Google Analytics is a web analytics platform that allows measuring and optimizing website performance.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a web analytics platform that provides detailed metrics about traffic, user behavior and website performance.

Features

Metrics

  • Audience: Audience metrics
  • Acquisition: Acquisition metrics
  • Behavior: Behavior metrics
  • Conversions: Conversion metrics

Reports

  • Real-time: Real-time reports
  • Historical: Historical reports
  • Custom: Custom reports
  • Scheduled: Scheduled reports

Integration

  • Google Ads: Integration with Google Ads
  • Google Search Console: Integration with Search Console
  • Google Tag Manager: Integration with GTM
  • Third-party: Third-party integration

Configuration

Basic Implementation

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<!-- Google Analytics -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=GA_MEASUREMENT_ID"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
  gtag('js', new Date());
  gtag('config', 'GA_MEASUREMENT_ID');
</script>

Advanced Configuration

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// Custom configuration
gtag('config', 'GA_MEASUREMENT_ID', {
  'custom_map': {'dimension1': 'user_type'},
  'user_id': 'USER_ID',
  'send_page_view': false
});

// Custom events
gtag('event', 'purchase', {
  'transaction_id': '12345',
  'value': 25.42,
  'currency': 'USD'
});

Google Tag Manager

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<!-- Google Tag Manager -->
<script>(function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':
new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],
j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src=
'https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);
})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-XXXXXXX');</script>

Key Metrics

Audience

  • Users: Unique users
  • Sessions: Sessions
  • Pageviews: Page views
  • Bounce Rate: Bounce rate

Acquisition

  • Organic Search: Organic search
  • Direct: Direct traffic
  • Referral: Referral traffic
  • Social: Social traffic

Behavior

  • Page Load Time: Load time
  • Exit Rate: Exit rate
  • Site Speed: Site speed
  • User Flow: User flow

Conversions

  • Goals: Goals
  • E-commerce: E-commerce
  • Funnels: Conversion funnels
  • Attribution: Attribution

Use Cases

Websites

  • Performance: Performance analysis
  • User Experience: User experience
  • Content: Content analysis
  • Traffic: Traffic analysis

E-commerce

  • Sales: Sales analysis
  • Products: Product analysis
  • Customers: Customer analysis
  • Campaigns: Campaign analysis

Marketing

  • Campaigns: Campaign analysis
  • Channels: Channel analysis
  • ROI: Return on investment
  • Attribution: Conversion attribution

Best Practices

Implementation

  • Privacy: Privacy compliance
  • Performance: Performance optimization
  • Accuracy: Data accuracy
  • Testing: Implementation testing

Analysis

  • Regularity: Regular analysis
  • Segmentation: Data segmentation
  • Comparison: Period comparison
  • Action: Data-driven action

Optimization

  • Goals: Define goals
  • KPIs: Key indicators
  • Testing: A/B testing
  • Improvement: Continuous improvement

References