Web and

Google Analytics

W W W. R O Y D I G I TA L . I N
 Web and Google Analytics
Analytics Tools offer an insight into the performance of your website, visitors’ behavior, and
data flow. These tools are inexpensive and easy to use. Sometimes, they are even free.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a freemium analytic tool that provides a detailed statistics of the web
traffic. It is used by more than 60% of website owners.

Google analytics helps you to track and measure visitors, traffic sources, goals,
conversion, and other metrics (as shown in the above image). It basically generates
reports on −

Ÿ Audience Analysis
Ÿ Acquisition Analysis
Ÿ Behavior Analysis
Ÿ Conversion Analysis

Let us discuss each one of them in detail.

Audience Analysis

As the name suggests, audience analysis gives you an overview of the audience who visit
your site along with their session history, page-views, bounce rate, etc. You can trace the
new as well as the returning users along with their geographical locations. You can track −

Ÿ The age and gender of your audience under Demographics.

Ÿ The affinity reach and market segmentation under Interests.
Ÿ Language and location under Geo.
Ÿ New and returning visitors, their frequency, and engagement under Behavior.
Ÿ Browsers, Operating systems, and network of your audience in Technology.
Ÿ Mobile device info under Mobile.
Ÿ Custom variable report under Custom. This report shows the activity by custom
modules that you created to capture the selections.
Ÿ Benchmarking channels, locations, and devices under Benchmarking. Benchmarking
allows you to compare your metrics with other related industries. So, you can plot what
you need to incur in order to overtake the market.
Ÿ Flow of user activity under Users flow to see the path they took on your website.

Acquisition Analysis

Acquisition means ‘to acquire.’ Acquisition analysis is carried out to find out the sources
from where your web traffic originates. Using acquisition analysis, you can −
Ÿ Capture traffic from all channels, particular source/medium, and from referrals.
Ÿ Trace traffic from AdWords (paid search).
Ÿ See traffic from search engines. Here, you can see Queries, triggered landing pages,
and geographical summary.
Ÿ Track social media traffic. It helps you to identify networks where your users are
engaged. You can see referrals from where your traffic originates. You can also have a
view of your hub activity, bookmarking sites follow-up, etc. In the same tab, you can
have a look at your endorsements in details. It helps you measure the impact of social
media on your website.
Ÿ See which plugins gave you traffic.
Ÿ Have a look at all the campaigns you built throughout your website with detailed
statistics of paid/organic keywords and the cost incurred on it.

Behavior Analysis
Behavior analysis monitors users’ activities on a website. You can find behavioral data
under the following four segments −

Ÿ Site Content − It shows how many pages were viewed. You can see the detailed
interaction of data across all pages or in segments like content drill-down, landing
pages, and exit pages. Content drill-down is breaking up of data into sub-folders.
Landing page is the page where the user lands, and exit page is where the user exits
your site. You can measure the behavioral flow in terms of content.

Ÿ Site Speed − Here, you can capture page load time, execution speed, and
performance data. You can see how quickly the browser can parse through the page.
Further, you can measure page timings, user timings, and get speed suggestion. It
helps you to know where you are lagging.

Ÿ Site Search − It gives you a full picture of how the users search across your site, what
they normally look for, and how they arrive at a particular landing page. You can
analyze what they search for before landing on your website.

Ÿ Events − Events are visitors’ actions with content, which can be traced independently.
Example − downloads, sign up, log-in, etc.

Conversion Analysis

Conversion is a goal completion or a transaction by a user on your website. For example,

download, checkout, buy, etc. To track conversions in analytics, you need to define a goal
and set a URL that is traceable.

Ÿ Goals − Metrics that measure a profitable activity that you want the user to complete.
You can set them to track the actions. Each time a goal is achieved, a conversion is
added to your data. You can observe goal completion, value, reverse path, and goal
flow.
Ÿ Ecommerce − You can set ecommerce tracking to know what the users buy from your
website. It helps you to find product performance, sale performance, transactions, and
purchase time. Based on these data, you can analyze what can be beneficial and what
can incur you loss.

Ÿ Multi-channel funnels − Multi-channel funnels or MCF reports the source of

conversion; what roles the website plays, referrals’ role in that conversion; and what all
slabs did when users pass through landing page to conversion. For example, a user
searched for a query on Google search page, he visited the website, but did not convert.
Later on, he directly typed your website name and made a purchase. All these activities
can be traced on MCF.

Ÿ Attribution − Attribution modeling credits sales and conversions to touch points in

conversion tracking. It lets you decide what platforms or strategy or module is the best
for your business. Suppose a person visited your website through AdWords ad and
made no purchase. A month later, he visits via a social platform and again does not buy.
Third time, he visited directly and converted. Here, the last interaction model will credit
direct for the conversion, whereas first interaction model will assign credit to paid
medium. This way, you can analyze what module should be credited for a conversion.

Optimizely is an optimization platform to test and validate changes and the present look of
your webpage. It also determines which layout to finally go with. It uses A/B Testing,
Multipage, and Multivariate Testing to improve and analyze your website.

A wonderful feature of Optimizely is that you do not need to be a technical expert. You just
need to insert a deployed code provided by Optimizely in your HTML. After putting it, you
can trace anything, take any action, and make any changes in your website.

Optimizely provides you administrative and management functionality to let you create
account, organize projects, and experiment. This facility helps you in tracking clicks,
conversions, sign-ups, etc.

You are allowed to run tests and use custom integrations with Optimizely interface. All you
need is −

Ÿ Set up an account on Optimizely and add a generated script.

Ÿ Once you are done with it, select your test pages. It implies the factors you want to run
test on.
Ÿ Set Goals. To set goals, click on the flag icon at the top right of the page and follow up the
instructions. Check metrics you are looking for. Click Save.
Ÿ You can create variations with the usual editor like changing text and images.
Ÿ Next step is monitoring your tests. You need to test which landing pages are performing
well. What is attracting the visitors? What is the bounce rate? Understand the statistics,
filter the non-performing areas, and conclude the test.
Ÿ You can run multiple tests using javascript editors.
Optimizely gives you a better understanding of conversion rate optimization and running
tests.

a). Google Analytics set up for website

How to Add Google Analytics to WordPress (Ultimate Guide)

Google Analytics is the standard when it comes to web analytics tools. But many
WordPress users struggle when it comes time to actually add Google Analytics to
WordPress and start tracking their site. To help with that, we’re going to show you how to
add Google Analytics to WordPress using a few different methods.

