Data Thresholding Overview

Before diving into the benefits and drawbacks, let’s define what data thresholding is. Data thresholding is intended to protect user privacy. If the user or event count is below a certain number, Google will withhold that data. Google states in this help doc:

Data thresholds are applied to prevent anyone viewing a report or exploration from inferring the identity or sensitive information of individual users based on demographics, interests, or other signals present in the data.

Here is an example of what you’ll see in GA4 if your data has been thresholded:

Data Thresholding Benefits

Over the past several years, the digital world has received growing pressure to maintain and protect user privacy on the web. With influences from GDPR and CCPA, amongst others, Google has been striving towards a privacy-first approach. 

Google has already installed several privacy protection measures, including:

• Phasing out third-party cookies
• Limiting visibility in their search terms report
• Continued updates to the Privacy Sandbox
• And more

Now, by utilizing data thresholding, Google can protect the identity and privacy of users in a given dataset.

Data Thresholding Drawbacks

Unfortunately, data thresholds cannot be adjusted because they are defined by the system. However, you can make the following changes in analytics that decrease the likelihood of running into a data threshold:

• Adjust the date range: If there is a small number of users or events in a specific date range, data may be withheld. The broader the date range is, the more likely it is that you will be able to see data that was previously thresholded. This is because the larger date range shows a greater number of events and triggers, making it more difficult to pin down the specific details of a particular user.
• Export to BigQuery: Analytics does not directly export from Google signals to BigQuery. Session and event data may vary between BigQuery and Analytics because Google signals automatically remove duplicate user counts from individual users.
• Turn off Google signals in reporting: You can do this by going to the Admin section, then selecting “Data collection and modification” > “Data collection page”.

Now that we know what data thresholding is, what exactly causes it? The answer — Google Signals. While disabled by default, Google Signals are intended to enhance your remarketing and reporting efforts.

What are Google Signals?

In this Google Help Doc about Google Signals, there is a chart that explains the difference between the existing analytics settings vs analytics with Google Signals enabled. Here is our simplified version:

Long story short, enabling Google Signals will allow demographic data to be pulled into GA4 and will let you use Analytics Audiences and retargeting audiences in Ads.

What does data thresholding mean for marketers?

Google’s data thresholding is another way that we see an effort towards a more private web landscape. While data thresholding may result in a headache for analysts and marketers in the short term, it is indicative that Google is making strides to keep up with other, more privacy-centric competitors like Bing and DuckDuckGo. More and more updates like this will likely be coming from Google over the next few years to keep up with the ever-evolving privacy policies. Stay tuned!

The post Data Thresholding in GA4: Overview, Benefits, and Drawbacks appeared first on DAGMAR.

In Universal Analytics, marketers had a selection between these attribution models:

• Data Driven
• Time Decay
• First Click
• Last Click
• Linear
• Position Based

Now that Google Analytics (GA4) has taken over, several of the attribution models that we’ve become accustomed to have gone away. In October 2023, Google announced that calculated metrics will be replacing the first click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models.

What is a calculated metric?

Calculated metrics are designed to give business owners more customizations in their reporting based on their business needs. This can be created by combining a custom metric with a mathematical formula. If you have a standard GA4 property, you can create five calculated metrics, or if you have an Analytics 360 property you can create 50.

See below for how to create your own calculated metric.

How will this impact conversion tracking?

You’ll need to adjust your attribution setups if you have first click, linear, time decay, or position-based attribution models in place. If you don’t adjust the setup, by default these will be changed to paid and organic data-driven models. 

On the other hand, if you weren’t using any of the 4 retired attribution models, you don’t need to make any changes at this time.

If you are creating calculated metrics, set aside some time to test, document, and plan. Depending on your business goals, you may want to create and test a few different versions of calculated metrics to determine which is best for you. Also, make sure to note how you created the custom metric and discuss with your team how this metric will be used and interpreted.

What are the next steps?

With fewer predefined options to choose from, marketers who have utilized the retired attribution models will have to switch to another existing metric, or create their own. The good news is that it sounds like the most popular attribution models will be around to stay (for the time being at least!). 

The next steps to consider are:

1. If you have any of the retiring attribution models in place, change those in GA4 to one of the remaining models (data-driven and last click).
2. If you want to have other attribution options, then you’ll need to create a calculated metric.

