As we are sure you already know, using Google Analytics can help you drive more traffic to your website, but did you know that it can also help refine your user experience, AND track your business goals? That’s right! Google Analytics gives you insight into key metrics that can help your business grow your goals!
If you’ve been looking for a guide to help you understand what key metrics to monitor in Google Analytics, we’re here to help.
So, what are metrics in Google Analytics?
Google Analytics Metrics
Google defines metrics as an individual element of dimension that can be measured as a sum or ratio. Google Analytics collects data for your website and traffic all in real-time using a tool that displays this data in report form. Google Analytics allows you to set and track specific metrics as well as dimension, which we’ll detail below.
Metrics In Google Analytics:
- Sessions
- Session duration
- Conversion rate
- Goal completion
Not to be confused with metrics, Google Analytics also has “dimensions.” Dimensions are non-numerical, qualitative data that Google uses to organize the data it collects from metrics.
Dimensions in Google Analytics:
- Medium
- Country
- Campaign
- Device Category
Now that you know what metrics Google Analytics uses and how it reports based on those metrics and dimensions, let’s look at useful metrics to track.
Useful Metrics to Track in Google Analytics
- Users and New Users: The user metric represents the number of people who visit your website. We recommend using this metric as it tracks how many visitors you have and can help you track what to improve to increase traffic to your website. Tracking new users can help you understand where your website traffic comes from. This metric tracks ONLY new users.
- To navigate to this data in Google Analytics, simply go to Audience > Overview section from GA’s main tool menu.
- Sessions: The session metrics shows you how many times a person lands on your website. This is a great metric to show how engaged your users are on your website.
- To find sessions in Google Analytics you will also go to Audience > Overview and will see a screen that shows sessions, users, and a few other metrics we will get too.
- Average Time on Page: Average time on page tracks how long a visitor stays on a page on your website. This metric helps you understand if the landing page is helpful to users or if it needs to be updated.
- To navigate to this metric, go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages and you will be able to see the Average Time on Page for all the landing pages on your website.
- Average Pages Per Session: This metric monitors the average number of pages a visitor browses on your website. It is good to understand the users’ journey on your website to know if your pages are driving your goals.
- Bounce Rate: This metric tracks when a user visits your pages and when they leave. Although this seems like a metric that would not be important, it is very important to know if users are moving around on your site or leaving. Allowing you to understand if you are not targeting the right audience or if you need to update your messaging.
- To get to Bounce Rate, go to Audience > Overview and you will see your Bounce Rate.
- Conversion Rate: Conversion Rate tracks goals that are specific interactions with the website and the target goal. By tracking conversion rates over time, you will be able to determine how well your marketing efforts lead to a goal conversion while using other metrics to track the success of the goal.
- To find Conversion Rate in Google Analytics go to Conversions > Goals > Overview > and click the drop down to find Conversion Rate.
When looking at metrics in Google Analytics it is important to note that you should always look at dates in terms of week, month, months, and years to understand the full overview of your data.
Metrics Broken Down by Goal
Acquisition
This metric helps you understand where your visitors came from and how they found your website.
Acquisition > All Traffic > Overview
- Sessions
- Users
- New Users
These metrics can all be used to track your users and understand what brought them to your website.
Behavior
To understand what users are doing on your website, this metric helps you understand what landing pages are working best with users.
Behavior > Site Content > All Pages
- Conversion Rate
- Bounce Rate
- Pages Per Session
- Avg. Time on Page
Google Analytics 4 Metrics to Track
Since Universal Analytics is being phased out by 2023, here is a list of key metrics to track in the new version of Google Analytics, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for when you start converting to that version of Analytics.
- Users
- Sessions
- Average Session Duration
- Percentage of New Sessions
- Session by Default Channel Grouping
- Pages per Session
- Conversions
- Total views
- Views by Page
- Lifetime Value
- Lead Generation Cost (Cost per Visit)
Next Time
Stay tuned for our next blog where we discuss Google Analytics 4’s metrics more in-depth and why they are important.
To learn more about how to use Google Analytics in a more in-depth course, check out Analytics Academy.
If you missed our first two blogs in the Google Analytics series, check them out here:
