Intermediate Google Analytics Review

“Good data has a story; Great data TELLS a story!”

Week #4 of the CXL Institute Digital Analytics Minidegree Review is about applying intermediate-level Google Analytics skills to enhance your marketing strategy.

The instructor is Chris Mercer, one of the world’s leading Google Analytics experts. In this tactical near-to-six hours long course he will teach you how to:

• Master attribution so you know exactly how your channels work together and how your users convert.
• Get 10x more out of the basics you already know: custom dimensions, custom metrics, event tracking, etc.
• Draw out advanced insights from your content analytics, form analytics, social analytics, and PPC analytics.
• Produce enterprise-level reports using Data Studio.
• Unlock all of the potentials of enhanced eCommerce to make a smarter product, placement, and promotion decisions.

Are you ready for the next level of Google Analytics?

Before diving into the advanced Google Analytics, you ought to have excellent base knowledge. This is what you should already know:

• Multiple Views
• Filters
• Goals
• Basic Report Navigation (Table Filters, Secondary Dimensions, etc.)
• Google Tag Manager Experience (not necessary)

Summary

• Clean Data: Filtering Out SPAM
• Clean Data: Removing Internal Hits
• Clean Data: Cross-Domain Tracking
• Finding Answers: Funnel Tracking
• Finding Answers: Segments
• Finding Answers: Custom Reports
• Tips & Tricks: Dashboards
• Tips & Tricks: Saved Reports & Alerts
• Tips & Tricks: Channels
• Tips & Tricks: Multi-Channel Funnel Reports
• Tips & Tricks: Attribution
• Tips & Tricks: Exporting to Google Sheets
• Tips & Tricks: Measurement Protocol
• Conclusion

Clean Data: Filtering Out SPAM

Not everything that Google Analytics records come from an actual user. It’s called spam traffic, and there are two ways a GA can be spammed:

1. Web crawlers
2. Direct data insertion into Google Analytics accounts via the Measurement Protocol

We already went through evaluating traffic quality, so I’ll leave that out.

Steps to Remove SPAM

Start with the crucial step: go to your view settings in the admin interface, scroll down to the Bot Filtering section and check the “Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders”.

Filter Domain Referrals

If you want to exclude a single referrer:

1. Create a new filter for your view.
2. Set the Filter Type to Custom
3. Click the Select filter type drop-down menu and select Exclude.
4. Set the Filter field to Campaign Source.
5. Enter a Filter Pattern containing the domain of the referring source which you would like to exclude

If you want to exclude multiple referrers use a RegEx in the Filter Pattern field to exclude several referring sources.

Additional resources:

• Filter Domain Referrals

How can I handle Google Analytics referrer spam?

• Filtering Out Junk Traffic

Trust Your Data! How to Efficiently Filter Spam, Bots, & Other Junk Traffic in Google Analytics

• Removing SPAM from GA

Guide to removing referrer spam and fake traffic in Google Analytics

Clean Data: Removing Internal Hits

Internal traffic comes from you and your employees. The bigger the size of your company, the bigger issues in your Google Analytics.

Employees don’t act like typical web users and will alter the metrics that are most reported — like users, sessions, and pageviews.

Perhaps more importantly, they impact conversion rate and attribution reporting, which can directly impact budgeting, bid strategies, and business decisions.

What can you do to remove internal hits?

• You can exclude internal traffic by creating an IP address filter, or
• You can use the Chrome extension Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on.

For further reading check Cleaning Data with Google Tag Manager & Google Analytics.

Clean Data: Cross-Domain Tracking

In terms of Google Analytics data, Cross-domain tracking is the tracking of website users and their activities across two or more domains.

Cross-domain measurement makes it possible for Analytics to see sessions on two related sites (such as an eCommerce site and a separate shopping cart site) as a single session. This is also called site linking.

It’s easy to see would you want to track users across two or more domains:

• Your check-out process occurs on a different domain
• Your goal conversions and/or eCommerce transactions take place on a different domain

Basic Steps to Setup Cross-Domain tracking

• Google’s Guide to Cross-Domain Measurement

Set up cross-domain measurement (analytics.js)

• Google Analytics Debugger Extension

Google Analytics Debugger Chrome Web Store

• How to Set Up Cross-Domain Tracking

How to Setup Cross-Domain Tracking in Google Analytics

Finding Answers: Funnel Tracking

Website users take particular paths from arrival to finish. Every site has a goal for its visitors. To ensure visitors hit your goal, you should track their journey using Google Analytics funnels.

First, we need to understand the difference between strict and flexible funnels:

• In a strict funnel, a user follows an exact sequence of linear steps — they cannot skip or add steps. An example of a strict funnel is:

Homepage > Category Page > Cart > Checkout

• In a flexible funnel, the customer journey is fluid. Not everyone follows the same path before they become a lead or purchase a product. A visitor may still satisfy a flexible funnel’s criteria in their journey as long as they hit defined pages on the site.