How to update the attribution models

Once logged into your GA4 account, click on the “Admin” button in the bottom left corner. Next, in the “Data display” card, select “Attribution settings”. Here you can select from data-driven and first click models. 

Once you’ve completed this step, scroll down and link your Google Ads account if you haven’t already. Then, set your preferred conversion window. This determines the timeframe for which to apply an attribution to a conversion. 

Lastly, click save.

How to create a calculated metric

Once logged into your GA4 account, click on the “Admin” button in the bottom left corner. Next, in the “Data display” card, select “Custom definitions”.

Next, select the “Calculated metrics” tab then “Create calculated metric”. Note: Calculated metrics will only be enabled if Google Ads is linked to the GA4 account.

At this stage, you’ll need to fill out the following information:

• Name
• API Name
• Description
• Formula
• Unit of Measurement

Google provides examples of calculated metrics in this help doc, but we have another example below:

Pro tip: In the “formula” field, as you start typing, GA4 will automatically provide you with a list of predefined metrics:

Once this information has been filled in, don’t forget to click save!

Final Thoughts 

Despite the growing pains marketers may be feeling with this latest GA4 update, the opportunities for customization and more specific data collection are growing. If a metric was not previously available, now marketers have the opportunity to create virtually exactly what they are looking for. This capability falls in line with one of the overarching goals of GA4 — customization of data measurement.

The post GA4 Attribution Model Changes and What They Mean For Tracking Conversions appeared first on DAGMAR.

We’ve developed a step-by-step guide designed to show you how to track a form in Google Analytics 4 using Google Tag Manager. Continue reading and learn everything you need to know. 

Step1: GA4 Configuration

First, we will create a tag in Google Tag Manager and link it to Google Analytics 4 to send the data tracked by GTM to our GA4 account for analysis.

If you’re experiencing any issues, no need to panic. For additional assistance on setting up GA4 configuration in Google Tag Manager, check out our blog, How to Set Up a Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Account Using Google Tag Manager.

In our instructional, we covered all of the essentials and we ensured that it’s beginner-friendly and easy-to-follow.

Step 2: Tag Creation

• To track form submissions, we will create a new tag in Google Tag Manager (GTM) and give it the name “GA4 – Form Submissions”. 
• We will select the appropriate tag type (Google Analytics: GA4) by clicking on “Tag Configuration”.
• Name the event “Form Submissions” so that it accurately reflects the type of data we are tracking.

Step 3: Set Up a Trigger

• To create a trigger, we’ll go to the GTM interface and click on “Triggering.” This will take us to a new page where we can create a new trigger.

• In the “Trigger Configuration” settings, we’ll select “Page View” as the type of trigger, which means it will activate when a user views a page on the website.
• Next, we need to specify the conditions that will trigger the event. We want the trigger to activate only when a user views the “thank you page”, so we’ll choose “Some Page Views” and then specify the URL of the thank you page.
• We’ll choose “Page URL” and then select “contains” and type “/thanks/” in the third column. This means that when a user views a page that contains “/thanks/” in the URL, the trigger will activate.
• Finally, we’ll save the changes we made to the trigger, and it will be ready to track when a user sees the thank you page.

Step 4: Test

• We need to test whether our tag works properly. We’ll do this by opening the Preview and Debug mode. 
• We want to check if the tag fires when we see the thank you page (after submitting our contact form). 
• As illustrated in the image below, the tag is firing as expected.

• Next, we must ensure that the event from our tag is sent to GA4. You can check Steps 17, 18, and 19 in the blog we mentioned earlier to learn how to do this.

Why Track Your Website Data With Google Analytics 4?

For businesses to obtain insights into the performance of their website and maximize their marketing efforts, tracking web pages in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is essential. Businesses may find out which pages bring in the most views, which convert visitors, and where visitors may drop off by tracking them in GA4.

Many companies can benefit from tracking their website in GA4 and using the data-driven insights received to optimize their marketing efforts. They can also use this data to identify which marketing campaigns are leading to the most traffic and conversions, which pages on their website need to be improved, and where their marketing budgets should be spent for the best ROI.

Tracking Forms In Google Analytics 4 Using Google Tag Manager

When you have an online form, such as a contact or sign-up form, tracking how many users are filling it out is essential. This information helps you understand the form’s popularity and identify any issues causing users to abandon it before completing it.

