Introduction

to Google
Analytics
A Guide for Absolute Beginners
―
Todd Kelsey with Brandon Lyon
 INTRODUCTION TO
GOOGLE ANALYTICS

A GUIDE FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS

Todd Kelsey
Introduction to Google Analytics: A Guide for Absolute Beginners
Todd Kelsey
Wheaton, Illinois, USA
ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4842-2828-9 ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4842-2829-6
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-2829-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017945371
Copyright © 2017 by Todd Kelsey
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Contents
About the Author ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� vii
About the Technical Reviewer ��������������������������������������������������������������������� ix
Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xi

Chapter 1: Overview���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1
Chapter 2: Blogalytics�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
Chapter 3: Getting Traffic for Analytics���������������������������������������������������23
Chapter 4: Reviewing Performance of Campaigns���������������������������������37
Chapter 5: Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify�����������������53
Chapter 6: Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part II: AdWords�������������83
Chapter 7: Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part III: Gumroad���������107
Chapter 8: Exploring Google Analytics Certification���������������������������129

Index�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������139
About the Author
Todd Kelsey, PhD, is an author and educator
whose publishing credits include several books
for helping people learn more about technol-
ogy. He has appeared on television as a featured
expert and has worked with a wide variety of
corporations and non-profit organizations. He is
currently an Assistant Professor of Marketing at
Benedictine University in Lisle, IL (www.ben.edu).

Here’s a picture of one of the things I like to

do when I’m not doing digital marketing—grow
sunflowers! (And measure them. Now there’s
some analytics for you!)
I’ve worked professionally in digital market-
ing for some time now, and I’ve also authored
books on related topics.You’re welcome to look
me up on LinkedIn, and you’re also welcome to
invite me to connect: http://linkedin.com/
in/tekelsey
About the Technical
Reviewer
Brandon Lyon is an expert in SEO, SEM, and
Social Media and Web analytics, and is President
of Eagle Digital Marketing (https://www.
eagledigitalmarketing.com), a full-service
agency in the Chicago area. When he isn’t
advising local business owners and CEOs of
mid-sized companies, he enjoys hockey and doing
his best to survive the occasional subzero tem-
peratures. Brandon enjoys helping companies
face the challenges of the future with optimism,
including navigating the treacherous waters of the
Amazon ecommerce river, and taking advantage
of the goldmine in marketing automation.
Introduction
Welcome to web analytics!
The purpose of this book is to provide a simple, focused introduction to web
analytics, and Google Analytics specifically. It’s geared toward employees who
may be working at a company or non-profit organization, for students at a
university, or for self-paced learners. The approach is the same one that I’ve
taken in most of my books, which is conversational, friendly, with an attempt
at making things fun.
The experiment is to find a way to help people get started with digital
marketing in a way that is fun and helps build skills—maybe through an internship,
paid work, volunteer work, freelance work, or any other type of work. The
focus is on skills and approaches that can be immediately useful to a business
or non-profit organization. I’m not going to try to cover everything, but just
the things that I think are the most helpful.
The other goal is to help you leave any intimidation you have in the dust.
I used to be intimidated by marketing, and now look at me. I’m a marketing
strategist and an assistant professor of marketing! But I remember the feeling
of intimidation, so part of my approach is to encourage any reader who may
feel uncertain about the field.
The fact is that web analytics has a lot of options, and there’s a lot of material
out there. It can be overwhelming! But it can also be very doable, if you leave
intimidation in the dust, take incremental steps, try things out, and build your
confidence.
For example, I had a friend who used to be a journalist, and he was looking
for new career opportunities. I helped get him started in digital marketing, and
one of the first things he ran into was feeling overwhelmed by all the options,
including all the articles about all the options. “There are so many tools out
there!,” he used to say, “How am I ever going to learn all of them?!?”
The answer is that you don’t need to learn all of them. No one can. The thing
to do is focus on trying some of the tools and skills and go on from there.
I encouraged my friend not to worry about trying to learn everything, but
instead to just learn some basics.
The friend worked with the basics, gained experience, and was able to find a
local agency that gave him a shot at doing some freelance work. The career
didn’t easily develop for him—he had to put effort into it. But a few years later,
xii Introduction

he’s doing full-time freelance work in digital marketing. He was able to leave
intimidation in the dust, and I believe he’s also had some fun with it too.
LinkedIn showed digital/online marketing as a top skill that got people hired in
2013/2014, and web analytics is one of the core skills for online marketing—
this includes being able to understand the performance of web sites and ad
campaigns. Analytics is considered a part of business intelligence, which also
figures prominently on the list:

Each year the way they refer to digital marketing seems to change, but since
2013, digital marketing (of which analytics is a core part) has been at the top.
Demand will fluctuate over time, but we are talking about the top skills in any
field that get people hired.
• 2014: https://blog.linkedin.com/2014/12/17/
the-25-hottest-skills-that-got-people-hired-
in-2014
• 2015: https://blog.linkedin.com/2016/01/12/
the-25-skills-that-can-get-you-hired-in-2016
• 2016: https://blog.linkedin.com/2016/10/20/
top-skills-2016-week-of-learning-linkedin
One of the other things I’ve seen in my career, which I try to reinforce in these
books and in my classes, is the way that the core areas of digital marketing are
related. For example, I consider web analytics to be tightly connected to all
other areas in digital marketing. Content is key in digital marketing, as you’ll
learn if you read my book Introduction to Search Engine Optimization (Apress,
2017), and advertising campaigns on search engines (AdWords) and social
media take content and put it out there.
 Introduction xiii

At the end of the day, you need analytics to measure the performance. That
makes it super important.
This book mentions what I call the core areas of digital marketing: Content,
AdWords, Social, and Analytics (CASA for short). My goal is to reinforce how
all the areas are connected. AdWords is Google’s tool for creating ads for
search engine marketing. The inspiration came from my professional back-
ground, as well as looking at trends in the marketplace.

Best wishes in learning web analytics and Google Analytics!

 CHAPTER

Overview
This chapter takes a look at what analytics is and introduces related concepts.
This chapter, and the entire book, is oriented toward beginners. My goal is to
encourage you to consider learning more about analytics, including using a
tool called Google Analytics, and to see if I convince you that it actually is fun.
Web analytics is becoming increasingly important to online marketers, as they
seek to track return on investment (ROI) and optimize their web sites. We’ll
learn about Google Analytics, starting with creating a blog and monitoring the
number of people who see the blog posts and determining where they come
from.

Don’t Be Alarmed: Analytics Can Be Fun

So I remember when I started working in various jobs after college, that one
thing I knew for certain is that I didn’t feel like I was a “numbers” person.
Accounting, finance, or any other type of numbers always seemed foreboding,
and outside my experience and comfort zone. It was the last possible door I
wanted to walk through, and to get me through it, you’d have to drag me.

