Google Analytics is definitely one of your best features to track your Web marketing initiatives and study the resulting behavior of your prospects and customers. Nevertheless, it can be very easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of information offered by this Web Analytics tool to show you the current performance of your site and of the fulfillment of the objectives set earlier this year.
If you are interested as standard features offered by Google Analytics, but did you know that with the custom dashboards you could not only optimize your follow-up work, but also satisfy all your employees? Indeed, this feature will save many tedious hours of data analysis and allow you to automatically adapt your reports to the needs of all the different parties. Dare to take the plunge today and make this tool for the decision available to all.
The purpose of this post is to help you through 9 elements to assemble an array of relevant board in connection with your business and marketing campaigns.
1. Where to start?
If you are interested as standard features offered by Google Analytics, but did you know that with the custom dashboards you could not only optimize your follow-up work, but also satisfy all your employees? Indeed, this feature will save many tedious hours of data analysis and allow you to automatically adapt your reports to the needs of all the different parties. Dare to take the plunge today and make this tool for the decision available to all.
The purpose of this post is to help you through 9 elements to assemble an array of relevant board in connection with your business and marketing campaigns.
1. Where to start?
Achieving a dashboard must meet the needs of its onscreen user. Therefore, first define the main concerned:
Performance of E-commerce;
Performance of the conversion lens tunnel X;
Site SEO performance;
Technical performance;
Performance affiliate network;
Performance of the last campaign;
Performance of a landing page to the persona X;
Then see the performance indicators and metrics that could help your user get an informed and extended situation. These data will be presented through widgets that you must define (statistics, chronology, geo map, chart, diagram, bars). The choice of widgets format is unique to your reading comfort. Also, it is recommended to vary the widgets to improve reading information. You will discover that some widgets will be more suitable for certain data or present to introduce several variables (eg timing diagram Vs).
Widgets options offered by Google Analytics
Finally, there is the question of the layout to best present your indicators. Google Analytics offers six from the feature "Customize this dashboard." I recommend you a choice of two or three columns so that readability is waiting for you. The widget "statistics" requires little space while other widgets (more graphics) need more to effectively communicate their data. The choice of the layout is not final, it can be changed at any time.
Layout options offered by Google Analytics
2. Define a thread
This is a recurring problem during the creation of the first signs. A dashboard must remain clear and suit the audience who will read it. It is highly likely effect you want to create a table to improve communication and decision making. Therefore, you need a thread so as to facilitate reading and understanding. It is manifested through the final objective of the dashboard: Why mount the dashboard? What is the common goal for each metric and indicator?
Emphasize your first column and to present a series of statistics that the realization of the final goal. For each table, first to present the value of the final goal. Then below your most important metric, display the path having achieved this metric.
Using the example of the competition that I presented in the ticket "How to track your performance on the web? "In which it came to track the performance of a Facebook campaign through increasing the number of newsletter subscribers.
The thread starts here by the realization of the objective (number of registered to the newsletter) and goes funnel. The reader can easily follow the performance indicator of the different stages.
3. Organize your picture
Now that the information contained in the first column are known, it is necessary to organize the information in the following columns. The data and associated widgets will aim to help understand the evolution of performance indicators. To do this, the rest similar reasoning, it is intended to show the relevant metrics associated with different levels of conversion of the tunnel.
It is relevant and enjoyable to vary widgets for smooth playback results. Nevertheless, the level of detail is a tricky element to take into account many widget. You have to show just enough detail to encourage further analysis. Consider the Widget "table". A level of detail to 5 lines may not be enough changes emerge from one month to another. While a table with more than fifteen lines overload the report.
4. Develop a concise picture
In the previous point, I advised you to orient your table from achieving the ultimate objective and up the path leading to it. It is now necessary to define the depth level as too much information created from the dispersion. Your dashboard might then have the desired opposite effect indecision.
Choose only those indicators directly related to the achievement of the objective. If your lens is extended (Example: The number of total sales) then you will only retain broad indicators. However, if you want to shed light on a different path via a source, a medium and a specific page then it will be desirable to produce another dashboard. We avoid to apply several segments for each metric.
Take the example of E-commerce section of a site. This is an overall scoreboard mainly because it must communicate on revenue and rely on general indicators that impact on sales. Thus, depending on your needs, it could be organized in order to show:
The path of conversion tunnel (sales, Sales, Payment Processes, Add to Cart, Views).
The summary of the most powerful mediums (in sales, average purchase basket value per session)
The most successful regions
Schedules favoring the purchase,
Or categories of the most profitable products.