First, we’ll show you a simple way to add Google Analytics to WordPress using a free
plugin. Then, we’ll show you four more ways – how to manually add the Google Analytics
tracking code directly to your theme and how to use a slightly more advanced Google
Analytics plugin to both add the tracking code to your site and view basic stats about your
site right inside your WordPress dashboard. You could also add Google Analytics to your
site with the Google Tag Manager or sync it locally for those of you picky about
performance.

Method 1: Add Google Analytics to WordPress With Analytics Cat

Analytics Cat is a lightweight Google Analytics plugin that literally only takes a couple of
minutes to set up. While it is lightweight, the advantage of Analytics Cat over other
lightweight tools is that it has some Google Analytics-specific functionality that lets you
exclude certain logged-in users from being tracked to ensure the integrity of your Google
Analytics data.

Analytics Cat WordPress plugin

It currently over 4,000 active installs with a 5 out of 5-star rating. To use the plugin, first
install and activate it like you would any other WordPress plugin. Because it’s listed at
WordPress.org, you can do so directly from your WordPress dashboard by going to
Plugins → Add New:
How to install Analytics Cat

Once you activate the plugin, go to Settings → Google Analytics Manager to complete the
setup.

On the first page, the plugin will ask to connect your site. That’s not necessary to use it.
Feel free to click Skip This Step:

Skip this step

Now, all you need to do is enter your Google Analytics ID and choose which users to
exclude from tracking:
Analytics Cat configuration interface

We recommend leaving the Exclude Users option as the default.

To find your Google Analytics ID, head to your Google Analytics account. Once you’re
logged in:

Ÿ Click the Gear icon to access your administration page

Ÿ Select Tracking Info to expand the list
Ÿ Select Tracking Code
How to find Google Analytics Tracking ID

On the next screen, you should see your Tracking ID:

Your Google Analytics Tracking ID

Copy that value. Then, head back to your WordPress site and paste your Tracking ID into
Analytics Cat. Then, click Save to activate your tracking:

Finish the configuration

That’s it! As your site receives traffic, you should be able to view its stats in your Google
Analytics dashboard.

Method 2: Manually Add Google Analytics to WordPress Child Theme

If you’d prefer not to use a plugin, it’s also fairly simple to add the Google Analytics tracking
code directly to your WordPress theme via your functions.php file.

If you go the manual route, though, it’s essential that you use a WordPress child theme.
Otherwise, your tracking code will be overwritten every time you update your WordPress
theme.

We have a guide on how to get started with WordPress child themes if you’re not sure what
to do.

To do things manually, the easiest way is to paste your Google Analytics Tracking Code
right before the closing </head> tag in your header.php file.

To find your Google Analytics Tracking Code, go to your Google Analytics account. Then:

Ÿ Click the Gear icon to access your administration page

Ÿ Select Tracking Info to expand the list
Ÿ Select Tracking Code

How to find Google Analytics Tracking ID

On the next screen, look for the script inside the Website Tracking box:
Google Analytics Website Tracking code

This is the script you need to insert in your header.php file.

To add it, go to Appearance → Editor and select the header.php file for your child theme.

Paste the Google Analytics Tracking Code right before the </head> tag in the Editor:

Add Google Analytics Tracking Code to header.php

Then, make sure to click Update File. Your Google Analytics tracking code is now active.
Another option is you could utilize a free plugin like Header and Footer which allows you to
easily add code to your WordPress header.
Method 3: Add Google Analytics to WordPress With Google Analytics
Dashboard for WP
If you want more functionality than Analytics Cat, Google Analytics Dashboard for WP is a
free plugin that:

Ÿ Helps you add Google Analytics to WordPress

Ÿ Lets you view basic stats about your site right from your WordPress dashboard
Ÿ Gives you access to advanced features like outbound link tracking, other Event
tracking options, and custom dimensions

Google Analytics Dashboard for WP plugin

It currently has over 1 million active installs with a 4.5 out of 5-star rating. To use the plugin,
you can install it directly from your dashboard by going to Plugins → Add New and
searching for it:

Install Google Analytics Dashboard for WP

Once you activate the plugin, go to the new Google Analytics tab and click the button to
Authorize Plugin:

Authorize Google Analytics Dashboard for WP

On the next screen, click Get Access Code to get the code needed to authorize the plugin:

Get Google Analytics access code

On the next screen, choose your Google account that you use to access Google Analytics:
Select your Google Analytics account

Then, click Allow on the next screen:

Allow access to Google Analytics Dashboard for WP

On the next screen, you’ll see the access code that you need. Copy that value:
Your access code

Then, paste that code into the Google Analytics Dashboard for WP interface and click
Save Access Code:

Save access code

And that’s it! Your Google Analytics tracking is now active.

If you want to exclude certain users from being tracked, you can go to Tracking Code →
Exclude Tracking to further configure how your tracking code functions:

We grew our traffic 1,187% with WordPress.

We’ll show you how.

I agree to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy

Exclude certain user roles from tracking

The Tracking Code area is also where you can set up more advanced options like Event
Tracking.

You’ll also be able to view stats for any post on your site by going to the Posts tab in your
dashboard:

View stats in your dashboard

Method 4: Add Google Analytics With Google Tag Manager

Another method you can use to add Google Analytics to WordPress is by using the Google
Tag Manager. This is really meant to be used for those of you with a lot of scripts, not just
Analytics. Google Tag Manager is a tag management system that allows you to quickly
and easily update tags and code snippets on your website or mobile app, such as those
intended for traffic analysis and marketing optimization. You can add and update scripts f
rom the Tag Manager user interface instead of editing site code in WordPress directory.
This reduces errors and frees you from having to involve a developer when configuring
tags.

The easiest way to do this is to use DuracellTomi’s free Google Tag Manager WordPress
plugin. It currently has over 100,000 active installs with a 4.5 out of 5-star rating.

DuracellTomi’s Google Tag Manager for WordPress plugin

You can download the Google Tag Manager plugin from the WordPress repository or by
searching for it under “Add New” plugins in your WordPress dashboard. You will then need
to signup for a Google Tag Manager account if you haven’t already and setup Google
Analytics. We recommend following the official documentation on how to install Google
Analytics via Google Tag Manager.

