Digital Analytics 3.6.

Content analysis
3.7. Benchmarking
Goals 3.8. Account and property configuration
Today, the Internet and all the services that
are linked to it are a source of data of an 4. Analytics Framework
extreme dimension. This information is a
source of knowledge that can be a critical 4.1. Analytics Thinking
factor in the success of organizations. 4.2. Objective’s definition
4.3. Reporting and dashboard tools
The main objective of the course is the 4.4. Practical applications
application of quantitative methodologies
to the data generated by digital assets such 5. Google Analytics as an advanced
as websites and mobile applications and by analysis tool
its integration with other sources of data.
Furthermore, to explore how these 5.1. Data Enrichment
analyses and knowledge can be 5.2. Advanced Segments and Filters
incorporated in the decision processes. 5.3. Site objectives
5.4. Funnel analysis
5.5. E-commerce tracking
5.6. A/B Testing (Experiments)
Program: 5.7. Reports Personalization
5.8. Dashboards
1.Overview of digital analytics
5.9. Multi-channel Funnels

1.1. The old paradigm of web analytics 1.0

6. Marketing metrics and Funnel
1.2. Key change to Digital Analytics
Conversion
1.3. Digital Analytics in an Era of Digital
Transformation
6.1. Definition of cost and pricing models
1.4. Change: yes, we can!
(Advertising)
6.2. Measuring other channels
2. The awesome world of clickstream
6.3. Practical examples
analytics
6.4. Funnels: from attention to conversion
6.5. The role of landing pages
2.1. Main metrics: eight critical metrics
6.6. Anatomy of a landing page and
2.2. Main metrics demystified
importance for conversion
2.3. Going into an omni-channel world
6.7. Analysis of the client / campaign
2.4. Practical applications
situation
2.5. Metrics solutions
2.6. Core technology concepts and the
Web

3. Google Analytics as a day-to-day tool

3.1. Introduction to Google Analytics

3.2. Evolution of Google Analytics
3.3. Data dimensions and metrics
3.4. Audience
3.5. Acquisition
 Data is playing a critical role in many
organizations. Among other practices like
Big Data, Data Mining, and others related
fields, Digital Analytics keeps evolving and
become more relevant for the business and
more focused in a complete vision of the
journey and the results.

Google Analytics’ biggest impact was to

create a massive data democracy. Anyone
could quickly add a few lines of JavaScript
code to the footer file on their website and
possess an easy-to-use reporting tool.
1. Overview of digital
analytics The number of people focusing on web
analytics in the world went from a few
thousand to hundreds of thousands very
State of the analytics union quickly, and it’s still growing.
Paradox of data: a lack of it means you
cannot make complete decisions, but even
with a lot of data, you still get an Rethinking web analytics:
infinitesimally small number of insights. Meet web analytics 1.0

This is a good start. But very quickly a

Analytics evolution realization dawns, as illustrated. The big
circle is the amount of data you have. Lots!
Measurement and Analytics evolution: After a few months, though, you realize the
zit at the bottom of the circle is the amount
of actionable insight you get from that
data. Why?
Nowadays, Digital Analytics is much more
than pages or sessions:
 User-centered omni-channel measurement
 Measurement with modern attribution
models
 Enrichment of data gathered

Make predictions based on past user

behavior

You have so little actionable insight

because clickstream data is great at the
what, but not at the why. That is one of the
State of the industry
limits of clickstream data. We know every is even more critical to know why people
click that everyone ever makes and more. do the things they do on your site. This was
the prime motivation behind redefinition
We have the what:
of web analytics. For thorough web
 What pages did people view on our analytics, we need to include not just the
website? why but also key questions that can help us
 What products did people purchase?
make intelligent decisions about our web
 What was the average time spent?
 What sources did they come from? presence.
 What keywords or campaigns produced
clicks?
Web Analytics 2.0 is:
 What this, and what that, and what not?
The analysis of qualitative and quantitative
data from your website and the
competition, to drive a continual
improvement of the online experience that
Remember the paradox of data? your customers, and potential customers
have, which translates into your desired
So much data, so few insights. Most outcomes (online and offline).
businesses that focus on web analytics
(and sadly there are still not enough of
them) think of analytics simply as the art of
collecting and analyzing clickstream data.

State of the analytics round 2

Web Analytics 2.0 was about: shedding old

mental models and thinking differently
about making decisions on the Web,
realizing data is not the problem and that
people might be focusing less on accuracy
and more on precision. We will internalize
the idea that the Web is an exquisitely
unique animal, like nothing else out there
at the moment, and it requires its own  Clickstream answers the what.
exquisitely unique approach to decision  Multiple Outcomes Analysis
making. answers the how much;
 Experimentation and Testing help
explain the why (albeit analytically,
Voice of Customer also contributes
to the why), this time with direct
customer input;
 Competitive Intelligence answers
the what else, which is perhaps the
Rethinking web analytics: Meet web most underappreciated data on
analytics 2.0 the Web.

All this what data is missing the why. It’s

important to know what happened, but it
 If you want the love of your senior
management, you need to focus on
Multiple Outcomes Analysis.

The why: Experimentation and testing

The what of Clickstream is straightforward.