Homepage > Story Page > Product Page > Category Page > Product Page > Cart > Checkout

A strict funnel is useful mainly as a model to highlight likely drop-off points in an idealized journey. In the real world, the user path inevitably varies.

Google Analytics funnel visualization reports:

1. Goal Funnels
2. Reverse Goal Path funnels
3. Ecommerce Shopping Behavior Report
4. Checkout Behavior
5. Horizontal funnels via custom reports
6. Custom Funnels in Google Analytics 360

To learn more about different funnels in GA and how to set them, read 6 Ways to Set Up Funnels in Google Analytics.

Other resources about funneling in GA:

• Funnel Analysis: Finding and Fixing Conversion Problems with Google Analytics
• Funnel Visualization vs. Goal Flow

Finding Answers: Segments

Segmentation is dividing a large amount of data into smaller units that are easier to analyze. The segment allows you to do exactly what its name says: to segment a portion of your audience.

When segmenting, you can choose between user-, session- and hit-level segmentation.

A segment is made up of one or more non-destructive filters (filters that do not alter the underlying data). Those filters isolate subsets of users, sessions, and hits:

Subsets of users: for example, users who have previously purchased; users who added items to their shopping carts, but didn’t complete a purchase

Subsets of sessions: for example, all sessions originating from Campaign A; all sessions during which a purchase occurred

Subsets of hits: for example, all hits in which revenue was greater than $10

Understanding the difference is critical if you’re in the eCommerce space. Learn more about this in Avinash Kaushik’s article

• Excellent Analytics Tip 23: Align Hits, Sessions, Metrics, Dimensions!

System segments are designed to cover a broad range of common use cases.

To configure the individual filters that together constitute a segment, you can use the segment builder.

You can find out how to build new segments in Analytics Help.

If you are completely new to GA segmentation, go to Google Analytics Gallery. You’ll find segments created both by Google and other GA users. You can use those segments on your web site.

Finding Answers: Custom Reports

A Custom Report is a report that you create.

At least one dimension and one metric must be specified.

1. Sign in to Google Analytics and navigate to your view.
2. Open Reports.
3. Click Customization > Custom Reports > +New Custom Report.
4. Enter a Title.
5. (Optional) Click +add report tab. Every report has at least 1 tab, but you can add more.
6. Select a report type: Explorer, Flat Table, Map Overlay, or Funnel.
7. Define your dimension and metrics. The options for each report type vary because each type displays data in different ways.
8. (Optional) Click +add filter to limit the report to specific dimensions.
9. (Optional) Select where this report should appear. Use the dropdown menu to select specific views, or select All views associated with this account to allow this report on all views you have access to.
10. Click Save.

Note: If you use either a page level dimension (like Page or Page Title) or the Hour dimension in a custom report, the count of Users may be greater than Sessions.

To capture the number of sessions in which a given page was viewed, use the metric Unique Pageviews instead of Sessions.

Tips & Tricks: Dashboards

Using a Dashboard is as easy as using any report in Analytics. You can examine the graph elements in a widget by hovering over the element.

The image below illustrates what else you can do with Dashboards:

1. Change the name of a Dashboard by clicking the Dashboard’s title.
2. Adjust the date range or compare 2 date ranges using the date picker.
3. Add widgets, share, customize, or remove the Dashboard using the action bar.
4. Add or remove segments.
5. Rearrange widgets on the page by dragging them by the title bar to new locations. Edit or delete widgets using the controls that appear when you mouse over the widget’s title bar.
6. Open a linked report by clicking on the widget’s title. (This only works for linked report widgets, not widgets you create within the Dashboard itself.)

You can refresh the Dashboard’s data by clicking the Refresh Dashboard link, located in the bottom right corner of the page (not shown in the screenshot).

If you don’t know where to start, go through Google Analytics Gallery.

Google Data Studio is a much better platform for GA Dashboard than the one within GA itself.

Tips & Tricks: Saved Reports & Alerts

Saved reports remember your settings so you don’t have to reconfigure a report each time you open it. Any setting you apply to a report, like adding a segment or a new metric, stays applied in a saved report until you manually change the settings.

The settings will be saved even if you sign out and sign back in to your account.

Note: All report customizations and settings are saved except the date range.

Create Alerts

When you create a custom alert, that alert is visible only to you in your current reporting view and in any other views to which you apply the alert.

Create a custom alert:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics and navigate to your view.
2. Open Reports.
3. Click CUSTOMIZATION > Custom Alerts.
4. Click Manage custom alerts.
5. Click + NEW ALERT.
6. Alert name: Enter a name for the alert.

Apply to: Select the reporting views to which you want to apply the alert.

Period: Select the frequency at which the alert can be generated (Day, Week, Month). A daily alert is based on daily changes in traffic/behavior; weekly and monthly alerts are based on the week to week and month to month changes, respectively.