Tracking form submissions is easier using Google Tag Manager (GTM), a free tool that enables you to add tags to your website’s code that monitors user behavior. With GTM, you can also set up a tag that tracks the “thank-you” page that appears after someone successfully submits the form. 

By monitoring the thank-you page, you can see how many users are completing the form and identify any issues causing users to leave the form before submitting it. For example, if you notice a high abandonment rate, you may need to simplify the form or make it more user-friendly.

Overall, monitoring your form submissions

The post How to Track Forms in Google Analytics 4 Using Google Tag Manager  appeared first on DAGMAR.

In this blog, we will show you how to track one of the most common events in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) using Google Tag Manager (GTM).

Tracking Button Clicks in Google Tag Manager (GTM):

If your website has buttons, it is essential to monitor whether your users are clicking them or not. We will demonstrate how to use Google Tag Manager to track buttons and send these button clicks as events to GA4.

Step 1: 

• First, you must create a Google Analytics 4 and Tag Manager accounts and then configure Google Analytics 4 with Tag Manager. If you need help with it, you can follow our step-by-step guide.

Step 2: 

• Enable Click variables and create a Click trigger. 

A trigger is what helps define the conditions you would like to have tracked from the click button. Since Google Tag Manager doesn’t track button clicks by default, these steps are required to track clicks on our website.

• Create a new trigger, and name it. Then, select “Click – All Elements” as a trigger type. Be sure to save your progress after.

Step 3: 

• Enter the page URL where you want to track button clicks in GTM by clicking preview.

• We want to see how many website visitors are interested in our “SEO for lawyers: Ultimate Digital Marketing Blueprint for Attorneys” guide. So for this purpose, we will be tracking the “Get the Guide” button highlighted in the image below.

Step 4: 

• After clicking the “Get the Guide” button, we will receive Click events in the GTM preview and debug mode. 

• In this example, we will use “Click Classes” and “Click URL” to track our button.
• Because the text may change in the future, we do not advise using “Click Text” for button tracking.

Step 5: 

• In Google Tag Manager, we will update the “Element trigger” we created in Step 2 and rename our trigger to “SEO for Lawyers – CTA.”
• In the image below, we have updated our trigger with the information we received in preview and debug mode in the previous step.
• These values will be different on your website. You may only have the Click ID, which you can use to track your button, rather than the Click Classes or Click URL.

Step 6: 

• Create a new Tag in GTM and name it.

A tag is responsible for developing the button click event data. However, this can only occur once it has been paired with a trigger.  

• Select “Google Analytics: GA4 Event” as the Tag Type.
• Pick the Configuration Tag you created by following the steps in “How to Set Up a Google Analytics 4 Account Using Google Tag Manager”.
• Name your event; we have named it “SEO for Lawyers – Button Clicks”.
• Choose the trigger we created in the previous step.
• Save your tag.

Step 7: 

• To reconnect the Tag Assistant to your website and update the preview and debug mode, click “Preview” once more.
• In order to verify whether the tag we created is firing or not, we will now click the “Get the Guide” button.
• Yay! Our Tag is firing.

Step 7: 

• The next step is to check if the GTM sends the event to GA4. 
• Please review Steps 17, 18, and 19 in the blog we mentioned earlier to verify this.

Google Analytics 4 + Google Tag Manager = Seamless Tracking 

Google Tag Manager makes setting up button tracking capabilities in GA4 faster and easier. Suppose you have successfully followed our step-by-step instructions. In that case, you should now be ready to start tracking the conversions from your website’s buttons and enjoying all of the added benefits of custom event tracking using Google Tag Manager (GTM).        

The post How to Set up and Track Button Clicks In Google Analytics 4 Using Google Tag Manager appeared first on DAGMAR.

We’ve developed a step-by-step guide that integrates Google Tag Manager into your GA4 setup, which reduces the amount of code required and can overall simplify the process. 

What is Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?

The most recent version of Google’s web analytics tool is called Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

It was introduced in October 2020 and is the replacement for Universal Analytics.

Compared to Universal Analytics, GA4 offers more sophisticated tracking and analysis capabilities. It utilizes machine learning and artificial intelligence to deliver more precise and valuable insights about user behavior and interactions on websites and mobile applications.