As part of marketing initiatives undertaken, it is certain that you will also have to monitor the behavior of your campaigns on your sales performance. In this example, it is then appropriate to specifically track each committed medium (AdWords, Email, Social, SEO, Referring Sites, etc.).
For this reason and to avoid congestion information, so it is best to establish multiple dashboards.
5. Maintain consistency
One of your colleague will certainly need to compare the results of a campaign in various segments (eg distinguish AdWords sales generated by all other sales), then multiplying the amount of information displayed on your dashboard. Now displaying multiple segments on the same dashboard Google Analytics is very harmful to the reading of the results. This reinforces why it is better to build multiple dashboards specifically meet the needs of everyone.
It is therefore possible, depending on the depth of information you want to track, you have to produce multiple dashboards with the same objective but with different segments. So for ease of reading and understanding, it is best to keep a certain homogeneity, retaining the indicators defined in the first column (associated with targets) and customizing required, the behaviors of following columns indicators.
If you are not comfortable with the notion of segment, it is one or more criteria considered to filter the results. The default segment Analytics includes all visits recorded on the site. The segments use is therefore strongly recommended to follow in detail certain behavior.
Here are some ideas of possible segments in creating your dashboard:
Regions: All regions, Quebec, Ontario, Alberta;
Languages: All visitors speaking visitors, English-speaking visitors;
Campaigns: All campaigns or specific to Adwords, targeted publications, etc;
Medium / Source: Facebook, Newsletter, Adwords, [name of a referral];
Cumulative: + Facebook + 18-35ans;
6. Educate UTM parameters
In order to follow the most efficient way the behavior of your marketing initiative, it is recommended to isolate the behavior of each link. External networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook do not allow default to track the performance of your publications from Google Analytics. In order to centralize this information through a single dashboard, you will need to define UTM parameters to your URLs. Each link associated with a campaign and pointing to your site should be identifiable in order to assess its performance.
The parameters are markers that you add to a URL. When someone clicks on a URL including UTM parameters, these Scorers are then sent to your Google Analytics tool to improve the quality of monitoring. With no concerns about the SEO, the markers do not produce a content duplication effect. This is in fact the same page and the same access URLs, parameters are only there to provide comprehensive information to your Google Analytics tool on your campaigns.
For example, the same content can be broadcast to both Facebook and Lindekdin and in different formats, you will be able to compare the performance of different links.
Example of links to custom settings
Make a separate table for each campaign through your Google Analytics, educating those four UTM common parameters:
Utm_campaign: It identifies the campaign by associating a column / field name (here we chose a theme: web analytics). You will agree that it is highly useful for centralizing behavior in one campaign.
Utm_medium: It can identify the medium used to bring traffic to the site (Here: Social Media).
Utm_source: It identifies the source used (here, Facebook and LinkedIn.)
Utm_content: To differentiate the various publications and groups of cpc campaigns.
The goal is to create here a dashboard customized for your campaigns so that your employees have a real-time picture of the evolution of the objective and the performance of different indicatives without having to constantly manipulate a data stream not defined. They will be able to take such action as may be necessary during the campaign or learn to perform better in the next campaign.
7. Set alert notifications
It is especially frustrating to not be aware instantly of material fact on your site. Nevertheless, you can afford to spend the essential of your time to follow your statistics or predict the time at which problems could arise:
A severe drop in visits or sales;
Significantly less pages consulted;
A medium that attracts as formerly;
A campaign that does not behave well.
That's why Google Analytics offers its users to be proactive in taking advantage of personalises alerts system. It is not an optimization dashboard but an additional feature offered by the tool to help you in your analysis.
To do this, you need to identify the key performance indicator and associate a tolerance threshold to identify unusual behavior on your site. E-mail or text message will notify you of the situation and push you and to respond in record time. Discover 5 examples of custom alerts by Google Analytics teams.
Warning example on Google Analytics
8. Set automatic shipments
Now that you have built multiple dashboards to meet the needs of your various colleagues, it would be to facilitate the transfer of such data to the persons concerned. Google Analytics offers an automated mailing of your reports so as to communicate the right information at the right time and the right people.
Just click on the E-mail function associated with each dashboard and select the / recipients and transmission frequency. Finally, if the structure of the dashboard were to be changed, the next report will automatically adjust to the new structure
Sample shipment dashboards on Google Analytics
9. inspiration?