Once you have completed the above you can copy your container ID from the Google Tag
Manager dashboard.

Then return to your WordPress site and paste your Google Tag Manager ID in the plugin’s
settings.
Any tag you have setup in Google Tag Manager will now work on your WordPress site
using the plugin.

Method 5: Sync Google Analytics Locally for Performance Reasons

The final method you can use is to sync the Google Analytics script locally on your own
server. Please be aware though that this isn’t supported by Google. But a couple reasons
you might want to do this is that you can reduce your external HTTP requests to Google
from 2 down to 1 and you now have full control over the caching of the file. This means you
can utilize your own server’s cache headers.

You have also probably seen the leverage browser caching warning in Google
PageSpeed Insights that comes from Google Analytics. This is kind of ironic seeing as this
is Google’s own script. The issue is that they set a low 2 hour cache time on their asset, as
seen in the screenshot below. They most likely do this because if for some reason they
were to modify.

something on their end, they want all users to get the changes as fast as possible.
However there is a way to get around this, and that is by hosting Google Analytics script on
your own server.
There is a great free little plugin called the Complete Analytics Optimization Suite or CAOS
for short, created and developed by Daan van den Bergh, which allows you to host Google
Analytics locally on your WordPress website. It currently has over 10,000 active installs
with a 5 out of 5-star rating.

You can download Complete Analytics Optimization Suite from the WordPress repository
or by searching for it under “Add New” plugins in your WordPress dashboard. The plugin
allows you to host your Google Analytics JavaScript file (analytics.js) locally and keep it
updated using wp_cron(). Other features include being able to easily anonymize the IP
address of your visitors, set an adjusted bounce rate, and placement of the script (header
or footer).

Just install the plugin, enter your Google Analytics Tracking ID, and the plugin adds the
necessary tracking code for Google Analytics to your WordPress website, downloads and
saves the analytics.js file to your server and keeps it updated using a scheduled script in
wp_cron(). We recommend also setting it to load in the footer. Note: This plugin won’t work
with other Google Analytics WordPress plugins.
b). Reporting Key term

The Ultimate Google Analytics Glossary

There are so many reports and so much data inside Google Analytics, but what does it all
mean? Well, I’m going to help you understand the most important terminology you’ll find
inside Google Analytics. Think of this as your Google Analytics dictionary. This is your
quick-reference to the stuff that matters when you’re using reports and analyzing
performance.

Account

Your account is where everything lives inside Google Analytics. Think of it as the top-level
folder that you access using your login details. In most cases you’ll have access to a single
account that’s storing data for your website, but if you’re managing multiple websites that
aren’t directly related, then these should be stored in separate accounts. For example if
you're managing your company website and your personal blog. Accounts (and their
assets) can be shared with multiple users.

Acquisition

You can understand how people find your website using the Acquisition reports. The
reports present data based on the source and medium of your users, along with other
acquisition dimensions. There are dedicated reports for your paid traffic from Google
AdWords, organic traffic from Google (if you have linked your Google Search Console
account), traffic from social networks and traffic from custom campaign tags.

Active Users
The Real Time and Home reports show you how many people are currently viewing
content on your website. Data is processed within a few seconds into the Real Time
reports and you can view data for the previous 30 minutes. While the Active Users report
(under ‘Audience’) tells you the number of unique users who performed sessions on your
website within a certain number of days.

Active Pages
When viewing the Real Time reports, Active Pages shows you the pages people are
currently viewing on your website. When someone navigates to another page or closes
their browser the page that was shown as active will be removed from the Real Time
reports.

Ÿ Advanced Segment
Ÿ See custom segment.
Ÿ Analytics Intelligence
Google’s machine learning identifies trends and changes in your data. For example, if
there is a sudden increase in traffic to your website this will be highlighted by Analytics
Intelligence. The feature also allows you to ask questions, like ‘What is my best landing
page?’ to quickly find answers.

API
There are a number of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that you can use to
access data from Google Analytics. They can be used to access your data outside the
Google Analytics interface, including in Google Sheets and your own custom
applications. APIs include the Core Reporting API to access data from the standard
reports, the Real Time Reporting API to access live data, the Multi-Channel Funnels API
to access attribution data, plus the Embed API, the Metadata API and the Management
API.

Assisted Conversion
Inside the 'Multi-Channel Funnels' reports you will find assisted conversions which show
you the channels which later led to a conversion. For example, if a user came to the
website from Twitter and then later from Google AdWords, Twitter would be counted as an
‘assisted conversion’. The reports also allow you to view assisted conversions based on
other dimensions, including campaign, source, medium, landing page and more.

Attribution

Attribution allows you to control how credit for a particular conversion is given to the
marketing channels that led to the action taking place. Google Analytics provides a variety
of attribution models in the ‘Multi-Channel Funnels’ and ‘Attribution’ reports. Attribution
takes into account the channels (and traffic sources) used across multiple sessions for a
user. You can set the amount of historical data included in the reports using the lookback
window. See also first interaction and last interaction.

Audiences

You can configure custom audiences to see more granular metrics inside your reports. For
example, if you’re considering running a remarketing campaign you can create an
audience to monitor current performance before you begin advertising. You can find the
Audiences report under ‘Audience’.

Average Session Duration

Provides a top-level view of how long users are spending on your website. For example, if
you had two users, one that spent 3 minutes on your website and another that spent 1
minute, then you would have an average session duration of 2 minutes. Google Analytics
does not count time for the last page viewed during a session. This means that average
session duration will tend to be skewed lower than the actual amount of time people are
spending on your website.

Bounce

A bounce is reported when a user’s session only contains a single pageview. The idea is
that someone comes to your website and they ‘bounce’ away and leave after only viewing
a single page.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of sessions with a single pageview. Bounce rate can
provide top-level insights about the performance of your content. For example, if you want
people to travel on to view a subsequent page on your website, then you can aim to lower
your bounce rate. It’s also important to apply context when analyzing bounce rate, since
some pages will deliver all of the information somebody is looking for on a single page, for
example, a store locator or a blog post.
Calculated Metric

Calculated metrics allow you to create your own metrics that are based on the default
metrics available within your reports. For example, you can create your own calculated
metric that divides goal completions by users to create a user goal conversion rate which
is not the same as the default session-based goal conversion rate. Learn more about
calculated metrics. See also metric.

