Google Analytics

Guide
A step by step guide to a best practice
implementation of Google Analytics

August 2012

Contents
This document is an unofficial guide to a best practice standard implementation of Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is the most popular analytics package and is used by 87% of companies and agencies, either
exclusively or in conjunction with another tracking tool, to measure online performance (Econsultancy, Online
Measurement and Strategy Report 2012).
Often the performance and ability of analytics software to accurately record and provide data is affected by the
way in which the initial code is set up and administered on the website.
This document aims to guide users to a best practice implementation of their Google Analytics account so that
they can extract basic information and avoid incorrect or inaccurate recording of data. We will look at:

1.

INTRODUCTION: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START .................................................................3

1.1.
1.2.
1.3.
1.4.

2.

SETUP: WHAT TO DO BEFORE YOUR DATA COMES IN.......................................................................................7

2.1.
2.2.
2.3.
2.4.
2.5.
2.6.
2.7.
2.8.
2.9.

3.

What is Google Analytics? ......................................................................................................................3

Cookies....................................................................................................................................................3
Installing Google Analytics ......................................................................................................................4
Verifying Implementation .........................................................................................................................5

Profiles & Filters ......................................................................................................................................7

Traffic Channel Tracking .........................................................................................................................8
Ecommerce Tracking ........................................................................................................................... 11
On-Site Search Tracking ...................................................................................................................... 13
On-Page Interaction Tracking .............................................................................................................. 14
Goal Tracking ....................................................................................................................................... 16
Goal Funnel Visualisation..................................................................................................................... 17
Regular Expressions (RegEx) .............................................................................................................. 19
Social Media Integration ....................................................................................................................... 19

EVERYDAY ANALYTICS : HOW TO READ YOUR DATA................................................................................. 21

3.1.
3.2.
3.3.

Definitions ............................................................................................................................................. 21
Dashboards .......................................................................................................................................... 25
Advanced Segments ............................................................................................................................ 28

Please keep in mind that this guide is designed to fit a wide variety of websites. Further configuration of your
analytics account may be required to fit your particular needs.
For any questions concerning the content of this document or information on a more customised implementation,
please contact DBD Media at analytics@dbdmedia.co.uk or call our web analytics team on 020 7240 0100.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

1. INTRODUCTION:
INTRODUCTION: What
What You
You Need
Need To
To Know
Know Before
Before You
You Start
Start
1.

1.1. What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics (GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a
website.
GA can track visitors from all referring sources, including search engines, display advertising, email marketing
and other digital collateral such as links within PDF documents.
When integrated with Google AdWords, users can their review online campaign performance by tracking landing
page quality and conversions (goals). Goals might include sales, booking enquiries, lead generation, viewing a
specific page, or downloading a particular file. By using GA, marketers can determine which ads are performing,
and which are not, providing vital information to optimise, expand or cull campaigns.
GAs approach is to show high-level dashboard-type data for the casual user, and more in-depth data further into
the report set. Through analysis of GA data, website performance can be understood using techniques such as
funnel visualisation, referrer source (where visitors came from), how long they stayed and their geographical
location. It also provides more advanced features, including custom visitor segmentation.
If your website sells products or services online, you can use Google Analytics ecommerce reporting to track
sales activity and performance. The ecommerce reports show you your websites transactions, revenue, and
many other commerce-related metrics.

1.2. Cookies
GA uses first-party tracking cookies only, which are considered minimally intrusive by the new EU Privacy
Directive. To be compliant with the Directive, you need to list these cookies in your privacy policy and request
users consent to use them.
Cookie Name

Purpose

Expiration

_utma

Visitor identifier

2 years

_utmb

Session identifier

When the visitor closes the browser or after

30mins of inactivity

_utmc

Session identifier

When the visitor closes the browser

_utmz

Stores the campaign tracking values

that are passed via tagged URLs

6 months

_utmv (optional)

Custom visitor segmentation

2 years

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

1.3. Installing Google Analytics

To implement Google Analytics on your website you first need a Google account. If you do not have one, you
can create it here: https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount (you can use any email address, not just Gmail).
Once youve created your Google account and are logged in, you can access Google Analytics by selecting
Products on the left-hand navigation menu.
When you set up your Google Analytics account, you will be provided with your Google Analytics Tracking Code
(GATC) as per the example below. Youll need to install this tracking code across all pages of your website. It is
customary to place the code in the header, right before the </head> tag to increase the likelihood that the
tracking beacon will be sent before the user leaves the page.

Figure 1: GATC example

It is important you carefully select which tracking option suits your website as this will influence the readability of
your data.

