Getting up to speed with Google Analytics
Analytics tools come in many forms. A recent article from Practical eCommerce magazine, in fact, listed 17 new tools just for examining links. And although we need the ability to analyze data so as to draw conclusions from it, we certainly don’t need to be bogged down by it.
One tool will do just fine.
And for most company's purposes, Google Analytics is the tool of choice; it's been a go-to for some time now. The great thing about sticking with Google Analytics is that it is constantly being perfected. And for anyone already using Google Analytics, Practical eCommerce put together a list of how it’s even better than before.
So be sure to check out these updates:
- "Overview" will give you a generalized look at your social performance based on conversion goals you’ve set for your website.
- "Sources" will show you which social media services direct the most traffic to your site.
- "Pages" will show you similar metrics as before, but will also show you which pages of your site bring in the most visitors, and where they come from.
- "Conversions" uses similar data from Overview to show you a detailed measure of how social referrals are driving your conversion efforts.
- "Social Plugins" lets you measure the effectiveness of your on-site sharing buttons, giving you an idea as to who is sharing your content.
- "Social Visitors Flow" is easily the most fun and immediately informative. It shows you a visual map of where your visitors go once they land on your web page, and where those visits come from.
Additionally, Google Analytics has incorporated a new social media feature into its functions. The genius behind this feature is its ability to deliver results based on finances, giving users the opportunity to estimate social media ROIs.
“Establishing goals to measure your successes is easy,” Practical eCommerce explains. “Under Goals on the Conversions tab, you can set up measurable goals for your site. The most basic goal should include an objective you hope to achieve, a visitor action, and a measurable success metric. Do you want people to purchase a product? Visit a particular page? Click a certain page element? This can be defined in your Goals.”
To truly measure whether a social media initiative has been successful, Google Analytics reports are available and are easy to generate and interpret. And because it is the industry standard, there are a slew of online resources for new users who have questions or need technical support.