Media Metrics and Analytics Lecture 3 2 Google

Media Metrics and Analytics Lecture 3 -2 Google Analytics

What is Google Analytics? • You started the online tutorial last week, so you have some knowledge of the landscape • But here we will review some concepts for clarification, and show the Google product fits into the overall world of metrics and analytics

Some Notes on Google Analytics • It is only one tool among many, but it is versatile and free • It can’t measure all data but it is a good jack-of-alltrades program • There are many other programs, free and paid • Word. Press, for example, has its own metrics packages and in fact provides no easy way for you to integrate Google Analytics on sites started under its free plan

Review of Main Concepts Google Analytics allows you to monitor, among other things…. • Current users on a website you control (more on that in a moment) • An audience overview, which shows total audience over a given time period

More Concepts… • Varying time periods based on how you set your calendar (but only time periods since you started the Google Analytics Account) • Sessions • Users • Pageviews

Concepts, Continued… • The geographic areas where those sessions happened • Sites that referred them (search, social media, etc. ) • The ratio of new visitors to returning visitors • Behavior data, including how visitors interacted with other content on the site • Conversions, such as when someone signs up for your mailing list

The Google Demo Site • By now, you should be familiar with how to find this information by using the Google demo site that you access as part of the Google Academy tutorials • But you’ll gain additional insights by generating your own data and reading it in real time

An Interesting Activity – Your Own Demo Site • Set up a Google Blogspot site • We do not recommend you use other types of free accounts at this time because not all venues integrate so easily • Google on “how to start a Blogspot site Google support” and your first result should be…

This… Just click on the link (not on this page but on your computer browser)and follow instructions

Next, Create a Property for Your New Account in Google Analytics Search on “add an account analytics help Google support” and you’ll see this: Just follow directions…remember, you already have a Google Analytics Account if you started the tutorial

The Process Will Take Some Back and Forth, But… • It is really quite simple. You will go through a series of questions on Google Analytics during which you will be asked to paste in the URL of your blog (which is why you need to set it up first) • Then, Google Analytics will give you a Tracking ID • It will look something like UA-121344134 -1 • Copy it • DO NOT mix it up with the Javascript code provided in another window – you DO NOT NEED THAT for a Blogspot site

Then, Back at Your Dashboard for the Blogspot Site You Just Created… • Go to settings, then other, then scroll to the bottom of the page and open the Google Analytics box and paste that code into the Analytics Web Property ID box • Yes, Google calls it a Tracking ID in one place and a Property ID in another…this is because Google loves using different words for the same thing or using similar-sounding words for different things

And You Can Do Just That • You can find out what people are already looking for and make sure you use the right search keywords by going to Google Trends • You can monitor traffic to your site through Google Analytics

Now, Try Your Setup Before you log into your new Blogspot site, check your “Real. Time Overview” in Google Analytics You’ll see this…

After You Log On, You’ll See This…

Now, View Your New Site on Your Smartphone And you can magically see that you have one viewer (you) on a computer and another (you, too) on a mobile device

And Look! You can also see pageviews and what pages are being viewed and from where

What to Do Next • Experiment with your site…click on it multiple times from multiple locations • Share the URL with friends and have them click on it • If you want, though this is not a requirement, try an experiment and post it to your Facebook page and see how those views are recorded • And this isn’t a requirement either, but EVERYBODY should have a blog, so why not put some real content on it?

What’s Ahead • You are now taking Google Academy classes in Google Analytics, so you are on your own and should, within a couple of weeks, develop considerable expertise and gain Certificates of Completion • Note that you should also be viewing the private tutorials listed in the syllabus and doing the assigned readings, because a different perspective can make things much clearer • Next, we’ll look at You. Tube Analytics – we are going to You. Tube next because it is a Google company and shares much of the same analytic platform