You don’t have to be an expert to understand Google Analytics (Part III)

Time to start digging deep and using knowledge gained in Understanding Google Analytics Part 2. For advanced hacking around in Google Analytics, we’ll be building on the use of Profile Filters and Advanced Segments.

• Tracking Google Referral Strings
  The Google referral string is the “href” value assigned to each URL in a set of search results. Here’s how to understand and really get to grips with it.
• Custom Variables
  Pull in data that you never dreamed Analytics could pull in. Learning how to use custom variables allows you to customise Analytics for your needs. Custom variables are great for stepping beyond the built in reports offered by Google Analytics and segmenting based on your business’s most valuable metrics.
• Multi-Channel Funnels
  How to find and possibly change how Google views conversion tracking.

Tracking Google Referral Strings

Tim Resnik at Moz.com has done a superb job of producing an illustrated visual guide to tracking Google referral strings. The knowledge gained from Understanding Google Analytics Part 2 will be invaluable, as he walks you through how Google referral strings work and how to track them by setting up a Profile Filter and Advanced Segments. If you’re comfortable with these, you can gain valuable insights into things such as:

• Calculating ROI and resource allocation for different SEO efforts
• Optimising branded search Sitelinks
• Image optimisation for Google News
• Optimising video thumbnails
• Analysing efficacy of semantic markup

Check out the full article for the guide and lots of examples: Decoding Google’s Referral String (or, how I surviVED Secure Search).

Custom Variables

Mike Pantoliano is one of the smartest guys on the planet when it comes to Google Analytics.

Generally speaking, custom variables are an excellent method of going further than the default Google Analytics reports and segmenting based on the most valuable metrics for your business. Here are some of Mike’s ideas for how to make use of custom variables:

1. Tagging users at the visitor level as originally referred by social media (great for measuring return on investment in social media marketing).
2. Pulling organic rank into Google Analytics via a session-level custom variable.
3. Categorising your pages to get an aggregate look at the performance of separate sections of your site.
4. Passing product review count and score, character count, comment count, post author, and more into a custom variable to measure conversion rate/ad revenue by these numbers.
5. Using Excellent Analytics to create Google Analytics dashboards in Microsoft Excel.
6. And finally, using the Distilled.net Excel Guide to get you up to speed on any pieces of Microsoft Excel you’re struggling with.

Here’s Mike Pantoliano’s Slideshare presentation on Making Google Analytics Work for You with Custom Variables.

Multi-Channel Funnels

Mike Pantoliano takes things to the next level with a look at Multi-Channel Funnels. This is not for the faint-hearted, but if you’re familiar with basic SEO concepts and have a smattering of Microsoft Excel skills, then you might want to Uncover Badass Exposers with Google Analytics’ Multi-Channel Funnels.

Here’s a simple video explanation to give you a flavour of what it’s all about.

Conclusion

Well, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this mini-series on Google Analytics and that it helps you to really drill down into what the statistics are telling you about your website. The information is all there for the taking!

Originally published at PENNInk Productions.