Let\u2018s use an example.
\nLet\u2018s say that a user initially came to your site from organic search, and then came back 9 times.
\nIn this case, Google Analytics will show you that there were 10 sessions brought by organic search.<\/p>\n
This may result in a very distorted representation of traffic.<\/p>\n
How to fix this?<\/strong> P.S. By the way, this explains why your Adwords clicks and Analytics sessions numbers are so far off.<\/p>\n Source:\u00a0keyword-hero.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n If you organically rank for some of the keywords you\u2018re advertising for, you\u00a0may be wasting your advertising dollars<\/strong>. I suspected that this may be the case for my Adwords campaigns, so I decided to check this using some basic statistics.<\/p>\n In statistics, there is a term called correlation, which stands for a statistical relationship between two variables. So I measured the correlation between Adwords and organic search traffic. My fears about Adwords “stealing” organic traffic were not supported by data, so I keep investing in this channel in peace. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Here is how you can check if YOUR Adwords campaigns are “stealing” your organic search traffic:<\/strong> 6. Then, use CORREL() function to find out if there is a correlation between these segments of traffic. Have you noticed that Google Analytics sometimes shows one page as two different ones? As a result, metrics in your reports are spread between these two pages (even though it\u2018s actually the same page). Same for campaign name, mediums etc. How to fix this? 2. Go to Go to Google Analytics – Admin – Filters, and add a filter that looks like this:<\/p>\n It\u2018s also a good idea to create the same filters for: Source:\u00a0www.amazon.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n Do you know that for most websites,\u00a0bot traffic accounts for 63% to 80%<\/strong>?<\/p>\n Some of them are “good bots” (e.g. RSS readers). Thankfully, Google Analytics has an easy way to eliminate them: That\u2018s it!<\/p>\n Source:\u00a0www.lunametrics.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n You worked so hard to set up Google Analytics on your company\u2018s or your client\u2018s website. Sometimes, there is a JavaScript error or something else went wrong, that could mess up the tracking.<\/p>\n To make sure that GA works properly, you can use\u00a0Google Analytics Debugger<\/a>.<\/strong> Just do the following: Source:\u00a0searchengineland.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n Do you ever feel disappointed when looking at your conversion rates in Google Analytics? And while there are always millions of things you can improve,\u00a0your real conversions rates are actual higher than GA tells you<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The thing is, GA shows you conversion rate per session. I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u00a0care about how many users actually converted in the end<\/strong>. Here is what Avinash Kaushik suggests you do:<\/strong><\/p>\n Source:\u00a0www.kaushik.net<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n If you\u2019re constantly checking your site, tweaking details, and updating content,\u00a0a sizable portion (10-30%) of your traffic is from you and your team<\/strong>, not from your customers.<\/p>\n Can you really rely on your Google Analytics data if its skewed by your own and your colleagues\u2019 visits?<\/p>\n Removing internal visits will result in much\u00a0more accurate reports and better decision-making<\/strong>.<\/p>\n You could set up a filter in GA to exclude your visits by IP address, but this method takes time and the filter needs to be updated constantly (when you connect from a different Wi-fi or if you have a dynamic IP address).<\/p>\n Instead, you can install\u00a0this Chrome extension<\/a>\u00a0that will\u00a0block Google Analytics for your browser<\/strong>, and ask your colleagues to do the same.<\/p>\n This will remove all internal page views and make your analytics much more accurate.<\/p>\n Before I reveal today\u2019s insight…, can you please reply to this email and answer this short question:\u00a0What\u2019s the #1 biggest marketing challenge you\u2019re struggling with right now?<\/strong>\u00a0Your answer will help me deliver more relevant content.<\/p>\n Do you use Google Analytics Content Experiments, but hate those redirects it produces? GA Content Experiments can\u00a0slow down your pages by up to two times<\/strong>, because they force the website to be loaded twice. Would you like to keep using GA Content Experiments the same way you\u2019re doing it now, but without the redirects? Now it is possible!
