Learn the Basics on Google Analytics Reporting Data

The journey to become a Google Partner continues as we learn the basics of working with reporting data in Google Analytics.

GAIQ Lesson three, Working with Reporting Data, is the last of the First Steps.  I was excited to get through these introductory lessons, so we learn the juicy stuff in the following category, Interpreting Reports.

 

Lesson three is approximately 8 minutes long, and it will give you a fast-paced run down of each item listed below.

For those of you who have never used Google Analytics before, this will be a great place to start.  Listed below are some metrics we enjoy using at GTA.

• Annotations – These are especially useful to determine if campaigns or events had effect on your results.  At GTA, we make annotations that will say, for example, “Chicago Tribune Ad Release Day” or “Facebook Post – Link to Video Interview”.  This allows us to see relationships between the annotations and the spikes in website visits. using

• Goal Set: The slide that mentions the Goal Set tab barely touches on the importance of this metric.  I have a feeling it may come up in later webinars, but recognize that the Goal metric allows you to “evaluate how well your site serves the ends you have in mind.  For example, if you have an ecommerce site, you might set a goal to see what percentage of monthly visitors complete transactions.  When a user completes a goal targeted toward a specific  objective, that is called a conversion.”  We set up goals for landing pages that contain forms on our clients’ website.   That way we can report back to them how many conversions were made to specific landing pages.

• Report Views: This is a pretty basic setting, but visually representing data is an important component when reporting back to your clients.  Report views allows you to display data in tables, pie charts, bar graphs, comparison bar graphs, or pivot tables.  We take screen captures of key takeaways and place them in our monthly client reports.

Make sure you check out my next blog, as I jump into the second GAIQ category Interpreting Reports, which will cover Pageviews, Visits, and Visitors.

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