The Difference Between Universal Analytics and GA4

• Sessions and Pageviews were the critical measures in Universal Analytics, and all metrics are events in Google Analytics 4. With GA4, you can better understand how users interact with your app and website.
• Better cross-device tracking capabilities offered by GA4 allow it to track users across various platforms and devices, giving a complete picture of their behavior.
• To offer more sophisticated analyses and predictions about user behavior, including churn risk, income forecasting, and more, GA4 makes greater use of machine learning.
• In contrast to Universal Analytics, GA4’s user interface has a more contemporary and user-friendly design.
• Compared to Universal Analytics, GA4 offers more customization and flexibility, including the ability to define and monitor custom events and parameters per particular business needs.

Read More

Google Is Switching to GA4

Because Google Analytics 4 (GA4) offers a more sophisticated and complete analytics solution than the prior version (Universal Analytics), Google is urging businesses to upgrade.

With the help of new features like machine learning and event-based monitoring, GA4 enables businesses to gain a more precise and thorough understanding of the behavior of their users across various platforms and devices.

Although correctly setting up and configuring GA4 takes time and effort, Google has made resources available to assist businesses in the transition. For example, Google has provided a guide on how to migrate to GA4.

What is Google Tag Manager?

To put and manage tags on their website or mobile app without making any changes to the source code, website owners and marketers can use Google Tag Manager (GTM), a free tag management system provided by Google.

Tags are short pieces of code that gather information about how users engage with websites and apps and send it to external tools like Google Analytics, Google Ads, and Facebook Ads for analysis.

Why You’ll Want to Use GTM to Set Up Your GA4 Account

Using Google Tag Manager (GTM) to set up your Google Analytics 4 (GA4) account can provide several benefits, including:

• Without needing code changes, GTM makes setting up GA4 tracking on your website or app simpler. To track the events, you want to monitor, upload the GA4 measurement Id to your GTM container, after which you can make tags and triggers. 
• To monitor any website or app interaction you desire, such as button clicks, form submissions, video plays, and more, you can create custom tags and triggers with GTM. By giving you more flexibility and control over your GA4 tracking, you can gather the information you need to make data-driven business decisions.
• GTM makes updating and maintaining your tracking codes simple by letting you handle all your website or app tags in one place. This can save you time and effort compared to directly updating tags on individual pages or app screens.
• It is easier to test and troubleshoot your GA4 tracking before it goes live, thanks to the built-in tools that GTM offers for previewing and debugging your tags. This can assist you in finding and resolving any errors before they have an impact on your data.
• Multiple users can work together on tag management using GTM, and version control and user permissions help to guarantee accuracy and consistency. By doing this, you can simplify GA4 monitoring and make sure that everyone on your team is using the same data.

How to Set Up Your GA4 Using Tag Manager

If you still need to set up a GA4 account, visit analytics.google.com.

Step 1: Click on “Start measuring”

Step 2: Write your GA4 account name and then click next.

Step 3: Write the name of your Property, select a reporting time zone, and currency. Then click next.

Step 4: Mention details about your business and then click Create

Step 5: Read the terms and conditions and then click I Accept.

Step 6: Select your desired platform. In this example, we will be selecting Web.

Step 7: Add your Website URL, Stream name, and then click Create stream.

After you create the stream, a new window will appear. You’ll find installation instructions there. Because now we need to add the GA4 code to our website, so it starts collecting data. We will skip this step because we will be using Google Tag Manager (in Step 14) for installing GA4 on our website.

Step 8: Now, the next step is to create a Google Tag Manager account. 

Visit tagmanager.google.com and click on Create Account.

Step 9: Write the name of your account, container, select a target platform, and then click on create.

Step 10: Read the terms and conditions, accept them, and then click Yes.

Step 11: Next step is to install the GTM code. If you are using WordPress, then the easiest way is to use a plugin, like WPCode.

In your WordPress dashboard click on Plugins > Add New and then write wpcode in the search bar. Now, install the plugin. As you can see we have already installed it.

After you install the WPCode plugin you’ll see Code Snippets in the menu. Click on Header & Footer.

Now you will have to copy and paste the GTM code in the “Header & Footer” and then click on Save Changes.

Yayy!! GTM code is successfully Installed on your website.

