4 advanced techniques for getting more out of Google Analytics

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My work at Perfect Market requires me to extract data from more than 200 premium publishers and present it in a lot of different ways, which can take up endless hours of patience as I comb through Excel spreadsheets. Google Analytics is by far my favorite tool to help with these tasks because it has a depth of data and allows me to slice and dice the data in a variety of ways. Best of all, it?s free.

Over the years, I?ve learned some advanced techniques for using Google Analytics (GA) that have made my life a lot easier. Here are four techniques I guarantee will save you a bunch of time and deliver great insights about website performance.

1. Filtered Sub-Accounts

Filters are one of the most underutilized GA features.? Filters, as defined by Google, allow you to limit and modify traffic data that is included in your site profile.? For example, you can filter traffic from a specific IP address, traffic source, subdomain or directory.?

Why are filtered accounts important? One reason is that the free version of Google Analytics maxes out at 50,000 data points for any report. I deal with data from over 200 online publishers, so this is an issue we run into whenever we are looking to do a more detailed analysis.? When you max out, all the other data points get bundled up into the ?other? entry, as in this example screenshot below.? This happens frequently when you are looking at data at the URL level.

A good workaround is to create a filtered account that focuses on a useful query string in the URL.? In the screenshot above, a common parameter in the URL string is the sid=# (Site ID).? So you can create a new profile under the same GA account that has a filter, and you would only see the data on the SID level. Below shows what the end result should look like.? Since SID groups the data, you won?t run into the 50,000 max data point issue.

This filter is easy to create as long as you are an administrator in the GA account. Below are the detailed steps:

1. Go to the admin tab > Profiles
2. Click on add new profile
3. Name your profile
4. From the profile view go to Filters tab
5. Create a new filter; in this case, we named it SID Filter
6. Under Filter Type, select the Advanced radio button

Here are the filter details:

This filter saves the URL into a User Defined Value.? The only thing you will need to change, depending on your own URL parameters, is the value for Field A - > Extract A.? This is just a matter of finding the right regular expression for your use case.

There is a complete tutorial of GA filters at Conversion University.?

2. Custom Reports

There are many use cases for custom reports. You can use them to track your SEO, paid search, social media, mobile or more, as long as that data is already available in your GA. You can create different categories for reports in your Custom Report Tab. Here is a simple example of how you can organize custom reports:

Creating custom reports is easy:

1. Click on ?Custom Reporting? tab
2. Click + New Custom Report
3. Depending on what report you want to create, you then select specific metric groups and dimensions

A lot of people share links to their own custom reports so you don?t have to build them yourself. (I love my fellow analytics people!)? What good is data if you don?t share it and create actionable points? There are three ways for you to share custom reports in Google Analytics:

1. Share the custom report to different websites under the same login

• While creating a custom report, you can share it with any other profile that is under your own GA login by clicking on the down arrow by additional profiles

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• This will only work for the Google log-in that the report was shared in

2. Share your fancy custom report with anyone else

• Go to Custom Reporting tab
• Click on the actions tab to the right of the specific custom report you want to share and choose share

• You will then be given a custom URL that you can share with anyone inside or outside of your company

3. You can also add a custom report to your dashboard and share the dashboard with colleagues. Go to the report and click Add to Dashboard.

There are a lot of useful resources on custom reports. Here are some of my favorites:

3. Custom Alerts

This is the ?sleep better at night? technique.? When you?re managing 50 or more domains, there is really no way to look at all the properties every day.? There is however, a way to be alerted to any significant change in your key metrics.? For me, site traffic changes make a big impact, and big fluctuations could mean something has gone wrong.? Therefore, I?ve set up alerts on any traffic changes that are well above or below normal thresholds. If the traffic changes by 50%, I?ll get an email.? You could also set this up to get a text message.

To create a custom alert, go to intelligence events > Overview > Custom Alerts > Manage Custom Alerts > Create new alert

Below is the screenshot of how you would set this up.? You can filter this alert in a lot of different ways. For example, you can receive an alert when your mobile traffic increases, or you can pick a certain page or campaign. You can also pick the metric you want (e.g., page views, visits, goals, etc.).

4. Advanced Segments

Advanced segments offer new ways to segment your data that you may not have thought of when you set up the initial segments. For example, recently I wanted to know how much growth in mobile traffic (including tablet) we experienced year over year.? To look at this data, I clicked on advanced segment under the standard reporting tab, chose mobile traffic, and picked dates to compare.? You can select up to four segments at a time and you can also create custom segments based on the different dimensions available (hint: custom variables work here!).

The amount of data we have access to as digital publishers continues to grow.? The challenge is how to translate all of this data into specific, actionable results. Hopefully, these four tips will shave some time and energy from your workload.

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As director of monetization and analytics for Perfect Market, Charlene Iniguez is responsible for helping large online publishers such as the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Philly.com and MarketWatch increase revenue and user engagement.

Source: http://www.emediavitals.com/content/4-advanced-techniques-getting-more-out-google-analytics

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