I believe that most digital platforms suck
because HiPPOs create them. HiPPO is an
acronym for the “Highest Paid Person’s
Opinion.” You know how it goes. Someone
presents a great idea, but the HiPPO
decides what actually happens. If she or he
wants the dancing monkey on the home
page, well, then the dancing monkey goes
on the home page. By leveraging the
The what: Clickstream
power of Experimentation and Testing
The what of Clickstream is straightforward. tools such as the free Google Optimize or
commercial tools such as Optimizely,
 Click-level data is base data you get from
Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics, and Unbounce, or other, you can change your
other Clickstream tools. You will have a lot strategy. Rather than launching a platform
of data—in the order of gigabytes in a few with one idea (the HiPPO’s idea, of course),
months and more if you store history.
you can run experiments and A/B Testing
 Clickstream is also foundational data; it live on your site with various ideas and let
helps you measure pages and campaigns your customers tell you what works best.
and helps you analyze all kinds of site
behavior: Visits, Visitors, Time on Site, There is a powerful hidden reason to be
Page Views, Bounce Rate, Sources, and best friends forever (BFF) with your testing
more. tool: you fail faster. It is very expensive to
fail in all other channels, such as TV, radio,
The how much: Multiple outcomes magazines, or big stores. But failing online
analysis is cheap and fast.

Focusing deeply and specifically on Consider launching a new product on Fnac

measuring Outcomes means connecting online vs. a Fnac store.
customer behavior to the bottom line of
 Why not launch a new product on
the company. The most impactful thing you
Fnac online first rather than at a
will do with web analytics is to tie
Fnac store and see how it does?
Outcomes to profits and to the bonuses of
 Why not experiment with a few
your report recipients.
different promotional offers via
A website attempts to deliver just three email or search ads before you
types of Outcomes: finalize your strategy and launch it
using radio ads, TV ads, or print?
 Increase revenue.
 In each scenario you can take a
 Reduce cost.
bigger risk, launch faster, fail or
 Improve customer satisfaction/loyalty.
That’s it. Three simple things.
succeed significantly faster online!
That is a massive strategic advantage. It is information about your direct or indirect
also the reason I am fond of saying competitors! And sometimes that info is
“Experiment or die.” even free!

So, why should you really care about this?

The why: Voice of customer (VOC) Consider this simple analogy. If you are
using your web analytics tool to measure
Consider this simple question:
your website, then it’s like sitting in a car
Can you look at the Top Pages Viewed and watching the dashboard to see that
report from your web analytics tool and for you are going exactly 70 mph. But your
your site and understand the content windshield and windows are all blacked
visitors were most interested in? How out. You can’t see outside.
would you know which of the top pages
You can rely on competitive analysis on
visitors actually wanted to see?
search engines to know more about your
Maybe they could not find the pages customers. Tools like Google Trends, Rank
because of a missing internal site search Watch and others can give you great
engine or the broken navigation on your insights.
site? You have no idea. Your web analytics
Using Competitive Intelligence data is like
tool can report only what it can record.
scraping off that black paint and being able
What your customers wanted but did not
to see outside. Now you can see you are in
see was not recorded.
a race (unbeknownst to you), and you can
For that you can do a survey with three see that while you are driving at 70 mph,
simple questions, such as: everyone else is racing past at 160 mph.
Unless you make drastic changes, you will
 What is the purpose of your visit to be irrelevant.
our web site?
 Were you able to complete your That’s the power of Competitive
task? Intelligence data. Knowing how you are
 If you were not able to complete performing is good. Knowing how you are
your task, why not? performing against your competition is
priceless—it helps you improve; it helps
If you marry the what with the why, you’ll you identify new opportunities, and it
have a lifetime of happiness. helps you stay relevant.
Intercom is one great tool that can help Example: Go to Google Trends and
you deal with VOC better and be faster to compare fnac.pt, worten.pt
answer your client’s needs.
There are several tools that help us to get
easy access to competitive information and
The What Else: Competitive Intelligence industry standards. This information will
help you set a better strategy and give
In the traditional world of enterprise more proper context to data we gather:
resource planning (ERP), customer
relationship management (CRM), and deep
back-end enterprise systems, all you had
was your data. You had very little
information about your competitors. On
the Web, though, you can gather tons of
  Measuring allows keep track on the
success of an action;
 Measuring works as a basis to optimize
and evolve;
 Measuring allows you to follow trends
and behaviors;
 Measuring helps us find the best
strategy.

Mind-set evolution mandated by web

analytics 2.0

Have you looked into your Analytics

today? Great, but what to measure?

Digital transformation is about data, it’s Online everything is measurable.

about connecting your business data and  Visitor behavior;
metrics in a user centralized vision that can  Visibility of our campaign;
power your ROI. Digital Analytics will allow  Target interest in the content (text,
you to better know your customers and video, image);
take better decisions.  Return on investment (ROI);
 Effectiveness of communication;
 Ease of use of an application or
website;

Last but not least, how to measure?

• There are several measuring solutions and
platforms;

• Pick solutions that allow you to measure and

monitor our strategy's assessment indicators.

Not yet, but why measure? Visitor behavior: Google Analytics

Click zones: Crazy Egg or Hotjar
According to Peter Druker: “If You Can't Facebook: Facebook Insights
Measure It, You Can't Manage It!” Brand references: Radian6
Google positioning: Rank Tracker You will need to make two critical changes
Links: Bit.ly to succeed in the world of Digital Analytics.
Search pattern: Google Trends
1. The first is a strategic shift: a change to
the mental model you apply.

2. The second is a tactical shift: one that

will challenge your current thinking about
tools and how to use them.

The tactical shift

Multiplicity is the only way for you to be

successful at Digital Analytics.

In a company will need to solve for the Five

Pillars: Clickstream, Multiple Outcomes
Analysis, Experimentation and Testing,
Voice of Customer, and Competitive
Intelligence.

Next slide shows a couple of tools and

strategies you must take to meet the need
of Multiplicity.

Don’t feel overwhelmed by the

multiplicity strategy

List of the must-have elements that

different businesses should consider to join
the Digital Analytics world; they are ranked
by priority and show the minimal areas
that should be addressed:
 Small businesses:
1.Clickstream, 2. Outcomes, 3. Voice of
Customer.

