Now is the perfect time to learn more about website tag management. Google Analytics (GA) Academy recently released their new Google Tag Manager (GTM) Fundamentals course, an excellent way for anyone to learn more about using this free tool.

Why should I care about understanding tag management?

Don’t Care. Take me to the guide, man.

For everyone else – Imagine if every company with a website had someone who could handily manage site tags. User experience across the entire internet would be faster, simpler, and ultimately more enjoyable. Remember, this is all about actually using the organizational awesomeness that is tag management, for good. Not for lazy, half-baked, half-effective evil.

So why am I posting shortcuts to pass an exam? Because I want to help create better analysts in digital marketing.

The course contains four segments of interactive video tutorials, each one ending with an assessment (their friendly word for “test”). If you’re in a time crunch, no sweat – I’ll point out the parts of each segment you should focus on to pass the tests.

I’m not going to give you the answers – that’s weak sauce. I will, however, provide hints as to where you should devote more of your focus in this course.

Tag Manager Assessment 1

Goal: Develop your tag implementation strategy and master the basics of a tag.

• GTM can fire 3rd party tags. It’s not limited to GA or Adwords; GTM can fire almost any tag out there.
• Think about what sits inside a GTM container. It’s more than just a bunch of code.
• Define the purpose of the container snippet. We know it contains Javascript, but what exactly is its purpose?
• Define the triggers in GTM. They’re related to tags, but you’ll need to know how a trigger affects its respective tag.
• In lesson 1.4, there is an excellent visual walkthrough of the anatomy of a trigger. Make sure you can name the main parts of a trigger.

Tag Manager Assessment 2

Goal: Implement the Google Analytics tag and learn about the importance of cross-domain tracking via GTM.

• Make sure you know where the container code should be placed on each page of your site.
• There are multiple ways to access the container code in your account. Take note of these locations.
• Remember the 3-step naming convention for tags.
• Think about where the Data Layer needs to be placed so that when GTM is triggered, it can grab the information it needs from that Data Layer.
• Recall how variables are declared in the Data Layer.
• The Data Layer doesn’t maintain across pages automatically.

Tag Manager Assessment 3

Goal: Master the use of custom dimensions and metrics, and learn about event tracking for Google Analytics.

• The push method pushes data from X to Y. You’ll need to know what X and Y represent.
• GTM can capture many actions, but not all of them. Certain actions like opening and closing new windows in the browser cannot be captured.
• When you send in custom dimension/metric data into GA, you’ll need to add the index number to your respective GTM tag.

Tag Manager Assessment 4

Goal: Implement the AdWords Remarketing tags and set up Dynamic Remarketing. (This stuff is super important. It’s 2015 – anyone with paid ads MUST be able to remarket properly!)

• There are four steps to set up AdWords remarketing. Remember what they are from the live demo.
• Most of the business attributes information around remarketing can be found in the Google Analytics Help Center.
• When setting up a variable for Dynamic Remarketing, it needs to be captured by the Data Layer.
• If you want a tag to fire on a specific page, the page hostname will not be helpful.

As a bonus, after completing these exams you’ll get a fancy certificate so you can brag to everyone in your workplace (at least that’s what I do with mine).

To learn more about tag management, stay tuned to the Portent blog. And don’t worry, I’ll be posting more 101 level material for folks out there looking to break into the tag management world, or use it to up their digital marketing game.

Good luck!

The post Quick Guide to Google Tag Manager Fundamentals Exams appeared first on Portent.

Yeah – me too.

Don’t get me wrong – I love GA. It’s way easier to navigate than most of the other analytics platforms out there. But just like its users, GA isn’t perfect.

As an expert on both analytics and all things brutality (I’m a big death metal fan) I’d like to call out some of the most frustrating aspects of GA, as well as solutions to work around these obstacles.

NOTE: These brutal issues will be listed from the simplest to the most complex. If you’re new to GA, start reading here. If you’re a GA wizard, feel free to scroll down to more complex topics.

Problem: Limited visuals

When you present data you want your charts to look sparkly clean. GA’s basic visuals are fine, but when you try to show multiple metrics, segments, or time intervals…things get ugly:

Looks more like a Richter scale than analytics data

Even with simple data points, the visuals in GA aren’t great:

We want sexy data visualizations, not the bare minimum. The visuals can’t be customized within GA, so we have to look elsewhere for enhancing our charts.

Solution – Microsoft Excel

Export the data into a CSV in Excel to create your own visuals. Want to pick your favorite colors? Done! Want the labels to actually be readable from a distance? Done!

