Understanding Google Analytics and how it Affects Your Online Business
As SEOs and Digital Marketers, we talk a lot about Google Analytics. How to get started, the key differences between Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 (GA4), and how to build out reports to make strategic decisions for your site. This is all sound advice, but I want to take a step back for a second and really dive into the history and the heart behind Google Analytics. So, grab a cup of coffee because I want to discuss what it is, and why (as a business owner) you should care so much about this analytics tool.
What is Google Analytics
Simply put, Google Analytics (also referred to as GA in this post) is a measurement tool used by digital marketers and SEOs to measure website and campaign performance. By using Google Analytics, you are able to look at data across platforms, track their performance, and create reports. This tool is extremely valuable especially if you are in a position where you need to report KPIs (key performance indicators) to key stakeholders.
You can use Google Analytics to sort and sift website analytics into dozens of different data dimensions and metrics, such as:
- Which pages they visit on your website
- How long they viewed the page
- The browser they’re using
- If they’re on a desktop or mobile device
- What site they were on when they clicked over to yours
- Which forms the user submitted
- How many users are currently on your site
History
According to W3Techs and Datanyze, Google Analytics is the most used web analytics platform on the entire internet. This is not only because Google is the number one global search engine, but also because its tools offer impressive analytics.
Google Analytics was launched in 2005 after Google acquired Urchin Software Corp. The original version of GA was in such high demand that the servers couldn’t handle the demand. To combat this, Google offered an invitation-only service to try and keep capacity under control. In 2006 server capacity was expanded in a way that they were able to offer the service to everyone.
In 2011, Google announced the availability of a new interface that included customer reports, dashboards, and goal flow charts. It was in 2012, that Universal Analytics was officially launched.
Over the next several years, Google released a series of updates until finally in 2020 they announced the launch of Google Analytics 4 (formerly known as App + Web). While clients previously needed two platforms (GA and Firebase) to analyze both app and web, GA4 aims to unify the reporting between app and web instances.
Google Analytics 4 is set to replace Universal Analytics by 2023, but if you used GA before the GA4 rollout, then you will have access to two different analytics properties. If you’re new to Google Analytics, then you will create a GA4 property by default.
How Google Analytics Works
Once you connect Google Analytics to your website via Measurement ID, a tracking code is implemented on every page of your website. This small snippet of JavaScript fires off (or triggers) when someone visits a page on your website. If JavaScript is enabled on the user’s browser (which in most cases it is), then a larger snippet of JavaScript loads and collects information from the user’s browser.
If you have returning users, the larger snippet of code doesn’t have to load and collect information. It recognizes the returning user’s information via cookies. The only exception to this rule is if a returning user has deleted their browsing history and cache. Cached data, like cookies, are what GA uses to determine New vs Returning users. If a returning user has deleted that cookie, then they are treated as a new user when they visit your website again.
User Data Privacy
Whether you like it or not, any site you visit is tracking your activity on and offline. Google Analytics has become so comprehensive it can even track you across multiple devices. This has led many users to feel their privacy has been violated — and understandably so.
With the rise of consumer privacy concerns, several organizations have stepped forward in an attempt to protect user privacy across devices. For example, you may have heard about Apple’s iOS 15 update.
It’s going to be crucial you note these organizations down, and keep an eye on any future privacy updates that come up. Privacy is a hot topic right now, and the more you stay up to date, the better you can protect your business.
Please don’t take anything I say on this blog as legal advice. I recommend that you read through these regulations, and act accordingly to protect yourself, but I don’t have a legal leg to stand on to tell you what to do exactly. This is just my two cents.
How do you get started with Google Analytics
Getting started with Google Analytics is easy. All you need is a Google account to be able to set up Google Analytics. I wrote an in-depth blog post on how to implement the tracking code on your site which you can read here.
Why You Should Care About Google Analytics
Okay, so after all that hubbub why should you care about Google Analytics? Why does it matter? What happens when cookies go away? Will user data privacy kill analytics platforms? All good questions my friend!
Google Analytics is a great tool to have under your digital marketing and SEO tool belt. It’s important that you understand how it works, but it’s equally as important to know that it isn’t the end-all-be-all either. Rules and regulations are getting tighter around data privacy and for good reason, so over the next several years we will find ourselves in a shift and I can guarantee that things will be awkward before they get better.
Like me, Google is giving up cookies in 2023. While that’s a good thing for my waist, and our digital privacy as users, it literally made all the marketers around the world cringe at the same time when the announcement was made. Why? Because targeting and retargeting users is already a complicated process.
The good news is like the off-brand cookies you can find down the health food aisle that may or may not taste like cardboard — Google is researching an alternative — so we don’t have to completely give up on targeting our users. There have already been a few iterations announced and knocked down in court. The main issue is that these alternative IDs can still collect personally identifiable information about users — which is the whole thing we’re trying to get away from in the first place.
So, does that mean all these privacy regulations will kill analytics platforms like GA? Absolutely not. There are some incredibly intelligent individuals working at Google trying to find a solution to this problem. Analytics platforms will be around for a long time, so you don’t have to worry about hoarding what data you have, or throwing in the towel and not even bothering with it in the first place.
Something you can look into to lessen that awkward stage, is to prioritize your first-party data. More on that in another article.
For now, I recommend doing your research. Keep an eye on the rules and regulations that creep up, gain some knowledge through Google’s certification programs, and invest the time into implementing and learning the Google Analytics platform.
Data is great, but meaningless data that lacks context is about as useful as no data at all. What your business needs is meaningful, tangible data that you can take action on. That’s where Google Analytics is such a valuable tool for your business. Google Analytics is a way to gain compelling business intelligence by understanding who your website visitors are, how they arrived on your site, and what they did when they got there.
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Originally published at http://thegrowgirlco.com on April 26, 2022.