 Medium-sized businesses:
1.Outcomes, 2. Clickstream, 3. Voice of
Customer, 4. Testing.

 Large, huge businesses:

1.Voice of Customer, 2. Outcomes, 3.
Clickstream, 4. Testing, 5. Competitive
Intelligence.
Change: Yes We Can!
For each category, just choose a free or
commercial tool.

ESE(P) Simplified implementation by  Sessions or Visits

Bruno Amaral  Users or Unique Visitors
 Average time on page
Upgrade to Digital Analytics clearly and
 Session duration or Average time
directly. The following process is an
on site
accessible way that I suggest to follow with
 Unique pageviews
Google Analytics.
 Bounce rate
 Exit Rate
 Conversion rate

Sessions and Users:

Example from sessions overview:

Multiple touchpoints of Customer engagement

377 users visited the website 441 times

Sessions is the number of times your

visitors has been to your site (unique
2. The awesome world sessions initiated by all your visitors). If a
of clickstream use is inactive on your site 30 minutes or
more, any future activity will be attributed
analytics to a new session. Users that leave your site
and return within 30 minutes will be
Standard metrics revisited: eight critical counted as part of the original session.
web metrics Total Sessions: Count of all the Sessions
Quick clarifications: during a given time period.

Metric is a quantitative measurement of Sessions or Visits:

statistics describing event or trends on a
website.

Key Performance indicator (KPI) is a metric

that helps you understand how are doing
against your objectives.
 several months to several years. Each time
that person visits your site that cookie
identifies them as the same browser.

The User metric is affected by the cookie

deletion issue, session is not. The numbers
for first party cookies are a 2 – 5% and 20%
to 25% for third party cookies.

Sessions and Users (or unique visitors):

Most commonly prevalent names for

visitor metrics are: Users or Unique
Visitors, Sessions, Total Sessions, Engaged
Sessions, among others.

User is someone that visits your site. The

initial session by a user during any given
date range is considered to be an
additional session and an additional user.
Any future sessions from the same user
during the selected time period are
counted as additional sessions, but not as
additional users.
Average Time on Page & Average Session
Users: Count of all the Unique IDs during a Duration:
given time period. (On GA Universal count
cookie_id’s from persistent cookies) Session Duration is time a visitor spends
on your site.
Technical Definition:
Average Time on Page indicates how long
Count of all the Unique cookie_id’s during a visitor spent on a particular page or set of
a given time period. pages. It is calculated by subtracting the
initial view time for a subsequent page.
English Definition:
Thus, this metric does not apply to exit
The first time someone visits your site a pages for your site.
first party persistent cookie is set in their
browser. This cookie lasts any where from
 Tp = Time spent on a page.

Ts = Time spend on the website.

Someone visits your website at 10:00…

377 users visited the website 441 times,

looked 1,019 pages, and spent an average
There is an entry in your log file (weblog or
of 1 minute and 30 seconds on the site.
javascript tag, does not matter) that says,
In order to make life easy we are going to in English, "someone has requested the
assume the following session happening on website homepage file at 10:00".
a website:
It actually looks more like this…
111.111.111.111 - - [08/Oct/2007:11:17:55 -0400] "GET / index.html
HTTP/1.1" 200 10801 "http://www.google.com/search?
q=avinash+kaushik&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 &aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-
US:official&client=firefox-a" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT
5.2; en-US; rv:1.8.1.7) Gecko/20070914 Firefox/2.0.0.7" Notice the
time stamp there? Why spoil the fun with technical stuff! But if you
want more the tech stuff is explained very nicely here: Log file
sample explained.]

Someone requests your home page, your So far, all your analytics program knows is
web analytics tool starts a session for the when a page was requested, hence:
visitor, two more pages are requested Tp = N/A [Not Available]
before the visitor decides to leave your
website (close browser, type in a url of a Ts = N/A
different site, click on a link on your site to
Next more fun happens on your site:
go to different site….).
someone clicks on a link to Page 2 from
What we want to compute is… your home page. Hurray no bounce! :)
 How long did it take to find and read the
Now there is a new entry in your log file rebate fine print? You could reasonably
that says: "The same Visitor requested guess if you knew how long the Visitor
page two at 10:01" spent on Page 3.

Finally your web analytics program can The problem is that your logfile is missing
compute some time metrics! one time stamp to do the magic math.

It knows how long the Visitor spent on the Tp (Page 3) = Time of page request (10:05)
home page. It subtracts 10:01 from 10:00 minus Time of next page request (N/A).
and gets one minute. Hence: Hence:
Tp (Home Page) = 1 minute Tp (Page 3) = 0 minutes (Since N/A!)
Notice something important: the only way The program has no idea how long the
your program knows how long someone Visitor spent on the last page on your site.
spent on one page is by looking at the two
time stamps. One from the request for the This is true for pretty much all web
first page and one from request of second analytics programs in terms of default
page. behavior.

Let's wrap this puppy up…

The magical math outlined above happens

(10:05 minus 10:01) and for Page 2: Tp (Home Page) = 1 minute.
Tp (Page 2) = 4 minutes. Tp (Page 2) = 4 minutes.
The Visitor reaches Page 3 and notices that Tp (Page 3) = 0 minutes.
the rebate offer only applies to people who
live in Antarctica who can show they Ts = 5 minutes. (Time on Site, also known
currently own refrigerators (!!). As you can as Session Length)
reasonably imagine this happens on the
Makes sense? I mean it probably does not
site on Page 3…..
make sense that you don't know how long
Visitors spend on the last page in the
session, but the explanation of how it
works makes sense?

