Google Analytics is used to monitor the operations of your website and gather visitor interaction information. In addition to identifying the most popular sources of user traffic, it can also provide valuable information about the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts and campaigns, keep tabs on how customers complete tasks (such as making purchases or adding items to their shopping carts), identify patterns and trends in their behavior, and gather demographic data.
Websites of all sizes can benefit from tracking and analyzing customer activity through Google Analytics. This information can improve marketing campaigns, get more traffic, and keep customers coming back to the site. Google Analytics delivers data and basic analytical tools for achieving SEO and marketing objectives. To utilize it for free as part of the Google Marketing Platform, all you need is a Google account.
How Google Analytics works
Each time someone visits your website, Google Analytics gathers information about them via page tags. JavaScript page tags are added to each page's code. One of Google's data-collection servers receives this information from the tag and processes it. With Google Analytics, you can develop custom reports to track and visualize statistics such as user numbers, bounce rates, average session durations, and sessions by channel.
Google Analytics allows users to see how visitors interact with their websites over time. Numerous features make it possible to collect & analyze data, and monitor & report on it, such as:
Dashboards, scorecards, and motion charts for data visualization and monitoring tools
Filtering, manipulating, and analyzing data through a funnel
The APIs that programs use to collect data
Anomaly detection, intelligence, and predictive analytics
Segmentation for the examination of subsets, such as conversions, individualized advertising, acquisition, audience behavior, and conversion reports communication via email, as well as
Other products, such as Google Ads, Google Data Studio, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Google AdSense and Optimize 360, Google Display & Video 360, Google Ad Manager, and Google Search Console, can be integrated
In the Google Analytics dashboard, users can save profiles for many websites and view details for the basic categories or set custom metrics for each site. An overview of the content, keywords, and referrer sites are only some of the available options for tracking. There are widgets and plugins available for incorporating the Google Analytics dashboard into other websites. Third-party providers can also customize Google Analytics dashboards.
8 important metrics
There are many different types of metrics. You can monitor your website’s performance using up to 200 different indicators. Although various metrics may be more important to some businesses than others, the following are a few of the most widely used ones:
1. Users
The potential customers who visit your website and how they interact with your online assets. Each unique customer that visits your website is "tagged" by Google, and will only be counted as one unique visitor even if they are using multiple devices (mobile, tablet, or desktop).
2. Bounce rate
This is the number of users who come to the site, do nothing, and then leave. It’s an excellent measure to know whether your website content is engaging and relevant for its intended audience.
3. Sessions
The volume of visits to your website, where each visit counts as one session, so if a consumer uses a tablet first, then a phone, two sessions are recorded. If you want to keep track of what brings the most attention to your website, this statistic is ideal.
4. Average session duration
The average time spent on your website by a single visitor in a single session. It is also crucial to track how interested different types of users are in your content. The average session duration helps to see which ones are the most engaging for visitors.
5. Percentage of new sessions
This measure is used by many businesses to determine the ratio of new vs. returning visitors. You can use this metric to see if your website needs more features to keep visitors coming back for more.
6. Pages per session
The average number of pages a visitor sees per session. It is a good way to gauge how engaged your website visitors are. In case this metric is low, you can increase the number of navigation or call-to-actions (CTAs) to direct customers to another relevant page.
7. Conversions
This helps you track a specific goal to measure it’s marketing performance. Previously known as goals, linking the thank you page (the last page a customer sees after completing an activity) as a goal completion is an easy way to trigger a conversion.
8. Views by Page
This metric shows the number of visitors to each of your website's pages. It helps you analyze which content your target audience wants to see, by displaying which pages have more views than others.
Whichever Google Analytics metric you want to analyze, having a landing page that turns visitors into leads and eventually customers, is critical. It’s about ensuring that your website visitors take specific profitable action that help your business grow.
In the comments below, let us know:
How has Google Analytics helped you measure and track your marketing performance?
Is there a metric that you consider to be essential and should be added to this set?
Are there any Google Analytics tips you would like to share?
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