After months of planning, designing, coding, and tweaking, you finally launch that website for your new business, or maybe your new app just went live on the App Store. Congratulations!
Now that people can access it, is your work done?
No! The next phase has just begun, and there are new questions to ask.
Has your target audience found your website or app? How are they using it? Are they finding what they need? Or are they bouncing right off the homepage? The only way to get answers is through data tracking.
If you’re serious about your digital presence, data is essential. It tells you what is working and what must change. As a business owner, app developer, or digital marketer, you have undoubtedly heard of Google Analytics; however, leveraging it is a different story altogether.
In this guide, we will walk you through everything you need to know about the tool and its perks. From setting up your account to understanding the most critical marketing metrics, be ready to ramp up your digital marketing strategy.
Google Analytics is a free tool from Google that tracks and reports website and app traffic. Google launched its latest version, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), in October 2020. In the US alone, over 3.2 million websites have adopted it! Zooming out and going global, it has more than 14.2 million websites.
What did people use before GA4? Universal Analytics (UA) officially stopped processing data on July 1, 2023. The two are different in many ways.
A small business, for instance, could use GA4 to figure out which blog posts are getting the most reads. The tool can also show which referral channels, such as social media or email, are most effective in converting visitors into customers.
Basically, Google Analytics is your behind-the-scenes for your digital marketing strategy.
Let’s start easy, shall we? Here’s how to get your Google Analytics account up and running in just a few steps:
Feel free to name your account as you please. It could be “My Awesome Site Analytics” or “New App Analytics.” As long as it makes sense to you and your team, go for it! You can choose what data you would like to share with Google, too.
In Google Analytics, a “property” is a data grouping from a specific website or app. Each property includes settings, configurations, and reports that apply to that website or app. You can create multiple properties under a single account. For example, you have a property for your main website and another for a specific landing page.
When creating a property, you must provide the following:
Next comes the data stream, which is the flow of data from your platform, whether it’s a website, iOS app, or Android app, to your GA4 property. For website data streams, simply enter the website URL and the name of the stream.
For apps, enter your iOS bundle ID, App Store ID, and app name, or Android package and app names. Google will automatically link your Firebase project! Then, download the config file and add the Firebase SDK to your app. To verify SDK communication, run it.
Google Analytics for beginners can be overwhelming! However, there is another important consideration to keep in mind: Your data will not be transmitted unless you install the tracking code, a small snippet of code provided by Google.
Your Measurement ID or Global Site Tag starts with “G-,” and you need to link your website to GA4. Find it in your property settings, and add it to the section of every webpage you want to track.
If you’re using WordPress, Google has an official plugin called Site Kit. Another lightweight plugin, GA Google Analytics, also works wonders.
You don’t want to miss out on valuable insights because of a simple setup mistake. As such, verify your data collection. Doing so will prove that Google Analytics accurately tracks what you want it to track. Then, you can also make accurate decisions.
There are tools to help you spot setup issues before they turn your digital marketing strategy into chaos. DebugView, for one, shows real-time event and user property data from your test sessions. It is ideal for troubleshooting.
Realtime Report, on the other hand, displays live user activity on your site. See which pages users are viewing and how many are active at the moment.
Google Analytics is mind-boggling — it has so many numbers, charts, and pages to click through! But give yourself more time to get the hang of it, and you will maximize incredibly valuable marketing metrics, such as the following:
You’ll get lost a couple of times, but familiarize yourself with the key GA4 sections, and you’ll soon find your way easily to wherever you need to go and whatever you need to see.
Don’t rush! Explore as often as needed until you feel comfortable with the platform. Everything on your screen will eventually make sense.
Before we let you go, let’s discuss one more thing so you can jump right into it when you master Google Analytics to some degree.
We have mentioned the term “event” several times, which refers to a specific interaction on your website or app, such as loading a page, submitting a form, or completing a purchase. GA4 makes it easy to track these events using Enhanced Measurement. This records events like scroll depth, file downloads, and video engagement automatically. No extra coding required!
To measure something critical to your business (say, a form submission or sale), you can mark that event as a key event (or conversion). Trust Google Analytics to monitor it and surface the results in your reports.
Going through all these efforts for your digital marketing strategy can be discouraging. However, many businesses use Google Analytics to solve problems or improve performance, and the advantages always outweigh the struggles with the learning curve.
A hotel, for instance, relies on GA4 to track bookings across different room categories. By analyzing which landing pages lead to the most conversions, they optimize their digital marketing strategy and allocate their budget to top-performing channels, such as paid search and Instagram ads.
Take an online culinary school as another example. After discovering through GA4 that tutorial videos drive more engagement than text recipes, they double down on video production. Their bounce rate drops, and course sign-ups increase.
Every insight the tool gives tells you what to do next. And the end goal is always success! You could be a small, medium-sized, or large enterprise; GA4 marketing metrics will take you there.
Here are some more tips and tricks to help you along the way.
Make sure you install a tracking code on every page. Even a missing tag on one page can result in data gaps!
Don’t be afraid to level up. Use other tools like Google Tag Manager to manage and fire tags without editing your site’s code directly.
Schedule a weekly or monthly check-in to review your dashboards. Look for trends, anomalies, and opportunities.
Tailor your dashboards to focus on the marketing metrics that matter most to you. Save time and focus on performance.
Google Analytics might seem intimidating, but its offerings are priceless. Nothing beats data-backed decisions. And as your business grows, so can your use of GA4. Get and understand as many advanced marketing metrics as possible!
Whenever you’re ready to unlock the power of your website and app data, Connection Model can help. Our expert team will set up and optimize Google Analytics, helping you move the needle and reap the benefits. Contact us today!