© Todd Kelsey 2017

T. Kelsey, Introduction to Google Analytics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-2829-6_1
2 Chapter 1 | Overview

But the interesting thing was that I got my first taste of analytics without even
realizing it.
I created a web site with a friend, and we wanted to know how many people
were visiting it and where they were coming from, so we searched for a tool
that would help us with that. That tool became a part of our toolbox.

It was fun. Getting to see who was coming, what the traffic was like, was really
interesting.
Then, in later work experiences, including some where there had been
transition in the companies I worked for, including layoffs, I became more
sensitive to how these roles related to the overall business.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 3

At one point, a mentor gave me some advice that really helped me. She was
experienced and she said to me, “Todd, you need to follow the money trail”.
She wasn’t saying, “bow down to money.” She was just saying, it’s good to
understand how money flows through a business—what makes money and
what costs a business money.
My perspective on money and finance was challenged, and I realized that it
would probably be a good idea to consider not just what I felt like doing, but
what would be a benefit to a business or organization—especially during hard
times, such as a recession, or competition, etc. I also started to understand
that the kinds of skills and roles that had a direct impact on helping a company
succeed were in high demand.
This path led me to pay more attention to online marketing in particular, as
well as social networking to a particular degree. In the midst of hard economic
times, Google was increasing in value, at a time when many or even most
companies were having serious financial issues. It was partly because Google
was helping companies do a good job of tracking ROI with Google ads—
AdWords. AdWords helps businesses know what they are making based on
what they are spending in terms of online ads.
As I grew and matured, I also realized that web analytics was an important
skill and I started learning more about it. It helped me find work and be
competitive.
While I’m still not “passionate” about numbers, I do see things like Google
Analytics as an important tool. Maybe I’m more in touch with my inner analyst.
My recommendation is, seriously consider learning web analytics, in order to
strengthen your career. It won’t hurt, and it can also be fun.
Another thing I suggest with web analytics in particular, and in any situation
where you are dealing with numbers based on purchases, is to remember this
aphorism. It may look like a bunch of numbers:
4 Chapter 1 | Overview

But it’s really not about the numbers, in the end. It’s about the people:

Personal ROI: How Analytics Will Help Your

Career and Your Organization
Learning analytics can have a significant impact on your career, regardless of
the area of digital marketing you work in.

Social Media Marketing

It’s increasingly important for social media marketers to understand how to
measure and optimize the performance of campaigns—you might call this
“social analytics”. If you haven’t read my Introduction to Social Media book yet,
you might want to have a look. It includes some coverage of social analytics.
You could also work your way through this book and then head on over to
that one, to see the connections.

Digital/Online Marketing
The goal of digital marketing is often to sell something, or at least to get
people to visit and sign up for something. So web analytics is a crucial tool for
monitoring how your efforts are going.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 5

Business Intelligence
You could think of this as “advanced analytics”. Business intelligence might
include web analytics (reviewing the performance of your web site and
associated marketing), but it can also extend into other areas, such as
“competitive intelligence,” by using a tool like compete.com or just looking at
financial trends. In my own experience, starting out with web analytics helped
me understand how online marketing and reports fit into overall business
intelligence. It would be fair to say that business intelligence is ROI.
You don’t need any skills to start off, and you don’t need to be a numbers
person. This book is for anyone who wants to get a job in online marketing
or who wants to learn how the performance of their web sites fits into the
business model. Google Analytics is one of the top tools, and web analytics
can be a competitive differentiator in the job market, whether it’s one part of
a skillset or a dedicated role.

■■Note  This book is intended to help students to view web analytics info and learn how to
develop insights. Skills in this area connect to other areas, such as search engine marketing and
social media marketing, and provide a network effect to help students become more effective
online marketers, as well as more employable.

Here’s a suggestion and invitation, for your “personal” ROI, that I want you to
consider—become Google Analytics qualified. This book is an introduction
to the concepts and the tool, and then I’ll point you to more learning material
that Google has, which you might want to pursue in order to get qualified. See
Chapter 8 for more details.
Basically, having this qualification on your resume or LinkedIn profile will help
to show your credibility, to your colleagues and potential employers. In short,
it will help your career.
6 Chapter 1 | Overview

Some certifications cost thousands of dollars to prepare for, and the tests can
be expensive too—however, at the time of writing, Google qualification is free.

Organizational ROI
I don’t know if “organizational return on investment” is really a term, but I
guess now it is.
What I mean is that even if you already have a job somewhere, going for
Google qualification can help any company or organization you are a part of.
Not only will it help with your credibility when people interact with you on
sites like LinkedIn, but it will also help you think more about tracking ROI. It’s
a mindset that will be a benefit to any business, to help you make good choices
about which direction to go in.

Free and Corporate Tools

There are a variety of web analytics tools out there, which people use on a
free and paid basis. For grins, try going on LinkedIn and doing a job search for
“web analytics” to see what comes up. Chances are that one or more of these
programs will be mentioned.

Google Analytics
Google Analytics is free, and it is always increasing in power, to rival and in
some cases exceed the performance of the “paid” tools. For example, you’ll
often see companies using a combination of Google Analytics and paid tools.
Google Analytics can’t do everything, but it’s a good place to start.

Adobe Analytics: Omniture

Adobe Analytics/Omniture has long been considered one of the top
“enterprise” web analytics tools. It has a lot of power, sophistication, and
customization. There are things that Omniture can do that Google Analytics
can’t, and vice versa. Knowledge of this program can definitely help you get
a job or a higher salary. It’s a somewhat chicken and egg situation. It’s an
expensive program, with no trial version at the time of this writing, so few
people know how to use it well. Hence, it is harder to find people with this
skill; therefore, the demand (and salary) can be higher.
If you are going into online marketing and you can find a company to intern
at or work with where you have the opportunity to learn Omniture/Adobe
Analytics, that could be a good opportunity.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 7

More recently, larger companies have been consolidating smaller companies

and developing integrated “marketing clouds,” so you should look at some
of the tools that Adobe Analytics is connected with. See www.adobe.com/
analytics.
Other “enterprise” options include tools like WebTrends. Hopefully at some
point enterprise folks will wise up and offer trial versions to help people get
access and learn to use them.

Open Source Analytics

For people who are interested in completely controlling their own data, open
source analytics programs may be an option. In certain cases, they may allow
you to have the functionality you need, without giving up any of the value.
For example, most people and companies accept the value proposition when
using a Gmail address, doing a Google search, or using Google Analytics. They
know that Google will analyze the data and make money off of it. In other
words, when you search for something, Google might display an ad based on
your behavior, which you might be interested in.
Google isn’t in the business of selling your contact information, per se, but
with analytics, it might gather your information, make it anonymous, and group
it with a lot of other data, with the goal of making money off of it. Google can
also somehow use related “cookie” information.
Google isn’t doing anything illegal, and personally, I don’t think there’s anything
to worry about. But you might be interested to just take a peek at some of
the open source options out there, in case you end up being more concerned
about the data someday, or you end up with a client or employer who is.
There are some more value propositions on their sites.
See http://piwik.org and http://www.openwebanalytics.com/.
As for me, and many thousands of businesses, I’m cool with Google Analytics.

