You’ve successfully gone through all the steps for setting up Google Analytics and you’ve generated several codes over the last few weeks. By now you may be asking yourself the million dollar question: how to use Google Analytics for my website?
In this post I’ll help you break down how to track your UTM codes, and also provide four of my favorite reports to look up using Google Analytics.
Tracking Your UTM Codes:
Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns
What’s cool about this view is it automatically filters by your Campaign Name. Highlighted above you’ll see specific UTM codes that I’ve used in the past to track engagement. Also, note because I kept a similar naming convention you can see the two instances that I used this tracking and can easily compare week-over-week results. This is why I preach brainstorming a consistent naming convention when you start.
This is my favorite view because when I worked in eCommerce it was the easiest way for me to find the revenue that was tied to a specific email or social post. It’s also one of the clearest ways to see how many clicks and visits you’ve generated from your campaign. If you’re looking for specific numbers, this is one of the best ways to see that information.
Other Helpful Marketing Views in Google Analytics
Your UTM tracking may be the only view that you initially care about, but this platform is extremely robust and can tell you a lot about your audience. If you’re not used to using this program, you may become overwhelmed quickly. Get started with these four different views you can access to learn more about your audience
Personal Note: In no way is this a comprehensive list; this is simply things that I’ve found useful for my marketing.
1. Network Referrals (specific to Social Media)
Acquisition > Social > Network Referrals
This will display the number of individuals coming to your website from specific social media sites. If you want to see whether your time is better spent on Facebook or Twitter, this view will break it down for you so there are no questions.
2. Specific Website Page Traffic
Behavior > Site Content > All Pages
When I want to know how many people visited a specific page on a certain day, this is where I go to find the information. I also enjoy filtering the view further by drilling down to “Source/Medium” to see how my traffic got to that page. Sometimes it’s very enlightening to see how many (or how few) people are visiting your website pages and where they’re coming from.
3. Audience Overview
Audience > Overview
This is the default view when you enter Google Analytics, and it is interesting and important in its own right. Here you can learn a lot of great information about your audience; Where is most of your traffic coming from? What device do they use to visit your site? How are they finding your website?
I particularly enjoy drilling down by country, then state, then region. It’s interesting to see where not only the bulk of your audience traffic comes from, but those in second or third place. How can you use this information to your benefit?
4. Specific Product Performance
Conversions > Ecommerce > Product Performance
This view is great to check in on individual products in your e-commerce store. Filter by SKU or by product name and you can see the sales for that product. This is a great way to see if sales are directly linked to individual promotions, or how products are performing without promotion. Note that you need to do some setup to use this view that includes installing a pixel.
The sky’s the limit, my friends. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: no judgment if your initial reaction to learning about the great data available to you is the desire to track all the things. I’m right there with you.
Start tracking, start digging in to see what your website users are visiting and where they’re coming from, and start becoming more informed about how you can reach your audience.
What other questions do you have about Google Analytics and the views available in this program? Have you discovered any views that you love? Leave your comments below!