Learn how to tame your data - Review

We live and breath data! Inevitably!

There are about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day at our current pace. 

When in the last two years alone 90 percent of the world's data was created.

To tame and analyse this data might seem intimated at first. However, thanks to CXL Institute and its extensive course in Google Analytics, tracking, saving, analysing and reporting on your data, becomes a skill you can train and practise.  

GA might appear notoriously complicated. With myriad options, differents tabs and settings. There are so many concepts to learn and reports to run. This is why you need to spend important time reading, trying, failing and trying again.

This CXL course, divided into two sections (beginner and intermediate) was a definetely a long journey. And while I can’t say that I went from zero to hero since I already have experience using this platform, I definitely learned interesting tips and tricks that I can apply to my daily marketing activities. 

You can follow both courses if you want to:

• Learn to navigate all of the most crucial reports Google Analytics gives you.
• Think like an analyst. How do you approach problems and find answers to business questions? This mindset is the most important part of analytics.
• Use Google Analytics to find conversion opportunities, analyze marketing campaigns, and learn more about user behaviour.
• Feel more comfortable providing quantitative answers and solutions to your business questions.

Chris Mercer, the course instructor couldn’t be a better choice for this course. Mercer (as he’s known) is the co-founder of Seriously Simple Marketing and has been helping marketers, marketing teams, and agencies implement and unlock the power of Google Analytics since 2013.

He has spoken at conferences around the globe, including Traffic & Conversion, Digital Elite Camp, Performance Marketing Summit and Conversion Conference.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS - BEGINNERS

GA is an analytics tool that offers a dive deep into your website or application. You can track data from all Google sources such a Google Ads and integrate it with Google Ads, Data Studio and Google Search console as well.

If you have big volumes of data you want to analyse, GA is the right tool for you. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean also that it is easy to use, at least at first. You need to be committed and spend important time to set the right settings, understand how every function works, and of course report effectively. 

Through the following sections, Mercer introduced us to the basics of Google Analytics, setting a strong foundation for those moving into an intermediate or advanced course. Through theory and hands-on examples, with the completion of this course one is capable of setting up a Google Analytics account, properly structure his traffic, tie that traffic to results, and some basics of analyzing all those reports.

Section 1 – Getting to Know Google Analytics

First section into discovering the Google Analytics platform. This includes both how to use reports, what reports to use and when. With the completion of this section you’ll know where to find answers like:

• Basic demographic/psychographic information
• How your users found you
• Which pages users are viewing
• What results you’re getting from all those views

Section 2 – Getting Started

Moving on, you’ll start to build your Google Analytics implementation from the ground up, including how to structure your accounts, properties, and views. After this section, you’ll have:

• The difference between Accounts, Properties, and Views
• The 3 core views every analyst needs
• A path to making sure your Google Analytics is able to “tell its story”

Section 3 – Understanding Traffic

How users are finding your site? In this section, you’ll cover the various skills you’ll need to properly track your traffic, including:

• How to avoid “fractured” campaign reports
• Structuring your incoming traffic tags
• Fixing traffic sources that don’t report in a useful manner

Section 4 – Understanding Results

With your traffic tagged, and the reports collecting data, it’s time you knew what your results are and tie those results to the proper traffic sources. By the end of this section, you’ll know:

• The three milestones every user faces in the customer journey
• How to set Google Analytics goals for each of those milestones
• How to track your sales

GOOGLE ANALYTICS - INTERMEDIATE

With the completion of the Beginners course, and once you are sure about the basic knowledge you have gained, you can move straight away to the intermediate GA course. 

You have come already a long way and now it is time to take the next step into the hidden gems of what GA has to offer. You’ll start by learning how to build audiences, which will not only uncover powerful new insights about your visitors but allow you to run more effective acquisition and retention campaigns as well.

• 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 potential of enhanced ecommerce to make smarter product, placement and promotion decisions.

Expect the following modules that will allow you to drive new insights and generate additional knowledge for your business. 

• Clean Data: Filtering Out SPAM
• Clean Data: Removing Internal Hits
• Clean Data: Cross-Domain Tracking
• Finding Answers: Funnel Tracking
• Finding Answers: Segments – Part 1
• Finding Answers: Segments – Part 2
• 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

With the completion of both Beginners and Intermediate GA courses, you are equipped both with a strong foundation and additional tools, that can move you ahead of your competition. 

Google Analytics is an essential tool for all marketing professionals and businesses, and while complicated at times, it is worth every minute spent.

Thanks to CXL we get exposed to the right practices and methodologies to analyse data by selecting the right metrics, segmenting properly and reporting what really matters.