Overview

In today’s digital market, understanding your website’s performance isn’t just a luxury—it’s a necessity. Imagine having a platform that reveals exactly how visitors find your site, what keeps them clicking, and where they drop off. Google Analytics isn’t magic, but it’s pretty close. It offers businesses a peek behind the curtain of online engagement and user behavior.

Benefits & Solutions: Why Google Analytics is the solution for you

• Does your business need insight into which online campaigns are most effective?
• Do you need help understanding your audience’s preferences and behaviors on your website?
• Is your team unable to track the performance of different pages on your site?
• Do you need help to measure the success of your website in achieving business goals?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above, then this is a solution for you and your web team!

The following metrics:

• Users: These are the people who visit the website.
• Sessions: This is like a visit to the website. If you go to the website, look around, and then leave, that’s one session.
• Page views: This counts every time a page on the website is looked at. If you visit three pages, that’s three page views.
• Bounce Rate: This is when someone visits a page and leaves without looking at anything else. It’s like walking into a classroom and then walking out right away.
• Average Session Duration: This tells how long visitors stay on the website. It’s like how long you stay at the playground.
• Conversion rates: This tells how well a channel, source, or campaign is at driving highly engaged activities (filling out a contact request, downloading content)

The following dimensions:

• User Information:
  • Device used to initiate the session
  • Geographical location of the user
• Engagement Information:
  • Types of pages the user interacted with
  • Specific actions the user took on the site (e.g., form submissions, link clicks)
• Traffic Information:
  • Channels that brought users to the site (e.g., search engines, social media)
  • Referral pages that directed traffic to the site
  • Campaigns or initiatives that generated engagement

How does it work?

Tracking Code

Every website gets a special code, javascript, from Google Analytics. This script collects information about what visitors do on the website.

Collecting Data

When someone visits the website, the code tells Google Analytics all about it.

Reports

Google Analytics then creates reports to show how many visitors came, which pages they viewed, and even meta-data about the pages.

Why Enable Google Analytics? 10 Key Reasons for Companies

1. Free to use!
2. Seamless integration with your website using custom Google tags provided to you
3. Simple setup with clear documentation and step-by-step instructions
4. Ready-to-use reports immediately after setup
5. Customize reports to match your business requirements
6. Define custom dimensions and metrics based on your business goals
7. Maintain control over your data properties
8. Integrate with other platforms to share valuable insights
9. Debugging view to test changes before going live
10. Large Google Analytics community for continued support

When is the Right Time to Start Using Google Analytics?

Website tracking is an essential part of your marketing strategy and technology stack. Without a web analytics platform, understanding and answering questions about website engagement becomes challenging. It’s advisable to set up a free basic Google Analytics account as soon as your site is live and generating traffic.

How to Get Started with Google Analytics: A Simple Checklist

• Create a Google Analytics account:
  • Create a property inside of GA4
  • Create a data stream
  • Enable the unique tracking ID from GA4 to all pages of your site that you want to be tracked
  • Configure your settings (GA4 provides a great walk-thru on the platform when you enable a new instance)
  • Setup access for other users based on access needs
• Reporting and Customization:
  • Review all reports and create custom reports to fit your team’s needs
  • Customize the out-of-the-box settings to fit what you need to be tracked for dimension and metrics
  • Customize your engagement channels

Who Should Use Google Analytics? Ideal Users and Beneficiaries

1. Website Owners and Administrators: this user group should have admin access to maintain the scripts and understand how people are engaging with the site (positively and negatively)
2. Digital Marketers: since a majority of engagements with brands today happen online, it’s even more important for digital marketers to know how their campaigns are driving users to the site and what campaigns/initiatives are most effective at that.
3. Content Creators: this audience should use Google Analytics to understand what a user is interested in after they land on the site and what content paths generate the best and most conversions to optimize their content based on efficiency and relevancy.
4. SEO Specialists: Search engine optimization specialists focus on how their website is performing on search engines. Using Google Analytics allows SEO specialists to identify where traffic is coming from, what keywords are most relevant and effective, and make data-driven decisions to optimize their programs.

Whether you’re a marketer or a developer, harnessing the power of Google Analytics can turn raw data into actionable strategies that drive your online presence forward. Are you ready to dive into digital marketing analytics? If the answer is yes, then reach out to Etumos today to see how we can help you get started.