Beyond “Standard Reporting” metrics—i.e. visits, unique visitors, pageviews, pages/visit, bounce
rate—Google Analytics provides several ways to track and refine results to provide us with actionable results and customized reporting based on unique goals and analytics needs. Of course, I am referring to Goals, Funnels and Filters which I will describe in further detail.
Goals
GA allows us to set up goals to measure objectives. There are 4 types of objectives that GA measures, and they include URL Destination, Visit Duration, Page/Visit (for web) OR Screen/Visit (for apps), and Event ("About Goals," 2012).
URL Destination
This goal measures the number of visits to a unique destination, such as
a particular web page. Tracking this data helps identify the popularity of individual pages, or services on a page.
My blog uses jump breaks (like the one you just clicked on), a feature provided in Blogger, much like a newspaper or magazine would have readers skip to a subsequent page to “read more.” Jump breaks are a great way to help the visual appeal of your site and create reader suspense. I have allocated a URL Destination to measure the number of readers who visit my post destination (or those who choose to “read more”).
My Google Analytics report shows that one person has completed this goal so far (likely me) and that the goal conversion has an assigned value of $5.
Visit Duration
This goal measures the amount of time spent on your site. This is different from Average Visit Duration,
because the Visit Duration goal measures value and duration in a more specific way. For instance, if I want to keep track of visitors who spend a minimum of 2 minutes on my site, Visit Duration will pride me with the number of such visits, while allowing me to attach a value (optional). If I know the visit has an estimated value of, say $5, I may assign a value of $5 to each 2 minute visit (similar to URL Destination).
My Google Analytics report shows that two people have spent at least two minutes on the site, with a “Goal Value” value of $5 each (=$10 value).
Pages/Visit (OR Screen/Visit)
This goal helps us keep track of visitor engagement levels. If our goal is, for instance, a minimum of 2 pages per visit, this goal feature will tell us the number of visitors who explored beyond the first page. The more traditional Pages/Visit metric includes those who visited 1 page only. The difference with this goal set is that it can eliminate data for those who viewed 1 page and bounced.
Additionally, I have determined that a site visit which included 4 or more page visits is worth a “Goal Value” of $10. I can now use Google Analytics Standard reporting to show me how many visits from, for instance November 2, 2012 to December 2, 2012, were for 10 minutes or longer. GA will then calculate the value of all visits during this time frame and calculate the value.
Event Tracking
This type of goal provides us with a means of tracking site interaction, in particular with complex site features like video, radio buttons, downloadable files, games or non-HTML functions (embedded objects, Flash or AJAX elements). Events also allow us to delineate for instances where actionable (and desired) events occurred that may negatively impact other results. For instance, if a visitor goes to the homepage and bounces, it would result in a high bounce rate. Now consider if a visitors goes to the homepage, watches a promotional video or clicks on an ad, and then leaves. You would still have a high bounce rate, alongside a desired action. Event tracking allows us to segment the data so that in this instance we could decide to keep this positive visit from negatively affecting the bounce rate, or pages/visit metrics (“Event Tracking Guide,” 2012).
Setting up an Event first requires a visit to the “source code of a page object, widget, or video,” where the following code must be added for GA to start tracking the Event.
_trackEvent(category, action, opt_label, opt_value, opt_noninteraction)
For a more specific breakdown of the process please visit the Google Analytics “Event Tracking Guide” at https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/eventTrackerGuide (“Event Tracking Guide,” 2012).
Once the goals have been assigned, GA allows us to gain insight by further segmenting the Goal-driven data. The examples below (left and right captured from Google Analytics) show two different ways to use the GA Advanced segments tool (located in standard reporting) to analyze data from your goals.
On the left side, I have included the “Goal Completions,” “Value,” “Conversion Rate” and “Abandonment Rate” of direct traffic, search traffic and referral traffic. On the right side, I have segmented data for new and returning visitors, as well as all visitors combined. In either case, GA provides me with valuable data about my traffic and the value of my visitors. This is only the beginning of the potential provided with GA Goals.
Funnels
Funnels allow us to track the paths of our visitors during their time on the website. More specifically, they can monitor the actions taken on specified paths that we expect our users to take. They work well in conjunction with the URL Destination goal, because they can show us at which point during a predetermined funnel path that a user decided to leave. This information can provided us with ways to improve and eliminate obstacles that prevent or discourage visitors from reaching the destination URL.
In the e-commerce business, a typical Funnel might be the familiar shopping cart path from beginning to end. Evidence that customers are exiting the shopping cart, for instance, on the credit card information page could indicate that there are problems with the design or functionality. Subsequent changes that help or make the problem worse allow us to know if we are moving in the right direction toward solving our problem.
For bloggers, like me, a funnel could be a useful way of tracking conversions like form submissions—i.e. survey completions, service requests or subscriptions to our blog materials.
The funnel tool allows GA users to tracks visitor paths and conversions while they are visiting a specific site, or even where they were before they came to the site. With the Multi-Channel Funnel tool, GA users can even track the path of their visitors over several days at a time.
Here is a short video to explain ("Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics," 2011):
Filters
Filters provide GA users with a way to identify, or weed out, results. Filters can include or exclude analytics results from specific domains, IP addresses, subdomains or hostnames either completely or partially depending on our preference.
I have set up a filter to exclude metrics that result from my own personal visits. To keep visits from my home computer from skewing all analytical data results, I created a filter to exclude my IP address from results.
Filters have several more applications, including ways to find problems with your site functionality and presentation. For example, they can be used to locate and fix URLs that need to be shortened (Teixeira, 2011). Filters can identify uppercase letters in hostname results (Teixeira, 2011). As with many of the other GA functions I have described, the possibilities go way beyond what I have described here, but this is a start!
References
Google Analytics. (2012). "About Goals." Retrieved on December 3, 2012 from http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1012040
Google Analytics. (2012, October 29). "Event Tracking Guide." Retrieved on December 3, 2012 from https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/eventTrackerGuide
Google Analytics. (2011, April 11). Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics. YouTube. Retrieved on
December 3, 2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Cz4yHOKE5j8
Teixeira, J. (2011, April 7). "Clean up your Google Analytics data with these 5 filters." MoreVisibility. Retrieved on December 3, 2012 from http://www.morevisibility.com/analyticsblog/clean-up-your-google-analytics-data-with-these-5-filters.html
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