Social Analytics
Social analytics is an area in which particular social media channels, such as
Facebook, YouTube, etc., allow you to get information about how your social
media efforts are working. You can determine the number of people who like
your page, follow you, or talk about you— that kind of thing. There aren’t any
dominating “all in one” social analytics tools as of yet, but take a look at Adobe’s
“social analytics” offering, to see an example of an attempt to become one.
In general, the social analytics tools are free and built into social media. In
some cases, there are low cost tools like Hootsuite (which also has a free
version) that will draw some of the material together for you.
8 Chapter 1 | Overview

If any of that sounds interesting, take a look at my book entitled Introduction to

Social Media Marketing (Apress, 2017).
My general advice for beginners is to have some fun learning Google Analytics
and also try a bit of social media marketing. Get your feet wet with social
analytics.

Things Change
As you explore these areas, be prepared for things to change, but don’t worry.
You don’t need to learn every tool. I recommend taking an incremental,
gradual approach.
As with social media marketing, there are a lot of options out there, and if your
eyes start to glaze over with the mention of all these analytics tools, don’t be
alarmed! Don’t try to learn them abstractly—try them out. I’ll introduce them
to you in a way that is fun.

Search Drill
If you’re just getting acquainted, I suggest doing a few Google searches to see
what’s out there and reading anything that looks interesting:

• YouTube Google Analytics intro

• Learning Google Analytics
• Understanding web analytics YouTube
• What the heck is Adobe analytics

Learning More
If you want to click on a link and learn something, try these videos:

• Web Analytics—The Basics: https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=1lfnOYu0zxA
• Successful Web Analytics: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=bpDxGrSqA-E

Conclusion
Congratulations on making it through this chapter! I’m trying to make the
approach in this book as friendly and relevant as possible, based on the
intimidation I used to feel. Feel free to let me know if it’s working, if you feel
like you’re still intimidated, or if you feel like it’s “too fluffy”. Best wishes in
learning analytics!
 CHAPTER

Blogalytics
This chapter is a basic recipe to get started in analytics, to take the first step in
being able to track web traffic and see what’s happening. You’ll create a simple
blog, start a Google Analytics account, connect the two, and discuss things
along the way. The goal is to make a simple, relevant way to start exploring
analytics.

Create a Google Account/Gmail Address

Google has a lot of free tools that make it easier to work with content, and
when you have a Google account, it just makes it easier to sign in to all the tools.
As a first step, I recommend creating a free Google account by going to
http://mail.google.com and clicking Create Account.

Start a Blog
To get started, visit http://www.blogger.com and either sign in with your
Google account or click the Create an Account link at the bottom of the page.

© Todd Kelsey 2017

T. Kelsey, Introduction to Google Analytics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-2829-6_2
10 Chapter 2 | Blogalytics

Then on the blogger site, click the New Blog button.

For practice, I wouldn’t be too concerned with the title. You can change it
later easily, and you can also create/delete blogs easily. Feel free to try “Social
Media Perspective” as a title.

The title is simply what appears visually at the top of the blog. The Address
is the opportunity Google gives you to have a custom address. Because it’s a
free tool, you might have to experiment a bit until you find one that’s available.
Type in ideas in the Address field and see what happens:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 11

What you’re doing is coming up with the custom portion of the blog address.

It turns out for our example, the address socialbuzznews.blogspot.

com is available. The link for this blog would be http://socialbuzznews.
blogspot.com.

■■Tip  You’ll want to make a note of this link to your blog, so you can use it when you start a
Google Analytics account later in this chapter.

After you choose a title and address, you can choose a template for the look
and feel of the blog. You can also change the template later:
12 Chapter 2 | Blogalytics

After you select one (I recommend starting with Simple), click the Create
Blog! button.
With these simple steps, you’ve created a blog and can start blogging!
Your mission if you should choose to accept it is to make a sample post, and
then share the link on Facebook or via e-mail with someone.

■■Note  One way to “cheat” if you forget the link for your blog is to click on the View blog button
(see the screenshot above), which will open the blog in your browser. Then you can copy the link
from the Address field and paste it into Facebook or into an e-mail, etc.

To learn more about Blogger, access the settings menu (the little gear icon)
when you’re signed int o Blogger and select Blogger Help:

There are a variety of helpful articles:

You can always go directly to help with this link: https://support.google.

com/blogger.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 13

Start a Google Analytics Account

The next step is to create a Google Analytics account, which you do by going
to http://www.google.com/analytics/.
If you’re already signed into Gmail/Google, you’ll see an Access Google
Analytics button:

Otherwise, you can click Sign In and sign in with your Gmail/Google account,
or click Create an Account:

That’s the sign-in process. Once you’re signed in as a Google user, you should
get a page like this one, where you can click the Sign Up button to create your
Google Analytics account:
14 Chapter 2 | Blogalytics

Google Analytics defaults to creating an account around web sites, but if you’re
interested in mobile marketing, at some point you might like to explore the
idea of developing an app and integrating Google Analytics directly in the app.
To begin, type an account name—it could be your name, the name of your
organization, or something like Learning Analytics. It really doesn’t matter at
this point:

Next, you set up a property. Whenever you add a new site or blog for Google
Analytics to track, it’s considered a property. This is where you paste in your
blog’s address, if you’re following along:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 15

Then click Get Tracking ID:

Tracking IDs are basically codes that Google gives you to place on your site or
blog, so that the site can “talk” to Google. The ID is unique for every site/blog
you set up. It’s a one-time, thing, and you end up taking it back to your site, in
order to set up the connection.
Next, click the I Accept button at the bottom of the agreement. You might
need to roll your mouse over the top of this window until it becomes four
arrows, and then click and drag it up, in order to see the I Accept button.

Then, Google Analytics should open with a page, based on the name you gave
to your site or blog:
16 Chapter 2 | Blogalytics

You can scroll down until you see the Tracking ID (it’s UA-53515736-1 shown
here):

Then just select it, right-click (Windows) or Ctrl+click (Mac), and choose
copy:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 17

Even if you copy this code into memory (for pasting into Blogger), I recommend
making a note of it somewhere.

