Have you been trying to understand your analytics? Every marketer needs to know these tips.
I’ve been trying to understand analytics because in the world of a digital marketer it is almost impossible to ignore the analytical world because everything needs to be actual data that you can present and explain your insights in a very analytical manner.
1.Understand your demographics better
Hopefully, you’re already using custom segments to classify your visitors by various demographic data, such as age, gender, and location.
However, if you’re not drawing on the data in the Audience reporting views to help you create your custom visitor segments, you’re missing out on a wealth of information about how specific users are interacting with your site.
2.Set monetary goals
You should definitely be setting goals in Google Analytics. If you aren’t, you’re basically just looking at relatively useless metrics such as page views and time on site. However, you shouldn’t just be setting goals – you should also be assigning them a monetary value.
The precise value of a goal will vary depending on several factors, but it’s generally advisable to underestimate how much a goal is worth. Until you get a better idea of what each conversion is worth to you in financial terms, stick to a lowball estimate.
3.Understand your conversion paths
Unfortunately, visitors to your site don’t always behave the way you want them to. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if prospective customers saw your ads, visited your site and ultimately made a purchase – all in a single sitting? Well, it rarely works like that, which is why understanding your conversion paths is so important – especially in today’s advertising landscape, where people rarely complete a purchase on one device, never mind in one session.
In addition to illustrating how your visitors are actually converting (as opposed to how you think they’re converting), examining your top conversion paths in Google Analytics provides a fascinating glimpse into user behavior – and the often-complex route many visitors take from first action to the ultimate conversion.
4.Monitor traffic by setting up intelligence events
Intelligence Events is a feature in Google Analytics that allows you to set custom parameters to monitor for unusual site activity and send alerts to designated account managers. For example, a 200% increase in traffic on a given day would be considered unusual, and as such Google Analytics would record the data surrounding this event and alert you to it.
5.Compare historical traffic trends
Many Google Analytics users only concern themselves with current traffic trends, but identifying patterns based on previous traffic can yield valuable insights into how traffic can change over time. One of the best ways to investigate this data is by using the Compare to Previous Period tool in the date range dialog box.
6.Add annotations in Google Analytics
The last (but by no means least) of my Google Analytics tips has to do with good housekeeping. Maybe you’re not the only person responsible for keeping an eye on your Google Analytics account. If this is the case, you’ll need some sort of way to keep tabs on why things happened and when. Was a media mention the reason for a huge spike in traffic? Did a slump coincide with a less-than-successful email campaign? Whatever you need to remember in Analytics, annotations can help.