A web analytics source such as Google Analytics allows marketers to better understand their customers with traffic analysis. Find tips and hacks for using this tool to its full potential.
Tracking visitor information on your website is of utmost importance for your overall marketing data-driven efforts.
Ultimately, before you can make any major adjustments to any elements that don’t work or scale up those that do, you’ll have to understand what’s happening on your page right now.
There are many tools available that can provide you with additional insight, but Google Analytics is by far one of the most popular and widely accepted.
With this powerful tool, you can track and analyze web data in a remarkable fashion, thanks to its many features.
When you consider it is provided by one of the most popular search engines on the planet, it makes sense.
Nevertheless, most digital marketers are unaware that Google Analytics has a number of sophisticated features that make analyzing data more convenient than ever.
This special feature simplifies the entire process.
You can use their data to find out what is really happening with your digital marketing if you know what they do.
Below you’ll find some great Google Analytics tips and tricks that every marketer should be aware of.
What is the benefit of Google Analytics to marketers?
Marketing professionals find Google Analytics useful because it provides insight into:
- The number of visitors to your page.
- When they’re there, what they’re doing.
- The length of time they stay.
Furthermore, the report provides a lot of useful information, such as the most commonly used device, geographic data, and other statistics.
This information can then be used by digital marketing experts to develop customized campaigns or content strategies.
Aside from that, Google Analytics enables you to see if a certain marketing technique or campaign is working to bring both paid and organic traffic to your site.
It’s also easy to show what your clients are paying you for if you’re a digital marketing professional hired by another company.
We can’t lie to ourselves, so reporting on and displaying data that ties into specific marketing campaigns is crucial.
Getting the most out of Google Analytics for businesses
The majority of people who understand the importance of digital marketing and SEO use Google Analytics, though they might not fully understand all of the tools.
There is a reason why Google Analytics is seen as a market leader and why certified Google Analytics professionals exist.
Thanks to our helpful guide, you can leverage Google Analytics more effectively by following these tips and hacks.
Segment the text
If you want to see where visitors to your site are coming from, you’d be wise to use segments to drill down into the data.
Visitors can be divided into segments based on certain criteria that you set in advance.
In this way, you can create segments, such as those who live in California or those who have Android smartphones.
If you want, you can set segments to track conversions over a specified level or customers originating from specific campaigns.
A user’s IP address and browsing history are also used to track returning users.
There is a lot of detail you can use with these, so it is something you definitely want to take into account when integrating your reporting.
You can also use it to create custom audiences for your marketing campaigns, in addition to getting clear insight into your audience.
All these metrics sound similar, but they are not the same. This includes pageviews, unique pageviews, new visitors, and returning visitors. It is possible to make ill-informed decisions if you aren’t familiar with what website analytics mean. Avoid making ill-informed decisions.
How does web analytics work?
It is the process of collecting, analyzing, and reporting on the data generated by users visiting and interacting with websites. Web analytics serves as a tool for tracking user behavior, optimizing user experience and flow, and gaining insights that can support business objectives such as increasing sales.
Identifying opportunities for improvement can be done using data you collect about how people interact with your site.
Examples of web analytics
Amount of pageviews
Pages viewed on your site are counted as pageviews. When a browser loads a page from your site, it counts as a pageview (or view).
This would mean several views if someone viewed your site, reloaded the page and then viewed it again. Views would be counted for people who view your website for one page, then view a second page, then return to the original page.
Pageviews that are unique
The unique number of views on a page in a session represents the total number of times that page was viewed. As we’ll see below, a unique pageview is a collection of pageviews generated by a single user using a particular session.
If someone views the same page twice (or more times) in one session, they will only be counted once when calculating unique pageviews.
Sessions
Sessions are an aggregation of interactions on your website within a given time frame – including page views as well as CTA clicks and events.
Each web analytics tool has its own time frame for a session. The standard session duration for traffic analytics tools like Google Analytics and HubSpot is 30 minutes.
User sessions end and new sessions begin based on the following events: A) 30 minutes have passed since the user last logged in, B) midnight has fallen, or C) the user comes from one traffic source, leaves, and then returns from another.
Visitor new to this site
Depending on your web analytics tool, new visitors can also be referred to as new users, new visitors or new sessions.
New visitors to your site are visitors who are visiting it for the first time. Those who lose interest will make up for it over time by bringing in a steady flow of new visitors.
A unique identifier identifies these individuals. You install HubSpot tracking code on your website, for example, when using HubSpot. In this case, your site visitors will be tracked by a cookie placed by the tracking code in their browser.
Visitors who return
The number of returning users (or visitors) on your website is the number of visitors who have already been to your site. Some web analytics tools – such as Google Analytics – include this metric. As part of Google Analytics’ Audience reports, you can see what percentage of new visitors your website receives compared to returning visitors.
We offer new and returning visitor metrics, but we can also show you how well you retain visitors and how successful you are at attracting new traffic.
Sources of traffic
You can see where your site visitors come from by looking at the traffic sources. The tracking code on your site collects this metric, as does visitor information.
According to the web analytics tool you are using, there are different traffic sources you can track. Among HubSpot’s types of traffic are:
- SEO (organic search)
- References
- Social media organic
- Marketing via email
- Pay-per-click
- Social Media Ads
- Traffic from direct sources
Rate of bounce
In web analytics, the bounce rate is the rate at which visitors leave your site after viewing just one page. Site-wide bounce rate or page-level bounce rate are two different ways to look at bounce rate. A bounce rate on a page is the percentage of visitors who didn’t go to another page on your website after landing on it.
Generally, any bounce rate below 40% is considered good, any bounce rate between 40% and 70% is considered average, and anything above 70% is considered high.