Increasing your online sales using Google Analytics tools- A Technical Perspective!

Why do you need these Google Analytics tools?

In the previous blog we told you how you could increase your online sales using Google Analytics. Here we’re going to get a little more technical and tell you how to measure data, analyze it and how you can view the output to see meaningful information. Using a visual usually does the trick in understanding what we are getting at :

All your website traffic is usually generated through the content you put out or through social media. This traffic does not magically appear in Google Analytics in the form of data.

The traffic is measured and tracked using tools like Google Tag Manager (GTM), UTM Parameters and Google AdWords.

Let us look at how you can use these three tools to measure the data.

Google Tag Manager :

A tag is nothing but a fragment of a code which is usually present on a few or all pages of your website. This tag helps you track and analyze the traffic to your website.

Platforms like Google Analytics are usually included in these tags. Other user tracking areas like Google AdWords can also be included.

So how do you track the tags now?

In order to know what a user on your website wants, you need to create a tag for each goal and add it to the relevant pages of your website. Implementing tags is not enough.

The changes on the website need to be made live for the tracking to actually begin.

Moving on let’s see how you can track button clicks with GTM :

First, create a GTM account

Make sure the GTM Pixels are installed on your website.

The steps the track button clicks using GTM

• A generic click trigger should be created. Triggers > New.
• A trigger titled generic click trigger must be created

• Trigger Configuration box > All Elements under Click > All Clicks.
• Save it. Following this, clicks need to be filtered to your button
• Click variables will be your filters. Go to variables
• Click on ‘Configure’. You will find it under built in variables

• Under clicks, all the checkboxes should be checked

• Preview it.
• The page with the button on it should be opened. You will find a GTM console on the page
• Check summary for new elements
• Hold command and click your button
• New elements will be listed under summary in your origin tab
• Figuring out which new element was triggered by your button click may be a little difficult. The variables tab will tell you which GTM click is for the button. You need to filter your Generic Click Trigger incorporating the usage of these variables.

• In the GTM tab, go to triggers and select your generic click trigger to rename it to whatever you want to track
• Trigger Configuration > Some clicks (change it from All Clicks). Go to the dropdown bar, choose Click Text and paste the Click Text that the variables box gives you

• Event tracking tags need to be created now. Tags > click New.
• The tag must be named
• Tag Configuration box > Ensure that the Tag Type is Universal Analytics. Enter the Google Analytics ID.
• The track type must be set as event. Event tags must be set.

• In the triggering box, the trigger you created will be visible. Click on it
• Refresh your preview mode. The tab with the button should be refreshed as well.
• The button should be clicked holding down command
• View the “Tag”. Ideally the button click should have triggered a GTM click variable with your new tag

• In Google Analytics > Real-time > Events, it should be visible

UTM Parameters

Tags that you add to a URL are UTM parameters, it literally is that simple. When a click on a UTM enabled URL happens, tags are sent back to Google Analytics for tracking.

UTM Parameters will provide you with information about how people are reaching your website.

Creating UTM Parameters :

The most common way to create UTM Parameters for your links would be by using the Google Analytics URL Builder

Creating UTM Parameters :

• Campaign Source(utm_source) – This parameter would be used to identify your traffic source.
• Campaign Medium(utm_medium) – This parameter would be used to identify which medium the link was used upon.
• Campaign Term(utm_term) – This optional parameter is used for paid search in order to identify keywords for your ad. In the case of google AdWords, this can be skipped if your AdWords and Analytics accounts are synced and you use the auto-tagging feature
• Campaign Content(utm_content) – This is an optional parameter which will give you extra information for A/B testing and content-targeted ads.
• Campaign Name(utm_campaign) – This parameter would be used to identify a particular campaign or a specific promotion.

One thing to make note of is that UTM Parameters are case sensitive. If you use sentence case tags on a few links and upper case tags on a few links, they will show up as separate campaigns in Google Analytics.

Do not use tags that you want to remain hidden as they will appear in the browser’s address bar.

The usage of UTM Parameters will depend on how you would want the information to be displayed in Google Analytics.

To see your campaign in Google Analytics :

Website Profile > Traffic Sources > Sources > Campaigns

This will enable you to see the various campaigns which are tagged using the utm_campaign parameter on your link.

Additional details as tagged for each campaign can be viewed by clicking on the campaign name and using the utm_source/utm_medium parameters.

Google AdWords :

Linking your AdWords and google Analytics accounts isn’t necessarily required. However, you should definitely consider linking them.

Some of the data shown in Adwords and the data in Google Analytics may be the same. Google Analytics does however give you additional insight as to what a user does on your website post a click.

AdWords is basically a PPC model and understanding what a user does post click gives you an insight into their behavior on your website.

Linking AdWords to Analytics :

Analytics > Admin > Property > AdWords Linking

Something you should not overlook,

Click ‘Select All’ and then proceed to link accounts. Also ensure that auto-tagging is enabled in AdWords.

Now that your accounts are linked, let us see how you can view the data in Google Analytics :

Typically, you should be able to see all your campaign statistics in the Google Analytics platform. Important data like Campaigns, Keywords, Search Queries etc. can be viewed here.

Bear in mind that viewing is not the only way see your data.

Suppose you use the path Behavior > Site Content > Exit pages, an alternate dimension can be selected followed by ‘source/medium’ to see how many AdWords users clicked on to make it to your thank you page.

In the case of conversion tracking measurement, this information will help you ensure that there are no massive discrepancies.

This brings us to the issue of discrepancies :

There is a small variation in how Google Analytics and AdWords record data. Each visit is reported  as a click in AdWords and as a session in Google Analytics.

Suppose a user visits your website and revisits it within a set time period, AdWords will measure it as two clicks whereas Google Analytics will consider it as one session.

Interpreting the Data :

Once the data is viewed in Google Analytics, the reports can be downloaded for further understanding of user behavior and to determine improvement areas.

Another way for you to view and make sense of this data is to export it to excel or other dashboard tools. This is essentially the whole process of how you can track your traffic, measure it and analyze it.

Using these tools is extremely crucial as it gives you insight into user behavior, problem areas, campaign results, website issues etc.

Knowing this information will guide you to make the right decisions, basically actionable insights are what are required and that is exactly what you get!