The Case of Bounce / Single Page Sessions:

Now I am sure you’re are asking yourself: "I
wonder what happens in cases of sessions
where there is only one page?" Good
question. This is what you are wondering
about…

The Case of Tabbed Browsing:

How is time on site computed? There are

two ways in which I have seen web
analytics tools report on this customer
behavior.

Dealing with tab browsing # 1:

 The web analytics tool takes the

above picture literally and this
happens…
 Outcomes: Two Sessions, one for
each tab in the browser.

Session One (top): [referrer -> Google]

Tp (Home Page) = 2 minutes

Tp (Page 2) = 3 minutes
Tp = 0 minutes.
Tp (Page 3) = 0 minutes
Ts = 0 minutes. Ts (session duration) = 5 minutes

The Case of Tabbed Browsing: Session Two (bottom): [referrer -> your
 But what happens to the Time on site/homepage]
Page and Time on Site Tp (Page 4) = 6 minutes
computations when people open a Tp (Page 5) = 0 minutes
link on a site in another tab and Ts (session duration) = 6 minutes
browse the site via two tabs at the
same time? I do this all the time! 2 Sessions. 1 User. Also notice the impact
 It messes up the time on referrers (for the second one you'll see
computations. your site referring to itself). Really
 Here is a common scenario that interesting outcome!
we'll use to understand the
impact… Dealing with tab browsing # 2:

Some web analytics tools "collect" all the

"hits" (entries in the log files) and they will
"linearize" the hits and construct one
session from all the tabbed browsing
Visitor behavior.

Outcomes:
One Sessions, visit “reorganized” by time
stamps.
 Bounce identifies the number of single-
page visits to your site over the selected
dimension. For example, if you apply this
Session One: [referrer -> Google] metric to the ad campaign dimension, it’ll
display the number of single-page visits to
Tp (Home Page) = 1 minute your side by users that reached your side
Tp (Page 4) = 1 minute via a particular as campaign.
Tp (Page 2) = 3 minutes
Tp (Page 3) = 2 minutes Bounce rate is the percentage of single-
Tp (Page 5) = 0 minutes page visits (i.e., visits in which the person
Ts (session duration) = 7 minutes left your site from the entrance page)
comparing with total number of sessions.
1 Session. 1 User.

The Case of Tabbed Browsing:

Neither one perfectly captures exactly

A Bounce is when… The user enters your
what the Visitor is actually doing on your
website, only looks at one page and
site.
immediately leaves.
Which one do you prefer?

Given the increasing popularity of tabbed

browsing the impact on your numbers
could be big.

Google Analytics uses the second method

("linearization").

Unique pageviews:

Pageviews is one of the most basic

Bounce rate measure quality of traffic you
clickstream data, a count of pages seen by
are acquiring, and if it is the right traffic
visitors while navigating on the website.
then it helps you hone in on where/how
On the other end, Unique Pageviews is your website is failing your website visitors.
much more than that. Is the concept of
Bounce rate: #1:
unique calculation of actions, in this case, a
micro action of looking into different pages Measure the bounce rate of your website
in the same session or visit. This will help you understand what percent
of your website traffic is actually engaging
with your site (i.e., you don't have a chance
of success with all your site traffic!).
 For this site Google Analytics illustrates that both
google/organic and analytics.google.com is not
sending great traffic, while E-mail Marketing
campaigns (#3 above) seem to be doing much better.

Action: Do you need to revisit relationships

This report shows with sites that are not sending you high
that approximately 50% of the quality traffic? What’s wrong with your
site traffic above is bouncing. SEO? What is the call to action that is
causing people to come to your site and
bounce? Are your email, affiliate, other
marketing campaigns yielding low bounce
rates? You get the idea.
#1: Measure the bounce rate of your
website
#3: Measure bounce rate of your Google
There are two exceptions:
Ads campaigns
1) You have a one page website
Sure we measure conversion and ROI and
2) Your offline value proposition is so revenue, but are you measuring bounce
compelling that people would see just one rate for your PPC campaigns? Remember
single webpage and get all the information you can only convert if people are staying
they need and leave. for more than five seconds on your website
(or see more than one page)!
If you don't fall into those two categories,
you need to pay very careful attention to
this metric.

Action: You'll understand better why your

conversion rate is so low, if you have made
changes over the last X amount of time
then watching a trend of bounce rate is a
sure way to know if the changes you are
making are for the better.

#2: Measure the bounce rate for your This screenshot from Google Analytics
traffic sources shows the bounce rate of traffic on each
campaign compared to site average, very
Your goal is to figure out if some sources of
cool view. Sadly, some campaigns are
traffic are sending you particularly terrible
performing worse than site average (so
traffic compared to others. In your web
literally you could be sending money down
analytics tool simply go to the Referring
the, well you know what).
URL's / Sites report and take a look, you'll
find something like this…

Action: First, review the campaigns with

worse bounce rate, then do a deeper
analysis of how good your landing pages
are, and your other campaign attributes
(maybe your campaign for refrigerators is They are a unique beast amongst online
being targeted to people only in the great experiences: people come mostly only to
state of Alaska!). read your latest post, they'll read it and
then they'll leave. Your bounce rates will
#4: Measure bounce rate of your top
be high because of how that metric is
trafficked pages
computed, and in this scenario that is ok.
It is entirely possible that your efforts are
 You don't want the bounce rate to be
stellar (as they usually are!) but it is your
98%, new visitors to your blog will still
website that is letting you down. There is
come and look around and read
what to do to make your case…
different posts etc.