Step 12: Click on Add a new tag

Step 13: Name your tag. Then click on Tag Configuration and choose “Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration”.

Step 14: Enter your GA4 Measurement ID. 

You can find the Measurement ID in your Google Analytics account > Admin > Data Streams

Step 15: Now in GTM, click on Triggering and then select the “All Pages” trigger and save it. In most cases you’d want to add fire GA4 Tag on all pages of your website.

Step 16: Click on Preview and paste the URL of your website and then connect.

Once connected, you will see this little pop-up on the bottom right side of your screen. The pop-up indicates that the GTM code is successfully installed on your website. If the code wasn’t installed correctly, the GTM window wouldn’t have connected.

Note: To enhance your GTM testing experience. Installing the “Tag Assistant Companion” Chrome extension to your browser is highly recommended by us.

Step 17: Now you should test the tags you’ve created. Here you can see the tag we created is successfully firing.

Step 18: Check if the Google Tag Manager is sending data to your Google Analytics 4 (GA4) account.

In the “Admin” section, Under “Property” click on the “Debug View”.

You can see the page_view event in the DebugView. This means that the GA4 tag in GTM has successfully sent the page view event to GA4.

You can also double check this by clicking Realtime under Reports in GA4.

Step 19: Now in GTM, publish your settings. Before publishing you always must test your tags. Check if they are firing and sending data to GA4. Click on “Submit”, name your Version, write a description, and then click on Publish.

Mastering Google Analytics 4 Has Never Been Easier 

Behind every new Google Analytics 4 set up, a wealth of data is just waiting to be discovered. Google Tag Manager enables a more straightforward configuration without having to add lines of lengthy and confusing code. Google Analytics 4 is the next generation of web analytics. Together, they can ensure proper configuration that will allow you to track custom events, track website data, and better monitor your customer journey. 

The post How to Set Up a Google Analytics 4 Account Using Google Tag Manager appeared first on DAGMAR.

Updated November 2022

If you’re responsible for running a website or creating marketing campaigns, you want to know as much as you can about where your traffic is coming from.

In a perfect world, you would simply log in to your Google Analytics account and all of the information you need would be automatically available to you—but we don’t live in that ideal marketing world. Fortunately, there are workarounds and our friends at Google have created a nifty little tool to help us: Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) codes.

Here are the basics of what UTM codes are and what they do.

Why should you be using UTM codes?

UTM tracking is one of the easiest and most effective ways to track where your site visitors are coming from.

Using UTM tracking provides marketers and business owners with quantitative data, which is especially important if you are trying to determine where to focus your attention for the best return on investment. As magical as SEO and digital marketing can seem, the ultimate driver for what works and what to do is data and UTM tracking provides users with the information they can use to make sound decisions.

It also allows users to dig deeper into their Google Analytics—you may already know you get a lot of visitors from your Facebook page, but you may want to know if a specific status update drove a lot of new traffic, whether that email you sent to your subscribers led to new visits, or if visitors came from a new banner or image link you created on your site. Traditional analytics data does not give you much of this information and that’s where UTM tracking codes become so much more powerful and beneficial.

So what are UTM strings anyway?

UTM strings are tags or add-ons you put at the end of URLs you want to track. When someone clicks on a URL with a proper UTM string, this event is recorded in your Analytics account. Again, this is extremely useful to track visits from different social media sites or even specific updates on each social media site, links in your emails, directory links (good for Service Area Businesses/Small Businesses), and virtually anything you can think of that has a URL.

How to create effective UTMs

The simplest way to create an effective UTM is to use Google’s free URL builder.

The UTM builder has been updated — make sure to select “Web” to generate your URLs because the Play store and Apple App store use different methods

Let’s breakdown the components of a good UTM string. Note: you don’t need to include every component in your strings, but the more components you use, the more detail you will get out of your campaigns.

Website URL: Copy and paste the URL you want to track. This could be your homepage or a blog post, or any other URL you want to get information on.

Campaign Source: Groups all of your data into one campaign within your analytics account. The campaign source identifies the source of your traffic, such as Facebook, a newsletter, Google My Business page, etc. This is a required component and appears as: utm_source=googlemybusiness

Campaign Medium:* Another required component for identifying the medium your URL was used upon such as: email, CPC, or some other method of sharing. This is the ‘medium’ where your traffic came from. One of the main ways we use this is to track Organic Traffic from a client’s Google My Business page. This appears as: utm_medium=organic

*note: whatever term you use here for ‘medium’ will create a new “bucket” of traffic in your analytics. This can cause reporting issues especially for your organic traffic information — this is why we label this as organic (when the traffic we’re wanting to follow is truly organic).

