Analytics for Startups Part 2: Where to Look for Meaningful Metrics

To set the stage, you have successfully setup and applied Google Analytics on your website. You have been busy working on your product/service and are hearing there is a lot of interest.

Now, you want to see how effective your site has been and where to concentrate your efforts. Looking at Google Analytics, even with the basic setup, you will see more data than you need and multitude of different ways to slice and dice metrics.

I recommend concentrating on answering four different questions that correspond to four screens:

WHO is coming to your website?

Go to Audience - Overview (highlighted in orange on the left navigation). There is a good deal of baseline information you can get simply by adjusting the time period (top right). This will give you the raw numbers of traffic your site is getting and how engaged they are via Pages/Session and Avg. Session Duration.

1. Expand the Date Range - to see traffic trends, it is very difficult to I rarely look at time periods shorter than a month.
2. Use the Compare to feature - if you are evaluating a specific time period (week, month, day), it is important to give that data context. How do these numbers relate to past? By comparing, you will see the % change.
3. Focus on peaks and valleys - look for dramatic changes in the chart, then isolate those date ranges to understand WHERE and WHAT drove the change.
4. PRO TIP: If your site is structure for one page per step in the process, it is easy to see roughly how many steps a user is taking via Pages / Session.

WHERE is your traffic coming from?

Go to Acquisition - Channels (highlighted in orange on the left navigation). Your users are finding you from a variety of sources, some that you are trying to drive and others that might be unexpected.

1. To get more specific filter the Primary Dimension above the table to look at the "Source" to understand specific domains that are driving traffic. When you see source (Direct), it means that users entered your URL into the browser and came straight to your website.
2. Use the Secondary Dimension to add a layer of contextual information. Try these three for starters: "Device Category" "Landing Page" "Metro"
3. Focus on two metrics - the (%) next to the Sessions and Users that indicate the proportion of users using that channel. Also, look for significant differences across channels in the engagement metrics Pages / Session and Avg. Session Duration.
4. PRO TIP: You can filter/search Secondary Dimensions by using the advanced search and selecting "Include" or "Exclude" by the specific dimension name you want.

WHAT content is most important to your experience?

Go to Behavior - Site Content - All Pages (highlighted in orange on the left navigation).

1. Use the Search box to only see sections of your website via URL - for example "/blog" or "/product".
2. PRO TIP: Get more sophisticated with your searches by using Regular Expressions.
3. Use the Secondary Dimension to add a layer of contextual information. Try these three for starters: "Medium" "User Type" "Device Category"
4. Be sure to look at the Entrances to understand which pages are serving as "homepages" to the site, especially via Secondary Dimension of organic search.

HOW are they navigating your site?

Stay on Behavior - Site Content - All Pages (highlighted in orange on the left navigation). But this time, click on the URL for the homepage to get to those specific page metrics. From there, you will see a Tab above the timeline called Navigation Summary.

1. Entrances and Exits will tell you how people are getting directly that page on your site and what percent are leaving directly from that page.
2. Use the Next Page Path list to understand the progression through pages. Leverage the Show rows dropdown to expand the number of pages listed beyond the default 10.
3. By clicking on one of the "Next Page" URLs, you can then see what the users are doing at the next step and work linearly through the conversion path to understand at what point users are exiting.
4. PRO TIP: Look for the same page appearing in both the Previous and Next path. This indicates "pogo-sticking" - where users don't find what they are looking for or meeting a roadblock to next steps.

WHY did users navigate, leave or not transact?

GREAT QUESTION, but not easily accessible. These are questions that go beyond Google Analytics and require more qualitative research - like usability testing, observations or focus groups.

Now Available! Part 3: Starting to Market? Measuring the Impact of Your Advertising Efforts