So… if you have a blog segment your

bounce rate by New and Returning Visitors.
You can ignore the returning bucket,
because of above. Focus on the New
Visitors. You still want a low bounce rate
(say 40% or 50%) for your New Visitors
because you want them to take some
action and engage with your brand (in my
case click on a link to my book or to my
company Market Motive or to my RSS feed
What pages are bouncing traffic like a – all ways in which I get economic value
perfectly formed elastic material and which from this blog).
are great at welcoming traffic with open
arms into your website? Pull up the above In summary:
report in your web analytics tool and find  Bounce rate is a metric you'll easily find
out. in all web analytics tools.
In addition to top trafficked pages on your  It is easy to understand, hard to
site please also look at top entry pages misunderstand (something you can't
report and measure their bounce rate say for all, or even most, web analytics
(you'll quickly have a list of pages that need metrics).
your immediate attention).  Please don't confuse bounce rate with
exit rate, they are radically different
Action: Check to see if the right calls to metrics.
action are on the page? Is the content Also: Everyone who comes to your site
optimally organized? If the above pages are has to exit, almost no one who comes
your campaign (direct marketing or paid to your site needs to bounce!
search campaigns) landing pages, then are
they delivering on the promise of the email As a benchmark it is hard to get a bounce
piece you had sent out or the search rate under 20%. Anything over 35% is a
keyword? Answer these questions and cause for concern and anything above 50%
consider multivariate testing to improve is worrying.
page performance. Exit rate is a metric identifies the number
An Exception: of exits from your site, and, as with
entrances, it will always be equal to the
 There is one obvious case where number of visits when applied over your
bounce rate might not cough up as entire website. Use this metric in
many insights. I am thinking of blogs.
combination with particular content pages
in order to determine the number of times
that particular page was the last one
viewed by visitors.

Conversion rate, in percentage, equals

Outcomes divided by Unique Visitors
during a particular time period.

What are Outcomes: From a macro

perspective any reason for which your
website exists. Most frequently this is the
total number of orders submitted or total
number of leads collected or total number
of newsletter/email sign-ups. For non-
ecommerce websites it can be number of
people who completed a task, so for a
support site the number of people who got
to a FAQ or an answer or a knowledge base
article (this is a really crude measure of
success for a support site, but it is
Conclusion: something).
 As a general matter of habit we should Conversion rate in Google Analytics
consider avoiding the aggregated top
exit pages reports so easily available in Goal completions is the total number of
our standard web analytics tools. More important actions or goals performed in
time to spend on other stuff that might the site. You need to have goals setup in
be more valuable. Google Analytics for your site actions.

Goal conversion rate is the percentage of

 If you really do need to understand sessions on a site that result in a
why customers exit from your conversion goal being reached. It’s the
websites, then consider deploying percentage of success of each session.
other listening mechanisms that are
available such as Surveys or other In the context of campaign tracking, the
Qualitative Analysis options. percentage of sessions on a site that result
in a conversion goal being reached coming
from a campaign.

Conversion rate (base concept): How web works?

 First Party vs. Third Party.

A "third party" cookie is set by, well, a

third party when someone visits your site.
For example, if you visit
Enhance security with HTTPS www.novaims.unl.pt, Youtube is used and
is using third-party cookies. It allows
Youtube to track the visitor across different
websites. In the good “old days” it was
easier for the providers and vendors to use
third party cookies and they were rampant.
But it was discovered that there were
other players using these cookies in sub
optimal ways. This lead to default internet
browser settings that would reject third
party cookies, and many other anti
spyware and malware programs auto
deleting them etc. Suffice it to say they
have fallen out of favor and are considered
Website architecture to a good user quite sub optimal for tracking "unique
navigation (UX) visitors".

B "first party" cookie, hence, is set by the

Google Analytics tool using the domain of
the website itself. As an example when you
visit diamondbybold.com you'll notice
(using the developers console) that they
are setting cookies using the domain
www.diamondbybold.com – which makes
those cookies first party. First party cookies
are the preferred tool of choice for tracking
"unique visitors” or users because they are
deleted / rejected a lot less by any
objective measure. This means, for
example, they are a far superior at tracking
repeat visits or new and returning visitor
segments etc. Another reason first party
cookies are rejected a lot less is that much
of the internet does not work if you don't
accept first party cookies. Email providers
like Hotmail or gmail.com, ecommerce
websites like amazon.com, banks, even
blogging platforms! They all require you to
accept first party cookies.
Almost every single decent web analytics Engagement metrics:
vendor now provides an easy ability for you
Since the last update, Google Analytics
to use first party cookies. Some like Google
started implementing the Engaged
Analytics only offer the option of having
concept. Engaged Sessions measure the
first party cookies.
sessions with at least 10 seconds of activity
If you notice some initial push back from and used them to calculate the
your vendor to use the easier-for-them Engagement Rate.
third party option, do a little push back of
Engagement time on mobile goes even
your own. Insist on first party. It’s good for
beyond, by measuring screen sleep time, or
your health.
captures the time in the foreground for a
mobile device, to determine how a user is
Standard metrics revisited: critical mobile engaging with your content.
metrics
Events and Screen views:
Most of the metrics are similar between
For Mobile Apps, Events are the focus for
web and mobile metrics. Instead of pages
most tools.
we have screens, but many metrics are
similar. Here we highlight main metrics on Google Analytics focus on events and
mobile. screens to measure the behavior of users,
instead of pages views. Events are also
 Users
available in websites, but due to the
 Engaged sessions
interactive nature of mobile applications
 Average Engagement Time
they assume a higher importance in
 Engagement Rate
mobile.
 Events
 Screen Views Each screen seen is a screen view. Each
 Exit Rate action in a screen, can be tracked as an
 Conversions event. To track a screen, the mobile
 Downloads application need to set explicitly each
 Crashes screen name and send information to
Google Analytics.

Downloads and Crashes:

Downloads is the number of new

installations done for the mobile
application. This metric can be obtained
from App Store (iOS) and Google Play
(Android). In Google Analytics, the closest
metric is New Users.

