{"id":12866,"date":"2020-03-11T09:15:40","date_gmt":"2020-03-11T14:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.invespcro.com\/blog\/?p=12866"},"modified":"2020-03-11T09:15:40","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T14:15:40","slug":"google-analytics-101-a-simple-guide-for-beginners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.invespcro.com\/blog\/google-analytics-101-a-simple-guide-for-beginners\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Analytics 101: A Simple Guide For Beginners"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 13<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

So it\u2019s been a year since I started playing around with <\/span>Google Analytics<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I vividly remember my very first day \u2013 I had no clue what the tool was all about, and I didn\u2019t really know the importance of data in the world of marketing. What I thought was Digital Marketing, wasn’t really DM, but it was Social Media Marketing.<\/p>\n

Not that I was ignorant or have been living under a rock, but I was coming from a totally different planet. For the life of me, I had not known any other home apart from sports journalism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So when Khalid gave me my first lecture on Google Analytics, to be honest, I was intimidated by the tables, charts, numbers, and graphs. It wasn\u2019t love at first sight, and I didn\u2019t understand how all those concepts could be comprehended by a single human brain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But as someone who was starting out in the world of <\/span>Conversion Rate Optimization<\/span><\/a>, I knew life was going to be much easier if I befriend GA and interact with it more and more. Afterall, GA <\/span>is the most popular Web <\/span>Analytics tool<\/span> in the world and it is used by over 64% of the Top 500 US Retailers<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even to this day, I’m still interacting with GA \u2013and with every interaction, I\u2019m getting comfortable. What started as a scary adventure, is turning out to be an exciting ride.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, in just 3 000 words, I have decided to take you on my journey of learning and dissecting GA data. This is my first article on GA, who knows, one or two posts may follow later. If you\u2019re just starting out to make sense of GA data, I\u2019m sure you will benefit from this post.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this guide, I will just assume that you have set up your GA account and you\u2019re ready to explore the tool. Bookmark this guide and come back to it as your data tracking becomes more sophisticated. If you still have questions after going through this, feel free to slide into the comments section.<\/span><\/p>\n

First things first: What is Google Analytics?<\/span><\/h3>\n

A quick search on Google defines GA as a free analytics tool \u2014 offered by Google \u2014 that gives you an extremely in-depth look at your web or app performance. But there is also a paid version of GA which is called Analytics 360.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether it’s a free or paid version, every data report in GA is made up of two types: dimensions and metrics. The difference between the two elements is crystal clear; dimensions reveal the features and characteristics of a website user, whereas metrics quantify the activities of the user.<\/span><\/p>\n

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As you can see from the above image, dimensions are descriptive whereas metrics are quantitative in nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

To help you understand, let\u2019s just assume that a 27-year-old woman from Chicago visited your website after searching for \u2018best laptop bags\u2019 on Google via a safari browser in her iPhone 11 Pro. From this example, Google Analytics will capture the dimensions of this visitor and report them as follows:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n