The Fat-Free Guide to Google Analytics Using Google Analytics for Business Analytics
By Ian Lurie
Portent Interactive
Conversation Marketing
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 2
Legal, Notes and Other Stuff © 2010, The Written Word, Inc. d/b/a Portent Interactive and Ian Lurie. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Click here to read the license.
That’s a fancy way of saying: Ian scrapes out a living writing and selling books like these. Please, buy a copy.
If you like this book, you might want to check out Ian’s blog at www.ConversationMarketing.com, and his company, at www.portent.com.
If you want to talk to Ian, you can reach him at [email protected] or on Twitter at
@portentint
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 3
Table of Contents
The Cure For Analytics Phobia ......................................................................................................................................................................... 6
A Business Analytics System ............................................................................................................................................................................. 7 A Business Analytics System: B2B.................................................................................................................................................................................. 8 A Business Analytics System: Charities........................................................................................................................................................................ 9 A Business Analytics System: News ............................................................................................................................................................................... 9
1. How to: Install Google Analytics.............................................................................................................................................................10 Resources: Google Analytics Install.............................................................................................................................................................................15
2. Setting up and tracking goals..................................................................................................................................................................16 Figuring out your goal and goal page.........................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Example: A membership site ........................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Setting up a page-based goal in Google Analytics..................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Setting up a non-page-based goal in Google Analytics.........................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Lots of goals ........................................................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
3. Calculating & Applying Value..................................................................................................................................................................17 Customer value: E-commerce.......................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Customer value: Lead generation ...............................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Customer value: Publishing ..........................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Customer value: Anything else.....................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Lead conversion rate.......................................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Click conversion rate.......................................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
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Click value: An e-commerce site..................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Click value: A business-to-business site ...................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Fudging it.............................................................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Sample data ........................................................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Resources: Value Calculation .......................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
4. Measuring and Building Growth ............................................................................................................................................................19 Tracking content performance: A quick trick.........................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Tracking traffic sources .................................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Tracking traffic sources: Referring sites ..................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Referring sites: An example ..........................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Tracking traffic sources: Keywords ...........................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Improving growth using traffic sources: Examples ..............................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Tracking content performance....................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Tracking content performance: Context matters ..................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Finding high-performing content ...............................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Other ways to find ‘good’ content................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Improving growth by finding ‘good’ content: E-commerce................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Finding and improving poor-performing content.................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Final points about growth .............................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
5. What’s next.................................................................................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. Additional resources .......................................................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. About Ian Lurie & Portent Interactive.......................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
Other stuff by Ian Lurie.....................................................................................................................................................................................21 Contacting Ian Lurie .........................................................................................................................................................................................................21
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 5
Google Analytics Scares the Snot Out of You
You’re not alone.
It’s a great program. But with
dozens of metrics and dozens
more possible ways to view them,
there are literally thousands of
possible reports, data points
and other goodies in your
analytics report.
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The Cure For Analytics Phobia
Google Analytics is overwhelming because
people often let the reports drive their
research & strategy. So they click
around, trying to take in every last digit.
The cure? Have a goals-focused
method for using Google Analytics.
That will help you pick and choose
which reports to use and when,
and keep you from getting lost in the data.
You need a business analytics system.
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A Business Analytics System
You need to perform business analytics.
You can do that by focusing on what really matters to your business: Things that
generate value and improve growth.
Value comes from whatever generates bottom-line dollars or results for your
organization. Value = the value of one click that brings a visitor to your site. It’s
the King (Queen) of all analytics. Without it, nothing else matters.
Growth is all about reach and audience access. Growth is what you get when you
can bring more visitors and introduce them to the pipeline. The pipeline only
improves if your visitors want what you’re offering and find it when they arrive
on your site. Growth is all about visit source and quality: Where visitors come
from, how long they stay on your site, how many pages they look at, and how
engaged they really are.
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 8
That value-growth duo is what drives your business, whether you know it or not.
If you use it when you look at Google Analytics, it’ll keep you focused on your
business, instead of the reports.
As you read this e-book, you’re going to create an at-a-glance system that’ll let
you do this efficiently day-to-day. Web analytics can work that way, if you use it
right.
This system will work whether you’re in an e-commerce business or not. Here are
some examples:
A Business Analytics System: B2B
If you’re a purely business-to-business, lead-driven company, then your value
comes from leads.
Your growth opportunities come from expanded company reach (more people
finding you online), and from more, higher-quality visitors to your site.
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 9
A Business Analytics System: Charities
If you’re a charity and/or a non-profit, your value comes from funding and
grants, as well as subscribers and supporters you recruit online.
Your growth opportunities come from reach, much like B2B. But in this case,
you’re attracting potential donors.
A Business Analytics System: News
If you’re a news site or other publication, your value comes from pageviews you
can turn into advertising sales.
Growth results from additional readers who find their way to your site. Your
business improves when those potential readers look at more pages per visit and
spend more time on your site. It also improves when readers subscribe to your
site’s RSS feed or newsletter, or pass stories along to friends.
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 10
1. How to: Install Google Analytics
It’s easy! If you don’t have Google Analytics set up on your site yet,
this is where you start. Otherwise, skip ahead to Calculating &
Applying Value.
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First step: If you don’t have a Google Account, get one.
1. Go to www.google.com/accounts
2. Click ‘Create an account now’:
3. Fill out the form. All done.
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 12
Next: Set up your Google Analytics account.
1. Go to www.google.com/analytics.
2. Click ‘Sign up Now’.
3. Log in using your Google Accounts password (you set that up on page 11).
4. Click ‘Sign Up’, and you’re ready to set up your first site.
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 13
Once you click ‘sign up’ you’ll see the form below:
You can track multiple sites in a single Google Analytics account. This form sets
up your first one.
For Website’s URL, enter the exact address of your site. That means, if your
site is at www.gibblegibbet.com, include the ‘www’. If your site address doesn’t
include ‘www’, use gibblegibbet.com. Account Name will automatically reflect
the site address. If you’re going to manage multiple sites, you might want to
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 14
change this to something you’ll recognize. Select your time zone and country, and
click ‘Continue’.
Finally, grab the code that Google Analytics provides and paste it into your web
site per their instructions. In about 24 hours, you’ll start seeing data. Woo hoo!
You’re off and running.
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 15
Resources: Google Analytics Install
A few resources you can use to help you install Google Analytics:
I did a video tutorial:
http://bit.ly/dh8zPs
And, of course, Google’s own tutorial ain’t bad:
http://bit.ly/9yTERy
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 16
2. Setting up and tracking goals
Every business web site has one or more goals: An action they’d
like every visitor to take. That action might be a purchase, or a vote,
or a simple, “Hmmm, that’s interesting”. Before you can start
applying value and measuring growth, you have to set up Google
Analytics to measure those goals.
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3. Calculating & Applying Value
Last chapter, you learned to set up goals. That’s great, but a goal,
when accomplished, delivers value. Value is real cash generated,
not ‘attention’ or ‘eyeballs’. If you can’t calculate value, goals data is
one more distracting bar chart.
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 18
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 19
4. Measuring and Building Growth
Time to apply all that cool stuff you just learned. In this section,
you’ll match value to specific sources, and tie them together with
goal measurement.
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 20
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 21
Other stuff by Ian Lurie
The Fat-Free Guide to SEO Copywriting
The Web Marketing All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies
Conversation Marketing
The Fat Free Guide to Internet Marketing (subscription-based)
From Google Analytics to Business Analytics 22
Contacting Ian Lurie
E-mail: [email protected]
Twitter: @portentint
Blog: www.ConversationMarketing.com