Introduction
Although the birth of the Web took place in August 1991, it did not become commercial until around 1995. In those early days, it was kind of fun to have a spinning logo, a few pictures, and your contact details as the basis of your online presence. My first website was just that—no more than my curriculum vitae online at the University of Bristol. Then companies decided to copy (or worse, scan) their paper catalogs and brochures and simply dump these on their websites. This was a step forward in providing more content, but the user experience was poor to say the least, and no one was really measuring conversions. The most anyone kept track of was hits, which nobody ever really understood, though they were assumed (incorrectly) to be visits.
Around the year 2000, and propelled by the dot-com boom, people suddenly seemed to realize the potential of the Web as a useful medium to find information; the number of visitors using it grew rapidly. Organizations started to think about fundamental questions such as, “What is the purpose of having a website?” and considered how to build relevant content for their online presence. With that, user experience improved. Then, when widespread broadband adoption began, those organizations wanted to attract the huge audience that was now online, hence the reason for the rapid growth in search engine marketing that followed.
Now, with businesses accepting the growing importance of their online presence, they are prepared to invest. But how much money and what resources should an organization put into this? What are the pain points for a visitor that stop them from transitioning from an anonymous visitor to a new lead or new customer? What is the most cost-efficient way to market the site, which channels produce the most valuable leads, and can we predict the return on investment for the next campaign?
Answering such questions requires data and hence a measurement tool. Put simply, this is what web analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, allow you to do—study the online experience in order to improve it.
But what can be measured, how accurate is this, and with the plethora of data, which are the important metrics? In other words, how do you measure success? Using best practice principles I have gained as a professional practitioner, this book uses real-world examples that clearly demonstrate how to manage Google Analytics. These include not only installation and configuration guides but also how to turn data into information that enables you to understand and benchmark your website visitors’ experience. With this understanding, you can then build business action items to drive improvements in visitor acquisition (both online and offline), conversion rates, repeat visit rates, customer retention, and ultimately your bottom line.
As a great friend and mentor to me once said, “Advanced web metrics is about doing the basics very well and applying it in a clever way.” I wish I had thought of that phrase! It epitomizes everything about my approach to web analytics and this book. Thus, I have attempted to make this book’s subject matter accessible to a broad spectrum of readers—essentially anyone with a business interest in making their website work better. After all, the concept of measuring success is a universal desire.
The content is not aimed at the complete web novice, nor is it aimed at engineers—I am not one myself. Installing, configuring, or using Google Analytics does not require the knowledge of an engineer! Rather, I hope that Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics will appeal to existing users of business data as well as readers new to the field of web measurement.
As the title implies, this book is intended for people who want to go beyond the basics of simply counting hits. These can be grouped into three types of users:
Marketers These are users who have experience with search engine marketing (paid and organic search), email marketing, social search, PR, and affiliate management but have not yet managed to find a unified measurement tool to compare these side by side. If you are in this group, focus your reading efforts on Chapters 1 to 5 and then Chapters 10 to 12because these are nontechnical and do not require a technical knowledge of the implementation.
Webmasters These are experienced website builders who have the skill set and authorization to modify a website. For this group of users, the book offers sections and exercises that require you to modify your web page content; after all, web analytics is all about instigating change using reliable metrics as your guide. Therefore, knowledge of HTML (the ability to read browser source code) and experience with JavaScript are required. If you fall within this group, the book’s entire content for you. The technical implementation parts are contained in Chapters 6 through 9.
Senior managers These are decision makers who require guidance on preparing a data-driven strategy and action plan for their organization. I hope to supply these readers with an understanding of what can and cannot be achieved with web analytics and specifically provide information they need to plan the resources and timelines required for building an effective web measurement strategy. My aim for this group is to provide you with the information necessary to make informed managerial decisions. Focus your reading efforts on Chapters 1 to 5 in the first instance, and delve further if required.
With a better understanding of your website visitors, you will be able to tailor page content and marketing budgets with laser-like precision for a better return on investment. I also discuss advanced configurations (Chapter 9, “Google Analytics Customizations”), which provide you with an even greater understanding of your website visitors so that you can dive into the metrics that make sense for your organization. In as many areas as possible, I include real-world practical examples that are currently employed by advanced users.
You can use this book in several ways. The most straightforward (and demanding) is to start at the beginning and follow all the steps to completion, building your knowledge in a step-wise fashion. Alternatively, I have deliberately designed the book so that you can skip around and delve straight into a chapter as needed. To help with this approach, I frequently reference content within the book or other resources for further reading. However, I do recommend you put time aside to review the initial chapters (Chapters 1 through 5) because they introduce important approaches to web measurement, such as accuracy and privacy considerations, as well as the key features and components of the reporting interface. Web analytics is still a nascent industry, and I am actively blogging about Google Analytics, the book’s content, and measurement issues in general at www.advanced-web-metrics.com. You can also follow my thoughts or what I am currently reading on Twitter (@brianclifton). All code examples presented can be downloaded from the site using the referenced links within each chapter.