If you’re lacking confidence in your Excel skills, check out my deck on visualizing analytics data in Excel. It’ll show you the basics on making kick-ass charts from your GA data.

Problem: Names of metrics and reports keep changing

One day you go into GA and try to look up how many unique visitors came to your site. But then you can’t find that metric, or other metrics, or even the Channels report where you looked yesterday.

Maybe you think you’re going crazy. It was all here yesterday!

You’re (probably) not crazy. GA decided to rename metrics and reports out of the blue. Now your unique visitors are called users, your visits are called sessions, and your Channels report is hidden under the All Traffic button. How dare they make you click one more button to find your report!

Solution: Search box

You can use the search box in the top left corner of the interface. If you need the Channels report, instead of clicking around the dropdown lists you can type it in the box:

And select the report from the results:

Note that you can also use this for finding recently viewed reports.

As for the renamed metrics, be on the lookout for announcements from GA when these changes occur. Here’s a quick list of common metrics from Google’s last renaming batch in 2014:

• Visits are now Sessions
• Visitors are now Users
• Avg. Time on Site is now Avg. Session Duration

Problem: Data sampling

When you try to look at lots of data (like millions of sessions) with several dimensions and segments, eventually you’ll hit a data wall. GA will sample your report based on less than 100% of your sessions. It usually looks like this:

This can be especially frustrating when you already clicked the button telling GA to provide your data with slower response for greater precision. Response time is exactly why the sampling occurs. GA doesn’t want to spend all day building out your report, so it provides a sample.

Solution(s):

1. Purchase GA Premium to eliminate almost all sampling from your reports. You put down the cash and GA will work harder to bring you all of your data. But Premium costs $100,000+, so let’s assume that isn’t possible.
2. Slim your report down to the essentials. Strip away extra segments and dimensions to obtain the largest sample possible.
3. Worst case scenario – split the time interval into smaller parts and move the data into one Excel file. This is crazy annoying, but it technically works.

Problem: Traffic segments aren’t accessible in all reports

Custom segments are a fantastic way to view specific parts of your data. They’re easy to implement; click on the top ribbon, find (or create) the one you need, and you’re good to go!

But if you venture to the Multi-Channel Funnels report, you’re screwed:

Same goes for the Goal Funnel report:

C’mon GA! What’s up with that?

Solution: Write Google an expletive-filled letter of complaint

I’m kidding of course. But you’d think by now this would be consistent across the entire interface. Until then we have to wait for the GA team to mercifully give us access to the segment ribbon on these reports.

Problem: Report filters lack “or” logic option

Let’s say you want to view all of your pages based around your site’s newsletter. The URLs contain either the word “mail” or “newsletter”. You can make a report filter to find URLs for mail, but when you want a filter to also capture newsletter…uh oh:

We can only select “and”, meaning that the URLs would have to include both of those words. In this scenario the filters wouldn’t work.

Brutal.

Solution: Regular Expressions (RegEx)

This nifty language can help you access any combination of dimensions you’d want in a report. It even has a character that represents the word “or”, the vertical bar | (that’s not a lowercase L, or an uppercase i, but a vertical bar |).

If you select RegEx in the filter options, now we can create our filter with one condition:

New to RegEx? No problem! Here’s a handy cheat sheet, as well as this free RegEx testing tool to verify whether or not your expressions are capturing what you need.

Problem: Multi-Channel Funnels revenue consistency to other reports

My colleague Michael Wiegand brought this one up. When you go to the Multi-Channel Funnels (MCF) report, direct traffic is awarded conversions differently than every other GA report. Google has their reasons but I’ll make it simple:

If a conversion takes place from a direct visit, in the MCF report the direct channel is awarded with the conversion. Every other GA report defers the conversion to the last non-direct visit from the user who just converted.

For example, here’s revenue in the Channels report:

Then the same profile in the MCF report:

They both add up to the same total revenue, but the distribution is inconsistent.

Some argue that this is more accurate since direct traffic is not ignored. But it creates an inconsistency when using multiple reports.

Solution: Less emphasis on last-click attribution

This brutal situation is an important lesson for all analytics users: last-click is not the only attribution model. Michael has an excellent post on the flaws viewing conversions with only last-click attribution.

Go play around in the Attribution Model Comparison tool to get more thorough insights on how your channels contribute to your conversions.

Next time you start to have a meltdown while in GA, just remember many issues on the platform have solutions. Even if there isn’t a current fix, Google updates the platform at least once per year to help solve these issues.