Campaign Term: This parameter is used for tracking paid terms in PPC ads. You can set the parameter to be the keyword you are paying for. This is an optional tag and can be skipped if you have connected Adwords and Analytics accounts that have auto-tagging feature turned on. Looks like: utm_term=homes+for+sale

Campaign Content: Optional parameter used for A/B split testing to differentiate your content. It can be used to differentiate ads and links that point to the same URL—example: utm_content=bannerlink or utm_content=textlink

Campaign Name: Required and lets you identify specific campaigns you are running such as a special promotion, or product sale and also helps you with keyword analysis. Appears as: utm_campaign:annual_sale

You should be aware that UTM codes are case-sensitive—if you use abc on one campaign link (say on Facebook) and accidentally use ABC (on Twitter), these will show up as separate campaigns in your Analytics. Also, the UTM URL will show up in a user’s search bar—nothing is hidden, so it’s advisable to not use any terms in your components you wouldn’t want visible.

How to find your campaigns in Google Analytics

Log in to your Google Analytics account and go to the Acquisition section click on Campaigns and click All Campaigns in the dropdown:

Here you will see the different campaigns you’ve set up. You can click on each one to get more detail.

Using an example from one of our clients, one of the ways we’re using UTM tracking is to identify how much traffic the client’s Google My Business profile is sending. We can see how many visits are coming in from a local search result. In the case of this client, they have locations throughout the state and we’re tracking to see which locations are being visited (in Maps or Local search results):

Clicking on the Campaign brings you to more information identifying the source/medium of traffic. In this case, we’re able to see which Google My Business profiles are driving the most traffic:

One of the problems I have with the UTM strings is just how ugly the URLs are and for some users this is a problem. Some people instinctively avoid clicking on URLs that have special characters in them or are just very long because they tend to appear spammy and untrustworthy.

The easy fix for that is to use a URL shortener such as bitly.com or the UTM builder from Google has a link shortener (which uses Bitly).

Here are some of our favorite uses for creating UTM campaigns

Directory Profile Tracking

This is one of the ways we like to track things for our clients. We have a lot of local SEO clients and for some of them, their directory profiles make up a good amount of their traffic. To have an idea of which profiles are getting clicks, we create UTMs for their different profiles.

For example, we can create campaigns for their Google My Business profile, their Yelp profile, their Yahoo! Local profile or any other we want data on. Some of our clients are on the Yext Platform and we create UTM codes to see how effective the Yext directories are for sending traffic.

Directory Profile UTM Examples:

Social Media Tracking

Using UTM codes within your social media accounts and sharing lets you figure out which sites and accounts are helpful at sending you clicks and traffic. You can easily create different codes and campaigns for multiple sites and multiple URLs.

Social Media UTM Examples:

Newsletter Tracking

If you regularly send out emails or newsletters to subscribers or customers, you can track all types of information from your messaging. Each newsletter you send out can have its own campaign and you can even drill down further by creating UTMs for different links within a newsletter or for different sections of your emails.

Newsletter UTM Examples:

Keeping track of your UTM strings

With all of this customization at your fingertips it’s easy to get disorganized and let things get out of hand. We recommend creating a simple spreadsheet that allows you to keep track of all of your UTM codes so you’re not racking your brain figuring out which code was with what link or recreating the same code over and over again.

We’ve put together a simple Google Sheets document you can use.

Open the spreadsheet here — click on File then Make a Copy and you now have your own editable UTM tracking spreadsheet.

The only way we can optimize our marketing campaigns is by having useful data and information. As marketers or business owners, the easiest way to get that data is by utilizing UTM tracking wherever you think it would be helpful to have information. From your social media blasts, banners and links on your site, to blog posts and email newsletters—set up your UTM codes correctly and you will have all the data you could desire right at your fingertips!

The post Understanding Where Your Traffic is Coming From with UTM Tracking Codes appeared first on DAGMAR.

