Google Analytics Reports You Definitely Need to Use

When was the last time you thoroughly analysed your Google Analytics Reports?

‘Big data’ has become a buzzword and for good reason. Businesses small and large are collecting larger amounts of data to gain the competitive edge to cater to the ever-changing needs of the connected, modern consumer.

But there is a difference between collecting data and actually using it effectively to gain accurate insights about your customers.

Google Analytics reports are the best and most accessible tools for marketers. They provide essential date for all sorts of data from conversion rates to bounce rates, pages views and engagement rate, attrition to the number of unique monthly visitors.

Essential Google Analytics Reports

Google Analytics offers over 100 reports which provide an immense volume of data. In this article we’ll look at the 4 main reports that offer the most essential insights:

Audience Google Analytics Report
Acquisition Google Analytics Report
Behaviour Google Analytics Report
Conversion Google Analytics Report

Here is an overview of what’s included in these Google Analytics Reports, and why you need to become familiar with them:

Insights from the Audience Report

To meet the needs of the different people coming to your website, you first need to be clear about who is visiting in the first place.

Remember, to really make the most of Analytics, you need to have a marketing goal to start with. You can then use the data to take very specific actions toward you goals. Examples of goals may include improving conversion rates, boosting acquisition rates, improving mobile customer experience, growing traffic etc.

The Audience report can offer two important insights: your visitors based on their devices and their browsers.

You should ensure that whichever device your visitors are using to access your website, their experience is frictionless. Otherwise, you’ll see a spike in bounce rates and a decline in conversion rates.

So, head over to Audience > Mobile > Overview to see the number of incoming visitors from tablets, mobile and desktop. You’ll also be able to compare the conversion and bounce rate for these devices, and make the necessary adjustments. More importantly, your website needs to be mobile-friendly otherwise you’ll see a decrease in conversions and engagement.

To see which browsers your visitors are using, head to the path Audience > Technology > Browser. This will allow you to track bounce rates and conversion rates for each of the browsers to see if there are any incompatibility problems that may be eroding user experience.

This same process can be used to track the operating system your visitors are using. This will identify any CSS rendering problems that need to be resolved.

Insights from the Acquisition Report

Some of the most crucial questions for marketers involve knowing where their site visitors are coming from and what their search behaviour is. The Acquisition report helps answer these questions.

For example, you may want to find out which social media network is bringing in the most visitors to your website.

To find out, use the path Acquisition > Social > Network Referrals to see trends in social media traffic to your site. You will also be able to gain insights into visitors’ levels of engagement. This includes the amount of time they are spending on your website, the actions they are taking/not taking and even the pages they are visiting.

To see the conversion rates generated from each social networks, you could look at Acquisition > All Traffic > Referrals.

Keyword optimisation remains an essential part of online marketing. Insights into the search terms being used by your site visitors are especially helpful in your SEO efforts and targeting strategies.

So, what about search phrases that are bringing visitors to your site from the SERPs? Use the path Acquisition > Search Console > Queries to see what search queries resulted in your website appearing in the SERPs.

Insights from the Behaviour Report

The Behaviour report gives you insights into what visitors are doing on your website, and the performance of each page.

Using the path Behaviour > Site Search you will be able to see the items visitors are looking at the most on your site. This includes the terms used to find these items, item categories, the number of times a user searches for these items, their site exit trend and the duration of time spent on the site searching for an item.

This information will quickly fill you in on the most popular products, pages that need more attention in terms of content and the phrases you should incorporate in your copy to make items more findable.

Insights from visitors’ engagement with your landing pages are absolutely vital because these pages highly influence conversion decisions.

To see the performance of your landing pages, head over to Behaviour > Site Content > Landing Pages. Here, you will be able to identify the best and worst performing landing pages so you can effectively optimise these pages for better conversion rates.

The path Behaviour > Site Content > All Pages will let you see the series of actions visitors are taking from any page. Using this information, you can identify any friction points that need to improve for a better browsing experience and improved conversion rates.

Insights from the Conversion Report

[easy-tweet tweet=”The best copy or the shiniest landing pages are worthless if you are not seeing any meaningful conversions.”]

The Conversion report gives you insights into the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. You can measure numerous conversions depending on what your marketing goals are.

A good place to start is evaluating the conversion rate of each channel through which your site is coming from. Use the path Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels to identify this. With this information, you can make crucial decisions such as how to allocate your paid search budget.

The path Conversions > Goals > Funnel Visualisation is also vital. It gives you insights into the number of visitors that went through all the stages of your sales funnel, the pages in the funnel that are hindering conversions and why, as well as the overall efficacy of your funnel.