This article is for everyone that has Google Analytics installed on their website but especially for those who use data for their business decisions. (All of you should)
Experts at Reflective Data have seen and conducted audits for hundreds of Google Analytics setups, and we must say that the picture could be much better. In fact, there’s hasn’t been a perfect setup, yet.
Google Analytics is strong in tracking all sorts of traffic sources. By default, it can make sure if the user came from a social network, search engine, advertisement, email or came to your site directly (typing in the URL or using a bookmark).
While the basic channel determination is quite good, you should still consider configuring based on your business, as Google really couldn’t make a one-size-fits-all solution here. Web sites are just too different, and that’s a good thing, right?
In fact, you can re-configure the entire channel determination system, but in this article, we are going to cover the part that’s related to referral traffic. More specifically, the traffic that Google considers a referral but it actually isn’t.
Google Analytics Custom Definitions are essential additions to every Analytics setup that has been tailored to a specific business. And they all should be.
The basic setup provides you with plenty of dimensions and metrics but there are things that are specific to your business and need some manual configuration in order to be tracked properly.
This is exactly what Google Analytics Custom Definitions are good for – including non-standard data in your reports.
Google Analytics, an analytics tool of choice for most of us, counts hits, page views, sessions and users.
That is clear, but did you know that users are not necessarily different users/people but could as well be the same person just using another device.
Well, it really depends on your business and other specific conditions like advertising methods but there are still a few common tools that you should integrate into your Google Analytics setup.
This article is part of Most common Google Analytics issues (in-depth overview) series.
This is the first article in the Most common Google Analytics issues (in-depth overview) series.
We start with the most logical part, general configuration and tracking code, the foundation for your analytics.
While most of us know what Google Analytics is, and basic setup is really straightforward and simple, there are still tons of things that can go wrong or missing in the process.
This series of articles is going to provide you an in-depth overview of most common problems in Google Analytics setup, we are also going to give you guidelines on fixing them!