Google Analytics - Beginners Guide

 Google Analytics is one of the best web analytics tools on the market today. 

Any website can use Google Analytics to get a better understanding about what visitors are doing on the site. This free tool makes it easy to track and analyze crucial data.

There are dozens of different reports you can access using GA. Some of these are simple, while others are a bit more complex.

As a beginner, I’ll explain which reports you should be using to get started. This guide will also walk you through the process of installing Google Analytics on your website.

What is Google Analytics? Why Use it at All?

Google Analytics is a free website analytics application that helps webmasters analyze site traffic. It’s one of many tools provided by Google for website metrics.

In short, the platform gives you a complete picture related to your site performance. 

GA collects a wide range of data and generates insightful reports. You can use those reports to learn more about your website and its visitors. 

Some basic information collected by GA includes how many visitors your site gets, where those visitors come from, how they navigate through your site, how long they spend on each page, and much more. The list goes on and on. 

Why do you need Google Analytics?

Your website is the nucleus of your online presence. Whether you operate personal blog, small business website, or international ecommerce company, your website plays a crucial role in your success. 

By using Google Analytics, you’ll have a better understanding of how effective your website is as a marketing tool. You’ll learn valuable information, such as which digital campaigns are driving the most traffic to your website. 

Tracking traffic patterns and visitor behavior allows you to measure the effectiveness of your website, combined with your overall digital presence. 

Where are your website visitors located? Which marketing channels are driving the most traffic to your site? What are the most popular pages on your website?

All of these questions, and more, can be answered with Google Analytics.

The Most Value You’ll Get: Seeing Your Traffic Volume

Everyone who uses Google Analytics loves it. I fall into that category as well. Any time I create a new website, the first thing I do is install GA; it’s become second nature.

While Google Analytics has seemingly endless capabilities, the vast majority of GA users just use it to monitor their traffic volume.

As a beginner, this is the most valuable information that you’ll get from using this tool. Traffic is one of the most critical data points for running a website and business. 

Seeing your traffic go up or down by the day, week, or month is extremely beneficial.

Even at a basic level, you can learn a lot about your the performance of website by monitoring the traffic. If traffic is increasing, something is working. Is traffic decreasing? Something is wrong or needs improvement. 

For newer websites, seeing your traffic increase is a major validation metric. It helps keep you on track and motivated that you’re doing the right thing. 

2 Other Useful Reports

Most of you will install Google Analytics, use it to quickly check your traffic, and then log out. While that’s totally fine, there are a couple of other useful reports you review.

• All Pages
• All Traffic

Even as a beginner, you’ll want to check these out.

All Pages

The All Pages report is located in the “Site Content” section of the “Behavior” menu on the left side of your GA dashboard. 

The report displays all of the pages on your site that people have looked at over a certain time period. It’s helpful in determining what visitors are interested in when they land on your website. 

Viewing the All Pages report will tell you which pages need to be updated or improved. Pages with the highest level of interest should be optimized for conversions. If an important page isn’t getting much attention, you can make adjustments accordingly. 

All Traffic

The All Traffic reports can be found in the “Acquisition” menu of the GA control panel. 

Within the All Traffic section, you’ll find specific reports for:

• Channels
• Treemaps
• Source/Medium
• Referrals

All of these reports tell you where your traffic is coming from. In addition to the acquisition analytics (users, new users, sessions), you’ll also benefit from behavior analytics and conversions data in these reports. 

Exploring the Rest of Google Analytics

To say that Google Analytics analyzes tons of web analytics would be an understatement. I consider myself to be a GA expert, and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of its capabilities. 

There is so much data; it’s overwhelming. It gets complicated to navigate through these reports, especially as a beginner. 

With that said, I encourage you to explore it on your own time if you’re interested. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry—that’s completely normal. 

For the vast majority of you, sticking to two or three simple reports is all you need. Check your traffic, view the All Pages report, and check out the All Traffic reports. 