Relatively unknown but very useful to accompany you on your first attempts, Google Analytics offers solutions gallery (in English only) to optimize your performance reports. Enjoy access to a set of pre-built dashboards, accessible with one click and free.
Since every business is different, the monitoring objectives are also, so you will need to make some changes or inspire you to develop your ideal table edge.
Analytics | Gallery Solutions
in summary
There is no standard dashboard that can meet all the objectives of your employees. This is why it is wise to custom order to get an instant view of your key indicators. The key is to understand the reflection on the construction of these support tools for monitoring and decision. Finally, note that any dashboard must adapt to his audience, present a clear overview and provide flexibility in order to help your department in the planning and monitoring of its strategic actions.
Performance of E-commerce;
Performance of the conversion lens tunnel X;
Site SEO performance;
Technical performance;
Performance affiliate network;
Performance of the last campaign;
Performance of a landing page to the persona X;
Then see the performance indicators and metrics that could help your user get an informed and extended situation. These data will be presented through widgets that you must define (statistics, chronology, geo map, chart, diagram, bars). The choice of widgets format is unique to your reading comfort. Also, it is recommended to vary the widgets to improve reading information. You will discover that some widgets will be more suitable for certain data or present to introduce several variables (eg timing diagram Vs).
Widgets options offered by Google Analytics
Finally, there is the question of the layout to best present your indicators. Google Analytics offers six from the feature "Customize this dashboard." I recommend you a choice of two or three columns so that readability is waiting for you. The widget "statistics" requires little space while other widgets (more graphics) need more to effectively communicate their data. The choice of the layout is not final, it can be changed at any time.
Layout options offered by Google Analytics
2. Define a thread
This is a recurring problem during the creation of the first signs. A dashboard must remain clear and suit the audience who will read it. It is highly likely effect you want to create a table to improve communication and decision making. Therefore, you need a thread so as to facilitate reading and understanding. It is manifested through the final objective of the dashboard: Why mount the dashboard? What is the common goal for each metric and indicator?
Emphasize your first column and to present a series of statistics that the realization of the final goal. For each table, first to present the value of the final goal. Then below your most important metric, display the path having achieved this metric.
Using the example of the competition that I presented in the ticket "How to track your performance on the web? "In which it came to track the performance of a Facebook campaign through increasing the number of newsletter subscribers.
The thread starts here by the realization of the objective (number of registered to the newsletter) and goes funnel. The reader can easily follow the performance indicator of the different stages.
3. Organize your picture
Now that the information contained in the first column are known, it is necessary to organize the information in the following columns. The data and associated widgets will aim to help understand the evolution of performance indicators. To do this, the rest similar reasoning, it is intended to show the relevant metrics associated with different levels of conversion of the tunnel.
It is relevant and enjoyable to vary widgets for smooth playback results. Nevertheless, the level of detail is a tricky element to take into account many widget. You have to show just enough detail to encourage further analysis. Consider the Widget "table". A level of detail to 5 lines may not be enough changes emerge from one month to another. While a table with more than fifteen lines overload the report.
4. Develop a concise picture
In the previous point, I advised you to orient your table from achieving the ultimate objective and up the path leading to it. It is now necessary to define the depth level as too much information created from the dispersion. Your dashboard might then have the desired opposite effect indecision.
Choose only those indicators directly related to the achievement of the objective. If your lens is extended (Example: The number of total sales) then you will only retain broad indicators. However, if you want to shed light on a different path via a source, a medium and a specific page then it will be desirable to produce another dashboard. We avoid to apply several segments for each metric.
Take the example of E-commerce section of a site. This is an overall scoreboard mainly because it must communicate on revenue and rely on general indicators that impact on sales. Thus, depending on your needs, it could be organized in order to show:
The path of conversion tunnel (sales, Sales, Payment Processes, Add to Cart, Views).
The summary of the most powerful mediums (in sales, average purchase basket value per session)
The most successful regions
Schedules favoring the purchase,
Or categories of the most profitable products.
As part of marketing initiatives undertaken, it is certain that you will also have to monitor the behavior of your campaigns on your sales performance. In this example, it is then appropriate to specifically track each committed medium (AdWords, Email, Social, SEO, Referring Sites, etc.).
For this reason and to avoid congestion information, so it is best to establish multiple dashboards.
5. Maintain consistency
One of your colleague will certainly need to compare the results of a campaign in various segments (eg distinguish AdWords sales generated by all other sales), then multiplying the amount of information displayed on your dashboard. Now displaying multiple segments on the same dashboard Google Analytics is very harmful to the reading of the results. This reinforces why it is better to build multiple dashboards specifically meet the needs of everyone.