Connect Google Analytics to Blogger

Now that you’ve created a Google Analytics account and generated a tracking
code, you can go back to your blog and click Settings:
18 Chapter 2 | Blogalytics

Under Settings, click Other:

Find the section that says Google Analytics:

Paste that marvelous tracking code you copied before (from your site or blog):

Into the Analytics Web Property ID field:

Then click Save Settings:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 19

Looking at Google Analytics

In theory, Google Analytics should now be connected. It can take 24 hours for
anything to happen, but in the meantime, I suggest making a post on your blog
and sharing it with friends on Facebook as a test.
All you really need at this point is a few clicks on your blog, just to test things
out a bit.
In order to see how things are going, go to http://www.google.com/ana-
lytics, sign in, and click on Home:

You should see a section on your Google Analytics page. It’s based on how
you named your Google Analytics account, including the name of your site,
and finally a little globe icon with your site:

To see how things are going, click on your “property”:

In theory, you should see something like this image, which is the kind of thing
you’ll be learning about. This is web analytics:
20 Chapter 2 | Blogalytics

At a very basic level, what programs like Google Analytics seek to give you is
a sense of your web site’s performance—that is, how many people visit, and
their behavior on the site.
Using a simple example like this is a good place to start, and ultimately what
most web analytics tools help you do is track revenue or goals, such as people
visiting and then purchasing or signing up for something.
To scratch the surface, after you generate data over time, one feature to keep
in mind about analytics programs is the way you set a date range.
In Google Analytics, you can click on the arrow to the right of the “default”
date:

Then you can choose from several options:

You can regularly look at Google Analytics and review how things are going
on a consistent basis. With analytics, you are often looking back and looking
for trends. Are visits increasing? Did a particular campaign increase traffic?
Things like this.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 21

When you set a new date range, you need to click Apply:

Don’t be afraid to review other sections in Google Analytics on the left side.
In some cases, you need to be gathering data for a while for these sections to
generate meaningful information. It’s interesting at this point to note the kinds
of things you can track:

Learning More
If you’re eager to learn more about Google Analytics, the Help Center has
some good introductory material at https://support.google.com/analyt
ics/?hl=en#topic=3544906.
These resources may also be of interest:
• How to Install Google Analytics on Blogger:  http://
www.lacquerheadsofoz.com/2013/04/how-to-
install-google-analytics-on.html
• How to Add Google Analytics to Blogger 2014: https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0F7jCovhpQ
22 Chapter 2 | Blogalytics

Conclusion
Congratulations on setting things up!
I think the reason analytics can be fun is that you can see “under the hood” of
a web site and look at how many people are visiting. If you’ve used Facebook,
it’s similar to seeing how many people like your post or page. But analytics
takes it from a single item to a fuller picture of what’s going on.
In order to have fun, the next step is to get some traffic to your blog or site.
One thing you can do is write a blog post and share it wherever you can think
of to get some clicks, including Facebook.
Consider regularly blogging on your exploration of online marketing and
analytics, such as making a blog post once a week, to see what it’s like to
get traffic over time. Feel free to read Introduction to Social Media Marketing
(Apress, 2017) to learn more.
In the next chapter, you’ll try two related techniques to “jump start” things
and get some traffic to analyze in Google Analytics.
 CHAPTER

Getting Traffic
for Analytics
This chapter looks at a couple of basic techniques for generating traffic on a
blog or web site, following the previous chapter about creating a blog. The
chapters are written as self-contained experiments. Ultimately, you need traf-
fic in order to be able to look at analytics, so this chapter describes a few ways
to generate traffic.

Basic Social Media Promotion

One of the easiest ways to get some test traffic to your blog or web site is by
sharing a link to a post on any social media accounts you have. (If you don’t
have any, I suggest signing up for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn).
If you want more connections, you can always use the feature where you
share your e-mail contact list, and the programs suggest new connections.
Check out these sites for good advice:
• How do I import friends from other accounts?: https://
www.facebook.com/help/189976267783273
• “How to import contacts into Twitter: http://www.
dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-import-
contact-lists-to-twitter.html

© Todd Kelsey 2017

T. Kelsey, Introduction to Google Analytics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-2829-6_3
24 Chapter 3 | Getting Traffic for Analytics

• “How to import contacts into Linkedin:  

https://
www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/4214?
query=import%20contacts%20into%20linkedin
Once you have some connections to work with, the next step is to take the
link for your blog and post an invitation to social media. This isn’t about social
media promotion per se—this is just an exercise to generate traffic, for the
purpose of being able to look at your analytics data.

Get the Link

Go to the blog you created in Chapter 2 and copy the link into memory.
For this blog, the “general” link is http://npoex.blogspot.com/.

There’s a difference between the blog link and a link to individual blog posts.
Click on the title of a blog post you made, and you’ll see a longer link. This is
the one you’ll want to share on social media:

http://npoex.blogspot.com/2014/07/non-profit-stock-exchange-user.html
 Introduction to Google Analytics 25

■■Tip  Visuals are good. Include a picture in the blog post. When you post to social, to get more
notice, include a picture in your post. Technically you could post a photo to Facebook, and include
a link in the post, but what you really want to do is include visuals in your original blog post. Then
when you post to social media, in some cases (Facebook/LinkedIn), it gives you the option of
having a visual preview. This will garner more attention, more clicks, and ultimately more data to
play with.

Make your blog posts ongoing. For learning analytics, I recommend that you get in the habit of
posting once a week to a blog (or web site) that is connected to Google Analytics, and then look
back at it. To generate ongoing data, add the Follow by Email feature in Blogger. When people visit,
they can sign up to get posts automatically when you post them. In theory, this should help you get
some ongoing clicks.

Make Your Pitch

This chapter isn’t meant to replace my Introduction to Social Media Marketing
book. I recommend you read that too, because it’s all connected. But we’re just
taking a simple, quick tour of how to get some clicks.
So when you post to social, make a pitch for clicks. Tell people what you’re up
to and invite them to click on the link below. Something like this:
Friends and colleagues, please click on this link. I’m doing a test for a book
I’m writing to help people learn web analytics, in order to show readers
how they can share their blog posts on social media. Every click will help
generate some “data” that I can look at in the book. You’re also welcome
to subscribe by e-mail if you’re interested in the topic. (Please feel free to
pass this along.)

http://npoex.blogspot.com/2014/07/non-profit-stock-
exchange-user.html
26 Chapter 3 | Getting Traffic for Analytics

Post It to Social Media

Put your post on social media. Notice how Facebook picked up the image
from the blog post in the preview.

You may not realize that you can do the same thing on LinkedIn.
When you log in, there should be a spot to share an update:

It’s worth trying.