The basic reports still deliver 80% of the possible value offered by Google Analytics. So don’t feel pressured to go beyond them.

How to Install Google Analytics

To get started with Google Analytics, you need to sign up and create an account. But that alone won’t be enough. You’ll also need to install Google Analytics directly on your website. That’s how the tool is able to track your data. 

The Google Analytics installation process will vary depending on the platform you’re using to power your website. 

Regardless of your website platform, you’ll need to generate your Google Analytics tracking code before you can install it. I’ll show you how get to that code first, and then we’ll cover the specific installation instructions for the most popular website types below. 

How to Generate Your Google Analytics Tracking Code and Tracking ID

Step #1: Go to your admin menu

I’m assuming by now that you’ve already created a Google Analytics account. If you haven’t, it only takes a minute or two to sign up.

From your GA home screen, navigate to the “Admin” page, which is located on the bottom left corner of the dashboard. 

Step #2: Select “Tracking Code” from the “Tracking Info” section

Click “Tracking Info” in the property section of the screen, which will expand the options below it. Then click “Tracking Code” from the expanded list. 

Step #3: Copy the code or tracking ID

The tracking ID and tracking code are both located on this page. Depending on the platform you’re using to run your site, you’ll need at least one of these to install Google Analytics.

Now follow the instructions below for your specific website type.

How to Install Google Analytics on Wix

For Wix websites, you won’t need to worry about the Google Analytics code; all you need is the tracking ID.

Step #1: Click “Marketing & SEO”

On the left side of your dashboard, scroll until you see the “Marketing & SEO” menu.

Step #2: Navigate to “Marketing Integrations”

There are three different sections of the “Marketing Home” menu—SEO, Marketing, and Branding.

Scroll until you see the “Marketing” section and select “Marketing Integrations” at the bottom.

Step #3: Connect to Google Analytics 

Google Analytics is one of many integrations found on this page. 

It should be one of the first ones that appear on the screen. If not, just scroll until you find it. Once located, click the “Connect” button to continue.

Step #4: Add Your Google Analytics Tracking ID

Click the “Connect Google Analytics” button on the top right corner of the screen. A popup will appear that looks like this:

Simply paste the tracking ID that I showed you how to generate earlier. 

Make sure there aren’t any spaces before the code. If you select the “IP Anonymization” box, Google won’t save the IP addresses of your website visitors. 

You’ll need a premium Wix site with a connected domain in order to complete this final step. So if you’re currently on a free plan or haven’t connected your domain yet, you won’t be able to install Google Analytics until you upgrade. 

How to Install Google Analytics on WordPress

There are lots of different ways to install Google Analytics on WordPress. You can install it manually or use a plugin. MonsterInsights, Site Kit by Google, GA Google Analytics are three of the most popular plugins for this.

But for the purposes of this tutorial, I’ll show you how to install the code manually. That way, you won’t have to worry about any third-party plugins.

Step #1: Go to your theme editor

You can get to the theme editor by selecting it from the “Appearance” menu of your dashboard. 

It’s important that you install Google Analytics in a child theme. Otherwise, the code will be overwritten every time you update your WordPress theme; you don’t want this to happen.

If the child theme is inheriting template files from the parent theme, then you won’t be able to access the header from here. Click on the name of your parent theme to access the header. In the example screenshot above, the parent theme is “Twenty Twenty.”

Step #2: Navigate to the theme header

You can navigate to the header by scrolling through the files on the right side of the page. Alternatively, you can just scroll and search for the <head> section manually, as I’ve highlighted above.

Step #3: Paste the Google Analytics tracking code

Now just paste the Google Analytics tracking code directly before the theme header. 

Remember, this is the “global site tag” that we generated earlier. It’s several lines of code. Do NOT paste the tracking ID (single line starting with UA). Installing the tracking ID here won’t do anything. 

How to Install Google Analytics on Shopify

If you’re running an ecommerce store on Shopify, you can easily add Google Analytics to your website in just two quick steps. 