Send me an email when this alert triggers: Select this checkbox if you want to receive an email when the alert is generated. If you want other people to also receive an email, open the other email addresses menu, click Add new email address, enter the address and label, then click OK. The From address for the alert is [email protected].

[Available only in the United States] Click Set up your mobile phone to enter your mobile phone number.

Alert Conditions:

• This applies to: Select the dimension to which the alert applies.
• Alert me when: Select the metric to which the alert applies, the condition that generates the alerts (e.g., Is less than, Is greater than), and enter the value for the condition (e.g., Is less than 20).

7. Click Save Alert.

Tips & Tricks: Channels

Channels are groups of several traffic sources with the same medium.

You can view Channels in Google Analytics by navigating to:

1. Acquisition > Overview report
2. Acquisition > All traffic > Channels report
3. Conversions > Multi-channel Funnels > Overview report
4. Conversions > Multi-channel Funnels > Assisted Conversions report
5. Conversions > Multi-channel Funnels > Top Conversion Paths report

There are two categories of marketing channels in Google Analytics:

1. Default (system defined channels)
2. Custom (user-defined channels)

For further reading:

• Google Analytics Channels, Source, and Medium explained in great detail
• The Definitive Guide to Channels in Google Analytics

Tips & Tricks: Multi-Channel Funnel Reports

The Multi-Channel Funnels reports answer these questions and others by showing how your marketing channels (i.e., sources of traffic to your website) work together to create sales and conversions.

The Multi-Channel Funnels reports are generated from conversion paths, the sequences of interactions (i.e., clicks/referrals from channels) that led up to each conversion and transaction.

By default, only interactions within the last 30 days are included in conversion paths, but you can adjust this period from 1–90 days using the Lookback Window selector at the top of each report.

Conversion path data include interactions with virtually all digital channels.

Explore Differences Between Standard & MCF Reports

When comparing Multi-Channel Funnels reports with other reports in Analytics, you should keep in mind the following:

• MFC data collection lags by up to two days. As a result, the conversion count for the most recent two days in MFC will not match what is shown in other Analytics reports.
• Conversions in the MFC report is the total number of Goal conversions plus the total number of eCommerce transactions.
• For non-MFC reports in Analytics, if a session has no campaign associated with it, the previous session’s campaign is “inherited.” For MFC reports, however, Analytics will consider this session as “direct.”
• The MFC reports have a 30-day default lookback window on conversions, with a maximum of 90 days. No lookback window exists for the other Analytics reports.

Tips & Tricks: Attribution

An attribution model is a rule or set of rules, that determines how credit for sales and conversions is assigned to touchpoints in conversion paths.

Attribution modeling example, as explained by Google:

Resources for further reading:

To learn more about attribution models:

• Default and Custom Attribution Models in Google Analytics

To learn about selecting an attribution model:

• Guidelines for selecting an Attribution model in Google Analytics

To learn how to create your attribution model:

• How to create a Custom Attribution Model in Google Analytics

Tips & Tricks: Exporting to Google Sheets

Once you’ve set up Google Analytics, you can automate complex reporting and configuration tasks using APIs.

Get the Google Analytics Spreadsheet Add-on.

Watch the introduction to the GA Spreadsheet Add-on made by Google Analytics:

This is how to build a dashboard with the GA Spreadsheet Add-on:

Automating Reports in Google Sheets

You can enable your reports to run automatically by selecting “Add-ons” > “Google Analytics” > “Schedule Reports” from the menu bar. This opens a report scheduling dialog where you can turn scheduling on and off and set how frequently your report will run.

• To turn the schedule on, check the box labeled “Enable reports to run automatically.” Once scheduling is enabled you can use the select dropdown to control the time and frequency. Reports can be scheduled to run every hour, day, week, or month.
• To turn the schedule off, uncheck the box labeled “Enable reports to run automatically.”

Dimensions & Metrics Explorer — Google Analytics Demos & Tools

Tips & Tricks: Measurement Protocol

The Google Analytics Measurement Protocol allows developers to make HTTP requests to send raw user interaction data directly to Google Analytics servers.

This allows developers to measure how users interact with their business from almost any environment. Developers can then use the Measurement Protocol to:

• Measure user activity in new environments.
• Tie online to offline behavior.
• Send data from both the client and the server.

If you are interested in learning how to send raw user interaction data to Google Analytics using HTTP requests, there is an official Google Analytics guide for Measurement Protocol.

Google Analytics “Hit Builder” is a tool that allows you to construct and validate Measurement Protocol hits using the Measurement Protocol Validation Server.

Conclusion

This course is an excellent step further in understanding digital analytics.

Chris Mercer’s Intermediate Google Analytics course on CXL Institute will teach you how to apply intermediate-level Google Analytics skills to enhance your marketing strategy with data-driven insights.