But don’t hesitate to take a screenshot of an issue and tweet them “WTF?” – they need the feedback.

The post How to Solve 6 Brutal Problems in Google Analytics appeared first on Portent.

Click here for the report.

Using data from Portent’s site traffic I will show you three metrics crucial to tracking mobile success:

• Users
• Bounce Rate
• Revenue or Goal Completions

Why it’s a big deal
Mobile users already account for 28% of all web traffic. Here at Portent, we see clear evidence that mobile traffic is rapidly growing. Compare desktop to mobile since 2010 among our largest clients:

Based on traffic projections for 2014 we see a 65% increase in mobile traffic compared to 2013. In comparison to 2010, desktop traffic has doubled while mobile traffic has increased 30 fold! Clearly this is a rising audience segment.

It’s been “the year of mobile” for a half-decade now, but in 2014 there are still websites with less than ideal mobile experiences. Remember when you wanted to slam your phone in frustration after trying to navigate a mobile site (hopefully not this one)? Maybe you’ve seen jumbled pages like this:

For World of Warcraft fans out there, this forum’s material is incredibly difficult to read. There’s a navigation bar at the top somewhere; good luck reading it!

Using the Custom Report

If you feel like your company could improve their mobile user experience, first you need to demonstrate that mobile is a large – or at least growing – part of your traffic. One way to demonstrate this is by using date comparisons to show growth or decline of traffic, goal completions, or any other metric of interest. Our custom report can do it for you. Click the date box in the upper right corner of a report and select the date intervals you want to compare:

For this example I chose Jan – May 2014 vs Jan – May 2013, because Portent unveiled a new site design in January 2014. Comparing data to the same interval last year will give us an idea of how well the new design works. Note: the following data is all from our GA profile.

Metric 1 – Users
The first metric to take into account is users. It identifies how many pairs of eyeballs have seen your material:

Portent’s desktop users still bring the most traffic, but their numbers are falling. Meanwhile our mobile visits have increased over 450%!

Using this report and your own data, how much has your mobile traffic grown?

Metric 2 – Bounce Rate
Gaining more traffic is nice. But it’s also important to show that these visitors are enjoying their mobile experience (or at the very least, not hating it). Bounce Rate is an excellent metric to judge on whether or not your site holds your audience’s attention. Here are Portent’s results:

The bounce rate fell across all device categories. But notice that it fell by the most for mobile users, just over 18%. Mobile visitors were less inclined to leave after one stop on our site, which is generally a signal that a website is easy to navigate.

If you’re a retailer, this improvement could lead to more sales and in turn more revenue. Perhaps your bounce rates are on the rise or higher than you’d like – this provides an excellent way to start a conversation with your development team. Simple reports like the one above can show them that visitors do not enjoy your site as well as you want them to, and that now is the time to take action.

Metric 3 – Revenue or Goal Completions
While traffic and bounce rate provide insight, the most important metrics measure impact on your bottom line. Whether it’s revenue or leads, you must convince your team that mobile is either successful or can deliver higher conversion rate. In the custom report, you can alternate between revenue or goal completions simply by changing tabs in the report. Going back to the report, we can see mobile’s impact on what you want most from your site:

Conversions went up almost 370% for mobile users! This shows what a responsive design can do to enhance your mobile traffic. Technically the conversion rate dropped, but this is normal when there is a large influx of new traffic.

How did your conversions compare on mobile? Did your conversion rate rise or fall?

Make the case for mobile

Here is a link to this custom report in case you missed it earlier in this post. Feel free to try it out. Whenever you do find an interesting pattern or metric with your mobile traffic, simplify it: Does it make the case for mobile?

Whether you’re a full-time analyst or a marketing manager that checks GA from time to time, you want to show your insights efficiently. This applies to all types of reporting. But clearly, mobile traffic deserves our utmost attention.

The post Measuring Mobile – Using Google Analytics to Prove Mobile Matters appeared first on Portent.

Watching after a kid for over a decade, walking around in a hooded robe and using the alias “Old Ben”? You have to admit that is a little creepy.

But when all was said and done, Obi-Wan was incredibly helpful and never crossed the line with his creepiness, which is the similar to Google Analytics Demographic Reports (GADR). With GADR, you can retrieve fantastic data on who’s responding to your current pages and campaigns. These reports can glean age, gender, or even visitors’ general interests. Remember: Obi-Wan creepy, not NSA creepy.

To receive the data all you need to do is:

• Change the GA tracking code on your pages from ga.js to dc.js
• Enable this tracking in your account settings (more instructions on this entire process can be found at Google’s Help Center).