Step #1: Navigate to your Shopify preferences

Click the “Online Store” sales channel from the left side of your Shopify dashboard. Then select “Preferences” at the bottom.

Step #2: Paste your Google Analytics tracking code

Scroll down a bit on your preferences screen until you see the Google Analytics section.

Then it’s as simple as pasting your previously generated tracking code into the box and saving your changes. That’s it!

Remember—paste the tracking code, NOT the tracking ID number. You’re pasting several lines of code, NOT the single ID line starting with UA. 

How to Install Google Analytics on Squarespace

There are two ways to install Google Analytics on your Squarespace site. One uses the tracking ID, and the other uses the tracking code. 

Since the first option is easier, that’s what I’ll show you in this quick three-step tutorial.

Step #1: Go to your Squarespace settings

Click on the “Settings” menu on the left side of your Squarespace dashboard. 

Step #2: Click on the “Advanced” settings

The “Advanced” menu is located at the very bottom of your Squarespace settings. 

Step #3: Paste your Tracking ID

Locate the “External Services” section of your advanced settings menu. From here, just simply paste your Google Analytics tracking ID.

This is the easiest way to install Google Analytics in Squarespace. However, it’s not the only option. You could also navigate to “Code Injection” from the Advanced Settings menu (instead of External Services). Then you can just copy and paste the Google Analytics code to the header.

Do NOT use both methods to install Google Analytics on Squarespace. Just pick one or the other. The tracking ID method is the easiest, but pasting the code into your header isn’t that difficult. It’s just a matter of personal preference. 

Custom Installation for Google Analytics

For those of you using a different platform to run your website, you can still add Google Analytics with a custom installation.

All you need to do is copy and paste the tracking code into the header or footer of the site’s HTML editor. With that said, the header is the recommended option. 

Adding the code to your footer may cause accuracy issues, especially if your site is running lots of JavaScripts. That’s because JS snippets get triggered by the order that they’re embedded on your page. So the footer scripts won’t always run, whereas the header scripts will be one of the first things to load.

Once you install the code on your site, you can send test traffic to see if it’s working properly.

This is located in the “Status” section of your GA Tracking Code page. 

If you’ve installed the code properly, the active user number will be updated in real-time. It can take up to 30 seconds for this number to update. 

Final Thoughts

Every website should be taking advantage of Google Analytics. It’s a free tool, and there’s no better way to get valuable data about your site traffic. 

While Google Analytics has plenty of advanced functions, beginners can stick to just a handful of basic reports. Those basic reports are all you really need.

Installing Google Analytics is easy as well. The installation instructions vary slightly, depending on the type of platform you’re using to power your website. 

For an in-depth tutorial of installing Google Analytics, simply follow the process that I’ve explained in this guide for your specific website type.

Sources: https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/google-analytics/

Google Analytics 101: How to Track Your Conversions (Step-by-Step)

 Want to track your conversions using Google Analytics, but not sure where to start? Google Analytics can be intimidating if you are new to it, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. All you need to get started are the basics. In this post, we’ll share how to track your conversions in Google Analytics, step-by-step.

“Analytics.” That can be a scary-sounding word. Many people assume that analytics are only something that technology gurus with multiple degrees can interpret. However, we’re here to tell you that analyzing your website data doesn’t have to be scary or confusing.

In fact, thanks to some free and premium tools (such as Google Analytics + MonsterInsights or OptinMonster), gaining relevant insights into what’s working and what’s not is actually quite effortless.

In just a few simple steps, you can set up your Google Analytics account and create conversion goals so that you can track your email list signups and understand what’s driving your success, or holding you back.

Let’s dig in!

Setting Up Your Google Analytics Account

Let’s begin with your Google Analytics account. If you don’t have an account, then this is the first place to start. If you already have an account, just skip over the first two steps below and start at Step 3.