 Introduction to Google Analytics 27

Promote Your Post

I get kind of an icky feeling even sharing this technique, but it’s built into
Facebook, and it feels a bit like a mafia shakedown. See Introduction to Social
Media Marketing (Apress, 2017) for my skeptical perspective on how advertising
on Facebook has evolved.
Whether it is because there are too many posts by too many people, or
whether Facebook has intentionally limited who sees your posts, the bottom
line is that not as many people will see your posts on your personal profile as
in the past, unless you pay Facebook to promote them.
The quickest, easiest way to get your posts noticed is to click the Promote
link at the bottom of the post and pay the Facebook mafia:
28 Chapter 3 | Getting Traffic for Analytics

This extortion is probably worth the money, at least as a learning experience:

Enter your credit card information and click Pay to Promote:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 29

It’s a one-time, limited thing. A bit like blackmail. Blackmail payments have a
way of growing, and not going away. So too with social networks’ interest in
monetizing everything—even if you had the impression that it shouldn’t cost
anything to share with the network of friends you built. I suppose Facebook
provided the platform to build that network, but still. But for grins, lets give
Facebook the benefit of the doubt. Personal social advertising is just like pro-
fessional social advertising. You pay to get exposure.
Wait, isn’t social media supposed to be “free” advertising?
At any rate, when you pay Facebook to promote your post, it shows the word
“Sponsored” at the bottom:
30 Chapter 3 | Getting Traffic for Analytics

::Shudders::

Make an Ad
Another way I suggest trying to add more clicks is a simple Facebook ad
campaign. As much as Facebook ads have changed as Facebook has grown, it’s
still probably easier to create a Facebook ad than a Google ad, for example.
Although I should probably take a poll on that, from people who have tried
both.
So we’re just going to take the simplest way possible through the process,
without getting into specifics. It’s all about the data.
Go to https://www.facebook.com/ads/create and click on the Clicks to
Website option:

Then, copy your trusty blog link, the one to the specific post, and paste it in
the field:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 31

Until/unless Facebook changes, when you paste the link, it may flip you to
another screen. Don’t be alarmed.

On the next screen, you’ll want to upload an image. It recommends a large

image, and if you try to run the ad with a smaller image (like the one show
here that Facebook picked up from the blog post), it won’t run the ad. If you’re
just testing things, search for “Earth” on Google. Click the image link at the
top of the Google page, right-click (Windows) or Ctrl+click (Mac), and then
save the image to disk. You can use this image.
32 Chapter 3 | Getting Traffic for Analytics

■■Tip  If you’re enjoying this detour on the way to analytics bliss, Chapter 2 of my Introduction to
Social Media Marketing book covers a few basic tools for working with content, including images,
and source of images.

When I tried a slightly larger image, it still didn’t work:

In the end, I just grabbed that “Earth” image, which was 300x300, and that
worked.
After you have an image in place, type in a headline and text for the ad. It’s
an art and a science, but just put in something short and direct with a call to
action. The little numbers on the right tell you how many characters you have
left to type in. There are limits.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 33

Next, you pick an audience. You could send it to completely random people,
but you’ll end up with more clicks if you indicate some interests.

Try clicking in the Interests field and typing in an interest, such as “social media
marketing”, “web analytics”, or whatever your blog is about. If you don’t have
a topic, make it about online marketing, read all the free books, and keep
posting!
As you type, options will come up and you can click on them:
34 Chapter 3 | Getting Traffic for Analytics

Narrow things down a bit and then review the budget at the bottom:

If you want to limit your investment, you can click on Per Day and switch to
a lifetime budget.

Then click on Place Order:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 35

If you get a message like this, you might need to upload a new image:

(You might need to click on the “X” by any image you uploaded that isn’t large
enough. You can use multiple images to see which generates the best clicks.)
You should get a confirmation, and you can click Continue:

If you want to come back later and see how things are doing in Facebook, try
this link: https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage.

(If you want to know more about Facebook ads, check out my Introduction to
Social Media Marketing book).
36 Chapter 3 | Getting Traffic for Analytics

The overall point is that a Facebook ad may generate more clicks and attention
than your personal social posts. The more clicks, the more data you have for
this learning experience. All the better.
And if you plan on running a month-long or quarter-long experience (Q1, Q2,
etc.—three months), or even a semester-long experience, you can always set a
monthly budget and an end date, and just let the thing run. If you do something
like that, be sure to blog regularly, such as once a week. Follow the tips to add
“Follow by Email”. See how things go. In some cases, web analytics is a job
unto itself, but it’s fair to say that in many cases it’s a skill anyone can learn,
including people who are responsible for getting the traffic in the first place.

Learning More
Here are a few more resources for getting more traffic/contacts:
• Web Traffic 101: How to Get More Customers – Fast:
http://blog.leadpages.net/web-traffic-101-
how-to-get-more-customers-fast/
• 10 Ways to Get Traffic for Free!: http://www.webconfs.
com/how-to-get-traffic-article-30.php
• How Do I Import Friends from Other Accounts?:
https://www.facebook.com/help/189976267783273
• “How to Import Contacts into Twitter: http://www.
dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-import-
contact-lists-to-twitter.html
• How to import contacts into LinkedIn: https://www.
linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/
4214?query=import%20contacts%20into%20linkedin

Conclusion
Congratulations on exploring how to generate analytics! It’s important to
set these things in motion, partly because having real, live data is more fun
than just looking at a screenshot. Next up, we’ll look at how to review
performance.
 CHAPTER

Reviewing
Performance of
Campaigns
This chapter takes a look at some of the ways you can track the performance
of a web site or campaign, as well as some related terms, and covers the idea
of ongoing reporting. If you’re following along in text only, you can pick up
some information just from reading the material. However, I think it is more
compelling if you develop a blog or site as discussed in Chapters 1-3, so that
you have your own personal data to look at. It’s more exciting, and even fun!

Reviewing Campaign Analytics

Even though our focus is on Google Analytics, I think it’s worth seeing how
tools relate. In the previous chapter, we looked at how to generate some
traffic for viewing in analytics, and this would be representative of if you were
doing an ad campaign and looking at its impact. In many cases, you could be
involved in the execution of an ad campaign, as well as looking at the data.
It’s also helpful to see how an ad platform views things, versus how things look
on your actual web site or blog.

© Todd Kelsey 2017

T. Kelsey, Introduction to Google Analytics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-2829-6_4
38 Chapter 4 | Reviewing Performance of Campaigns

In other words, the clicks from an ad don’t tell the whole story. Without
looking at Google Analytics, you can get some sense of the amount of traffic
you’ll get, but you won’t really know what to do with it. It’s like sending
someone to a house but not knowing what they do once they get there.
If you’re following along and have tried a Facebook ad campaign, you can go
to Facebook to see how things are going: https://www.facebook.com/ads/
manage
At this end, you’re seeing the “outgoing” information—people on Facebook
who see your ad. Hopefully some of them click on it and visit your blog or
web site:

If you tried the promoted post idea, you can go back to it and click on the
Sponsored link. At present, Facebook doesn’t give good data on personal
sponsored posts. (Is this because it’s in their best interest not to give num-
bers?) All they give you is a relative picture:

Okay, so how many people actually clicked on the link in the Sponsored post?
This is one limitation of the “personal promotion” platform—limited data.
When you run Facebook ads (or sponsored posts from a Facebook page,
etc.), you get a bit more data.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 39

Ultimately, you can look at Google Analytics to see how many clicks arrived
from various sources.