\nJust active the secondary dimension “Direct Session” in your reports.<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/secondarydimensiondirect.png\")
<\/p>\n2. Is Adwords Stealing Your Organic traffic?<\/h3>\n
Your Adwords ads may be competing with your organic search rankings on Google. Here is how you can know for sure.<\/h6>\n
\nBecause if you rank high enough for a given keyword, it doesn\u2018t make sense to advertise for it.<\/p>\n
\nIf Adwords has a negative impact on organic search traffic, these variables should be negatively correlated.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nIt turns out that the correlation was -0.113, which is weak.<\/p>\n
\n1. Go to Google Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic > Source\/Medium
\n2. Create 2 segments: Adwords and Google Organic.
\n3. Export at least 90 days of data to CSV.
\n4. Transform data from your CSVs to single Google Spreadsheet so it looks like this:
\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/correlationspreadsheet.png\")
<\/p>\n
\nInterpreting this correlation coefficient requires some math skills, but the rule of thumb is that:<\/p>\n\n
3. Make Your GA Reports More Readable<\/h3>\n
After implementing these simple tips, your GA reports will become more readable & easier to drive conclusions from<\/h6>\n
\nExample:<\/p>\n\n
\nMaking it harder to analyze your results.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nIf someone used “&medium=CPC” in a UTM tag, instead of more common “&medium=cpc”, GA will consider it as a different medium.
\nWhich will make your reports\u00a0a lot harder for you to read<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
\n1. Go to Google Analytics – Admin – View Settings – Exclude URL Query Parameters.
\nThen, input the common URL parameters that in case of your website don\u2018t count as separate pages.<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/3lowercasecampaignsourcefilter.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n+ Campaign name, term and medium
\n+ Request URI<\/p>\n4. Make You GA Reports Twice More Accurate<\/h3>\n
Just click on this one little checkbox to make your Google Analytics reports up to twice as accurate<\/h6>\n
\nBut “bad bots” (e.g. spammers, impersonators, hackers) account for a staggering\u00a027% of all web traffic<\/strong>, at least (according to a study by Incapsula.com).<\/p>\n
\n1. Go to Google Analytics – Admin – View Settings.
\n2. Check “Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders” under “Bot Filtering”.<\/p>\n5. Avoid This Critical Google Analytics Mistake<\/h3>\n
Avoid this Google Analytics mistake that can seriously mess up your web analytics<\/h6>\n
\nBut are you sure it works as intended?<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nIt\u2018s a Chrome extension that outputs what happens with your GA tracking to browser console.<\/p>\n
\n1. Install the extension.
\n2. Open the target website.
\n3. Click on its icon in Chrome.
\n4. Press Ctrl + Shift + J (or Cmd + Option + J if you\u2018re on Mac).
\n5. In this console, you\u2018ll every nitty-gritty detail of what your website sends to GA.<\/p>\n6. Your Conversions Are Higher Than You Think<\/h3>\n
Google Analytics makes your conversion rates looks worse than they really are<\/h6>\n
\nI know I do sometimes.<\/p>\n
\nAnd one user can have many sessions.<\/p>\n
\nNot what percentage of sessions resulted in a conversion.
\nIf it took them 10 sessions to convert, I\u2019m totally okay with that.:)<\/p>\n\n
7. Improve Your Analytics Accuracy by 20% Today<\/h3>\n
20% of your GA traffic may not really be from your customers (but you can exclude it)<\/h6>\n
8. Make your GA Content Experiments 2X faster<\/h3>\n
Make your website 2X faster by removing the redirect in your Google Analytics Content Experiments<\/h6>\n
\nSplit-testing is crucial<\/strong>, but it comes at a cost of bad user experience in the short term.<\/p>\n
\nThis is really bad, but switching to a different split-testing engine is painful.<\/p>\n
\nTo\u00a0speed up your website and decrease the bounce rate<\/strong>\u00a0caused by it?<\/p>\n
\nIn fact, the only reason that Experiments reload the pages is because they are implemented on the client side, using JavaScript.<\/p>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Webpnetresizeimage.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/ga-report.jpg\")
<\/p>\n