Here are some simple steps to follow to get up and running with Google Analytics…

Step 1: Create a Google Account

In order to use Google Analytics, you need to have a Google account. If you already have a primary Google account such as Gmail, YouTube, or Google Drive, then you’ll want to set up your Google Analytics account under the same name. Otherwise, you’ll need to create a new one.

Step 2: Sign Up for Google Analytics

Once you have a Google account, you’ll need to sign up for Google Analytics.

Click the Sign In link in the upper right-hand corner and you’ll see a dropdown menu. Select Analytics. You’ll be redirected to a page where you can choose the Google account you want to use.

Click Sign Up, then, on the next page, select Website and fill in your details, including Account Name, Website Name, URL, Industry, and your Time Zone.

Check the boxes next to all the recommended options, and then hit the blue Get Tracking ID button.

You will then be asked to accept the Terms of Service.

After you hit the I Accept button, you will be redirected to your Google Analytics account.

Step 3. Start Tracking Your Website

Inside your new Google Analytics account, you will see your Tracking ID and your Analytics tracking code. You can also find this at any time by going to Admin » Property » Tracking Info. There are several different methods of setting up your website with Google Analytics, some of which use one of these codes.

If you don’t have a WordPress site, you can copy and paste the website tracking code into every web page that you want to track. If you are unsure of how to do this, you may want to have your web developer do this step for you.

You can use Google Analytics with WordPress, too. There are a few ways to add it but the easiest way is to install the MonsterInsights plugin and activate it.

Next, navigate to the Insights tab in your admin menu and select Settings.

Then click on the Authenticate with your Google account button.

You’ll see a dialog box pop up that looks like this, so you can select the Google account you want to use:

Click on the blue Allow button so MonsterInsights can access your Google Analytics data.

Choose the Google Analytics website profile you want to authenticate with MonsterInsights.

Complete the authentication process by clicking I’m not a robot. You’re all set.

How to Set Up Conversion Goals

Now that you’ve successfully installed Google Analytics on your website, you may be feeling a little (or a lot!) overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of it. Well, you are in good company. That’s why so many people insert a tracking code onto their websites and then call it quits.

Why is Google Analytics so complex? Well, it’s pretty powerful stuff.

“The problem is that an ‘out of the box’ Google Analytics implementation will only get you so far,” SEO expert Glenn Gabe explains. “Sure, you’ll get the basics, but that won’t necessarily help you glean insights that can boost ROI.”

So the bottom line is, you’re going to have to do a bit of your own setup. However, once you do, you will be able to gather some golden insights.

While there are plenty of aspects of Google Analytics that you don’t need to learn or master at this point, you absolutely must familiarize yourself with conversion goals.

You can do a variety of things with conversion goals, but because so many of you have asked us about how to track marketing campaigns – and because list building is so crucial to the success of any business online – we are going to focus on tracking email list signups.

Don’t worry – it’s actually pretty simple once you know how to do it. Let’s take a look…

Step 1: Create a New Goal

First, select the Admin tab at the top of the page. This will take you to a page with three columns: Account, Property, and View.

Under the View column, you’ll see the heading Goals (third down from the top). Go ahead and click on this last heading.

Once you’re on the Goals page, click the red + New Goal button.

Step 2: Choose Goal Setup

Next, under Goal setup, select the Custom radio button at the very bottom of all the options and click Continue.

Step 3: Enter Goal Description

You’ll be prompted to create a name for your goal and choose the type. Enter any name that will help you to remember the conversion you are tracking and select Destination as the type. Then hit the Continue button.

Step 4: Enter Goal Details

Next, you’ll need to enter the URL for your thank you page: this is the page that a new subscriber sees just after they opt in. Type it into the Destination field.

Optionally, you can also toggle Value on to enter a monetary value to the conversion. Do this if you know how much each email lead is worth to you. (For instance, if you know that the average lifetime value of a customer is $1,000, and your average customer acquisition rate is 1%, then each lead would be worth $10.)

The Funnel option is usually more useful if you are tracking a conversion that happens further down your funnel (such as a sale), so we are going to skip that for now.

