1.
Metrics Analysis for GLAMs
Using Google Analytics
National Library of NZ (and friends)
8 November, 2018
Michael Lascarides
@mlascarides

2.
Analytics is
storytelling

3.
There are no
absolute
answers

4.
Google Analytics: Pro
•Free
•Ubiquitous
•Powerful
•Well-maintained
•Easy to use and
install
•Anonymized
•Accurate
•Well-filtered

5.
Google Analytics: Con
•It’s Google
•Could be more
powerful
•Not useful for
bandwidth,
downloads
•Has its limits

6.
How it works:

7.
How it works:

8.
How it works:

9.
How it works:

10.
http://code.stephenmorley.org/javascript/
understanding-the-google-analytics-tracking-
code/

11.
Analytics Help
https://support.google.com/analytics

12.
https://analytics.google.com/
dnzgaworkshop @ gmail.com
pwd: DigitalNZRocks

13.
Some
definitions

14.
Properties
Dates
Reports
Exports
Segments

15.
Metrics vs
Dimensions

16.
Metrics
Things you can
count: Pageviews,
visits, events, etc.

17.
Dimensions:
Things you can sort
by: Country, page
title, OS, browser,
etc.

18.
Metrics & Dimensions
Explorer
https://developers.google.com/analytics/
devguides/reporting/core/dimsmets

19.
THE FUNDAMENTAL METRICS ARE
Sessions,
Users,
Pageviews

20.
Pageview
A load of a single
HTML page.

21.
User
(AKA Unique Visitor)
A single person*, to
the best of our
ability.
* Really, it’s a single browser cookie.

22.
Session
(AKA Visit)
A sequence of pages
visited by a single visitor
with no more than 30
minutes between pages.

23.
Scenario:
Ellen views 6 pages in 10
minutes on Monday
morning, and 5 pages in 20
minutes on Tuesday.

24.
Scenario:
Ellen views 6 pages in 10
minutes on Monday
morning, and 5 pages in 20
minutes on Tuesday.
That’s 1 visitor, 11
pageviews, and 2 sessions.

25.
USEFUL RATIOS OF THE
FUNDAMENTALS
Sessions per visitor
Pageviews per session

26.
ALSO INTERESTING
Time on Site*
* Warning: Easy to misunderstand.

27.
OCCASIONALLY UTILITARIAN
Bounce Rate

28.
Users,
Behavior,
Acquisition

29.
Users:
Who are they?

30.
User reports:
•Geographic
location (country,
city, sometimes
more)
•Demographics
(privacy
implications!)
•Screen
resolutions
•Devices
•Browsers&
versions
•More!

31.
EXERCISE:
What appears to be the
next-most-popular
language our visitors
speak after English?

32.
EXERCISE:
What was the change in
mobile traffic share from
May 2016 to May 2017?

33.
EXERCISE:
Is the percentage of our
audience using MacOS
rising or shrinking?

34.
EXERCISE:
How many different
countries sent visitors to
us in October?

35.
Acquisition:
Where did they come
from?

36.
Acquisition reports:
•Referring site
•Search engine
•External search
keyword
•Campaigns
•Direct traffic
•Referring page
•Social Media
•More!

37.
EXERCISE:
What were the top 10 terms
searched on search
engines that led to Natlib in
August 2018?
How far down the list do
you have to go to get a
“non-boring” one?

38.
EXERCISE:
There was a big spike in
traffic on 4 March, 2015.
Why?

39.
Treemaps

40.
Behaviour:
What did they do?

41.
Behavior reports:
•Pages viewed
•Flow
•Page landed on
•Site search
•Event tracking
•Content Drilldown
•More!

42.
GLAMs
❤
Site Search!

43.
EXERCISE:
What are the top 20 most
popular pages on the
whole site?

44.
EXERCISE:
What are the 5 most
popular blog posts on Natlib
so far in 2018?
Hint: Blog URLs start with
“/blog/”

45.
EXERCISE:
What are top 10 most
searched terms on the
Natlib site in May 2018?

46.
EXERCISE:
What was the most-visited
collection item on Natlib in
2017? Why was it so popular?
Hint: Item URLs take the form
“/records/IDNumber”

47.
GLAM-
Specific

48.
Considerations for
GLAMs
•The behavior of your
public terminals
•The seasonality of
your traffic
•The “curve” of your
week
•Understanding
Spikes
•The profile of your
recency/frequency
(ie, dedicated visitors
vs one-timers)
•Don’t forget to track
after the
engagement!

49.
Advanced cool
stuff

50.
Visitor Flow

51.
EXERCISE:
Use visitor flow to
visualise where,
in general, Australians
go on our site

52.
Real-Time

53.
EXERCISE:
From which NZ city are
the most people visiting
Natlib right now?

54.
Advanced
Segments

55.
EXERCISE:
How many people visited
the He Tohu site on an
iPad last month vs
August 2017?

56.
EXERCISE:
What was the most popular
search term used by
Aucklanders using Chrome
on a Mac in April 2018 who
also visited a Schools page
during their visit?

57.
Custom
Variables

58.
Event
Tracking

59.
EXERCISE:
In the past couple of
months, what search
terms were used by
people who visited at least
one Whites Aviation photo?

60.
Goals,
Conversions
and Funnels

61.
“Fake
e-commerce”