What You Will Learn
You will learn how to implement and use Google Analytics in a best-practice way. I deliberately emphasize the word use because this is the primary purpose of this book. That is, you will learn how to leverage Google Analytics to optimize your website—and therefore your business—in terms of marketing, user experience, and ultimately conversions, all based on solid, reliable data.
What You Need
First and foremost, you need an inquisitive mind! This is not an engineering book, and you require no additional software or tools to apply the advice—just a good understanding of what your website is supposed to achieve and how your organization is marketing it and an idea of the type of metrics that would help you judge its success.
That said, a couple of chapters do require you to have a good understanding of HTML and basic JavaScript skills. If that doesn’t describe you, read Chapters 1 through 5, then Chapters 10 through 12. Then pass the book to a technical colleague who can help you with Chapters 6 through 9. As you will learn, web analytics requires a multidisciplinary skill set, and collaboration is the key to success.
Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics is organized to provide you with a clear step-wise progression of knowledge building.
Chapter 1, “Why Understanding Your Web Traffic Is Important to Your Business,” introduces you to the world of web measurement, where it fits in, and what you can achieve.
Chapter 2, “Available Methodologies and Their Accuracy,” provides the context of what can be measured via web analytics and its limitations.
Chapter 3, “Google Analytics Features, Benefits, and Limitations,” focuses on what Google Analytics can do for you.
Chapter 4, “Using the Google Analytics Interface,” walks you through the user interface, highlighting the key functionality.
Chapter 5, “Reports Explained,” reviews in detail the top reports you need to understand.
Chapter 6, “Getting Started: Initial Setup,” gets you quickly up and running with the basic install.
Chapter 7, “Advanced Implementation,” takes you beyond the basics to give you a more complete picture of your website’s activity.
Chapter 8, “Best Practices Configuration Guide,” provides you with the knowledge to define success metrics (KPIs) and segment your data.
Chapter 9, “Google Analytics Customizations,” gives you some lateral thinking for adding extra functionality to Google Analytics.
Chapter 10, “Focusing on Key Performance Indicators,” is about how you focus on the metrics most important to you—KPIs and the process required to build them.
Chapter 11, “Real-World Tasks,” jump-starts your analytical skills by showing you how to identify and optimize poor-performing pages, site search, and online and offline marketing. Website Optimizer is introduced as a method for testing a hypothesis.
Chapter 12, “Integrating Google Analytics with Third-Party Applications,” shows you how to integrate data either by capturing cookies or using the new Google Analytics export API.
Appendix A, “Regular Expression Overview,” gives you an introduction to understanding regular expressions.
Appendix B, “Useful Tools,” describes some useful tools for helping you implement and use Google Analytics.
Appendix C, “Recommended Further Reading,” gathers together books, blogs, and other web resources that can help you.
Google Analytics Individual Qualification
Democratizing web analytics data was a big part of the initial adoption strategy of Google Analytics. In 2007, while I was at Google, we really wanted to see such useful data being shared between sales, marketing, PR, senior management—anyone who had an interest in improving the company’s website.
However, providing such large-scale access to data presented another problem: People didn’t know how to interpret the data or what to do next. There was a serious dearth of web analytics education available to help people. I knew I could assist by writing this book, and another ambition was to establish an online learning center for Google Analytics.
It was therefore a logical step to produce an online version of our tiered internal training system so that any person, not just Googlers, could work through the online tutorials and then take the exam to demonstrate to their peers and potential employers their analytical and product-specific skills.
We started building the www.conversionuniversity.com online learning center in late 2007 and introduced the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GA IQ) in November 2008. It was a huge achievement for the team and one that I am immensely proud of.
While there is nothing like a classroom workshop for a great learning environment—you not only learn the necessary skills, you also gain from the expertise of the trainer (as well as have time to pick their brains directly over a coffee!)—that’s not always possible. Fortunately, this book, www.conversionuniversity.com, and the GA IQ help users learn Google Analytics and then have tangible proof of their proficiency. If you haven’t taken the test, I encourage you to do so soon after reading this book.
I welcome feedback from you about this book or about anything related to website measurement and optimization. You can reach me via any of the following means:
- Website: www.advanced-web-metrics.com
- LinkedIn interactive group for readers of this book: www.linkedin.com/groupInvitation?groupID=66386
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/brianclifton
- LinkedIn profile: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/brianclifton
Sybex strives to keep you supplied with the latest tools and information you need for your work. Please check its website at www.sybex.com, where we’ll post additional content and updates that supplement this book if the need arises. Enter advanced web metrics in the Search box (or type the book’s ISBN—9781118168448), and click Go to get to the book’s update page.