Figure 2: Advanced GA tracking options

We suggest organising websites into Accounts, top-level domains into Properties and subdomains/subdirectories
into Profiles (see Figure 3). If you are running Google Analytics on more than one website, be sure to keep a
consistent naming convention for clarity.
DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.
www.dbdmedia.co.uk

Account

My Site

Property

Profile

www.mysite.co.uk

secure.mysite.co.uk

offers.mysite.co.uk

www.mysite.fr

secure.mysite.fr

Figure 3: Account organisation example

1.4. Verifying Implementation

1.4.1. Checking Reports for Data
Once youve installed your tracking code on your website, it usually takes about 24 hours for data to appear in
your reports.
The best way to verify that you are receiving data is to simply look at your reports. Select the Home tab, then
Real-Time, Overview on the left-hand navigation menu. If you browse on your website at the same time your
visit should appear in the report.

Figure 4: Real-Time report

After 24 hours have passed, you can also check directly into your Standard Reports, Content, Site Content,
Pages and make sure that you see Pageview numbers for each of your pages.

1.4.2. Checking Source Code

You can also view your webpages source code to verify that the tracking code is correctly installed. Navigate
your browser to any page on your website. Right click within the browser window and select the View Page
Source or View Source option in your browser. This will open a new window that contains the source code for
that page. To find out whether Google Analytics Tracking Code is installed, search for ga.js (from the source
code menu, select Edit and click the Find option.)

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

If you find the Google Analytics Tracking Code on your page, then you can be sure that Google Analytics has
been installed on your website. Repeat this process across any page you doubt is being tracked on your website
to make sure that your installation is complete.

Figure 5: Page source code

1.4.3. GA Debugger
If you are using Google Chrome, you can install the Google Analytics Debugger (see Figure 6).
Once installed and enabled, open your website in a new window, right-click and select Inspect element. Go to
the Console tab: if your GATC is properly implemented, you should see Tracking beacon sent! at the top.

Figure 6: Google Analytics Debugger

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

2.
2. SETUP:
SETUP:What
WhatTo
ToDo
DoBefore
BeforeYour
YourData
DataComes
ComesIn
In

2.1. Profiles & Filters

Google Analytics gives account administrators multiple ways to segment their data according to different desired
dimensions. Using filtered profiles is the most accurate way of segmenting data and allows accounts to have
access to all reporting features including goal/funnel visualisation. Profiles can also be used to allow a more
limited view of your data to a user, for example non-specialist management within your organisation.
Filters require a lot of care when applied to profiles. Filters are applied before extracting data from your website
and in the order in which they are listed, therefore fundamentally changing the way in which data is collected.
Once applied, filters cannot influence historical data and the information excluded cannot be retrieved.
Filtered profiles can be created to:

Separate traffic data from different subdomains

e.g. store.mysite.com and info.mysite.com

Separate traffic data from different domains

e.g. www.mysite.co.uk and www.mysite.fr

Isolate a certain part of your website

e.g. www.mysite.com/blog

Focus on specific traffic channels

e.g. paid vs. organic traffic

Google Analytics provides three commonly used predefined filters. You will see them by selecting the Filters
tab on the Admin page.
1. Traffic from the domains Excludes all or includes only traffic from the domain you specify in the
domain field directly below the Filter Type dropdown.
e.g. isolate traffic coming from your sister companys website
2. Traffic from the IP addresses Excludes all or includes only traffic from an IP address or range of IP
addresses entered into the IP address field.
e.g. exclude your internal company traffic
3. Traffic from the subdirectories Excludes all or includes only traffic to a specified directory on your
website.
e.g. track www.mysite.com/blog/ separately
As a best practice we recommend you always:

Maintain an unfiltered profile to backup your historical data.

Keep a test profile for trying out new filters.

Exclude your companys internal traffic as well as traffic from any development/media/PR agency you
are using which might skew your data.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

2.2. Traffic Channel Tracking

2.2.1. Paid Traffic: Google AdWords Integration
By linking Google Analytics to your Google AdWords account, you can get advanced reporting that measures
campaign ROI and on-site performance for paid traffic generation (e.g. bounce rate, time on site, pages/visit...)
In order to link both accounts, you first need to add your AdWords username (if different) as an Admin on your
GA account. Then, log into AdWords and select Tool and Analysis in the main navigation, then Google
Analytics in the drop-down menu. You will be taken to a GA dashboard. Click on the Admin tab on the righthand side and select the GA account you wish to link. Go to Data Sources, select the profiles you want to
transfer AdWords data to and click on link.
When you link your accounts, enable "Destination URL Autotagging (AdWords main navigation, My Account)
to differentiate your paid ads from organic search listings and referrals and see detailed campaign information in
the AdWords section of your Traffic Sources reports.
Be aware that you can only link one Analytics account to one AdWords account. For administration purposes,
you will want to create a new Analytics account for each associated Google AdWords account.