Reviewing Performance in Google Analytics

So let’s go back into Google Analytics (assuming everything is set up, you’re
tracking visitors, you shared on social media and/or ran an ad, etc.):
Go to http://www.google.com/analytics/. You should see something like
this, where you click on the link next to the little globe:

Google Analytics has a lot of options—a lot of ways to “slice and dice”—but
my recommendation is to approach it pragmatically. You don’t have to know
and use every option from day one. Instead, you can start by answering a
specific question and branch out from there.
The fun part at this stage is seeing that there are in fact visitors to your site.
The Overview tab will open, and by default it will look back at recent data,
based on Sessions:

A session is a technical term for a visit, and the thing to keep in mind is that
people often view several pages during a visit.
40 Chapter 4 | Reviewing Performance of Campaigns

On the same page, there will be several additional items:

While there might be 15 sessions, there were 17 page views. This means that
some of the visitors viewed more than one page during their visit.
Another interesting metric is the amount of time on average users spent
during their visit. In this case, the average was 8 seconds.
One of the ways that people use information from Google Analytics is to
view how performance currently is, and then set goals for the future. For
example, a goal might be to look at the site or blog and see if you can add
more compelling content, so that over time, the average duration of a session
increases.
Bounce rate is a similar metric. The bounce rate represents the number of
visitors who enter the site and then leave (or “bounce”), rather than continuing
to view other pages on the same site. Another goal of reviewing performance
and optimization might be to take note of the bounce rate, and see what you
can do to decrease it.
What might be some reasons people “bounce”? A good Google search drill
might be to search for “improving bounce rate” or “why do people bounce
from a site”?

Location, Location, Location!

Another thing I think is particularly fun to do is to determine where people
are visiting from. In Google Analytics, on the left, click on Geo:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 41

Then click on Location:

There is a map overlay, and it will give you an instant visual sense of where
your visitors are coming from:
42 Chapter 4 | Reviewing Performance of Campaigns

Then there is also a breakdown of which sessions were from which areas:

For example, I’m not entirely sure why there was a visitor from Cyprus, but they
didn’t appear to stay on the site too long (and average session duration of 0).

Using Campaigns and Ongoing Blog Posts

With analytics, it’s probably fair to say that the best way to learn the value,
and learn how to optimize, is alongside an ongoing campaign of some kind,
and/or a web site that has an ongoing set of visitors. If you’re just starting out,
exploring and playing with some of the options in Google Analytics can teach
you a few tools that you can keep in mind for when you’re in that situation.
I personally believe that making an ongoing blog is a good general learning
experience, as well as a source of traffic.
Dare I say that you can think of analytics as a party? Invite people from all
over the world, give them something enjoyable, meaningful, or relevant to
experience, and then see what they do. That’s analytics!

Looking at Trends
One concept in analytics that’s helpful to explore, file away, and burn into
your synapses is the idea of trending. It basically means looking at how things
perform over time. You look at the trends. An easy way to get a sense of
trending is to go directly into Blogger and click on the Stats link. You’ll see a
simplified set of analytics.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 43

So the 2069.us blog has been around for a while. It is a personal blog that
hasn’t been promoted extensively, but has seen some traffic.
The Stats function in Blogger opens up to the Week tab:

If you click in the All Time tab (upper right), it shows a longer view, and the
longer your blog has been around, the more you can see trends. In theory,
with a consistent application of effort (adding quality content, making some
effort to promote, getting listed on some other sites), you will see a boost in
the amount of traffic.
44 Chapter 4 | Reviewing Performance of Campaigns

On the left, since 2006 that is, we see that there has been a fairly gradual growth
in the amount of traffic. This is a good trend—at least it’s not going down.

Dealing with Spam Traffic and Bots

One issue to be aware of when monitoring traffic to web sites and blogs is
that sometimes there are automated bots that appear like regular users. In
theory, this traffic is filtered out, but part of the point is to think critically and
dig beneath the surface. In Blogger, you can look at traffic sources, which is
also an interesting way to learn more about your web site. You can see where
your visitors are coming from.
For example, it appears that a large proportion of traffic is coming from
semalt.com. What’s that?

It looks like it is some kind of web promotion service. It’s not a news site or
blog. It looks like some kind of automated crawler that would get noticed by
an analyst.
The longer a web site or blog is around, the more some of these traffic
sources will result in true referrals—where people linked to your web site or
blog because they like it. The idea is to keep an eye on traffic sources. In some
cases, you might be able to establish a relationship with the traffic source and
let them know when you have a new blog post or product.
As it is, because 2069.us hasn’t been updated in a while, it looks like it’s getting
mostly automated traffic. Another traffic source is baidu, a Chinese search
engine. I have no idea how the blog ended up on the site, or why people would
visit it, but maybe it was just interesting enough to generate a few clicks.

Looking at Traffic in Google Analytics

You can also look at traffic in Google Analytics (in a deeper way). Try clicking
on Acquisition ➤ All Traffic:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 45

At this stage, I just recommend exploring and trying things out. There will be
plenty of time to dive into documentation and details later. For now, try to
treat Google Analytics like an amusement park, where you try to find things
that are amusing. Who said data can’t be fun?

Tracking Mobile Hits

If you were starting to doze off in the previous sections, maybe the idea of
tracking mobile hits will get your attention. It’s a hot, growing wildly success-
ful area in consumer electronics, apps, and web site development. Analytics
gives you a way to look at mobile hits. For example, in Google Analytics, go to
Audience ➤ Mobile:

It can be interesting to see the percentage of your traffic coming from different
devices:
46 Chapter 4 | Reviewing Performance of Campaigns

This represents another way that analytics can be used to deliver value to a
business. Do they know the percentage of traffic coming from mobile? What
is the trend? Is mobile traffic increasing? This might mean that the business or
organization needs to pay more attention to being mobile friendly.
If you start making your site more mobile friendly or use mobile advertising,
analytics can help you measure the impact. The ROI. Remember that ROI is
the Holy Grail!
You could look at the trend toward mobile device usage. You can look at
it before your site was mobile friendly, as well as after. Is there a difference?
Hopefully there will be. Business owners, people in organizations, pay very
close attention to this kind of information. It is very, very valuable. You can
see clearly the impact of initiatives, of spending time and money on campaigns
and improvements.
This is why analytics is so important. See how it works? Just something to
keep in mind as you’re learning to use it. It’s an important piece of the pie.
Another issue to consider is the way the information comes across. For
example, a chart is one thing, but why not a pie graph? In Google Analytics,
you can click in the little row of icons to get a pie graph in this view of mobile:

It opens a color-coded view that is easier to consume.