Campaign Name
Campaign name is one of the four main dimensions (along with source, medium and
channel) for reporting and analyzing marketing campaigns. The campaign name is
provided when you use a campaign tagged URL for your inbound marketing or from your
Google AdWords campaigns (when Google AdWords is linked to Google Analytics).

Campaign Tags

Inbound marketing can be tracked and reported by Google Analytics using campaign tags.
Extra details (query parameters) are added to the ends of URLs which are then included in
the Acquisition reports. Campaign tags include campaign name, source, medium, term
and content. Learn more about campaign tags.

Channel

Channels provide top-level groupings of your inbound marketing. Each channel combines
source and medium so you can understand overall performance. For example, the default
channel grouping includes ‘Organic Search’, ‘Paid Search’, ‘Social’ and ‘Email’ which
automatically combines pre-defined sources and mediums. You can also configure your
own custom channel groupings.

Client ID

Google Analytics uses a unique identifier, called ‘Client ID’ to report and analyze the
behavior of individuals on your website. By default, the identifier is randomly assigned and
is stored in a browser cookie on the users’ device. See also User Explorer.

Cohort Analysis

The Cohort Analysis report shows you users segmented by date. For example, you can
use the report to see when users are acquired and when they return to your website.

Content Group

You can configure content groups to classify each page of your website into a particular
category. This allows you to perform top-level reporting and analysis on your pages based
on your own content classifications. You can create content groups by modifying your
tracking code, by extracting details from your pages or by creating rules.

Conversion

A conversion is reported whenever a user completes a goal or makes a purchase during a

session. Each goal will report a maximum of one conversion per session, while every
transaction is reported. See also goal completion and ecommerce transaction.

Cost Analysis

After uploading third-party advertising data (see Data Import) you can then compare the
performance of your advertising based on a range of metrics including; click-through rate,
cost-per-click, revenue-per-click, and return on advertising spend.

CPC

Cost-per-click or CPC can be seen in the Acquisition reports and typically refers to people
clicking through to your website from paid ads. This includes traffic from linked Google
AdWords accounts and campaign tagged URLs where the medium has been defined as
‘cpc’ or ‘paid’.

Custom Dimension / Custom Metric

In addition to the default dimensions and metrics, Google Analytics can be configured to
collect additional data and make it available in your reports. For example, you could
configure a custom dimension to report the authors of each page on your website, to
understand performance based on who is creating content.

Custom Segment

Apart from the default (or system) segments, you can also create custom segments to
filter the data that is (or is not) included in your reports. Segments can be configured to
focus on particular sections of your traffic based on users and sessions. For example, you
can create a custom segment to perform more detailed analysis on your top-performing
customers to understand how they’re engaging with your website.

Data Import

You can import additional data into Google Analytics to supplement and extend the
standard dimensions and metrics. You can import a range of data including Cost Data
from advertising campaigns, Refund Data for ecommerce transactions, User Data,
Campaign Data, Geography Data, Content Data, Product Data and Custom Data.

Data Retention

In order to comply with privacy regulations, you can set a data retention period in Google
Analytics. By default, data that can identify unique individuals, like Client ID, will be
removed after 26 months. The data retention period can be set to 14, 26, 38, or 50 months,
and you also have the option of keeping the data by selecting ‘do not expire automatically’.
Aggregated data will continue to be available in your reports even after the data retention
period.

Demographics

Google Analytics can be configured to include user demographics, like age and gender. In
order to collect demographic data into your reports you need to enable the ‘Advertising
Features’ by navigating to ‘Admin’, then ‘Tracking Info’ and selecting ‘Data Collection’.

Device Category

Device category allows you to view performance based on the different devices people are
using to experience your website. You can see sessions occurring on desktop (which also
includes laptop devices), tablet and mobile.

Dimension

One of two types of data that Google Analytics collects, a dimension is an attribute or
characteristic of your users and their interactions with your website. Dimensions are
typically presented as a row of information within your reports. Examples of dimensions
include page path, which provides information about the pages people have viewed and
marketing channel which provide information about how people found your website. You’ll
find the dimension presented in the first column inside the standard Google Analytics
reports. See also metric.

Direct

Direct traffic includes people who typed your website’s URL into their browser or clicked a
link in an email application (that didn’t include campaign tags). Direct sessions will also
include other cases where Google Analytics is unable to identify the source of the click.
Google Analytics will only assign 'direct' as a last resort when a known source is used, that
source will be attributed to the session.

Ecommerce Conversion

An ecommerce conversion occurs when someone successfully purchases during a

session. Google Analytics has a range of ecommerce dimensions and metrics to report on
your website’s ecommerce activity. See also transaction.

Entrance

The first page that someone views during a session is known as an entrance. You can see
the number of times a page was viewed first using the ‘entrance’ metric. This metric is
similar to sessions but can vary when multiple hit types are sent to Google Analytics.

Event

A custom interaction (or attribute) that is tracked from your website into Google Analytics,
for example, tracking plays of an embedded video. Each event can include up to three
dimensions (the event ‘category’, ‘action’ and optional ‘label’) and a metric (the optional
event ‘value’). Events require custom implementation to be tracked and are then reported
inside the standard ‘Behavior’ reports. Events can also be used to configure event-based
goals.

Filter

Filters can be applied to reporting views inside Google Analytics to include a subset of data
(for example, only include data for particular parts of the website) or exclude a subset of
data (for example, excluding your own sessions on the website) or to transform the data
(for example, to modify the reported page path to include the hostname).

First Interaction (or First-Click)

First interaction gives credit for a conversion to the first method that somebody used to find
your website. The ‘Model Comparison Tool’ allows you to apply the first interaction (and
other attribution models to your conversions). It’s important to know that there is a limit to
the amount of historical data included in the attribution reports (see lookback window).
There will also be other impacts on first interaction data, for example, people clearing their
cookies or using multiple devices. See also attribution.

Goal

Goals are used to track desired actions on your website. For example, subscribing to your
email newsletter, submitting an inquiry or registering as a member. Goals can be
configured inside Google Analytics and can be based on people traveling to a particular
page (or pages), triggering an event, sessions of a certain duration or viewing a certain
number of pages.

Goal Abandonment
Destination (or page-based) goals can be configured to include additional pages leading
to a conversion (funnel steps). If somebody views at least one of the funnel steps without
converting, they will be considered as abandoning the goal and be included in the goal
abandonment metric.