Figure 7: Post-click data on AdWords campaigns

Importing Cost Data from AdWords

Your cost data (clicks and keyword spending information) will be applied once you link your accounts. If you
dont want cost data imported into a particular profile, you can edit the profile settings and de-select the cost data
option after youve completed the linking process.
Make sure both your AdWords and Analytics accounts are set to the same currency so that ROI data is
accurately calculated.
Note that Google Analytics is only able to import cost data from AdWords, and not from other PPC networks
such as Bing, Yahoo...

Data Discrepancies between AdWords and Google Analytics

You may notice differences between the data in your Google Analytics and AdWords reports. The main reason is
that AdWords tracks clicks while Analytics tracks visits (see 3.1 Definitions). Here is a list of the most common
issues:
DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.
www.dbdmedia.co.uk

Some visitors who click on your AdWords ads may have JavaScript, cookies, or images turned off. As a
result, Analytics wont report these visits, but AdWords will report the click.

Youll also see differences between Analytics and AdWords if the Google Analytics Tracking Code on
your landing page doesnt execute. In this case, AdWords will report the click but Analytics will not
record the visit.

Google AdWords automatically filters out invalid clicks (clicks on ads that Google considers to be
illegitimate, such as unintentional clicks or clicks resulting from malicious software) from its reports while
Google Analytics will still report the visits.

AdWords data is only uploaded once a day to Analytics so the results for each may be temporarily out of
sync.

If the landing pages dont contain the Google Analytics Tracking Code, campaign information will not be
passed to Analytics, but clicks will register in AdWords.

Make sure that you have autotagging enabled otherwise visits will be marked as Google Organic
instead of Google PPC.

If your website uses redirects, campaign data can be lost: Analytics wont show the visits as coming from
AdWords, but your AdWords report will still report the clicks.

2.2.2. Paid Traffic: Non-AdWords Campaign Tracking (UTM Parameters)

Google Analytics automatically tracks all search queries and referring sources that send traffic to your website.
However, if you are running paid advertising campaigns, you should add tags to the destination URLs of your
ads in order to identify them as paid traffic channels rather than referring websites, so that you are able to fully
understand their performance on-site.
UTM tags override the default traffic source (referral) so it is important you only use them on links external to
your website to avoid self-referrals. To identify clicks on internal links, see 2.5.2 Event Tracking.
There are five variables you can use when tagging URLs. To tag a URL, add a question mark to the end of the
URL followed by your tag or use the Google Analytics URL Builder.
Source identify the referrer: search engine, newsletter name, or other source
Medium identify the marketing medium such as email, cpc, display...
Campaign identify a specific product promotion or strategic campaign
Term (optional) identify the paid keywords
Content (optional) used for A/B testing and content-targeted ads to differentiate ads or links that point to the
same URL

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Analytics Guide

Analytics Guide

Analytics Guide

email

cpc

social

newsletter2

yahoo

twitter

n/a

analytics setup

n/a

n/a

using word Free

n/a

Example URL tags

1. http://www.dbdmedia.co.uk/assets/google-analyticsguide.pdf?utm_source=newsletter2&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Analytics%2BGuide
2. http://www.dbdmedia.co.uk/assets/google-analyticsguide.pdf?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=analytics%2Bsetup&utm_content=with
%2BFree&utm_campaign=Analytics%2BGuide
3. http://www.dbdmedia.co.uk/assets/google-analyticsguide.pdf?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Analytics%2BGuide
It is important to adopt a naming convention that is consistent across all your campaigns, and also with GAs
naming conventions, in order not to skew traffic reports.
For instance, GA uses by default google/cpc (source/medium) for Google AdWords traffic. When tagging URLs
for Yahoo PPC ads, use yahoo/cpc (rather than Yahoo/PPC for instance) in order to group all Yahoo related
data under yahoo and all PPC related data under cpc.

yahoo

organic
cpc

google

google

cpc
Figure 8: Source drill-down

Figure 9: Medium drill-down

Figure 10: Traffic Sources / Sources / All Traffic

2.2.3. Organic Traffic: Google Webmaster Tools Integration

Organic search reports are found in the Traffic Sources section under Sources, Search, Organic. This
allows you to see which keywords delivered organic traffic to your website and how relevant your landing pages
were to the user (e.g. bounce rate). The Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) reports in Google Analytics will show
Google search queries which have returned impressions (see 3.1 Definitions) and the proportion of those
impressions which resulted in a click to your website (CTR).
By identifying the search queries that drive traffic to your website, you can also learn which paid keywords make
the most sense for your business objectives. In addition, you can identify how to optimise your website for both
content and search quality.
To integrate Webmaster Tools, you need to enable Webmaster Tools by editing the Property Settings on the
Admin page, and following the instructions (see Figure 9).