Crashes is the number of critical errors that

the mobile application can raise during its
execution. It’s useful for mobile developers
to track mobile application stability.

Standard metrics revisited: critical web

metrics
Standard metrics revisited: critical mobile 3. Google Analytics as a
metrics
day-to-day tool
Firebase

3.1 Introduction to Google

Analytics

• How Google Analytics works

• Evolutions of GA installation, such as
GTAG or GTM
• Navigation in Google Analytics
• Main metrics – the essential
• The main areas of Google Analytics
reports

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free web-based

platform to measure digital properties and
provide statistics and analytical tools to
study and evaluate user’s behavior and
navigation trends.

GA4 (formerly App+Web) vs Universal

(sometimes called GA3)

What can we measure with GA?

• Visitor behavior
• Traffic Sources
• Search Trends
• Buying habits
• Interest in the content
• Return on investment (ROI)
How Google Analytics works? Google Analytics uses JavaScript to work
and cookies to identify and track users
Google Analytics is easy and fast to install.
across visits to the website. Easy and fast
You only have to paste a small snippet of
to install.
JavaScript code in all of your site pages to
track pageviews, user interactions and
The analytics.js JavaScript library uses first-
other behaviors.
party cookies to:

• Determine which domain you want to measure

• Distinguish unique users
• Remember the number and time of previous visits
• Remember traffic source information
• Determine the start and end of a session
• Remember the value of visitor-level custom
variables

The Universal Analytics or analytics.js uses

the following cookies:

If Google Experiments are being used a few

more cookies are set:

For customers that are using Google

Analytics' Display Advertiser features, such
as remarketing, a third-party DoubleClick
cookie is used in addition to the other
cookies described in this document for just
these features.

How to install Google Analytics?

Collection: GA collects data about users’

interactions on digital properties.
Configuration: Customize how data are
collected by GA.
Processing: Data processing according to
configurations.
Reporting: Analyze and extract statistics of the
digital property.
 What is Google Tag Manager?

Google Tag Manager or GTM is a javascript

tags scheduler and manager. It allows
marketeers to manage pieces of code to
put in the page to control Analytics, Pixels,
Affiliate marketing and others. If you use
GTM, you don’t need to bother with
installing Universal Analytics or GTAG
manually, as it’s done via GTM.

Benefits of GTAG?

By updating your current Google Analytics

tag (analytics.js) to the latest tag (gtag.js),
you will benefit from:

• Future-proof conversion measurement:

Benefit from the latest features and
integrations as they become available so
Google Analytics is a piece of JavaScript
that you'll be better equipped to continue
that runs in visitor’s browser. There has
measuring conversions accurately if non-
been several versions over the years, but
Google changes occur.
we will use Universal Analytics.
• Code-less tag management: Turn
measurement features on and off within
Basic Universal Analytics code looks like your Google Analytics account without
the following: having to manually change tags on your
page.

• Faster and easier integration: Seamlessly

implement and integrate with other
Google products, such as Google Ads and
Google Optimize.

Advanced features

Real time
GTAG and Google Tag Manager
With this tool you can monitor the usage of
What is GTAG? your website or app every second. The
GTAG stands for “Global Site Tag”. It’s a behavior is recorded in real time and
new version of Google Analytics code that allows to detect significant changes over
can integrate several kinds of tracking. It’s the time.
Universal Analytics with a new and more
adaptive approach to Google products.
 Some of the basic features:

• Time segmentation
• Comparison Metrics
• Key indicators
• Evolution graph
• Advanced Search
• Dimensions
• Data views
• Contextual Tabs

How Google Analytics tracks mobile

Advanced search
applications:

Features of advanced search:

 Allows you to filter effectively and analyze

the elements from the total number of
results.
 Segmenting the results for relevant
conclusions.
 Refine information for more relevant
indicators.

Google Analytics friendly interface

Data collection and trend analysis

Good practices:

• Focusing on more than one metric

• Using profiles, always leave one profile as
backup
• Be aware of trends and default behaviors
• Compare with website or industry
average

3.3. Data dimensions and

metrics

Dimensions and metrics

Audience

Do you know who are your website

visitors?

With Google Analytics we can know several

data about our users, such as location,
language, gender, age, interests, technical
features, among others.
Acquisition

Do you know which traffic sources

generate more value?

• Identify major sources of traffic

• Analyzing quality traffic
• Optimize based on visitors’ interest
Main metrics on Google Analytics

Main GA traffic types:

Information about website sessions

• Direct
 Sessions
• Search
 Users
• Referral
 New vs. Returning
• Campaigns
 Pageviews
 Unique pageviews
 Pages / Visit
 Bounce Rate
 Average time on page
 Average time on Site
 Session duration

Content

How about content, do you know in which

sections and pages of your website visitors
are more interested in?

Content reports give you data about your

content, event they are pages, events,
experiments, and other.
3.4 Audience reports
• Evaluate interaction on pages
• Observe how visitors behave
• Identify points of entry and exit Technology and Mobile
• List pages more interesting and useful • Browser & OS
• Network
• Mobile
• Devices
• Engagement
 goal completions, goals value, and goal
conversion rate.

What are the basic Google Analytics traffic

Geography and Behavior sources?

 Language • Direct
 Geography • Organic
 New and Returning • Referral
 Frequency and Regency • Campaigns
 Engagement

Other sources:

• Social
3.5 Acquisition reports • Affiliate
• Display
Acquisition • Paid Search

Do you know which traffic sources

generate more value? Acquisition overview

• Identify major sources of traffic Currently, GA acquisition reports shows

• Analyzing quality traffic traffic sources grouped into channels.
• Optimize based on visitors’ interest
Default Channel Grouping
Acquisition reports let you see:

 Acquisition by channel, campaign,

keyword, and source/medium
 Behavior on site by pages per visit, visit
duration, and pageviews
 Conversion patterns by transactions,
revenue, ecommerce conversion rate,
 Campaign is the name of the referring
AdWords campaign or a custom campaign
that you have created.