Goal Completion

When a user converts for a particular goal during a session they’ll be counted as a goal
completion. If a goal is completed multiple times during a user’s session, it will only be
counted as a single conversion.

Goal Completion Location

This dimension reports the particular page where a conversion occurred for a destination
(or page-based) goal. This is especially useful if you’re including multiple conversion
pages for a goal. The goal completion location will also show you the page that was viewed
when an event-based or engagement-based (duration and pages per session) goal was
triggered.

Goal Value
An optional dollar value can be set for each goal inside Google Analytics. The goal value
can be used to report on an actual dollar value, a calculated value or a symbolic value for
each conversion. The event-based goal allows you to pull the event’s ‘value’, the other
goal types use a fixed (or static) value for each conversion.

Google's paid advertising platform, allowing you to display ads to people searching on
Google, third-party search sites (Google Search Partners) and browsing websites and
using mobile apps (Google Display Network). Check out our accompanying Google Ads
Glossary as a reference for your paid campaigns.

See Google Ads.

Google Analytics
Ummm… Yeah, Google’s digital analytics tool that provides insights into user behavior on
websites and mobile apps.

Google Data Studio

Google's reporting and dashboarding tool allows you to present and visualize data from
Google Analytics, Google Sheets and other data sources.

Google Optimize

Google's A/B and multivariate testing tool, allows you to test different variations of content
to increase conversions and improve conversion rate.

Google Signals

When signals are enabled in Google Analytics aggregated data will be used to populate
the Cross Device reports.
Google Tag Manager
A system for managing the deployment of tracking and other tags on your website. Google
Tag Manager allows tags to be tested on your website before being deployed live and is
designed to reduce the dependence on IT for managing tracking tags.

Hit

Is the way data is sent to Google Analytics before it’s processed into your reports. The
most common type of hit occurs when a page is viewed on your website. Hits are also sent
to Google Analytics for other types of interactions, including events.

Intelligence
Google’s machine learning identifies trends and changes in your data. For example, if
there is a sudden increase in traffic to your website this will be highlighted by Analytics
Intelligence. The feature also allows you to ask questions, like ‘What is my best landing
page?’ to quickly find answers.

Interests

You can view your audience’s areas of interest by enabling ‘Advertising Features’
(navigate to ‘Admin’, then ‘Tracking Info’ and selecting ‘Data Collection’). The categories
within the Interests reports align to the Interest targeting options available in Google Ads.

Keyword

Google Analytics provide details about the keywords people use to find your website. The
organic keywords report shows you the terms people used to find your website when
clicking on a free result from a search engine. A lot of organic keyword traffic is shown as
‘not provided’ which means that the individual keyword was hidden by the search engine
(see also not provided). The paid keywords report shows you keywords from linked
Google AdWords accounts and campaign tagged URLs using the ‘term’ parameter.

Lifetime Value (LTV)

The lifetime value metrics, including lifetime revenue per user and lifetime revenue, show
you the total value based on users, instead of sessions.

Hostname

The part of your website’s URL that identifies where the Google Analytics tracking code
was loaded. For example, if someone viewed https://www.example.com/contact then
Google Analytics would report on www.example.com as the hostname. Viewing the
hostnames in Google Analytics can be especially useful if you’ve installed the tracking
code on multiple domains (or subdomains).
Landing Page

The landing page is the first page viewed during a session, or in other words, the entrance
page. It can be useful to review your landing pages to understand the most popular pages
people view as they navigate to your website. This can be used to identify potential
opportunities to cross-promote or feature other content from your website. See also
entrance.

Last Interaction (or Last-Click)

When a user converts on your website, the last method they used to find your website is
reported as the last interaction leading to the conversion. The ‘Model Comparison Tool’
allows you to attribute conversions to the last interaction to understand the channels that
are better as closing (or completing) conversions. See also attribution.

Local Product Revenue

The product revenue in the local currency of the transaction.

Lookback Window

The lookback window allows you to control the amount of historical data that is included
when using the attribution reports. For example, setting a lookback window of 14 days will
include touchpoints up to 14 days before the conversion occurred. Any touchpoint outside
of the lookback window won't be included in the report. The default lookback window is 30
day, but it can be set between 1 and 90 days. See also attribution.

Measurement Protocol

The Measurement Protocol allows hits to be sent directly to Google Analytics without
needing to use the Google Analytics tracking code or Google Tag Manager. This can be
used to send data from any internet-enabled device to Google Analytics. For example, the
Measurement Protocol can be used to send data from a point of sale terminal in a store, a
self-service kiosk or gaming console.

Medium

Medium is one of the four main dimensions (along with source, campaign and channel) for
reporting and analyzing how people found your website. Medium tells you how the
message was communicated. For example, ‘organic’ for free search traffic, ‘cpc’ for cost-
per-click and ‘referral’ for inbound links from other websites.

Metric

One of two types of data that Google Analytics collects, a metric is typically a number, like a
count or a percentage. Metrics are typically presented as columns of data within your
reports. Examples of metrics include page views, which tells you the total number of pages
that were viewed and users which tell you how many people viewed your website. See also
dimension.

New User

People that visit your website for the first time in the selected date range. Since users are
based on the Google Analytics tracking code and browser cookies, it’s important to
highlight that people who cleared their cookies or access your website using a different
device will be reported as a new user. See also user.

Not Provided

In the organic keywords report, not provided indicates that a search engine prevented the
individual keyword from being reported. The majority of not provided organic keywords
come from Google search results, where anybody performing a search on the secure
version of Google (e.g. https://www.google.com) will have their individual organic keyword
withheld from analytics tools, including Google Analytics.

Not Set

Not set can be seen in a number of different reports and indicates that a particular piece of
information is not available within the report. For example, in the Location report, not set
indicates that Google Analytics was unable to determine someone’s exact geographic
location when they accessed your website. While not set in the Source/Medium report
occurs when a campaign tagged URL hasn’t been fully constructed (for example, if
‘source’ isn’t defined it will be displayed as not set within the report).

Organic

Organic refers to people clicking on a free link from a search results page. For example,
people clicking through to your website from a free result on a Google search results page.

Page

The page shows the part of the URL after your domain name (path) when someone has
viewed content on your website. For example, if someone views
https://www.example.com/contact then /contact will be reported as the page inside the
Behavior reports.