It is therefore possible, depending on the depth of information you want to track, you have to produce multiple dashboards with the same objective but with different segments. So for ease of reading and understanding, it is best to keep a certain homogeneity, retaining the indicators defined in the first column (associated with targets) and customizing required, the behaviors of following columns indicators.
If you are not comfortable with the notion of segment, it is one or more criteria considered to filter the results. The default segment Analytics includes all visits recorded on the site. The segments use is therefore strongly recommended to follow in detail certain behavior.
Here are some ideas of possible segments in creating your dashboard:
Regions: All regions, Quebec, Ontario, Alberta;
Languages: All visitors speaking visitors, English-speaking visitors;
Campaigns: All campaigns or specific to Adwords, targeted publications, etc;
Medium / Source: Facebook, Newsletter, Adwords, [name of a referral];
Cumulative: + Facebook + 18-35ans;
6. Educate UTM parameters
In order to follow the most efficient way the behavior of your marketing initiative, it is recommended to isolate the behavior of each link. External networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook do not allow default to track the performance of your publications from Google Analytics. In order to centralize this information through a single dashboard, you will need to define UTM parameters to your URLs. Each link associated with a campaign and pointing to your site should be identifiable in order to assess its performance.
The parameters are markers that you add to a URL. When someone clicks on a URL including UTM parameters, these Scorers are then sent to your Google Analytics tool to improve the quality of monitoring. With no concerns about the SEO, the markers do not produce a content duplication effect. This is in fact the same page and the same access URLs, parameters are only there to provide comprehensive information to your Google Analytics tool on your campaigns.
For example, the same content can be broadcast to both Facebook and Lindekdin and in different formats, you will be able to compare the performance of different links.
Example of links to custom settings
Make a separate table for each campaign through your Google Analytics, educating those four UTM common parameters:
Utm_campaign: It identifies the campaign by associating a column / field name (here we chose a theme: web analytics). You will agree that it is highly useful for centralizing behavior in one campaign.
Utm_medium: It can identify the medium used to bring traffic to the site (Here: Social Media).
Utm_source: It identifies the source used (here, Facebook and LinkedIn.)
Utm_content: To differentiate the various publications and groups of cpc campaigns.
The goal is to create here a dashboard customized for your campaigns so that your employees have a real-time picture of the evolution of the objective and the performance of different indicatives without having to constantly manipulate a data stream not defined. They will be able to take such action as may be necessary during the campaign or learn to perform better in the next campaign.
7. Set alert notifications
It is especially frustrating to not be aware instantly of material fact on your site. Nevertheless, you can afford to spend the essential of your time to follow your statistics or predict the time at which problems could arise:
A severe drop in visits or sales;
Significantly less pages consulted;
A medium that attracts as formerly;
A campaign that does not behave well.
That's why Google Analytics offers its users to be proactive in taking advantage of personalises alerts system. It is not an optimization dashboard but an additional feature offered by the tool to help you in your analysis.
To do this, you need to identify the key performance indicator and associate a tolerance threshold to identify unusual behavior on your site. E-mail or text message will notify you of the situation and push you and to respond in record time. Discover 5 examples of custom alerts by Google Analytics teams.
Warning example on Google Analytics
8. Set automatic shipments
Now that you have built multiple dashboards to meet the needs of your various colleagues, it would be to facilitate the transfer of such data to the persons concerned. Google Analytics offers an automated mailing of your reports so as to communicate the right information at the right time and the right people.
Just click on the E-mail function associated with each dashboard and select the / recipients and transmission frequency. Finally, if the structure of the dashboard were to be changed, the next report will automatically adjust to the new structure
Sample shipment dashboards on Google Analytics
9. inspiration?
Relatively unknown but very useful to accompany you on your first attempts, Google Analytics offers solutions gallery (in English only) to optimize your performance reports. Enjoy access to a set of pre-built dashboards, accessible with one click and free.
Since every business is different, the monitoring objectives are also, so you will need to make some changes or inspire you to develop your ideal table edge.
Analytics | Gallery Solutions
in summary
There is no standard dashboard that can meet all the objectives of your employees. This is why it is wise to custom order to get an instant view of your key indicators. The key is to understand the reflection on the construction of these support tools for monitoring and decision. Finally, note that any dashboard must adapt to his audience, present a clear overview and provide flexibility in order to help your department in the planning and monitoring of its strategic actions.