Beginning Google Analytics, update December 2011 – Part 1
In this lesson, you will learn what Google Analytics can do for your business or website. How Google Analytics works. How often your data is updated and how Google stores your data and how it keeps your information confidential.
Google analytics site benefits
Google Analytics shows you how visitors actually find and use your site, so you’ll be able to: Make informed site design and content decisions. Improve your site to convert more visitors into customers. Track the performance of your keywords, banner ads, and other marketing campaigns. And track metrics such as revenue, average order value, and ecommerce conversion rates.
Google Site Analytics can help you answer important questions about your site and your marketing initiatives, such as; How are visitors using my site? How can I make my marketing campaigns more effective and accountable? Is my content effective? Where are visitors abandoning their shopping carts and where do they go afterwards? How can I improve my site navigation and help my visitors get more out of the site?
Google Web Site Analytics has been designed to meet the needs of novice users as well as web analytics experts. Some of the features include Googel Analytics Site Overlay which can help you understand how to best target campaigns by geographic region. AdWords Integration which makes it easy to track AdWords campaigns and allows you to use Google Analytics from your AdWords interface. Internal Site Search which allows you to track how people use the search box on your site. Funnel Visualization so that you can optimize your checkout and conversion click-paths.
How Google Analytics works
When a visitor accesses a page on your site, a request is made to the webserver to display the page. The page is served and the Google Analytics Tracking Code JavaScript is executed. The Google Analytics Tracking Code, which is a snippet of code that you place on each page of your site, calls the trackPageView() method. At this point, the Google Analytics first-party cookies are read and/or written. The webpage then sends an invisible gif request containing all the data to the secure Google Analytics reporting server, where the data is captured and processed. Data is processed regularly throughout the day and you can see the results in your reports.
Google Analytics uses only first-party cookies, which are considered safe and non-intrusive by most internet users today
Although many people block third-party cookies from being set by their web browsers, this won’t affect Google Analytics. Someone who blocks all cookies, however, won’t be tracked by Google Analytics since all the data is passed to the Google Analytics servers via the first-party cookies. Someone who deletes their cookies will still be tracked, but they’ll be identified as a new visitor to the site and Google Analytics won’t be able to attribute their conversions to a prior referring campaign. People delete cookies for many reasons, one of which is to prevent personal data from being captured or reported. But, note that Google Analytics does not report on personally identifiable information. You’ll learn more about cookies as they relate to Google Analytics in a later module.
A much less common scenario is that a visitor to your site has disabled JavaScript on his or her browser. A visitor who disables JavaScript won’t be tracked since the Google Analytics Tracking Code cannot be executed. Cached pages are saved on a visitor’s local machine and so they’re not served by the webserver. Google Analytics will still track visits to cached pages as long as the visitor is connected to the internet. JavaScript errors occur when an element of a web page’s script contains an error or fails to execute correctly. If an error occurs before the Google Analytics Tracking Code is executed, the visit to the page won’t be tracked. In general, no reporting tool can ever be 100% accurate. You’ll get the most out of web analytics if you focus on trends. Knowing that 20% more visitors converted following a marketing campaign is more powerful than knowing that exactly 10 people visited your site today.
All data collected by Google Analytics is anonymous, including where visitors comes from, how the visitors navigate through the site, and other actions they may perform.
No personally identifiable information is collected and Google does not share Analytics data with any 3rd parties. Furthermore, Google optimization, support, and sales staff may only access a client’s data with the client’s permission.
You may elect to share your Google Analytics data “with other Google products”, and Google will use the data to improve the products and services we provide you. Electing to share your data “Anonymously with Google and others” allows you to receive a benchmarking report. To provide benchmarking, Google removes all identifiable information about your website, then combines the data with hundreds of other anonymous sites in comparable industries and reports them in an aggregate form. If you select “do not share my Google Analytics data”, you will not receive a benchmarking report and may not have access to specific ads-related features such as Conversion Optimizer. Again, regardless of your Data Sharing settings, Google does not share Analytics data with any 3rd parties.
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