Then, hit Save.

Step 5: Start Recording

As soon as a goal is created, Google Analytics will begin recording data. Now all you have to do is wait.

(You can always pause a goal by changing the recording status to off.)

Step 6: View Your Data

Because you’ve only just started tracking your website, there won’t be any data to show. However, you can view your data by going to Acquisition » Overview and selecting your new goal under the Conversion dropdown menu.

This will allow you to see your top channels which are your top sources of traffic. You will also be able to see a graph of your sessions, which is how many times someone has visited your site (each session can include multiple page views).

What you’ll want to look at is your conversion rate in the third section of columns on the right-hand side:

This will allow you to see which channels are giving you the highest conversion rates. And, if you’ve specified a monetary value to your leads, you will be able to see that total number in the rightmost column.

You can use all of this information to determine which channels you should focus your attention on.

You can also change the dates in the upper right-hand corner to view the specific window of time that you are interested in.

The only downside to conversion goals is that, if you have multiple marketing campaigns, you’ll have to create a separate conversion goal to track each one. You’ll also have to make sure that each campaign has its own separate thank you page, otherwise, you won’t be able to differentiate your conversion goals.

However, if you have OptinMonster, there is a much easier way to use Google Analytics to track conversion rates on each of your individual marketing campaigns. (More on that in the next section.)

Using Google Analytics + OptinMonster

If you’re using OptinMonster, tracking conversions on your campaigns is super easy. You don’t have to create any conversion goals inside Google Analytics, and you don’t even have to use a thank you page if you don’t want to.

To start using OptinMonster and Google Analytics together, go to the Analytics tab from your edit screen in OptinMonster:

You’ll see Google Analytics listed under Non-Active Connections. Click the Connect button to connect.

In the screen that comes up, click the green Generate Authentication Code button.

A new browser tab will open up to ask you if you will allow OptinMonster to view your Google Analytics data. Click the blue Allow button.

Next, it will give you a code. Copy this code, and then go back to the browser tab with your OptinMonster edit screen.

Paste the code into the Authentication Code field. Then, give your Google Analytics account a name in the Account Label (just pick a name that will help you remember which account you are connecting to). Hit the green Next button.

You should see this success message after clicking Next:

Now you will be able to collect data from Google Analytics and view your conversion rate right from within your OptinMonster account by clicking on the analytics icon next to your optin form:

After acquiring a bit of data, you will be able to view a report for each of your optin forms that looks something like this:

That’s it! We hope this article has helped you to learn how to use Google Analytics to track your conversions.

Wrapping Up

Google Analytics can seem intimidating at first due to all the options available, but it’s actually pretty simple once you know what data to focus on.

Creating conversion goals allows you to view the data that’s really important: your email list conversion rates. Or, you can simply integrate OptinMonster with your Google Analytics account in a few clicks and start gathering conversion data on each of your optin forms right away.

sources: https://optinmonster.com/google-analytics-101-how-to-track-your-conversions-step-by-step/

Google Analytics 101

Google Analytics is a web analytics service, which anyone with a Google account can use for free. It provides statistics and analytical tools for search engine optimization and marketing purposes, among other things.

Let's start from the beginning: People purchase their goods online in stages. The last stage is known as conversions, or when visitors become customers by transacting with a business. Google Analytics can measure this behavior and other user data. It can even track key metrics of what led to purchases through traffic sources, and you and your business can use that data to make informed decisions about how to reach new and existing customers.

Imagine an online store that wants to sell more of a specific product, such as a shirt. Using Google Analytics, the store can collect and analyze data from an online social media advertising campaign to see what was most effective and then expand that effort. The store might look at geographical data to understand how people in a certain place buy shirts, and then it could run additional advertising campaigns in those areas. It can also use Google Analytics to see how online shoppers progress to their shopping carts. If it notices a user has difficulty navigating a certain part of their site before checkout, it can make changes to the site to resolve the problem.

