What Data Lives Where in Google Analytics Reports?

Google Analytics has become a necessary tool for digital marketers and data analysts to better comprehend user preferences on a website. But, analyzing the data incorrectly can lead to false optimization that can hurt a business overall. To uncover actionable data that can help grow a business, understanding the data captured within each section of Google Analytics reports is key. Let us help you get started with a general breakdown of what types of data you can find within each section of Google Analytics reports.

Real-Time Reports

The Real-Time section tells you how customers are interacting with your site right at this moment. Utilizing this function is key when timed promotions or offerings help bring in traffic to your site. Seeing immediately how that action has attracted customers is key to quickly adapting your off-site promotions and referrals. Did your facebook ad attract website visits immediately? The “Top Social Traffic” will quickly tell you if your facebook ad was successful in the moment.

Additionally, these reports are extremely helpful when attempting test workflows for promotions prior to launch. Making sure everything captures the way you expect before customers see the promotion ensures your digital marketing teams can best interpret the data.

Audience Reports

Audience reports are important when analyzing a subset of your customers. For example, are customers in California engaging the same way as those in Missouri? Should you be targeting users differently based upon their location?

Audience reports also provide details about customers’ demographics (age, gender, etc.), how frequently they visit a website, which browser they were using, and more. This makes these reports useful for marketers and development teams alike.

Acquisition Reports

It is important to understand how a customer found your website. This can help you determine best places to advertise — or not advertise — and get the most bang for your buck. To fully grasp what internet locations are driving traffic, begin analyzing the data captured within the acquisition reports.

These reports will show if users directly navigated to your site or if they came in from a search engine like Google or Bing. Also, you will see if they were referred from another domain or if they came in from a social platform. All of this information can tell you quickly where your digital marketing strategy is progressing or declining.

Behavior Reports

What did a customer do when they came to your site? Did they look at one page and then leave? How long were they on that page? Did that page lead them to convert to a sale? The behavior section can answer all of these questions by focusing on the analysis of each page of your site.

When optimized with Google Tag Manager event data, you’ll capture even more details about a user’s behavior. No longer do you need to think about page views alone! What did that user do after they landed on that page? Did they click a button? Did they fill out a form? Comprehensive page level data blended with event level data will really give you the best insights into the bigger picture of what a user is doing on the website.

Conversion Reports

Lastly, conversion reports offer insights around the digital sales of products, as well as the completion of other goals such as form completions, email subscription, and more. Did a customer add an item to a cart and then just abandon it? Are a lot of customers doing this? This will help highlight parts of your funnel that are highly performing or could use a little attention.

Google Analytics allows you to create twenty custom goals. Make sure that each of these twenty goals aligns to a business objective and correctly captures data, as it is likely these reports will be highly used for digital sales performance.

Now that you have a general idea of what is captured and where it is located within Google Analytics, it’s time to dive in! Create your own custom dashboards, reports, and even connect your account to Google Data Studio for more in-depth analysis and improved strategies.

Still not confident in your ability to uncover trends and strategize for exponential success? Blue Chair Digital can help! Schedule a free consultation on our Facebook page or complete our contact form today!