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

10

Figure 11: Enabling Google Webmaster Tools

2.3. Ecommerce Tracking

If your website sells products or services online, you should use GA ecommerce reporting to track sales activity
and performance. The ecommerce reports show you your websites transactions, revenue, and many other
commerce-related metrics.

Figure 12: Conversions / Ecommerce / Overview

Some examples of the kind of information you can get from the ecommerce reports include:

The products that were purchased from your online store

Your sales revenue

Your ecommerce conversion rate

The number of times people visited your website before purchasing

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

11

2.3.1. Setting up ecommerce

1. Enable ecommerce reporting within your Analytics profile by selecting Yes, an ecommerce website in
the drop-down menu
2. Ensure the Google Analytics Tracking Code is tagged on your confirmation page or transaction
complete page
3. Add ecommerce tracking code to your confirmation page so that you can capture the details of each
transaction you will need the help of a developer and the Google Developers tutorial.
Heres an example of what the ecommerce tracking code on your confirmation page might look like:

Figure 13: Ecommerce tracking code example

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

12

2.3.2. 3rd party shopping basket

For many ecommerce websites, the checkout process occurs on a separate domain or subdomain. For example,
if you send customers from www.mystore.com to basket.mystore.com, youre sending them to a subdomain, and
if the checkout process sends them from www.mystore.com to www.mysecurecheckout.com, you are sending
them to a different domain.
If either of these scenarios applies to your website, youll need to add some code to some of your pages so that
you can track activity across domains and subdomains. The specific methods youll use are listed on the Google
Developers tutorial.

2.4. On-Site Search Tracking

Google Analytics provides internal Site Search reports that allow you to see how people search once theyve
arrived at your website.
By analysing your Site Search reports, you can find out which products or items visitors are looking for, where
visitors started their search and where they ended up after searching and whether searches resulted in
conversions.
Remember: Google Analytics reports use search term when referring to internal Site Searches and keyword,
when referring to search engine queries.

2.4.1. Setting Up Site Search

In order to set up Site Search tracking for your website, youll need to configure your Profile Settings.
1. Select the profile on which you want to set up internal search
2. Once the Profile Settings page appears, select the Profile Settings tab
3. In the Site Search Settings section, select the Do Track Site Search radio button.
4. In the Query Parameter field, enter the letter, word or words that designate an internal query parameter
(see 2.4.2. Query Parameter)

Figure 14: Enabling site search

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

13

2.4.2. Query Parameter

To find out what the query parameter is, perform a search on your website. The query can be found in the
search result URL.

For example, if you search on analytics training on our website, you will see your search query preceded by
?s=. Therefore, our query parameter is s
In the example above, the query parameter is s, and the query is analytics training.
If you have a particularly large website, some sections of your website may use different query parameters. You
may provide up to five parameters, separating each parameter by a comma.

2.5. On-Page Interaction Tracking

Google Analytics tracks interactions via pageviews. However, some types of interactions dont generate
additional pageviews, such as video players, Flash games, file downloads or clicks outbound clicks.
There are two ways to track such on-page activities: virtual pageviews and event tracking (discussed below).

2.5.1. Virtual Pageviews

You can create a virtual pageview through the _trackPageview() function to represent practically any kind of
activity or interaction you want. Its virtual because youre telling Google Analytics to register a pageview even
though no new page has actually been loaded.
You can use virtual pageviews to track whitepaper downloads on your website, Flash events, pop-ups, iframes
etc.
To create a virtual pageview provide any name you want as the argument to the _trackPageview() method as
per the example below (e.g. /whitepaper/analytics-guide.pdf). Then insert the snippet in the code of the call-toaction you want to generate a pageview when clicked.
_trackPageview,/whitepaper/analytics-guide.pdf
Since virtual pageviews appear along with standard pageviews in reports, you may wish to create a duplicate
profile where you filter out the virtual pageviews. To make this easy, you might organise all of your virtual
pageviews under a specific subdirectory (e.g. here /whitepaper/).

2.5.2. Event Tracking

The second way of tracking actions that dont generate pageviews is through event tracking. This method is
particularly useful to record interactions with video players and calls-to-action (add to basket, download PDF,
etc.) as well as identify clicks on ads and internal links to understand what calls to action grabbed your visitors
attention.
One advantage of using Event Tracking is that you can easily organise your events into categories, actions, and
provide labels and even values for each event you track. Also, event tracking wont inflate your pageview count.
All of your events show up in the Events reports within the Content section.
To use _trackEvent(), choose your event structure as per the example below and insert the snippet into the code
of the call to action or link that you want to generate an event when clicked.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

14

_trackEvent(category, action, opt_label, opt_value, opt_noninteraction)

