It is important that you configure Google Analytics to deliver the best possible results for your business. Here are a few tips that will help you to extract much more from Google Analytics. You should begin by enabling Real Time Reports that will help you monitor website traffic including tracking traffic for segments that are pre-defined by you. You can begin by creating a new profile and applying chosen filters such as adding your company IP address. You must remember to change the ‘Exclude’ option in your filter to ‘Include’. This feature will help you view Real Time Reports and make the necessary code checks at a faster rate.
Another tip is to make a profile without any filters since this move will help you to locate misplaced filters. You can make this profile with the same goals as in your main profile by using the ‘copy/paste goal’ option through the Chrome extension. You will then be able to find out if any filters have impeded your data in any way when you use this unfiltered profile.
If several users have access to your Google Analytics account as is common in large organizations then there could be frequent changes in goals or filters or other features made by such users. You need to monitor all configuration changes as well as the effects of such changes and this can be done by compelling all users to follow a system.
This system can be created and monitored by using the Google Analytics Annotations feature where context is taken right from the graphs of your interface. This feature can be used in case any major change is done to your website or in case of offline marketing campaigns. You can also use it when changes are made to filters, goals, or tracking codes.
Another way of tracking changes in Analytics configurations is through Google Docs Form. This form can be accessed by anyone with the required permission and all involved will be able to view the latest changes when they log in. You can create a Google Form that sends out the data in spreadsheet form.
If you manage an eCommerce website then you need to ensure that the figures extracted from Google Analytics are roughly the same as that from your company database. You can begin by extracting daily revenues for a specific month from your company database and the same from Google Analytics. In case the numbers do not match then you should firstly make sure that your Analytics trigger_add item is triggered when one item is purchased 2 or more times.
In addition, you should also compare sales through use of promotional coupons to make sure that your database and analytics reaches the same conclusion. You should also exclude apostrophes from any product name since using them on _addltem in Analytics will break the code.
Finally, one Chrome extension offered by Google Analytics can help you track data from your site that is sent to Analytics. Whenever you use Google Chrome to browse websites then this extension prepares a debug version of all Analytics Javascript and prints the data to your Javascript console.
You can find out about incorrectly set tracking code by looking at warnings and error messages displayed in your console. Every tracking beacon is also tracked and details are dispatched to Google Analytics. You can also track websites of your competitors using this feature and find out their methods of tracking their clients, which in turn can help you conduct competitive analysis.
The above tips will help you get the most out of Google Analytics. This feature can provide much more detailed data for improved analysis once you figure out how to use them to your advantage.