Improving the Google Analytics Configuration

Google Analytics has the potential to be a very powerful tool for any company, providing the intelligence to drive business improvements.  However it is typically limited by a lack of investment in the implementation and configuration of the tool.  Users can struggle to get useful insights out of the tool with a common complaint being unfriendly page names.

This can prove a difficult problem to fix with limited developer resources and lengthy change request processes.  The alternative is to do some clever things in the administration of Google Analytics including:

- Excluding URL query parameters

- Defining goals & funnels

- Creating filters that clean up the web analytics data

We recently undertook this process with a 4Ps retail client with some great results.  The existing set-up was sub-optimal and even the primary user found it difficult to understand what each page name referred to.  Following some work on the configuration, they now have a set of seven profiles that provide a great overview of performance and answer some specific business questions.  All profiles had standard filters applied so only valid data is included.

If you are also struggling to make sense of your Google Analytics data, have a chat to your 4Ps Marketing account manager about how we can help.

Primary Profile

The data has been cleaned with a focus on generating useful page names that follow a defined page hierarchy.  The list of page names has dropped from 20k to 6.5k with each instantly recognisable as to which page it represents.

This profile contains a range of goals with relevant funnels grouped into three sections:

- Desired outcomes such as placing an order, using Store Finder and registering for a Newsletter

- Desired behaviour such as viewing product pages and creating baskets

- Duplicated outcomes with specific funnels such as the pages within the checkout process

Content Grouping Profile

Each page is grouped based on the type reducing the list of relevant page names down to around 15.  This is great for understanding key business questions such as:

- How do visitors access the Product Details pages?

- What are the entry points for my website?

- How does the quality of visitors differ between traffic sources and entry points (see standard report available below)?

- What is the most popular section in my website?

Page Performance Profiles

Three profiles were created for a specific purpose, to understand the performance of pages within a single page types.  The performance is evaluated based the proportion of views of the page that progress to the natural next stage.  The page types for this client were:

- Product page – evaluated based on add to basket

- Internal Search Results – evaluated based on click through to product page

- Category page – evaluated based on click through to product page

External Search Profile

This profile was created for additional information around Paid and Natural Search performance.  This information could not be included in the primary profile as the link with Adwords data is broken by the filters that were used.  Information made available was:

- Search terms split into Brand and Non Brand

- Search terms defined by the number of keywords they contain

- The search term searched on included with the search term bid on for Paid Search

Unfiltered Profile

One profile was left untouched so that data could be sense checked if any issues arise.

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