Traffic source dimensions

Source
Medium Practice
Source / Medium
Keyword Google account for learning purposes:
Campaign
Landing Page • URL: https://www.google.com/analytics
Ad content • Access details:

Traffic source dimensions Check other access details on Moodle:

https://elearning.novaims.unl.pt/mod/pag
Source: Every referral to a web site has an e/view.php?id=38047
origin, or source. Possible sources include:
“google” (the name of a search engine), Using the provided Google Account and
“facebook.com” (the name of a referring answer the following questions:
site), “spring_newsletter” (the name of one
of your newsletters), and “direct” (users 1. How many users have accessed the
that typed your URL directly into their Estética e Saúde website from 1st to
browser, or who had bookmarked your 28th February 2021?
site).
2. Using the same report, which was the
Medium: Every referral to a website also variation in the number of sessions
has a medium. Possible medium include: over the previous full month?
“organic” (unpaid search), “cpc” (cost per
click, i.e. paid search), “referral” (referral), 3. What can you tell about bounce rate?
“email” (the name of a custom medium Is improving?
you have created), “none” (direct traffic
has a medium of “none”). 4. What are the TOP 3 cities with more
website sessions in this period?
Keyword: The keywords that users
searched are usually captured in the case 5. Analyzing the performance of the
of search engine referrals. This is true for website during that month, do you
both organic and paid search. Note, detect any event you would like to
however, that when SSL search is analyze deeper? If yes, what is the
employed, Keyword will have the value source that is responsible for that
(not provided). event?

Part2
1. During the first quarter of this year,
which is the average session duration
from visitors with Internet Explorer
11.0?

1. What is their contribution as a

percentage to total sessions?
2. With the information collected, shall
we keep supporting this browser?

2. Using the same period, what are the

most relevant channels in terms of 4. Week 5: 3. Google
traffic acquisition? Analytics as a day-to-
1. Which of the traffic sources have
day tool
more users when compared with
the previous year? 3.2. Evolution of Google
Analytics
3. Also for the first quarter of this year,
which are the pages that were
responsible to receive the traffic to the
website, acting as Landing Pages?

1. What were the TOP3 pages most

seen by users with Smartphones?

The solution can be found on Digital

Analytics_exercicio1 document.
The Universal Analytics or analytics.js uses
only one cookie that is active for 2 years:
_ga

The Classic Analytics or ga.js uses the

following cookies:

Universal Analytics versus GA4

GA4 (formerly App+Web) vs Universal

(sometimes called GA3) How to install Google Analytics?
 Cohort Analysis

A model to analyze the impact over time

according to different actions of behaviors
we are looking into. The measurement, as
always, is a metric.
3.4 Audience reports
For example: - Looking into User Retention
Active Users
by acquisition date - Looking for goal
completions by acquisition date - Others..
Follow your active user’s trend

Audience
A sliding window with the activity of your
users using different windows sizes, such as
Know the demographics of your visitor
1, 7, 14 or 28 days.
• They allow you to better understand who
your visitors are.

• You can segment the rest of your Analytics

data by these same characteristics so you can
understand how converting and non-converting
visitors differ (and many other such
comparisons).

• These are the same demographics & interest

categories used to target ads on the Google
Display Network. Use these insights about your
visitors to refine your ad campaign strategies.
Sliding window
• Not all of your visitors may have
demographics associated with them, so these
reports may only represent a subset of your
visitors and may not be representative of your
overall site composition
 • Privacy and Cookie policy generator:
https://www.iubenda.com/en/privacy-and-
cookiepolicy-generator

3.5 Acquisition reports

How to install demographics?
Advanced features
1. Enable Advertising Features allowing Google
Analytics to get that information Custom campaigns - Control what Google
Analytics knows about where your user are
2. Update privacy policy and cookie policy to clearly
indicate the use of this information
coming from.

3. Enable the collection of demographics and Main advantages:

interests data on Google Analytics by accessing to
the • Allow to record information from other platforms, even if
they are not websites. Example: emails;
• Additional information specific campaigns carried out in
other websites

What can we tell to GA:

• Campaign Source; Campaign Medium; Campaign name;

Campaign term; Campaign content;

How to update privacy policy?

Custom campaigns
If you've enabled any Google Analytics
Advertising features, you are required to Measure online and offline campaign
notify your visitors by disclosing the performance on Google Analytics
following information in your privacy
policy: Example:
• Campaigns of Google
• The Google Analytics Advertising Features you've
• Campaigns on Facebook
implemented.
• E-mail Marketing
• How you and third-party vendors use first-party • Offline advertising
cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) or • Source: diamondbybold
other first-party identifiers, and third-party cookies • Medium: qrcode
(such as Google advertising cookies) or other third- • Term: Not applied
party identifiers together. • Content: Sports Magazine
• Name: Selling Campaign
• How visitors can opt-out of the Google Analytics
Advertising Features you use, including through Ads
Settings, Ad Settings for mobile apps, or any other
available means (for example, the NAI's consumer
opt-out).

• We also encourage you to point users to Google

Analytics' currently available opt-outs for the web.
Acquisition
Google Analytics Integrations
Traffic sources considerations
Google products:
Example how your website should behave.
• AdWords
• AdSense
Ideally your search traffic should not be • Webmaster Tools
more than 50% of the total website traffic
If it is more than 50% then it means you Advantages:
are over dependent on search engines • Crossing visitor behavior with data
which is a high-risk strategy. from other products
• Draw complex findings in a simpler
Your Organic traffic > Paid Traffic Great, way
you must focus on reducing traffic
acquisition cost all the time. Requirement:
• The associated Google account must
have access to both platforms
Direct Traffic around 30% If direct traffic is
less than 15% then it means you are either
not good in customer service or you have
got branding issues.