Any type of business -- not just stores -- can use Google Analytics to collect and analyze user data from websites, mobile applications, online point of sale systems, video game consoles, and other internet-connected platforms.

HOW DOES GOOGLE ANALYTICS WORK?

Getting started

The initial Google Analytics setup process involves you: Defining your goals to identify the critical actions users need to take on your site to lead to more conversions; linking your Google Analytics and Google AdWords accounts to you can evaluate your marketing; and finally, viewing the reports to understand the performance of your site. However, to even begin collecting and analyzing such data like Bounce Rate, you need to add a small piece of tracking code to each page on your site. Once you do that, you will see data immediately in the Google Analytics reports.

Add tracking code

To add the tracking code to your site, open the Admin page in Google Analytics. In the property column, open Tracking Info and then click tracking code. Now, copy and paste the code snippet right before the closing head tag on each webpage you want to track. WordPress users can install an easy plugin to do the same thing.

Set up your business goals

Business Goals are also known as important events, like completing a purchase or moving up a level in game or reading five articles. Google Analytics can tell you how many users complete these activities. Open the Admin page in Google Analytics, then click Goals in the View column, and click New Goal. You can use a template goal or create a custom one.

Link your AdWords account

AdWords is a marketing platform you can use to attract new customers or retain existing ones. You need to link your AdWords account to your Google Analytics account to get a clearer picture of AdWords performance. Just open the Admin page, then click AdWords Linking in the Property column, and click New link group so you can choose which accounts to link.

View reports

Now, you can finally use Google Analytics reports to understand how well your business is performing. Use the Goals report to see how often critical actions happen on your site, or use the AdWords report to see if your AdWords campaign is resulting in goal conversions, amount of interactions per visit, exit pages, conversions, and more.

Acquisition Overview details how visitors arrived to your website. It's broken down into ten sun-categories that can help you target your marketing at customers: Overview, Channels, All Traffic, Referrals, Campaigns, Keywords, Cost Analysis, AdWords, Social and Search Engine Optimization.

Social Overview can provide social reports that break down social traffic so you know whether or not your social media marketing is working. Assisted Social Conversions are the conversions that social media helped garner. You can use this tool to tell which social media tool is working better to bring new visitors to your website. Is it Google, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or another social network that is resonating best with your target market?

Bounce Rate is an important topic to understand when it comes to Google Analytics. Bounce Rate is a single-page session on your site. In Analytics, a bounce is calculated as a session that triggers only a single request to the Analytics server, like when a user opens a single page on your site and then exits without triggering any other requests to the Analytics server during that session.

Google encourages Google Analytics users to examine their Bounce Rate:

• The Audience Overview report provides the overall bounce rate for your site.
• The Channels report provides the bounce rate for each channel grouping.
• The All Traffic report provides the bounce rate for each source/medium pair.
• The All Pages report provides the bounce rate for individual pages.

Google provides tips on its website to optimize bounce rate. If the bounce rate is high on your website, you can dig deeper to see whether it's uniformly high or whether it's the result of something like one or two channels, source/medium pairs, or just a few pages.

When is a paid account needed?

It doesn't cost anything to sign up for and use Google Analytics, as long as you're using the standard version, which is free and ideal for individuals or small businesses. If you're a larger enterprise, you should use Google Analytics 360, the premium version.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A REGULAR GOOGLE ANALYTICS ACCOUNT AND A 360 ACCOUNT?

Both versions of Google Analytics enable you to collect data and analyze user behavior from websites and apps, but the premium version -- Google Analytics 360 -- offers more features and granular controls, such as:

• Native data onboarding integrations (DoubleClick Bid Manager, DoubleClick Campaign Manager, DoubleClick for Publishers, and DoubleClick Search)
• More native marking integrations (DoubleClick Bid Manager)
• Integration with Google BigQuery
• Advanced funnel reporting and data-driven modeling
• Cross-property roll-up reporting
• Up to 400 views per web property and 200 custom dimensions and metrics
• Access to raw data
• Implementation services
• Enterprise-level support and services.

