Pat Grady, owner of RhinoFish Media (http://www.affiliatesummit.com/pat-grady/) provided a great session on Google Analytics for beginners, during the Affiliate Summit Orlando Meetup on Tuesday, 10/30/12. Here are his slides.

1. Google Analytics -- Basics
Affiliate Summit Meetup - Orlando
Pat Grady
RhinoFish Media

2. Outline:
This session is a general introduction to the basic areas and functioning of Google
Analytics, followed by Q&A. By demystifying the fundamentals, we'll set the stage
for future exploration of this complex and powerful analysis platform.
• Tracking Code Basics
• Tagging URLs
• Traffic Sources and Reporting Basics
• Events and Goals Basics
• Content Experiments Basics

3. What is Google Analytics?
• Google Analytics (GA) is a platform that collects
and organizes website visitor data.
• How visitor information is collected depends on
proper setup and URL tagging.
• GA is structured by Account, then Profiles – but
further granularity is available via filters,
segmenting, groupings and more.
• By analyzing data, users gain insights into where
site traffic came from, and what visitors do once
they arrive.

4. Google Analytics Is Complex
• GA is a modular analysis platform with hundreds of
features, most beyond this evening’s scope.
• The advanced features depend on every analyst having a
thorough understanding of basic data collection and
reporting.
• GA is constantly changing as our industry grows, features
are being added and enhanced at a remarkable pace – new
features for mobile, social, apps and real-time analysis, new
segmentation tools and new reporting tools.
• But there’s good news - there are very few “gurus” who
understand every aspect of GA, cementing the basics will
put you ahead of the majority of Analytics users.

5. Tracking Code Basics
• To identify incoming and existing traffic, a
simple script is added to every page of your
website.
• Most content platforms have a module where
you enter the script or your GA profile
number, and your traffic tracking code is then
automatically inserted onto every page.
• The question is, what does this code do?

6. What Does The Tracking Code Do?
1. Determine where a visitor came from (cell
phone analogy)
2. Collects information about the visitor’s browser
and device, their clicks, pages visited, actions
completed, and more.
These two sets of information, source and visit
data, are then compiled into an endless variety of
reports that can be analyzed.

7. Cell Phone Analogy
Let’s write a procedure for identifying an incoming phone call… seems trivial,
but it’s exactly analogous to how GA identifies the incoming traffic source.
1) Caller ID – receiver’s phone automatically
identifies who’s calling, based on the known phone
number of the caller.
2) Caller ID Override – the caller specifically tells
the receiver who they are, and the earlier
automatic Caller ID is ignored.

8. GA Script Identifies Traffic Source
1a) Referrer Header (Caller ID) – The referring site passed
along a referrer header, GA uses the referring domain as the
traffic source (ex: google.com).
1b) GA knows every search engine (ex: aol.com) and classifies
these known search referrer domains, as organic traffic.
1c) If the referrer is not a search engine, it’s classified as
“referred” traffic, from that domain.
2) Referrer Header Override (Caller ID Override) – If the
incoming URL contains tagged URL source data, GA then
ignores the referrer information, and classifies the source as
tagged.

9. How To Tag URLs for GA
• Example of Tagged URL:
o http://www.urchin.com/download.html?utm_sou
rce=newsletter4&utm_medium=email&utm_cam
paign=20121028
• Tool to Tag URLs:
o Google ‘how to tag URLs for Google Analytics’
o URL Builder

10. What Traffic Needs Tagging?
• If the referrer header won’t properly identify the traffic source, TAG IT!
• Thumb rule is… Tag all paid traffic and email. These are the most common sources of traffic where
the Caller ID will get it wrong, so tag these incoming URLs to override the referrer info.
• Email links aren’t on a webpage. Paid ads are on a variety of mixed ad servers. The referrer
detection technique will not work in these cases.
• If there are no URL tags AND the referrer header is not available, GA has no clue what the traffic
source is, so it is reported as: Source = (direct). Medium = (none). Keyword = (not provided).
Often referred to as “not set” by webmasters.
• Some search engines, for privacy reasons, block referrer information (including keyword data) when
users are securely (https) logged in.
• Examples of common “not set” traffic:
Privacy settings of browser
Privacy settings of referring domain
Blocked referrer headers
Direct type in traffic
Browser Bookmarks

