % New Visits  The percentage of visits from first-time visits (people who had never visited your site before).

Other Key Metrics  Traffic Sources  Overview of different sources that send traffic to your site (search, direct, referral).  Content  Page views, top pages, site overlay.  Goals/Conversions  For non-commerce sites, goals and conversions are the primary way to measure how a site fulfills business objectives. These include receipt pages, subscription confirmations, etc.

Painted By Numbers  Marketers are rarely short on numbers.  We’re short of understanding what to do about numbers.  Analysts have a habit of sending out data instead of insights.  Bosses need insights to make informed decisions.

Often, Less is More  “67.3% of visitors…" can be too precise, and it’s certainly not memorable.  Whereas "two-thirds of visitors…" takes the data issues away and allows the audience to focus on what the two-thirds of visitors did or didn't do.  Develop an elevator speech, if it helps.  Make it memorable, make it short.

Questions?

How to Get Started  You must have a Google account  Create a Google Analytics account at  Add your website to track  Embed JavaScript tracking code to your site  Start monitoring!  Everything under one roof:

GOOGLE ANALYTICS UW SMC – Spring 2012 Presented by Derek