This article/survey is from 2016. Please note that blocking or hindering of Google Analytics, one way or the other, is even more widespread now. This is still due to ad blockers, but also due to browser technologies such as ITP and ETP implemented by Safari and Firefox. Ad blocking software has gotten a lot of attention recently. Not because it’s new, but likely because it’s being used more widely. Studies put the ad block penetration at up to 37% or even higher - it depends on country and other factors. Read more →
There is one thing I hear a lot when I’m giving talks about Google Analytics: “I didn’t know Google Analytics could track that!”. Put another way, I just as often get a question like “Could you make Google Analytics track [insert anything here]?”.
The short answer is always, “Yes, you can track that in Google Analytics”. Basically, you can track anything that goes on inside a browser. If it happens within a browser (a mouse click, a keyboard key click, a mouse movement, scrolling) you can track it. Read more →
This is the first post in a series of Reading List posts. Part of working with web analytics and conversion optimisation is to keep learning. There are a lot of ways to learn; conferences, books, networking and so on. And then there are people you don’t know. I use Twitter, LinkedIn and even Google+ to follow people that do great stuff within Analytics. And very often, I’ll come across interesting posts or articles with great solutions for different analytical problems. Read more →
Did you know you can detect and track device orientation changes in Google Analytics? That is, if a mobile or tablet user switches between portrait and landscape mode? Well, of course it’s possible (basically anything that happens inside a browser can be detected and tracked in Google Analytics). In a previous post, I wrote about how to detect and track the browser’s viewport (which was made almost obsolete by the new native Browser Size dimension). Read more →
Every website owner and web analyst reaches a point where there’s a need to get Google Analytics data in Excel. While the Google Analytics web interface is very user friendly and easy to work with, it quickly becomes an obstacle when doing more advanced analysis. Very often, we also want to do the same analysis from month to month for reporting purposes. Or maybe we need to merge Google Analytics data with other data - and Excel then gives us more tools than the Google Analytics interface. Read more →
Google Analytics Annotations are a built-in feature of Google Analytics. It lets all people with access to Google Analytics account add comments to nearly all reports (at least those with charts). Everybody should use annotations to comment on traffic changes, traffic spikes and other important events. This can save you a lot of time. You won’t have to do the same data dives every time you wonder why something happened to your traffic. Read more →
If you see self referrals appearing in your Acquisition reports in Google Analytics, or if you are performing a Google Analytics implementation audit, one of the first steps is to make sure that the Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC) is present on all pages - Screaming Frog will help you do that fast and easy. In this post, I’ll show you a step-by-step guide for checking your website for pages that don’t have the GATC installed or don’t have the Google Tag Manager snippet present. Read more →
This post provides a complete event tracking example so you’ll be able to set up and configure it on your own. I’ll be using the autotrack feature, which is a plugin developed by Google Analytics released early in 2016. This plugin allows website owners to easily set up event tracking - even if your knowledge of HTML and javascript is limited.
When to use event tracking First, it’s important to know when you should use event tracking. Read more →
When you are setting up Google Analytics on your website, you’ll want to verify that it’s actually working and that data is being collected and processed. So even before you begin to configure events, ecommerce tracking etc., it’s crucial that you can trust your data collection. This involves checking if Google Analytics is being loaded at all and if your customisations such as event tracking is working as intended. In this post, I’ll provide some tips and tricks that can help you in the initial setup phase on your Google Analytics implementation. Read more →
Have you ever observed pages on your website with a 0% or very low bounce rate? If so, then chances are that you have a faulty Analytics setup. Well, of course it’s possible to have a website or a landing page that is just so amazing, that all of your users interact and stay on your website! But, every time I’ve seen a close to zero percent bounce rate, it’s been caused by an error in the Google Analytics implementation. Read more →