Page Value

Allows you to understand the impact of your website’s pages in driving value based on
ecommerce transactions and goal conversions (where a goal value has been set). Each
page that led to a conversion shares the value that was generated by the conversion.
Pages Per Session

A top-level metric for user engagement showing the average number of pageviews in each
session.

Pageview
A pageview is reported when a page has been viewed by a user on your website. In the
Google Analytics pages report, by default, your pages are ordered by popularity based on
pageviews. This allows you to see which content is being viewed most often.

PII (Personally Identifiable Information)

According to the Google Analytics Terms of Service, you are prevented from collecting PII
(personally identifiable information) into your reports. This includes email addresses, full
names and other personal details. However, according to the Terms of Service you are
able to collect IDs that can then be linked to individuals outside of Google Analytics.

Paid

Cost-per-click or CPC can be seen in the Acquisition reports and typically refers to people
clicking through to your website from paid ads. This includes traffic from linked Google
AdWords accounts and campaign tagged URLs where the medium has been defined as
‘cpc’ or ‘paid’.

Previous Page Path

Previous page path is a dimension that allows you to see the page viewed immediately
before another page within a session. Previous page path can be useful for reviewing
navigation paths people are using between individual pages on your website.

Product Revenue

The revenue from item(s) included in an ecommerce transaction.

Property

Properties are created within a Google Analytics account. Each property represents an
instance of the tracking ID used to collect data from a website, group of websites, a mobile
app or the Measurement Protocol. Each property will include data sent to the associated
tracking ID. Once data has been collected it is processed in the reporting view (or views)
created under the property. See also tracking ID.

Quantity

The number of products purchased in an ecommerce transaction.

Referral

A referral is reported when a user clicks through to your website from another third-party
website. The referrals report allows you to see all of the websites (by domain) that are
sending you traffic. You can also drill-down into the referrals report to view the ‘Referral
Path’ which allows you to see the individual pages linking to your website.

Regular Expression (or Regex)

An advanced method of pattern matching in text strings. Regular expressions can be used
in various places inside Google Analytics including view filters, goals, segments, table
filters and more. Learn more about regular expressions.

Revenue

Sales revenue reported from transactions that have been tracked by Google Analytics.
The revenue figures can include shipping and tax depending on the ecommerce tracking
code that has been implemented.

Revenue Per User

Total revenue divided by the number of users shows the average amount generated for
each user.

Sampling

In order to speed up the processing of reports, a portion of data is used to extrapolate (or
estimate) the complete set of data for the report. Sampling occurs when you request
specific data in your reports when there are more than 500,000 sessions in the property for
the selected date range. The easiest way to reduce sampling is to reduce the selected
date range.

Search Query

The actual term somebody used in a search engine before clicking through to your
website. Depending on the report, the terms can be from paid ads (inside the AdWords
reports), or from Google organic search results (inside the Search Console reports).

Search Term

If your website has an internal search function you can configure the Site Search reports to
show the particular terms people are using as they search your website. See also site
search.

Segment
Apart from the default (or system) segments, you can also create custom segments to filter
the data that is (or is not) included in your reports. Segments can be configured to focus on
particular sections of your traffic based on users and sessions. For example, you can
create a custom segment to perform more detailed analysis on your top-performing
customers to understand how they’re engaging with your website.

Self-Referral

Referrals coming from your own website are called ‘self-referrals’. This can occur if there is
a page (or pages) on your website that doesn’t have the Google Analytics tracking code
installed. For example, if a page is missing the tracking code or if your website spans
multiple domains. In most cases, you will want to correct the tracking issue to remove (or
reduce) the self-referrals. This is because a new session is created when someone clicks
from the page (or pages) causing the self-referral.

Session

A single visit to your website, consisting of one or more pageviews, along with events,
ecommerce transactions and other interactions. The default session timeout is 30
minutes, which means that if someone is inactive on your website for over 30 minutes, then
a new session will be reported if they perform another interaction, for example, viewing
another page.

Site Search

Google Analytics can be configured to track people using your website’s internal search
function. The site search reports allow you to see the search terms people are using,
repeat searches, search categories, the pages people begin searching from and the
percentage of sessions that included a search. Learn more about configuring site search.

Smart Goals

If you’re unable to manually configure your own goals, then you can make use of Google’s
machine learning to identify sessions that are most likely to result in a conversion. See also
goal.

Social

Social appears as a marketing channel (in the default channel grouping) in the Acquisition
reports which automatically includes traffic coming from social media, including Twitter
and Facebook. The Acquisition reports also include a dedicated set of social reports to
further analyze and report on the performance of your inbound social traffic.

Social Plugins

Google Analytics can be configured to track people engaging with social sharing widgets
embedded within your website. The social plugins report then allows you to report on the
pages people are on when they use your social sharing widgets, the social networks they
use and the actions they’ve taken.

Source

Source is one of the four main dimensions (along with medium, campaign and channel) for
reporting and analyzing how people found your website. Source tells you where the
message was seen. For example, a source of ‘google’ would indicate that someone found
your website after performing a search on Google. Source can be used in combination
with medium for more granular insights, for example, a source of ‘google’ and a medium of
‘cpc’ would be reported for paid clicks from your AdWords campaigns. See also medium.

Transaction

A single purchase on your website reported inside Google Analytics. Each transaction can
include one or more items that were purchased during checkout and each transaction is
associated with a transaction ID which is sent to Google Analytics from your ecommerce
system using special ecommerce tracking code.

The number of transactions, along with total revenue and ecommerce conversion rate are
generally the primary measures of success for an ecommerce website. Each ecommerce
transaction can include details about the total transaction value, items purchased,
shipping details and more.

Tracking ID
In order to send hits to the appropriate property inside Google Analytics, a tracking ID is
included in the tracking code (or Google Tag Manager tag). The tracking ID starts with ‘UA’,
followed by a series of numbers, for example, UA-123456-1. The number between the
dashes is a unique identifier for the Google Analytics account and the number at the end
identifies a property within the account. See also property.

Transactions Per User

The number of transactions divided by the number of users. This metric can provide
insights into how well your website is performing based on ecommerce transactions.

Unique Pageview

Counts a page once even if it was viewed multiple times within a single session. For
example, if someone landed on your homepage, then viewed the ‘about us’ page and then
navigated back to your homepage, the homepage would have 1 unique pageview (even
though the page was viewed twice during the session).

