Google Analytics User Explorer + GTM = Deeper Insights

Want more insights out of individual users that visit your website?

What if I told you that Google keeps a track of that

Yes they do, but they don't name them, and yet there is a lot of insights to gather from there.

By now you must have guessed it right, that I am talking about Google Analytics User Explorer feature.

It can be found here

This is how the User Explorer reports look at a glance

The client ID is a random number GA assigns for identification because they can't really give out their names to you (there's a way to do that though)

When you create and deploy Google Tag Manager Tags, you are able to see events on your Google Analytics Dashboard.

And those events show up in your user explorer reports too, this makes the user explorer reports a monster that gives you granular insights.

Some of the Tags that I have added to my blog Decode Digital Market are

• Scroll Depth trigger
• JavaScript Errors Trigger
• Button Click Trigger
• Outbound Link Clicks

Now let me walk you through how having these GTM events helped me with understanding the user journey on my website.

This is the individual user whose activities on my website we will decode.

My website acquired this individual on Feb 10, 2021, and he was last seen on Feb 13, 2021

Now I will expand sections and explain his/her journey

This particular user came on my site on Feb 10, 2021, at 7:39 PM via Organic Search to an article about "Guest Posting Sites" since I had events in place, hence I know that he did click the external site links. I even know which specific external link he clicked.

See, I wasn't lying, as I expanded even that section I can see what those external links were which he/she clicked and at what timestamp too.

This same visitor when he re-arrived on 13th February he did some goals on my website too.

He again came via Organic search and did 2 goals, he completed goals titled "Engaged Visitor" and "Navigator"

Engaged Visitor means having spent 'X' amount of time

Navigator means visiting other pages.

Google Analytics even keeps track of the LTV (Lifetime Value) of this specific visitor

This visitor has to date spent 59.58 minutes of time on my website and has made 12 sessions.

If my website were to be an e-commerce website then I would even know how much revenue he added to my business.

Now, this is a very crucial insight that we are able to gather by combining Google Analytics + Google Tag Manager capabilities.

There is a treasure trove of insights that can be awakened with GTM events.

Imagine a SaaS product landing page where for the individual user you are being able to track events like

• Button Click
• Scroll Depth
• External Clicks
• Tracking PDF Downloads Tag
• Tracking form submissions Tag
• Tracking YouTube video view duration Tag

Having all these tags, triggers, events in place will help you see how many events from these are getting triggered as the individual user goes through your landing page.

You can analyze a bunch of such users for the same landing page and identify some commonalities that will help you derive a conclusion.