At a single glance, you see that overall mobile traffic is a quarter of the total
traffic (mobile devices and tablets, which fall into the mobile category as well).
 Introduction to Google Analytics 47

As you begin to look at these kinds of things, you can start to ask interesting
questions, in a kind of “mix and match” mentality.
For example, what is the bounce rate for mobile traffic to your web site? A
higher bounce rate on mobile devices might indicate that the site isn’t mobile
friendly. But how do you check this?
I think it’s important to learn how to learn, so I recommend starting by asking
these types of questions. Then see if you can figure out how to look under
the hood. You can also cheat by Googling. For example, try Googling “mobile
bounce rate in Google Analytics”.

Using Dashboards/Reports
When you’re in the position of looking at web analytics for your own site or
for someone else’s, you can manually go into the tool and find items. However,
this can be time consuming, and Google Analytics includes dashboards and
reports you can create to make your life easier.
In Google Analytics, click on Reporting at the top:

Then choose Dashboards ➤ New Dashboard:

Then select Starter Dashboard and change Untitled Dashboard to whatever

name you like:
48 Chapter 4 | Reviewing Performance of Campaigns

Finally, click Create Dashboard.

Next, you will probably want to set a date range. There’s nothing wrong with
the default, but setting date ranges is part of the way you get the information
that’s most relevant.
To change the date range, click on the little triangle to the right of the dates
that show:

Consider the preset options, such as Last Week, which might be a good date
range for a regular, weekly report:

After you select a date range, click Apply:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 49

Exporting and Scheduling Reports

Next you may want to manually export a report, in order to share it with
colleagues or clients. To do this, you click Export and select PDF:

I also recommend setting up a scheduled report via e-mail. To do this, click

Email:

Then enter an e-mail address to send the report to:

50 Chapter 4 | Reviewing Performance of Campaigns

Then click in the main area and add a message, such as, “Here is the weekly
report”. Then click Send:

You can always come back to Dashboards to adjust your options:

If you went through these steps, you have fully entered the world of web
analytics. You looked at traffic and performance and then set up some
reporting so that you can monitor traffic on an ongoing basis. Woo-hoo!

Learning More
Aside from the Google searches mentioned earlier, I recommend exploring
Google Analytics. When you come across something you’re interested in, do
a Google search on the concept.
To synthesize your learning, I also recommend making a blog post, discussing
what you’re learning, including the questions you have, and asking people for
comment.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 51

You might also be interested in a little light viewing/reading:

• Basic Concepts in Web Analytics: http://ramonlapenta.
com/blog/basic-concepts-of-web-analytics
• A Web Analytics Slide Presentation: http://www.slide
share.net/mattPROv1/web-analytics-
concepts-theories
• Bounce  Rate:  h t t p s : / / s u p p o r t . g o o g l e . c o m /
analytics/answer/1009409?hl=en

Conclusion
Congratulations! You just made it through a significant set of milestones. You
broke through the data barrier, created some traffic, learned how to view
data using various tools, experimented with multiple social media channels,
and looked at behavioral data. Just getting your feet wet in these areas is
impressive. Good job!
If there’s any way for you to have the right mindset that will help you get
through the material and master the tool, I do believe that fun can pave the
way. Hopefully, you can find something interesting when creating your own site,
trying to promote it a little, and looking at how consistent effort over time
can have an impact. I argue that web analytics is a critical part of marketing
partly because of inspiration. That is, when you see the impact, the results of
your effort, it inspires you to pursue things consistently over time.
This translates into fiscal ROI and an impact in a business setting. When you
trace impact, you can show how important it is to make adjustments and
show the importance of the online marketing efforts. It really helps, and it
definitely gets attention. Instead of guessing and hoping, you get a clear sense
of what’s going on.
 CHAPTER

Fun with
E-Commerce
Analytics Part I:
Shopify
Tracking ROI is a 50 billion dollar skill, because it’s at the core of Google’s
success, and you could even argue that it’s a trillion dollar skill, because of how
much revenue Google helps businesses make. This chapter looks at how to
set up a Shopify account, which is one of the easiest ways to set up a “real”
e-commerce system to learn about tracking ROI with analytics. I think it’s
important to see how you can set things up so that when you create an ad,
you can track exactly how much money you are making. This is a fundamental
concept and opportunity in analytics, where Google Analytics and AdWords
can act together. My goal has been to find the easiest, least expensive way to
set up the moving pieces, and Shopify is part of the puzzle. Originally, I was
going include the entire lifecycle in one chapter, but I decided to split the
chapter into two—this first chapter lays the foundation in Shopify, and the
next chapter covers connecting things in AdWords.

© Todd Kelsey 2017

T. Kelsey, Introduction to Google Analytics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-2829-6_5
54 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

In an ideal world, this would be free, but from what I can tell, there isn’t an
e-commerce platform out there that is free and allows you to do conversion
tracking. At the time of writing, there are some platforms such as Gumroad
(covered in Chapter 7), which is free and provides some basic tracking, but if
you point an ad at a Gumroad site, you are still guessing about the effectiveness
of particular ads.
The great strength of being able to do “real” conversion tracking is that in
Google AdWords, you can tell exactly how effective a particular ad has been,
in terms of revenue. When you or your employer or client is spending money
on ads, it’s important to know what is most effective, so you can spend money
on ads with confidence, instead of through guesswork. That’s the exciting
thing about setting up the full deal.
Setting up Shopify, at $29.95/month, is about the best and easiest way to do
things at present (e-mail me if you know of an alternative).

Understanding Conversion Tracking

At a high level, conversion tracking allows Google to make 50 billion dollars
a year. The magic behind this machine is that unlike most other forms of
advertising, with AdWords you can get analytics that tell you exactly how
much money you are making, based on what you are spending. If you spent
money on a billboard, you can only guess at how many people are influenced
to purchase—and the same thing goes for television, radio, and most other
forms of advertising.
If you’re spending $1000/month on Google ads and you know you’re making
10,000 as a result, you can confidently consider increasing the budget, or
just keeping it in place. Without the conversion tracking, you have no idea.
Of course, selling something online is not as simple as just placing an ad on
Google. People have to want what you are selling, and there’s also competition
for Google ads. But when you follow the best practices for online marketing,
and when you have conversion tracking in place, it gives you analytics to track
ROI—the bottom line.
In terms of Google Analytics and Google AdWords, they are both tools.
They work closely together, but it’s the conversion tracking that makes the
difference.

Why Shopify? Why “Live”?