Google Analytics is a powerful application that allows you to track and report web traffic, and it’s the most widely used analytics tool out there. In 2019, Google released a new version of Analytics referred to as GA4 , changing the way we view our traffic.

So, what’s changed? Quite a bit actually, and not just in the way it looks.

Here we’re going to cover a few of these changes in terms that are easy to understand, as well as give you a quick tutorial on setting up our most common conversion: How to set up a destination goal.

What’s different in GA4

You’ll see many of the same features you’ve grown accustomed to in the previous Analytics, or GA3, plus a few new additions.

You’ll still see the current number of active users on your site along with a number of familiar cards Google feels you should know. However, the menu to the left is where you’ll start to see the real differences. This is because you have to understand a little more about how the new GA4 works compared to previous incarnations.

The core reporting behind GA3 was based upon the A-B-C Model or Acquisition-Behavior-Conversion. This was the basis of a lot of your general reporting.

Just to review, the source/medium of your traffic was found in the Acquisition tab. User activities, such as page views, were in Behavior, while your goals were under Conversions. This was the user behavior model Google has used since the early days of Analytics.

This was because GA3, also known as “Universal Analytics,” was based upon page views and sessions, and each time a user interacted with your site, it was referred to as a “hit.”

With the new GA4, everything is based upon events and parameters. And I do mean everything.

All of your original hit types are now counted as events.

If you’ve been active in Analytics in the past, then you may be familiar with event tracking. Originally, events consisted of the following components: Category, Action, Label, and Value.

These components were usually hardcoded or placed on your site using Google Tag Manager to record events, such as video plays or document downloads. Recording such events were vital to your marketing campaigns but were sometimes difficult to implement without the use of a developer.

Now, many of these events are already measured in GA4. This is because for every event triggered, we get a wide range of parameters that are already built into the new Analytics.

For example, if we navigate to our Events tab in GA4, we can see a list of events Google is tracking on our site. Even though Analytics has the ability to track a good number of events, what you see here are only events that were triggered on our site:

With all of these active events, you could just as easily tick the “Mark as Conversion” selector and call it a day, but what will happen is that every time one of these events is triggered, a conversion will be counted and that won’t help us manage our campaigns properly.

So what we need to do is define a parameter. A parameter in GA4 is an additional piece of information that adds further context to an event. For example:

• A page view event is triggered each time a person loads a page.
• A parameter of this page view could be Page Location or Page Referrer.

This, in a nutshell, is how the new Analytics operates, with events and parameters. This is important because you’ll need to have this basic understanding in order to establish your goals in GA4.

How to Create Goals in GA4

There are two ways we can create goals in GA4:

1. With Google Tag Manager
2. In the GA4 dashboard

Today, we’ll be setting up our goals directly in the dashboard under the Events tab.

1. Navigate to “All Events.”

2. Select your preferred GA4 property

3. Click “Events.”

4. Click “Create Event”

5. A new window will appear. Click “Create.”

6. Here is where we will add our parameter. Give your event a name.

7. Next, under Matching Conditions, select your parameter from the dropdown. Since this is a destination goal, we’ll select the page_location parameter.

8. Next, select your operator. We are going to use “Contains (ignore case)” here.

9. Finally, input your value, which is the ending text of your destination URL. In our example, we are going to use “thanks,” which is the end of our URL.

10. Click “Create” in the upper right-hand corner.

11. Now you should see your goals listed under Custom Events.

A very important detail: Even though we’ve created our custom event, it will not appear as an existing event until it is triggered. Once triggered, then we can mark it as a conversion. 

So don’t forget that once the event happens — in our case, someone fills out our “Contact Us” page — we’ll need to go back into GA4 and toggle it as a conversion. Now that our conversion has been established we can view the results in our Conversions tab (in Reports under Engagement).

And that’s it!

The post How to Create Destination Goals in GA4 appeared first on DAGMAR.

Multiple analytics views for the win.

Once you log in to your Google Analytics account, you’ll notice a default view called All Web Site Data. Analytics views are simply different copies of the same data that let you manipulate the data many different ways depending on the goal of the view. Each analytics account allows up to 25 different views. The first thing you will want to do is to create at least two new additional views.