Category a name that you supply as a means to group objects (usually user interface elements that you want
to track)
Action name you want to give to the type of interaction youre tracking
Label (optional) allows you to provide additional information for the event you are tracking
Value (optional) use it to assign a numeric value to a tracked page object
Non interaction (optional) generates a bounce on a page a user landed on and exited from even if their visit
generated an event (yes/no argument)

Naming Convention
It is important to use a clear and consistent naming convention when creating events so that the reports are
readable and provide actual insights.
The best approach is to determine in advance all of the kinds of events that youll want to track, so as to create a
hierarchy of Categories, Actions, and Labels that will grow with your needs. Work with everyone who uses GA
reports to make sure that the hierarchy makes sense.
For example, instead of just seeing how many times a video clip was played on your website, you can analyse
how people use your video player, and see how different events correlate with website usage and ecommerce
metrics.
Examples

Figure 15: Shopping behaviour event structure

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

Figure 16: Whitepaper interaction event structure

15

2.6. Goal Tracking

Every website has an objective, usually in the form of a specific action that it pushes the user to complete: buy a
product, fill in a form, read a page, view an ad... These actions are the main conversion points which need to be
tracked in order to measure your websites performance against your objectives.
There are also multitudes of other measurable interactions which help direct the visitor towards the main
conversion point. Tracking them can help you understand how you can help your visitors to convert more easily
as well as how the different parts of your website are being used. Here is a non-exhaustive list of microconversion points:

Newsletter subscriptions

Content sharing via social media

Video plays

Use of interactive tools (calculators, quizzes...)

Product customisation

Add to basket

You can track all of these conversion points in Google Analytics by setting up goal tracking.
To set up a goal, first go the Admin page, select the profile for which you want to configure a goal and select the
Goals tab. You can create up to 4 sets of 5 goals each.

Figure 17: Setting goal tracking

2.6.1. Goal Types

URL Destination triggers a conversion when a visitor views the page youve specified. For an account signup, this might be the Thank You for signing up page. For a purchase, this might be the confirmation page. To
define a URL Destination Goal, you dont need to enter the complete URL, simply the request URI (Uniform
Resource Identifier, which is what comes after the domain or hostname, including the /).
e.g. www.dbdmedia.co.uk/thank-you/ or www.dbdmedia.co.uk/about-us/
DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.
www.dbdmedia.co.uk

16

Visit Duration triggers a conversion when a visitor spends more (or less) time on your website than the
threshold you specify.
Pages/Visit triggers a conversion when a visitor views more (or fewer) pages than the threshold youve set.
Event triggers a conversion when a visitor performs an event you are tracking on your website (e.g. play a
video, download a file...)

2.6.2. URL Match Types

If you set goals by URL Destination, you will need to select the type of match for the entered request URI.
Head Match indicates that the URL of the page visited must match what you enter for the Goal URL, but if
there is any additional data at the end of the URL then the goal will still be counted. For example, some websites
append a product ID or a visitor ID or some other parameter to the end of the URL. Head Match will ignore
these.
Exact Match means that the URL of the page visited must exactly match what you enter for the Goal URL. In
contrast to Head Match, which can be used to match every page in a subdirectory, Exact Match can only be
used to match one single page.
Regular Expression Match gives you the most flexibility. For example if you want to count any sign-up page
as a goal when sign-up pages exist in various subdirectories. You can create a regular expression that will
match any sign-up page in any subdirectory (see 2.8 Regular Expressions (RegEx)).

2.6.3. Case sensitive Setting

Check the Case Sensitive box if you want the URLs you entered into your goal and funnel to exactly match the
capitalisation of visited URLs.

2.6.4. Goal Value

For non-ecommerce websites, goal value allows you to assign a monetary value to goals. For example: you are
tracking visitors who complete and send the contact form on your website. You know that one in 10 leads
becomes a customer and your average order value is 200. So you can attribute a goal value of 20 for that
goal.

The use of goal value is not restricted to non-ecommerce websites though, as you might want to assign a value
to actions which are not ecommerce transactions, such as clicks on a partners advertisement.
By setting a goal value, you make it possible for Google Analytics to calculate metrics like average per-visitvalue, page value and ROI. These metrics are calculated based on a combination of goal value and transaction
value (revenue), so you need to be careful to only assign goal value to actions which arent already
recorded by ecommerce tracking.

