5 tips to better exploit the full potential of your Google Analytics account.

It is now well known that Google Analytics is an indispensable tool for measuring and analyzing website data. Although it is a very useful tool, it is still necessary to understand the data it contains and be able to make a relevant analysis of them in relation to your business objectives. In light of the Google Analytics training from Cardinal Path that I had the chance to attend at the end of last November, here are 5 tips that will help you better exploit the full potential of your Google Analytics account.

Annotations

The annotations are really very simple and convenient to use. They allow you to identify important elements on the timeline. For example, you can indicate the start date of a paid search campaign, the launch of a new promotion, etc. This way, it becomes more efficient to analyze traffic fluctuations by being able to easily and quickly refer to the annotations that have been taken. You can also share your annotations with other account users or keep them private.

Secondary dimensions and pivot table

With the secondary dimensions, you can easily compare two dimensions with each other. For example, if you want to know which age group represents the most traffic to your website based on the source of the website, you can quickly get the necessary data in the Acquisition report under Source/Support and add a secondary dimension representing age. If you want to compare even more data with each other, you can use the pivot table function. This way, you are able to see, for example, which age group completed the most conversion goals based on the traffic source.

Advanced segments

Advanced segments are a "must" to use! They allow you to have a very specific view of the traffic you want to analyze. The platform already offers you several predefined segments, but you also have the possibility to create your own segments to which you can add specific conditions if you wish. For example, you can decide that you want to see only Google organic traffic without seeing Bing organic traffic for the mobile users segment. You can later create specific remarketing audiences from the segments you've built, which will allow you to make very specific ads for your target audience. For example, you can create ads for the segment of users who have not made a purchase on your site and exclude those who have already purchased. This way, you avoid showing too many ads to users who have already taken the desired actions and you can show ads with an ultra-precise offer to those who have not yet taken any action.

The objectives

When you have administrator access to a Google Analytics account, you have the ability to create up to 20 goals that you can measure and analyze afterwards. You can measure the number of views for a video on your site, measure the number of forms you receive, measure your sales and the amount of sales, measure the time spent on the site, the number of page views, etc. However, there is no point in creating too many objectives, you must use objectives that are relevant to your company and your business objectives. If you have too many objectives, you risk analyzing your data in too much detail and paying too much attention to certain values that will have little importance for the advancement of your business objectives. So choose objectives that are valuable to your business. For example, if you operate an e-commerce business, it is essential for you to activate the e-commerce settings in your analytics account and make sure that the code is properly installed on your site so that sales are reported correctly in your account. You can also activate the enhanced e-commerce settings that will allow you to create a conversion funnel. This allows you to know, for example, how many people downloaded a promotional coupon before making a purchase.

Customized dimensions

Custom dimensions are an advanced tool in your Google Analytics account. By adding a little code to your site, you can now analyze and measure data that is very specific to your website. For example, you can create a dimension for the car models that people send you test drive requests for. This way, you can easily analyze this data in your Google Analytics account and compare it to other dimensions such as age and interests. These dimensions work exactly like the default dimensions in your account, so you can later use them in advanced segments for example. You must have administrator access to a Google Analytics property to be able to create a custom dimension.

In summary, Google Analytics has almost infinite analysis properties. When you use it correctly, it can bring you very interesting data about your website and the use your visitors make of it. Several tools are at your disposal to be able to make an in-depth analysis, but keep in mind that there is no point in analyzing everything, you must have your business objectives in sight, because no analysis is worth doing if it does not allow you to do something with it.