Go to Google's FAQ page for a comparison chart and help on deciding which is for you.

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT WAYS TO CONFIGURE GOOGLE ANALYTICS? HOW SHOULD YOU CONFIGURE ANALYTICS FOR DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES?

First, let's go over the hierarchy of Google Analytics accounts. Click Admin in Google Analytics. There are three columns in Admin: Account, Property, and View. Use the drop-down selector to select one, and then click the links in each column to proceed with configuring them.

An account is the highest level of organization -- and you can have more than one. An account contains one or more properties, which represent a specific website or mobile app. Properties display views, subsets of reporting data for the property. You can configure your Google Analytics account to fine tune access to your data.

For instance, as we mentioned earlier, you can set up goals to identify the actions you want users to take on your site or app, and to give a monetary value to those actions. Aside from that, you can modify your tracking code to collect additional data, like user interactions with links, buttons, video controls, and other elements of your site or app. You can even modify the tracking code to collect ecommerce activity like user engagement with product lists and internal promotions.

Go to Google's FAQ page for more information on how to configure Google Analytics.

WHAT ARE SOME COMMON ISSUES PEOPLE RUN INTO WHEN USING GOOGLE ANALYTICS? HOW DO YOU TROUBLESHOOT THESE ISSUES? WHAT RESOURCES ARE AVAILABLE?

Common problems with Google Analytics can range from issues with setup, tracking, discrepancies in goals, transactions, and AdWords conversions, and more. To begin troubleshooting any of these issues, just go to the official Google Analytics Solution Community, where you can connect with other business owners and product experts and get help. You can also take free online courses via the Analytics Academy. The Analytics Help Center even documents all aspects of using Google Analytics including how to get started and best practices.

HOW ACCURATE IS GOOGLE ANALYTICS?

Google Analytics must be accurate enough if it can count Mercedes-Benz, Progressive, TransUnion, American Cancer Society, Airbnb, Buzzfeed, Domino's, Zillow, Orbitz, and dozens of other well-known businesses as its clients to track metrics. Go to Google's Success Stories page for user testimonials.

WHAT ARE SOME ADVANTAGES OR DISADVANTAGES TO USING GOOGLE ANALYTICS?

• Advantages: The standard version is free, and you can use it analyze data all in one place in order to get a deeper understanding of your customers' experience.
• Disadvantages: The premium version isn't free, and whether you use the standard or premium version, there is a steep learning curve for the average user.

HOW DO YOU BLOCK GOOGLE ANALYTICS TRACKING?

Easy. Use an ad blocker, like AdBlock Plus, as long as it allows you to disable tracking, or you can use a browser extension, like Block Yourself From Analytics in the Chrome Web Store.

HOW CAN YOU TRACK DOWNLOADS IN GOOGLE ANALYTICS?

Clicks on links to downloadable files can be tracked as Events (it counts the clicks as event hits) or virtual pageviews (it tracks clicks on a link as page hits).

To track clicks as Events:

• If you use Google Tag Manager to manage your Analytics Tracking, see Analytics Events.
• If you have Analytics tracking added to your site, see Event Tracking Web Tracking.

To track clicks as pageviews:

• If you use Google Tag Manager to manage your Analytics Tracking, see the Analytics tag.
• If you have Analytics tracking added to your site, see Page Tracking Web Tracking.

ARE THEIR CERTIFICATIONS AVAILABLE?

Google has a Analytics Certified Partner program, in which you can become a partner or find companies with expertise in Analytics Solutions. Go to Google's Certification page to learn more about the program.

HOW IS GOOGLE ANALYTICS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER ANALYTICS TOOLS?

Unlike many other analytics tools, Google Analytics is free (the standard version is, anyway) -- and it works with your Google account and integrates with key Google products, such as AdWords, AdSense, and Search Console.

Sources:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-analytics-101-executive-guide-on-measuring-your-business-data/