2.7. Goal Funnel Visualisation

For each URL Destination goal that you define, you can also define a funnel. A funnel is the set of steps (or
pages) that you expect visitors go through on their way to complete the conversion.
A sales checkout process is a good example of a funnel. The product category page, product page and the page
where the visitor enters credit card information are all examples of the funnel steps.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

17

So, the goal page signals the end of the activity such as a thank you or confirmation page and the funnel
steps are the pages that visitors encounter on their way to the goal.
Knowing the stage at which would-be customers abandon the process allows you to eliminate bottlenecks and
create a more efficient conversion path. For example, if you notice that many of your visitors never go further
than the Enter delivery information page, you might focus on redesigning that page so that its simpler for them
to use.
When you use Regular Expression Match (as set up under 2.6.2 URL Match Types), the value you enter as the
goal URL as well as each of the funnel steps will be read as a Regular Expression. Remember that regardless of
which option you choose, Google Analytics is only matching request URIs. In other words, the domain name is
ignored.
How visitors enter
the funnel

How visitors move

through the funnel

How visitors exit the

funnel

Figure 18: Conversions / Goals / Funnel Visualisation

While ecommerce tracking reports on shopping basket abandonment rate, it is not possible to visualise
conversion drop-outs at a page level. That is why we recommend setting purchases as a goal with a funnel,
particularly for multipage checkout processes.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

18

2.8. Regular Expressions (RegEx)

A regular expression is a set of characters and metacharacters that are used to match text in a specified pattern.
You can use regular expressions to configure flexible goals and powerful filters.
To exclude a range of IP addresses, you can use GAs RegEx generator.
RegEx can be tricky so be sure to test them on a separate profile before applying them to your data.
Metacharacter

Purpose

Example

Match

Does not match

Match any single character

Act.

Act1, Act2, Act9

Act10, Act21

Use special characters as literal

characters

U\.S\.
Holiday

U.S. Holiday

UfSd Holiday

Signal a range of characters

[a-z]

Any lowercase letter,

once

A, aa, B, ab...

[abc]

a, b or c

d, e, f

colou?r

color, colour

ab+c

abc,abbc, abbbc,...

ab*c

ac, abc,abbc, abbbc

Group a string of characters

(G|g)oogle

Google or google

Separate alternatives

gray|grey

gray or grey

Signal the beginning of an

expression

^US Holiday

US Holiday 2012

2012 US Holiday

Signals the end of an expression

US Holiday$

2012 US Holiday

US Holiday 2012

[]
?
+
*
()

Match any single character

contained within the brackets
Match the preceding pattern
element zero or one times
Match the preceding pattern
element one or more times
Match the preceding pattern
element zero or more times

ac

2.9. Social Media Integration

Social Media reports allow you to understand social activities happening both on and off your website as well as
identify the real revenue value of your social presence.
All of your Social data show up in the Traffic Sources reports within the Social section. Traffic data, on-site
activity and conversions from referring social networks are automatically recorded.

Figure 19: Traffic Sources / Social / Sources

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

19

To track on-site social interactions via social plugins however, you will need to use the _trackSocial() function.
Google+ is automatically integrated.
_gaq.push([_trackSocial, network, socialAction, opt_target, opt_pagePath]);
Network social network being tracked (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn...)
Social Action social action being tracked (like, share, tweet...)
Target (optional) URL or resource which receives the action (if undefined, page on which the action took
place)
Page Path (optional) page from which the action occurred (generally the source of the social action only
really necessary if you are using virtual pageviews)

Figure 20: Traffic Sources / Social / Social Plugins

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

20

3. EVERYDAY
How to
ToRead
Readyour
YourData
Data
3.
EVERYDAY ANALYTICS
ANALYTICS:: How

3.1. Definitions
Dimension A dimension is a descriptive attribute or characteristic of an object that can be given different
values. Dimensions appear in all of your reports, though you might see different ones depending on the specific
report. Use them to help organise, segment, and analyse your data. In some reports, you can add and remove
dimensions to see different aspects of your data.
Metrics Metrics are individual elements of a dimension that can be measured as a sum or a ratio.
Although dimensions and metrics can stand alone, they usually are used in conjunction with one another. The
values of dimensions and metrics and the relationships between those values is what gives meaning to your
data. For the greatest insights, dimensions are often associated with one or more metric.

3.1.1. Dimensions
Action action for the event being tracked (e.g. Play, Pause or Stop for video interactions)
st

Ad Content 1 line (headline) of your PPC ad

Ad Group ad groups that you or your campaign manager have identified for your online ad campaigns
Browser Type name of the browser used by visitors to your website (e.g. Internet Explorer or Firefox)
Browser Version version of the browsers used by visitors to your website (e.g. 2.0.0.14)
Campaign names of the online campaigns that you or your campaign manager use for your website
Category category pertaining to the event being tracked (e.g. Videos for video interactions)
City visitors city based on IP address
Connection Speed network connection speed of visitors to the website (e.g. DSL, Cable, Dialup...)
Continent visitors continent based on IP address
Country/Territory visitors country or territory based on IP address
Days to Purchase number of days between users purchases and their first visit to your website
Depth of Visit number of pages visited by users to your website in a session (visit)
Entrance Page request URI where the resultant page is the entrance or landing page for your visitors
Exit Page request URI where the resultant page is the last or "exit" page for your visitors
Flash Versions versions of Flash supported by visitors browsers, including minor versions
Hostname hostnames visitors used to reach your website
Java Support browser capabilities for visitors
Keyword keywords (both paid and organic) used by users to reach your website
Label optional label you can apply to a particular event you are tracking (e.g. [movie name] for video
interactions)