URL Builder
The URL Builder is a tool provided by Google that allows you to add campaign tags to your
inbound URLs. It's especially helpful if you're just getting started with campaign tags as it
provides a visual interface. See also campaign tags and UTM tag.

User
An individual person browsing your website (technically, a unique browser cookie). Each
user can visit your website multiple times, for example, 1 user could create 3 sessions on
your website, with each session containing multiple pageviews. By default, each unique
browser cookie will be counted as a separate user which means someone visiting your
website on multiple devices (each with their own browser cookie) will mean more than 1
user is reported. The User ID feature allows you to track unique individuals that identify
themselves on multiple devices.

User Explorer

The User Explorer report allows you to view the cookie IDs that have been created in
people’s browsers. This allows you to see how people interact with your website across
multiple sessions.

Users Flow

The Users Flow report is a visual representation of how users navigate and interact with
your website. For example, you can see the paths people take as they view the content on
your website after they land.

User ID

A unique identifier used to combine sessions from a known person on your website. When
you can identify someone (for example, using a ID from your CRM or another system) you
can send an ID to Google Analytics to enable a special set of cross-device reports. While
this provides a more accurate user count, since someone needs to be identified (for
example, by logging into your website), only a portion of your users will be included in
these reports.

UTM Tag

UTM tags are the individual query parameters used to make up a campaign tagged URL.
The UTM tags include utm_name, utm_source, utm_medium, utm_term, utm_content
and the lesser known utm_id. UTM stands for 'Urchin Traffic Monitor' (Urchin was the
precursor to Google Analytics). See also campaign tags.

View

Within each Google Analytics property, there are one or more reporting views which
contain data from your website. Views can contain a complete set of data from the tracking
code or a subset of data (using filters). Each reporting view has its own goals and other
configurations.

c). Report Generation and Export

Export and share reports

Export a report

To export a report:

1. Open the report you'd like to export. Analytics exports the report as it is currently
displayed on your screen, so make sure that you've applied your desired date range
and report settings.

2. Click Export (across from the report title).

3. Select one of the export formats:

CSV
TSV
TSV for Excel
Excel (XLSX)
Google Sheets
PDF

Your file is generated automatically and available in the download directory on your
computer.

The final line chart that is generated when you run a motion chart is not exported.

Share a report

There is a limit of 400 scheduled emailed reports per user per view.

To share a report:

1. Open the report you'd like to share.

2. Click Share (across from the report title).

3. The email address you used as your login is listed in the From field.

4. In the To field, enter a comma-separated list of email addresses.

5. Enter a subject, and select the attachment format and frequency.

6. If you selected a frequency other than Once in the previous step, click ADVANCED
OPTIONS and select an Active for period. For example, if you selected Daily in the
 previous step, and an Active for period of "1 month", the email will be sent daily for a
period of one month.

7. Use the text field to enter the body of your email.

8. Click Send.

The time zone you select in the view settings determines what data is included in the
email. The email itself is sent sometime after midnight of the selected time zone, though an
exact delivery time can't be guaranteed.

The frequency you select for the report also determines what data is in the report. For
example, if you select Daily, then the report includes data for the previous day; if you select
Weekly, then the report includes data for the previous week.

d). Report Analysis and Drafting

Yet to be done..!

e). Conversion and Goal set up

How to Set up Goals and Conversions in Google Analytics

Have you ever tried to use Google Analytics’ out-of-the-box metrics to learn more about
how your site is performing? If so, chances are you were trying to deduce if your site
visitors are actually doing what you’d like them to do—are they reading to the end of your
articles? Are they clicking on the calls to action you’ve provided? Unfortunately, there’s a
chance you didn’t find the answers you were looking for.

We can help you better understand how to navigate Google Analytics by setting up goals
and conversions, which will show you if your site’s visitors are engaging with your content
in the ways you want them to. Eventually, this data can also help you figure out what steps
to take next with your content, but before we get ahead of ourselves…

What is a goal/conversion in Google Analytics?

As defined by Google, “Goals measure how well your site or app fulfills your target
objectives. A goal represents a completed activity, called a conversion, that contributes to
the success of your business”.

In simpler terms, a goal is a way of measuring how often someone completes a specific
action on your site. Whenever someone completes that specific action, a conversion has
occurred.

How do I set up a goal?

To set up a goal, log in to Google Analytics and navigate to the “Admin” tab at the bottom of
the sidebar menu.

Once you’re on that tab, choose the account, property, and view you’d like to
add a goal for, and click the “Goals” option under the appropriate view.
On the next page, you should see the button that says “+ NEW GOAL” in the top-left
corner. Click it.

If you don’t see that button, it means you don’t have sufficient permissions to add goals for
an account. You’ll need to talk to your account administrator to gain access.

After clicking the “+NEW GOAL” button, Google Analytics will ask you if you want to use a
template or to create a custom goal. Most likely, you’ll want to create a custom goal—it’s
more flexible, and just as easy to implement. This guide will focus on setting up custom
goals, so select that option and click “Continue”.

The next step is to name your goal. Be sure to pick something descriptive, like “Completed
Contact Form” or “Clicked a blog CTA”.

Then, you’ll need to select a goal type.

After clicking the “+NEW GOAL” button, Google Analytics will ask you if you want to use a
template or to create a custom goal. Most likely, you’ll want to create a custom goal—it’s
more flexible, and just as easy to implement. This guide will focus on setting up custom
goals, so select that option and click “Continue”.

The next step is to name your goal. Be sure to pick something descriptive, like “Completed
Contact Form” or “Clicked a blog CTA”.

Then, you’ll need to select a goal type.

There are four goal types:

Ÿ Destination: A goal is completed when someone visits a specific page

Ÿ Duration: A goal is completed when a session lasts longer than a specified amount of
time
Ÿ Pages/screens per session: A goal is completed if a visitor visits more than the specified
number of pages in one session
Ÿ Event: A goal is completed if an event is completed.
Let’s take a look at each of these goal types in greater detail, and walk through how to set
up goals of each type.

Destination Goals
How do destination goals work?

Destination goals are completed each time someone visits a specific page at any time
during their visit to your site. Users can complete the same goal more than once in a
session by visiting the same page multiple times. For example, if you set your homepage
as a destination goal, every time someone visits your home page, it’ll trigger a goal. (Note:
we wouldn’t recommend setting the home page as a goal, as it would not only flood your
conversion reports, but also provide little value.)