To do this:

1. Navigate to your Admin Tab.

2. Next, under your View settings, click “Create View”.

3. Under “Reporting View Name”, name this new View, “Main View.”

4. FInally, click the “Create View” button.

5. Do this again for your Test View.

Your new views should look something like this:

1. All Web Site Data
2. Main View
3. Test View

Each analytics view will have a different role. Let’s dive deeper into each one.

All Web Site Data View: This view is your raw data view and should be left alone so that your data stays intact without any filters or segmentations. This ensures you always have a clean data set from which to make copies later.

Main View: The web is full of bots, spam and plain old junk traffic. This is the view you will use to apply filters to exclude bot traffic or remove referral spam or any other data sources that are not relevant to the goals of your website. You’ll be making very important decisions based on this data so make sure you clear away the static to quickly reveal the insights you need.

Test View: Google Analytics doesn’t restore data once a filter or segment is applied, so make sure they’re working as intended. For instance, apply your referral spam filters here to remove unwanted traffic. Once you verify that your filters are working, you can move them to the main view. You can also test various data segmentation rules to test a new view idea such as removing existing client traffic if your website has a client portal. In some cases, you may want to have multiple test views.

If you’ve gone this far you may as well set up organic and mobile views to include only traffic from these sources.

Useful filters to use with your new views:

Hostname Filter (all views – prevents ghost traffic)

Exclude Internal Traffic based on IP (all views)

Organic Traffic (Organic View)

Mobile Traffic (Mobile View)

Analytics goals will provide your best insights.

 Now that you have your views all set, focus on goals. The best insights from analytics will come from your goal conversion data. It’s important, therefore, to have well-thought-out goals.

Start with your three most important goals; for example, product purchase, email lead form fill, white paper download. These will be your primary goals, and they should reflect what directly drives your lead generation. Stay away from secondary goals or goals that affect leads in an indirect way, such as time on site or page duration. These may be important goals for some businesses but for most they won’t immediately increase leads and will only water down your conversion rate. You can always set up another view for secondary goals.

Analytics best practices is not about tracking everything – it’s about tracking what is most important and doing that well. Too many goals will lead to analysis paralysis.

Here is a quick recap on how to create a destination goal:

1. In your Admin Tab, under the View column, click “Goals.”

2. A new window will appear. Under Goal Setup, select, “Custom.”

3. Next, name your Goal.

4. Select “Destination” as your Type, then click Continue.

5. Under Goal Details, ad your Destination URL. For example, a /thank_you page. Then click “Save.”

By the way, in case you’re using the new Google Analytics 4 we also have a quick guide to setting up goals on GA4 here

Here is a recommended list of what to consider a primary or secondary goal.

Primary Goals (sales or lead)

• Product purchases
• Contact form fill
• Lead generation form fill
• White paper download
• 30 day trials

Secondary Goals (research or engagement)

• Time on site
• Session duration
• Bounce rate
• Pages per session

It’s important to note that while you may want to track secondary goals, their main function is to support the primary goals. If secondary goals are increasing while primary goals are decreasing, then you may have the wrong secondary goals.

Custom Channels Groupings for Better Data Organization

Analytics has nine Channels Groupings by Default. These are visible in your Acquisition tab under Channels and appear only when a specific traffic type hits your site. Some of the more familiar traffic channels, or Source, include Organic Search traffic, Social and Paid Traffic types.

But what if you know that a majority of your traffic comes from a Source like Pinterest, or you’re running a special Paid campaign? Then, creating Custom Channel Groupings is what you need to help keep you organized and your data at arm’s length.

To set up Custom Channels that are visible in the Default Groupings:

1. Go to your Admin Tab.

2. In the View column, click on Channel Grouping.

3. Click “New Channel Grouping” to open a new window.

4. Name your new Channel

5. Next, Define your Channel.

6. Under Define Rules, select the Channel’s Source in the dropdown. Then, define the Rule.

7. Then you’re Done.

Note that it could take up to 24 hours for the new Channels to take effect, but once they do, your new data will be visible to you at a moment’s notice. A recommended list of new Channels might be:

• Traffic from a specific channel like Pinterest or Facebook
• Custom Paid traffic
• Traffic passing through a specific funnel
• Email Campaigns
• Other paid traffic like Outbrain or Taboola

Analytics is a powerful tool when set up and maintained properly. With these simple tips, you should be on your way to gaining valuable insights that can improve your business.

The post Google Analytics Setup Best Practices appeared first on DAGMAR.