Referring sites traffic around 20% If

referring traffic is too low then it means
people don’t link out to you much and
there are some serious issues with your
link building and content marketing
campaigns. 3.6 Content Analysis

Reasons for organic traffic sudden changes How about content, do you know in which
sections and pages of your website visitors
Main reasons to have significant changes in are more interested in?
a short timeframe in organic traffic.
Content reports give you data about your
content, event they are pages, events,
experiments, and other.
• Evaluate interaction on pages
• Observe how visitors behave
• Identify points of entry and exit
• List pages more interesting and
useful
Site content reports

This section presents the pages of your

website that have been viewed letting you
get your data from different ways. Navigation summary report

• Page’s report With this report you can see how visitors
• Show your website’s top content arrive to a specific page and where they
with metrics related to user’s behavior
went afterwards. You can see how many
identified by request URI.
direct entrances and exits from the
website.
• Pages report by Page Title
• Show your website’s top content
with metrics related to user’s behavior
identified by Page Title tag.

• Content Drilldown
• Lists each directory and page of your
website.

• Landing Pages
• Show only the pages that were the
first one to be seen by the user on
their visits to the website.

• Exit pages
• Show only the pages that were the
last one to be seen by the user on their
visits to the website.

In the repot below you can see the Top 4 Site Speed
pages viewed during this period, identified
by their relative URL. Know the website speed worldwide, with
direct measurement from the visitors’
• Request URI browser.
• It’s the part of the URL after the
domain name, for example, “/”
represents the homepage.
 are interactive and very dynamic. To
measure all screens of an interactive
website or all steps of a one-page checkout
funnel we can use Virtual Pageviews.

How to track virtual pageview on Google

Analytics?

We just need to teach Google Analytics

about a new page being seen and what is
his URL. Check the following example:

ga('send', 'pageview', '/video’);

Event tracking ga('send','pageview',’/credit/adhesion/

step1');
Analytics events is a tracking mechanism
that allows you to measure interactions Site search – Advanced Features
and user behavior on a page:
Where you can use events? Know what your users search inside your
website is a key indicator of what they are
• Flash components seeking in it but can be less visible, hidden,
• Actions and interaction with JavaScript or inexistent. Google Analytics let you keep
• Gadgets track of what is being search without any
• File download
• Loading times
changes in your code, just set your search
parameters in view settings.
How to install an event on a page?
Track user timings
ga('send', 'event', 'category', 'action',
'label', value); User timings feature can be used to
measure the performance of specific
Events structure actions and on a page, both user
– Category interaction and technical. We can report
– Action any user timing on a page. Your technical
– Label team will need to get the time on the
– Value browser and then send it to GA.

How to install an event on a HTML editor? How to track user timing on a page?

<a href=“/isegi” onclick=“ga('send', 'event', Using the following code, we can report
’Contact', ’Submission',
the time of any action or element in a
’Technical Question', 4)”>Link</a>
page:
ga('send', 'timing', [timingCategory],
Virtual Pageviews
[timingVar], [timingValue], [timingLabel],
[fieldsObject]);
Analytics pageviews is the base tracking
mechanism to measure website usage and
Example: ga('send', 'timing', 'JS
visitor behavior. However, today websites
Dependencies', 'load', 3549);
 and notifies you automatically, on the
3.10 Account and property configuration Insights dashboard, within the Analytics
platform.

2. Custom Alerts

You create conditions that detect changes

Account structure
in your data that are important to you.
When the conditions are triggered, you see
Google Account
the insights on the Insights dashboard, and
you can optionally receive email alerts. You
• Google Analytics Accounts
can create up to 50 custom insights per
• Properties
property.
• Views
• Goals
• Users
• Filters
• ...

Recap, how main metrics are calculated?

Analytics Intelligence

Analytics Intelligence is a set of features

that uses machine learning and conditions
you configure to help you understand and
act on your data.
Analytics Intelligence provides two types of Good practices:
insights:
• Focusing on more than one metric
1. Automated Insights
• Using profiles, always leave one profile as
backup
Analytics Intelligence detects unusual
changes or emerging trends in your data
• Be aware of trends and default behaviors
• Compare with website or industry
average

Goal strategy for next year:

3.7 Benchmarking

Compare your performance with other

websites of your size in the same industry.
Google Analytics allow you to compare
your performance with other properties
based on:
• Channels
• Countries
• Devices
The OGSM approach
How to use it?
The OGSM approach is more focused on
1. Edit your sharing options and allow the How rather than the metrics. It is also
Google to use your data very specific in the measures, more open
2. Go to Benchmark in audience reports to a descriptive vision.
and start learning more about your
competitors

Porter and Tanner

The Balanced Scorecard
Why create great Dashboards and
Reports?

Knowledge has to be shared and the best

way to share the insights and the result of
an analysis is by creating visual elements
that allow us to quickly monitor and
identify the opportunities and weaknesses
of our business or digital strategy.

With the panels can keep on track your key

indicators quickly and easily. Just put in
your dashboard the metrics you want to
pay attention.
We have several solutions to do
dashboards and reports:
 GA Dashboards
 GA Reports
 Google Data Studio
 PowerBI
 Tableau Software
 Excel
 Other reporting and dashboard tools

Take your dashboards to the next level

with Google Data Studio. You can use
multiple data sources in the same
dashboard, building a complete vision of
your data.