Destination goals are most commonly used to measure the number of newsletter
signups,contact form completions, or purchases, since many sites redirect site visitors to a
‘thank you page’ after completing one of these actions.

To check if this is the right goal type for you, try completing the action (whether signing up
for a mail list, or filling out a contact form) and see if you get redirected to a specific page.
Double check to make sure that there’s no other way to get to this page—if so, the
destination goal type is right for your action! If not, you’ll likely need to use an event goal.

How to implement a destination goal

After descriptively naming your goal and choosing the destination goal type, the final step
is to fill in goal details. For destination goals, there are three details to fill out: destination,
value, and funnel.
The destination field is where you specify the page (or pages) that will count as a
completed goal.

To start, enter the slug (the URL, excluding the domains; essentially the URL that comes
after the first ‘/’. For example, the slug for this page is “”) of the page that users are
redirected to after completing the action that you want to track as a goal. This could look
something like “/thanks-for-your-submission” or “contact-form-completed.html”.

If you’re not sure what the slug is for your destination goal, go to your site and complete
your goal, and check the URL of the page where you end up. One exception here is if your
action takes place in a lightbox or a pop up (commonly used for email captures)—if the
URL doesn’t change when the user completes the action, you’ll want to use an event goal
instead (see below).

If the URL you want to assign to this goal is the same each time you complete the action,
you’re done with the destination field. Nice work! If the URL changes every time (maybe
there’s some extra characters at the end that changes with each action), you’ll have to
change your goal match type.

The next step is to select a value, or dollar amount to associate with this goal. For
example, if a lead is worth $10 to your company, you’d enter ‘10’ as the value for this goal.
Whenever someone completes this goal, Google Analytics will attribute a portion of the
goal value to each of the different pages that the person visited before completing the
goal.

This happens for every goal that has a value. You can then see the sum of all these goal
values by looking at the page value column in various reports to give you an idea of which
pages contribute to your goals.
The last option for destination goals is to create a funnel—this is beyond the scope of this
guide, but if you’re interested in learning more about destination goal funnels, take a look
at this article.

Duration Goals

How do duration goals work?

Duration goals are completed when a session lasts longer than a specified amount of time.
This means that each visitor can complete this goal once per sessions. This goal isn’t as
commonly used as destination, but can be helpful to indicate if readers are spending a
long time on your site. This could be a good thing (if you’re a publication looking for
engaged users), or a bad thing (if people who are visiting your support site can’t find what
they’re looking for), so when using this goal, make sure you know why you’re using it and
understand how average session duration is calculated.

How to implement a duration goal

After naming your goal and selecting duration as your goal type, there are only two fields to
fill out for the duration goal: duration and value.
As you might expect, the duration field is where you would specify how long a person
should be on your site for before the goal is counted as completed. All you have to do is
enter your desired duration in hours, minutes, and seconds.

The value field is also available for duration goals, and works exactly the same as it does
for destination goals. Enter the dollar amount this duration goal is worth to your
organization, and you’re done.

Pages/Screens per Session Goals

How do pages/screens per session goals work?

A pages/screens per session goal is completed if a visitor visits more than the specified
number of pages (or screens, if the view you’re creating a goal for is a mobile app) in one
session. Similar to the duration goal, this is another less common goal, and is best used by
publishers measuring if readers are reading multiple stories.

How to implement a duration goal

After naming your goal and selecting duration as your goal type, there are only two fields to
fill out for the pages/screens per session goal: pages/screens per session and value.

After entering a value into the pages/screens per session field, only sessions where users
visit more than the entered value will trigger this goal. In the above screenshot, any
session where a visitor views three or more pages will trigger the goal.

Next, enter the value this goal is worth to your organization into the value field, and click
“Save” to finish setting up this goal.

Event Goals

How do event goals work?

Event goals are completed when a specific event is fired on a page. Events can cover
almost anything—depending on how they’re implemented, they can track forms that don’t
redirect visitors to a destination page, they can track clicks on buttons, views of a video, or
any other interaction between a visitor and your site.

Google Analytics events are very versatile, but can get a bit complex, so we won’t go into
great detail here. Instead, take a look at Google’s guide to events—all you need to about
an event before you set it up as a conversion are its category, action, label, and value.
Once you have your events set up, the following steps will guide you through
implementing specific events as goals.

How to implement an event goal

After naming your goal, selecting the event goal type, and implementing a goal
somewhere on your site, the last step is to determine the conditions for this goal to trigger.

If you know the exact event that you want to use as a goal, input the category, action, label
and value of the event into the event conditions field, and you’re good to go.

It’s worth noting that not all of these fields are required—you only need to fill out one of
these four fields in order to set up a goal. Google Analytics will only count events that
match ALL of those fields as a goal.

As an example, imagine we had an event that tracks whether visitors watched videos in
the blog:
Ÿ Event 1 category: Video
Ÿ Event 1 action: Played video
Ÿ Event 1 label: Blog video
Ÿ Event 1 value: n/a

Let’s say we also had a similar event that tracks whether visitors watched sales videos:

Ÿ Event 2 category: Video

Ÿ Event 2 action: Played video
Ÿ Event 2 label: Sales video
Ÿ Event 2 value: 5

If we set the goal category to “Video” (such as in the screenshot below), and leave the
other fields blank, both events will be counted towards the goal.

However, if we also set the goal label to “Sales video”, then only event 2 (sales videos)
would count towards the goal

As you could imagine, event goals can be extremely versatile, and allows you to track just
about anything on your site.

The last step here is the event field. Unlike the other goal types, you can use the event
value as the goal value. If you don’t use the event value as the goal value, you can specify
a dollar value, just like the other goal types. A good rule of thumb is that if your event value
represents a dollar value, it should be used as a goal value. Otherwise, it’s best not to mix
up different units of measurement.

What do I do with goals once they’re set up?

Once goals are set up, you’ll be able to use the various conversion reports—mentioned at
the very beginning of this blog post—to use goal completions as a dimension in just about
any Google Analytics report. This dimension can help you figure out which channels drive
the most conversions, what types of users are more likely to complete specific goals, or
even the amount of dollars a page is worth. In addition to this, there are many third party
tools (including Quietly Insights) that help you report on or visualize your conversions after
you’ve implemented them in GA.

Goals are one of the most powerful and versatile features Google Analytics has to offer.
When set up right, goals can help you more accurately and effectively evaluate how your
site is performing based on metrics that matter to you.