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

21

Landing Page see Entrance Page

Language users browser language returned in a 2 or 4 character code (e.g. en-br for British English)
Medium This field identifies the type of referral to your website. Thus, while a referring source (URL) to your
website might be a search engine, there are two possible mediums that can be used from a search engine
referral: organic (from a search result) and cpc (from an online ad).
Operating System operating system used by your visitors (e.g. Windows, Linux, Macintosh)
Operating System Version version of the operating system of your visitors (e.g. XP for Windows or OSX
for Macintosh)
Page see Request URI
Page Title <title></title> field of the HTML header area for your pages
Position position of the advertisement as it appears on the hosting page (e.g. side or top)
Product product name
Product Category product category as defined in your websites ecommerce structure (e.g. lighting,
furniture or flooring)
Product SKU product code as defined in your ecommerce structure (e.g. #1234325)
Provider Domain fully-qualified domain of the service provider of visitors to your website
Provider Name name of the service provider of visitors to your website
Referral Path referral URI (path and page, generally) of the referring site
Region visitors region based on IP address
Request URI page or a set of pages on your website by path and/or query parameters (e.g. the request URI
for the URL www.mysite.com/about-us/ is /about-us/)
Screen Colours screen colour depth of visitors monitors, as reported by the browser HTTP Request Header
Screen Resolution screen resolution depth of visitors monitors, as reported by the browser HTTP Request
Header
Search Category categories used for the internal search (e.g. lighting furniture or flooring)
Search Refinement subsequent keyword search terms or strings entered by users after a given initial string
search using the internal site search function
Search Terms keywords used via your websites internal search function
Source used in reporting traffic sources to your site, identifies the domain of the referring source (e.g. google
or bing)
Sub-continent visitors sub-continent based on IP address
Sub-region visitors sub-region based on IP address
Time On Site visitor session duration for the day
Transaction ID transaction ID for the shopping basket purchase as defined in your ecommerce structure (e.g.
booking number, order number...)
Visitor Type number of visitors to your website who are new or returning

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

22

Visits number of visits to your website, calculated by determining the number of visitor sessions (e.g. if a
visitor comes to your site, exits their browser, and returns 5 minutes later via the same browser, that is
calculated as 2 visits)
Visits to a Transaction number of visits made to your website before a user makes a purchase

3.1.2. Metrics
% Exit percentage of site exits that occurred from a page or set of pages
% New Visits percentage of visits from new visitors
Average Value average value of an ecommerce transaction
Avg. Visit Duration average time spent per visit on your website
Bounce Rate percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your website from the
entrance page/landing page)
Bounces number of single-page visits to your site over the selected dimension (e.g. if you apply this metric to
the Campaign dimension, itll display the number of single-page visits to your site by users that reached your site
via a particular campaign)
Clicks number of clicks that your ads received
Cost campaign cost
CPC or cost per click average price you paid for each click on your search ads
CPM or cost per mille cost per thousand ad impressions
CTR or click through rate clicks to impressions ratio
Entrances number of entrances to your website or page
Exits number of exits from your site or page
Goal Conversion Rate the percentage of sessions on a website that include a conversion goal being reached
Goal Conversions number of overall goals completed by visitors
Goal1-20 Completions total number of visitors who have completed all elements defined for a particular goal
Goal1-20 Start total number of visitors who have completed the first goal step for a particular goal
Goal1-20 Value total cumulative value for a particular goal
Impressions number of times your ads were displayed
New Visits number of visits by people who have never been to the website before
Page Value average value for a page a user visited before converting (Revenue + Goal Value, divided by
Unique Pageviews for a page viewed before the conversion occurred) formerly known as $ Index
Pages/Visit number of pages viewed by users per visit
Pageviews total number of pageviews for your website when applied over the selected dimension
Per Visit Goal Value average value of a goal completion (calculated as Goal Value divided by Visits)
Per Visit Value average value of a visit to your website (calculated as Revenue divided by Visits)
Product Revenue revenue generated per item (calculated as Price multiplied by Quantity)

