Importance of Google Analytics for your business

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a Freemium web analytics service offered by Google. The term Freemium means that while the service is available for free, one needs to pay in order to unlock its certain features. It is now the most widely used web analytics service on the internet which tracks and reports website traffic.

It is also available in two additional versions – subscription based Google analytics 360 which is targeted for enterprise users and Google analytics for mobile App, which is an SDK (Software development kit or “dev kit”) that allows gathering usage data from Android and iOS Apps.

When combined with Google AdWords (An online advertising service by Google in which the advertisers pay to display ads to web based users), the users can easily review online campaigns. Google analytics is a very effective tool and the analysis done by it can identify poorly performing web pages.

To identify such pages, it uses methods such as funnel visualization, where the visitors came from, how long they stayed on the page and it also traces their geographical location.

How Google Analytics helps businesses? 

ecommerce overview

Google Analytics ecommerce reporting can easily track sales activity and performance. The reports show the website’s transactions, revenue and many other ecommerce related metrics. In 2011 Google added another feature to Google Analytics and that was ‘Real time analytics’.

With real-time, one can monitor the activities as they happen on the web or the App. The reports are updated continuously and each hit (Hit can be defined as an interaction that results in data being sent to Analytics. It includes page tracking, ecommerce hits etc.) is reported within seconds.

This real-time data is great for ecommerce websites as you are able to see the number of people that are there on your website at present, the events that they are interacting with and the conversions that are taking place.

Another great feature of Google Analytics that can be used by ecommerce websites is the cohort analysis which rather than looking at the users as one unit breaks them into related groups as per their behavior, for analysis. This feature can be helpful to ecommerce business leaders for implementing an effective marketing strategy.

google analytics active pages view

For an ecommerce business the areas that are focussed by the Google analytics report precisely include the following – content, social, traffic sources, conversions and technology.

The content report helps you in identifying the pages that are most visited, the ones that have a high bounce rate, and the ones that need more promotion. And not just this, you are also able to identify the problems in navigation and site search options.

The social report includes the analysis of the performance of the products that you had promoted through the social media channels. It includes network referrals, conversions, plugins etc.

The traffic sources report helps you see where the traffic is coming from. It also helps you analyse the organic performance based on keywords and landing pages.

The conversions report brings in front of you the profitable traffic source, the time taken by a visitor to buy a product or service, the browser that brings more conversion rate etc.

Ecommerce tracking

When you own an online business then measuring the customer’s behaviour should be of utmost importance to you. Apart from this, it is also important for you to determine which traffic source or keyword generated the most revenue.

Once you get to know all this information you can use it to maximize your profits. Google Analytics can also track your ecommerce transaction data, so by simply adjusting your analytics settings and adding a transaction data code to your receipt page you can carve out a way for better understanding of your customers and their buying behaviour.

Let us consider the following two examples to see how you can utilize the Google analytics ecommerce tracking tool.

google analytics traffic sources
  • Traffic sources sorted by most revenue generated

By reviewing the data like this you are able to make better decisions for your business. You get to know where you should focus your attention and where you shouldn’t.

If it weren’t for Google analytics then you won’t be able to gather this information and also not be able to take constructive steps towards making better decisions with your online marketing budget.

google analytics keywords view
  • Keywords sorted by most revenue generated

Knowing which keywords your consumers are typing in the search engines while looking for a product type that you sell, will help you drive traffic to your website and ultimately increase your revenue.

Let us consider a small example – Suppose consumers search a lot for a product that is not in stock in your online store at present, then via this report you’ll know what you need to order next to meet the demand of the customers.

Now sum up by briefly discussing the features of Google analytics platform

google analytics user aquisition

Measure results easily

As already discussed above, Google analytics helps you in measuring the results of your marketing efforts and campaigns. You can run multiple campaigns at one time and analyse which ones bring the best results.

For example you can track campaign A, B and C and with the help of the numbers revealed in the reports conclude which campaign is working out the best for your business.

Determine the flow of traffic

google analytics traffic flow
google-analytics-traffic-flow

Google analytics will help you determine how many people are visiting your page and where they are coming from, whether they are coming from social media channels or organically via search engines. If the traffic is more from social media then you can concentrate a lot more on social media marketing whereas if the people are coming to the website after typing certain keywords in the search engine, then you can identify those keywords with the help of Google analytics. All these efforts will increase your conversion rates positively.

Determine your bounce rate

bounce rate

This tool also helps you in determining your bounce rate. For example – It tells you how many users came to your website and left within a short period of time.

It also tells you, how many users placed the products in the cart but never checked-out. Analyzing what went wrong and taking appropriate measures to counteract it will help you decrease your bounce rate substantially.

Analyze data in stipulated amount of time

google analytics

Google analytics helps you analyze and review your data in different segments of time. So you can view the last three months, six months or yearly report. 

Google Analytics (GA) allows you to see where your customers and users are coming from, what they are interested in and what led them to you.  And keeping track of all this info is very easy because Google does it for you. So start tracking your results today by using this amazing tool and maximize your profits.

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