Demographic data comes from DoubleClick third-party cookies, so if a user does not have that cookie then their demographics and interests will not be reported. There are also thresholds built in to make sure the information does not make an individual visitor identifiable; again, Obi-Wan creepy, not NSA creepy.

Here are 3 simple combinations in GADR that you can use to find your target audience. These are general combinations so I encourage you to experiment with them as you see fit. Playing around with data can be more rewarding than you may think. Trust your instincts!

NOTE: All the data in this post reflects eigene-homepage-erstellen.net’s reports. Your results may (and will) vary.

Conversions with Gender and Age

Questions answered with this report:

• Which gender completes the most site conversions?
• Which age group completes the most site conversions?
• Which demographic has the highest or lowest conversion rate?

We want to see how successful your campaigns are in terms of conversions. To do that, we’ll need to download the GADR data and visualize it in Excel. Simply go into Audience > Demographics > Age, and then add Gender as the secondary dimension:

Export the data to Excel and create a chart like this:

For this site, it’s clear that male visitors between 25-34 years old complete the most goals. While this is useful, it’s better to add context. Adding Conversion Rate to the chart creates a better insight into the top demographics for your site:

35 – 54 year old males (and females to a lesser extent) complete goals at a higher rate than any other demographic. Why? These tech-savvy mid-lifers are arriving at c-suite marketing jobs and needing real insights to guide their teams. We can use these insights to guide future pieces of content.

Now a new question may arise; where did these visitors come from? To find the origins of your visitors you can use GADR once again! For Obi-Wan’s origin story, you have to watch poorly acted prequel movies.

Traffic Sources

Questions answered with this report:

• Which traffic source yields the most traffic for my target age/gender demographic?
• Where should I look to improve my traffic sources?

Here we use the segments Search Traffic, Social Media Referrals, and Referral Traffic:

At first glance when multiple segments are used in GA with demographics your charts may look too chaotic for proper analysis:

Yikes. Again, exporting this data to Excel and utilizing pivot tables makes things much more digestible:

We see similar visit ratios across all three sources, with a few exceptions:

• The search audience tends to skew younger – with a much higher chunk of visits from 18-24 year old males than any other traffic source.
• At the same time, the 35+ age-ranges taper off evenly, with nice pockets of users at each point using Search.
• After the age 45 age mark, there are virtually no social visitors. It could be that we’re just not very active on LinkedIn, where older professionals socialize.

Using this report to guide your marketing mix is really critical.

We have seen how to view demographics data for goal conversions as well as which source those visitors come from. But what can we learn about their geographical locations? This is where GADR reaches its creepiest level. Obi-Wan knew the geographic location of Luke and ended up saving his life.

Luckily, GA can’t get quite that personal with your data.

New Visits with Location and Age

Questions answered with this report:

• What general locations do my new visitors come from?
• Is my new campaign being promoted to the proper location and age group?

Let’s say you launched a web campaign and need to know what regions are getting the most new attention. You also want to make sure you are hitting a target age demographic. Using GADR, we can find out which city and state they are from to make sure this campaign is advertised in the proper locations.

The first step is to go into the Location report by clicking on Audience > Geo > Location. After that, segment the data to only show New Users:

Take a look at the map to identify which regions yield the most new visitors (for this example I have singled out the U.S.A.):

But what if your new site is targeting specific locations and one target age range? You’ll need to be pickier with which data you receive. Otherwise you will receive lots of useless data on demographics outside of your target area.

To get your specific geographic data, click on the target location (which can be from state level all the way down to a metropolitan area). Then use Age as a secondary dimension to retrieve a map as well as data in your table (this example covers California):

Going a step further, let’s say your site targets young adults aged 25-34 in the largest California cities. Click on advanced to place a filter on the data to only show that age group:

Now you see how well that city in ranks in terms of new visitors. The map is easier to read and the data table gives you your results:

Congratulations! Your campaign is targeted well to three of the most populated areas in California for your desired age group.

Since some of these examples are fairly specific, be sure to play around with all sorts of demographic data in GA. Combine segments, filters, date comparisons – you name it, GA can make it happen. Sometimes you may feel creepy retrieving this data on your visitors. Just remember, it cannot be traced to individual users and is very beneficial to your internet campaigns. Like Obi-Wan Kenobi, these reports have their creepy aspects but in the end are there to help us learn.

May the (analysis) force be with you!

The post 3 Demographic Reports for Jedi Masters appeared first on Portent.