Web Analytics Consultancy.
Delivering online business intelligence
Delivering online business intelligence
What do you use Google Analytics for
What do you use Google Analytics for?
A large number of companies, both large and small, have Google Analytics (GA) as their only online analytics tool. But what do they use it for? We asked *800 companies for their answers to the question…
“Do you use Google Analytics for any of the following types of reporting or insight?”
1. Traffic and Conversion KPI analysis 87%
Unsurprising this is number one. It is the bread and butter of analysis. Looking at the traffic to your site and seeing how it converts. However, it does raise one question…
…why do 13% of companies not do this analysis and why have GA on the site if you are not using it to answer this purpose?
2. Campaign Tracking 68%
Considering that online marketing departments have a large number of tools to track the various channels of online campaigns GA usage rates high…
…is its GA’s ability to show most marketing channels alongside each other that makes its usage high?
3. Management Reporting 60%
Not a surprising entry as GA does allow for varied and high level reporting that management teams love…
…is the management reporting in GA that good?
4. PPC Optimisation 60%
Again a predictable usage of GA as the automatic link between Adwords and GA is a definite benefit of GA…
…why not use GA for analysing your Adwords?
5. Site Search analysis 55%
It is logical that the majority of sites that have a search facility do use GA to track it. However, we are not convinced…
…this number seems low are we overestimating how many people have site search?
6. Funnel Optimisation 49%
With many tools out there which help with this much discussed area we are not that surprised that this number is only 49%...
…do people think that GA’s funnel analysis is somewhat limited?
7. Page Flow/Navigation analysis 44%
This figure may change asGA has now introduced its “Visitors Flow” feature. It will be interesting to see how 2011 data will compare to this year…
…are you using the visitors flow for your analysis?
8. Content Influence analysis 43%
Content is king… well at only 43% usage for analysing content maybe content is only a prince? There is no clear reason why GA is not used more for Content analysis...
…is there issues around GA and content analysis?
9. Product/Cross-sell analysis 17%
Wow! This is really surprising…
…is it GA that’s not doing the job or is it companies are not doing the analysis?
10. Rich Media/Flash/Video tracking analysis 9%
This is not a shock. To get GA to do this type of tracking is fiddly and needs expertise as well as access to the raw files…
…is it that difficult to track this stuff via GA?
*Taken from the Online Measurement and Strategy Report 2011 published by Econsultancy in association with Lynchpin.
Comments
I was surprised (but pleased)
I was surprised (but pleased) to see site search so high and disappointed that funnel optimisation was lower that I would have expected.
Yes, GA funnel reporting is tricky to configure well and can be confusing. But it can be used for many different things relating to optimisation. I particularly like using reverse goal reporting with errors, for example.
The standard goal reports are only a beginning. There's a lot that can be done with custom reporting with extra useful metrics available like funnel starts, completions and abandon rates. The new goal flow visualisations are also extremely interesting and I feel that they've only started out with work in that area.
I can't remember the details of the survey questions. But I think it would be useful to split each subject into three areas:
Do you do it at all?
How much time do you spend doing it?
How much value do you get out of it?
Survey
Hi Tim, Thanks for your comments. This question was added last year and we agree it needs more detail. We will add some subsequent questions when we do it this year and take your suggestions onboard.
Companies types
Hi,
First, thank you for these statistics. However, could you give us more details about 800 companies you integrated on your analysis ?
Are they american ? canadian ? europeean ?
Do you mix agencies and other companies ?
Companies Type
Hi Ramenos,
59% of respondents in this survey are client-side, and some 41% work for an agency, vendor or consultant who offer web analytics or related services.
Two-thirds of companies (66%) of respondents in this survey are UK-based, while 15% are based in Europe and 10% are from the US.
Over half of supply-side respondents (55%) are UK-based, while 14% are from Europe, and 10% are US-based.
Steve
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