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

23

Quantity total number of items sold for the product (or group of products)
Revenue total revenue
RPC revenue per click
Search Depth average number of pages visitors viewed after performing a search
Search Exits number of searches a visitor made immediately before leaving the website
Search Refinements number of times a visitor searched again immediately after performing a search
Shipping cost of delivery for a transaction
Tax amount of tax included in the transaction price (e.g. VAT)
Time after Search starting from the first use of internal search, time spent on website until either the session
ended or until another search happened
Time on Page time a visitor spent on a particular page or set of pages. It is calculated by subtracting the initial
view time for a particular page from the initial view time for a subsequent page. Thus, this metric does not apply
to exit pages for your site
Time on Site time a visitor spends on your website
Total Unique Searches total number of times your Site Search was used, excluding multiple searches on the
same keyword during the same visit
Transactions total number of transactions
Unique Pageviews number of visits during which the specified page(s) was/were viewed at least once
Unique Purchases total number of times a product was included in a transaction
Unique Visitors number of users that visits your website
Visits number of times your visitors has been to your website (unique sessions initiated by all your visitors)
Visits with Search total number of visits where internal site search was used

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

24

3.2. Dashboards
Dashboards are a great way to get an overview of the key performance indicators (KPIs) for your website.
At DBD Media, we provide PPC, SEO, Social Media and CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) services, so we
like to have one dashboard for each of these services to quickly showcase their performance.

3.2.1. Search Engine Optimisation

To install this dashboard on your Google Analytics account, log into GA and go to this link:
http://tinyurl.com/SEO-dashboard and select the profile you wish to implement the dashboard on.
You might need to edit the widget settings to fit your website, such as customising non-branded filters to your
own brand name or replacing transactions with goal completions, revenue with goal value and ecommerce
conversion rate with goal conversion rate for non-ecommerce websites.
DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.
www.dbdmedia.co.uk

25

3.2.2. PPC Advertising

To install this dashboard on your Google Analytics account, log into GA and go to this link:
http://tinyurl.com/PPC-dashboard and select the profile you wish to implement the dashboard on.
You might need to edit the widget settings to fit your website, such as replacing transactions with goal
completions, revenue with goal value and ecommerce conversion rate with goal conversion rate for nonecommerce websites.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

26

3.2.3. Social Media

To install this dashboard on your Google Analytics account, log into GA and go to this link:
http://tinyurl.com/SMedia-dashboard and select the profile you wish to implement the dashboard on.
You might need to edit the widget settings to fit your website, such as replacing revenue with goal value and
ecommerce conversion rate with goal conversion rate for non-ecommerce websites.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

27

3.2.4. Conversion Rate Optimisation

To install this dashboard on your Google Analytics account, log into GA and go to this link:
http://tinyurl.com/CRO-dashboard and select the profile you wish to implement the dashboard on.
You might need to edit the widget settings to fit your website, such as replacing transactions with goal
completions, revenue with goal value and ecommerce conversion rate with goal conversion rate for nonecommerce websites.

3.3. Advanced Segments

Advanced Segments allow you to isolate and analyse specific kinds of traffic. For example, you might create a
segment that only includes visits from users who have made a purchase. You can then browse through your
Analytics reports, viewing data only for this segment or even comparing it side by side with data from other
segments or data from all visits.
You can create your own segments and apply them to your data as well as select from predefined segments.
Once you apply a segment, youll see it reflected throughout all reports in the profile. Youll also see it reflected
when you look at historical data in the profile. Dont worry about harming or skewing your data; segments are
non-destructive, and do not affect any of the core data in your GA account. To see all of your data again, simply
select the "All Traffic" segment.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

28

Figure 21: Example of applied advanced segments

Advanced Segments vs. Filtered Profiles

While filtered profiles may also be used to isolate and analyse subgroups of traffic, there are some key
differences between using filters and advanced segments:

You can examine historical (e.g. last months) data for an advanced segment, even if you only created
the segment today. In contrast, a filtered profile will only contain data starting from the date you created
it.

You can see and compare multiple advanced segments side by side in reports. In contrast, you can only
view data for one filtered profile at a time.

A filtered profile is usually the best choice if you want to always exclude a certain kind of traffic from your
analysis. For example, while you can create an advanced segment that only includes external traffic, it would be
better to create a profile that excludes internal traffic instead. That way, you wont have to remember to apply the
segment each time you look at reports. Also, you can always apply other advanced segments to the filtered
profile data.
If you want to limit some users access to only a subset of data, you should set up filtered profiles for this instead
of using advanced segments.

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

29

For Google Analytics

training, consultancy and advanced configuration
Call us:

020 7240 0100

Or email us at:
analytics@dbdmedia.co.uk

DBD Media
20 Bedford Street
Covent Garden
London
WC2E 9HP

www.dbdmedia.co.uk
www.dbdmedia.co.uk/analytics-implementation-training

DBD Media Search. Social. Analytics.

www.dbdmedia.co.uk

30