Google Analytics is a freemium web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic.
Today, it is by far the most used web analytics tool available. More than 79% of top one million websites are using Google Analytics to collect data about how they are being used.
Besides the main tool, Google Analytics also offers a premium version called Google Analytics 360 and a version for tracking mobile apps called Google Analytics for Mobile Apps.
Getting started
Creating a new account and installing the snippet is rather easy, and pretty much all you need in order to start tracking your website using Google Analytics.
- Go to their website
- Login using your Google account
- Add new website
- Install the snippet on your website
Once you are done with the basic setup, it’s time to move on with the more complicated settings in order to make it understand and apply to your business.
Analyzing data
Once you have installed the snippet and some data has been collected it’s time to start analyzing it.
The idea of analyzing is to get to know what’s happening on your website, how people are using it and what may be causing the problems. And then, of course, taking actions based on these insights.
One of the first things I recommend looking at is how people from different segments behave differently and what may be behind it. E.g. mobile users convert 50% less, maybe your website is not responsive.
The best way to put the insights from Google Analytics into action is A/B testing, that means coming up with a possible solution that would solve a specific problem (hypothesis) and then run an experiment to find out if that turned out to be true or false.
Combining with other data sources
While Google Analytics is perfect for collecting some sorts of data, it might not be the best choice for others.
To get the full picture, we recommend combining Google Analytics with a user behavior analysis tool. That way you can collect all of the metrics and dimensions with as well as the more behavioral data.
The key features you are looking for are:
In case you are not using Google Analytics yet, go ahead and get started on their website.
Last modified: April 27, 2020
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