Getting Google Analytics to Perform for Your Business
Updated December 09, 2014
Getting Google Analytics to Perform for Your Business
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Google Analytics is the starting point for all good digital marketing strategies. It's free, it's fairly accurate, and it's the benchmark everyone knows and uses for things like Unique Views and Page Views.
- Charts and graphs are good in GA. You can load your presentation or report with hard numbers and nice charts. BUT, this is also the problem with GA, there are so many charts and graphics, and they look so good, you sometimes forget you have to actually analyse them and make actionable suggestions for improvement.
- The basic numbers from 50,000 down to granular analysis are all available in GA.
- You can build very sophisticated dashboards, lead funnels, and eCommerce reports inside GA. The learning curve for these types of uses are high, but free and extremely valuable.
- Connecting AdWords, AdSence and your eCommerce wins to GA, gives you a massive overview of your digital business.
- Don't rely too much on the top-level dashboards. They are nice and broad, but often don't give you much to go on for building recommendations.
- The eCommerce connection between GA and your shopping process is not always accurate and may take several tries to get it working. Just reporting the presentation of a Receipt page does not really equal a definitive sale.
- The depth of the rabbit hole in GA is amazing. You can spend hours, days, weeks, building tools and maps and strategies, and still miss the actionable goals. Don't be mesmerized by the charts and graphs either. Dig into the WIN for your client, and focus all your efforts there.
- You've got to know GA inside and out. If you stay focused on actionable recommendations rather than just reporting you will be a long way towards building success for your clients.
- Google can spotcheck your sales/leads funnel. Set it up. Check it. Refine your process. See if you see the results you want.
- The ROI on GA is up to you. But don't rely too heavily on GA's sales funnel reporting. You'll need to pull the numbers into excel to do some heavy evaluations.
Smaller analytics packages can be very useful, even if you're fluent in GA. I love Gaug.es. It's real-time and can give me a 50,000 ft view of all of my clients at a glance. If you need to know what's happening in real-time (and often you do) GA is okay, but I find other tools are more suited to this process.