11. Source Implies Visit, But What’s A Visit?
An arriving visitor starts a “visit”, but how does a “visit”
end?
1. Close your browser.
2. Remain idle for 30 minutes.
3. Arrive again from a different traffic Source.
Note: Returning from the same source (ex: 2nd search is
done, ad is clicked again) or an unknown source (“not
set” bookmark or direct type in), will not break the
previous session’s visit.

12. Reporting Basics
• Now that we understand how the traffic source is
determined, and that Analytics is collecting site
visit data for every page visited, let’s take a
scenario based approach to learning more about
reporting.
• Pat gets a phone call from a client, asking…
ManCaveSite.org
(rambling but informative discussion follows?)

13. Reporting Basics 2
• Let’s take a look at some referral visits, see if
we can put all of the pieces together.
• Client GA: Traffic Sources, Referrals
Understanding SAS, Facebook, Email, PayPal
• Search: “PayPal” for referring site
Holy cow that traffic converts well…
Or does it?

14. Events and Goals Basics
• We know how they got here, and what pages
they’re visiting, but what’s the point?
• The site owner wants them to do something –
buy, click, watch a video, download an app, email
their friends a link.
• By setting up Events and Goals, we can tie our
traffic and visitor actions and behaviors, into
what we want them to accomplish.
• Without Events and Goals, analysis of source and
visit data is a pointless exercise in futility!

15. Example Goals & Events
• Only stores have special GA Ecommerce Conversion Data, but any website can use
Goals and Events.
• Goals (page based) each GA Profile is limited to 20 Goals
o Sale (visited “receipt” page) URL (for web) or Screen (apps)
o Subscribed (visited newsletter signup confirmation page)
o Engaged (spent more than 10 minutes on your site) time on site, or in app
o Funnel Read (visited two consecutive specified pages) Pages/Visit (web) or Screens/Visit (app)
o Did Action (based on completed Events)
• Events (elements that aren’t page views)
o Flash web pages visits or interactions
o Video, game and music player interactions
o AJAX events
o File downloads
o Clicks on external links
More details about their differences

16. Content Experiments Basics

17. Recommended Articles
• Google’s Blog for Analytics
• Google URL Builder (Tag Links)
• Why Clean Source Tagging Is Worth Your Time
• How To: Google Analytics Installation For Novices & Beginners
• Understanding the Basics of Google Analytics
• How To Turn (Not Provided) Into Useful, Actionable Data
• Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics
• 6 Useful Ideas for Google Analytics Custom Reports
• 11 Google Analytics Tricks to Use for Your Website
• Analytics for Agencies #4 - Optimizing AdWords & Search
• Track Your Bing (MSN AdCenter) PPC Keyword Data in Analytics
• Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik
• How to Setup Goals in Google Analytics
• Conversion Goals and Events in Google Analytics: What’s The Difference and When To Use Them
• Introducing Multi-Channel Funnels
• 14 Ideas To Utilize Custom Variables For Search & Social Tracking

18. Pat Anticipates A Question (Probably From
Chuck) About Blocked Keyword Data
• Search engines are blocking referrer data, including
valuable keyword information.
• SEOs and Webmasters are rightfully chapped about this.
But other than being a hater, there’s not much you can do.
If the keyword info is removed from the referrer, it is not
available.
• But other useful data might be available.
• One such creative recovery tactic is to create a custom filter
for these cases, and gather alternative actionable data.
o Segment = a slice or subset of visitor data.
o Filter = modification (including exclusion) of certain visitor data.