So, what is important for a modern web analyst? In this article we will examine what a web analyst needs to know about the principles of Google Analytics, both to configure website analytics and to successfully pass the Google IQ test (the exam itself will be discussed later).
Main tips a web analyst should know about Google Analytics
- Pageview is counted each time a page of the website loads;
- Usually there are fewer visitors than visits, and fewer visits than pageviews (visitors < visits < pageviews);
- The duration of a single visit cannot exceed 30 minutes (unless explicitly configured in the Google Analytics code placed on each page). If there is no user activity for 30 minutes, the visit is closed. Any subsequent activity starts a new visit;
- Time spent on page 1 is calculated as the timestamp of page 2 opening minus the timestamp of page 1 opening;
- When calculating average time on a page, zero-duration visits are excluded, but they are included when calculating average time on the site;
- The time a visitor spends on the last page (after which they left the site) is not counted;
- Google Analytics has three types of goals: viewing a specific page, staying on the site for a certain amount of time (or longer), and viewing a certain number of pages (or more);
- Direct traffic – the user typed the URL of your site directly into the address bar;
- Referral traffic – the visitor arrived via a link from another site;
- Search traffic – can be paid (pay‑per‑click) or organic (from search engine results) – the visitor arrived from a search engine;
- Bounce rate – the percentage of visits where the user left after viewing only one page.
Also, a web analyst should know regular expressions (RegExp) to be able to create filters in Google Analytics.
Cookies used by Google Analytics (all persistent except __utmc)
- __utma – visitor identifier – expires after 2 years;
- __utmb – session identifier – expires after 30 minutes of inactivity (same as __utmc but persists for 30 minutes);
- __utmc – session identifier – temporary, disappears when the browser is closed;
- __utmz – campaign identifier – expires after 6 months;
- __utmv – visitor segmentation identifier (whether the visitor is registered on the site) – expires after 2 years;
All cookies are tied to a specific browser – visiting from another browser creates a new separate set of cookies. More details on how to tag URLs with UTM parameters: how to tag URLs with UTM parameters.
Filter creation should always be done in a new profile to avoid losing information stored in the main account.
Always remember – contextual advertising (AdWords) tracks clicks, while Google Analytics tracks visits, so there can be differences between them.