My recommendation is to follow along in this chapter as a learning experience
about how e-commerce comes together, to set up a “live” Shopify site. Start
thinking about a product that you could sell, even a physical product if you
 Introduction to Google Analytics 55

have one, or think of someone who might like some help exploring this area.
Another area that is slightly easier to develop and manage, as part of a learning
experience, is a digital product. Take anything that could be written/developed
in Microsoft Office or Open Office, save it in PDF format, and make it a digital
download.
You are also welcome to use the Introduction to Social Media book PDF, or
one of my other books, as a live file to place on your “test” Shopify store.
Ultimately, the competition for keywords about social media marketing in
AdWords means the money you have to spend in order to actually sell the
PDF might be more than you want, but it’s still worth the test. The only thing
I’d ask is that you contact me first, partly because if multiple people are using
it as a sample, it makes sense for me to coordinate “areas” that you could
target your ads to.
Don’t worry if you don’t have experience in e-commerce, AdWords, etc. I try
to make it as easy as possible to start out. Even if you want to keep spending
down to a bare, bare minimum, you can get one or two friends to search
on Google for the keywords you choose, click on the Google ad, follow it
through to your site, and purchase the item. That will allow you to see the full
lifecycle of conversion tracking.
It is an exciting thing, to be able to trace your effects for real. It’s also an
important skill, and I do think that it’s worth pursuing, so that whether you
are just learning for yourself, expanding your skillset at work, or building your
skills to find work, you can say “I have experience setting up an e-commerce
site and generating analytics with conversion tracking in AdWords”. This will
definitely get people’s attention.
There might be alternatives to Shopify, but Google itself recommended it as
an option for e-commerce when they discontinued Google Checkout, and
Shopify has pretty good support. Using a combination of these chapters, the
extra links for learning material, and the 800 numbers for support, I think it
is realistic and doable to try this out. There’s also the Shopify LinkedIn group
to pose questions to as well (ideally after you’ve tried asking either Google
or Shopify support).
It is doable, and you will find it exciting, so I recommend trying it. First read
both of these chapters and then try creating a Shopify site. Then set up the
Google AdWords after that.
Think of it as a ride at an amusement park—it will be a new experience—but
it can be fun!
56 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

Get Started with Shopify

To get started, go to shopify.com and click Get Started:

■■Note  Until/unless things change, you can definitely do a free trial to try Shopify without
spending money. In order to be able to do the conversion tracking, though, you have to pick a plan
and spend $29.95/mo or so until you cancel. Given the impact it could have on your business,
career, and employer, I think it’s worth it.

Next, enter your e-mail address, a password, and a name for your store. Click
Create Your Store Now:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 57

The store name could be anything you like it to and should ideally be related
to the product you are selling. To make it easy, you could just use your initials,
and say something like JDmarket. You’ll end up with an address like jdmarket.
shopify.com, and if you like this e-commerce thing, you can always upgrade
to a full web site name like www.jdmarket.com.
When you’ve got a name, choose the Online Store checkbox and click Next:
58 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

Then enter your name and address information:

Click Next when you’re done:

At this point, I’m going to follow the scenario of digital products. If you’re
setting up your site to sell physical products, there’s more to configure, but
you can always guess and then call Shopify support if you need to.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 59

You make some basic choices and click Take Me to My Store:

Next, you add a product.

If you are following along with a digital product, you can enter a title.
60 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

Then click Add Product:

Next, you choose images (such as a book cover for a digital product). If you
are uploading your own and don’t have a cover image, try hiring someone on
elance.com or odesk.com or read the “Content” chapter in my Introduction to
Social Media book for some tools on working with images. Try for a 250x450
image using SnagIt, Photoshop, or Gimp. You can add text and use clipart.

After you upload an image, it should look something like this:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 61

Then click Save:

The Shopify wizard will walk you through things, and you can click on the 2
steps link:

In theory, you should also see a link like this, where you can click View Your
Store to see a preview of what it looks like:

Customize Navigation
The next thing you’ll want to do is to customize navigation. If you know that
only you and your friends will be looking at the store, not all the steps I go
through are necessary, but it’s still a good experience to do it. The more likely
62 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

you are to try and actually get people to visit the store and buy something, the
more you’ll want to tweak your site.
To customize the navigation, go to the menu on the left side of the screen
click Navigation:

In this section, I recommend taking out a few things, such as the link to the
blog, so you don’t have to add content to it or maintain it. If you want to blog
about your e-commerce store, go for it! Just make sure you regularly add
posts. You don’t want potential customers to come to the site and find old
blog posts, or no blog posts, which will make your site seem less professional.
You can also add a blog later.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 63

Next, the Edit Link List link:

Then click the trash icon next to the blog:

Finally, click Save:

If you encounter a link like this, you might just want to skip it for now:
64 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

Adding the Product to the Front Page

Even after you add a product, you’ll want to add it to the front page. To do
this, go to the left navigation and click Collections:

Look for the Front Page collection. Then click on the Add Products menu:

Select the product you added to the system:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 65

It should show up in the list:

Then you can click Save:

Tweaking and Payments

Shopify makes it about as easy as possible to set up a fully functional
e-commerce site and accept payments. It used to be, and often still is, the case
that you needed to be a web developer, hire one, or learn how to be one, and
then work with a hosting company to put a lot of pieces together, including
adding payment processing to your web site, etc. Suffice to say that jumping
through the hoops on Shopify is a lot easier than other setup situations.
Next, go to your Dashboard:

You will probably see a wizard like this:

66 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

If you’re following the “digital products” example, all you need to do is enter
your banking information. Even if it’s just you and your friends, colleagues, or
classmates testing things out, you should enter the information to get the full
effect.
First, click Complete Shopify Payments Account Setup:

You’ll probably want to choose Individual/Sole Proprietorship:

■■Note  By continuing to read, you are accepting the fact that I am not giving you tax or business
advice, just options to consider.

Next, uncheck We Sell and Ship Physical Goods:

Type in eBooks instead:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 67

Then enter your business address:

Finally, enter your bank information:

Click Complete Account Setup:

Then click Save:

Then click Back to Admin:

68 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

Next, click the check boxes on the left, to set up shipping rates and tax rates:

Then click Remove Your Store Password, and it will lead you to pick a plan,
which is covered next.

Picking a Plan
This is where you have to pay. The trial allows you and others to visit the site,
and it’s live, but they need a password, and random visitors from a Google ad
can’t get in. In theory, if you tell friends to find the Google ad and click on it
and you give them the password, technically you might be able to try Shopify
for free. I haven’t tested that idea, but it’s possible in theory.
My recommendation is to make it live. Go through the exercise of making it
as professional looking as possible, spend the money if you can, then find a
person with a real product, physical or digital, to sell. Chances are there are
a fair number of people in your community who might be trying to find a
solution like that, and if someone comes along to help them, they might even
pay for everything, as well as pay you to help them.
Click Pick a Plan:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 69

I suggest the cheapest plan. Click Choose this Plan:

Start with the Once a Month plan instead of the yearly plan:

Then click Confirm changes:

Next, click Remove Your Storefront Password:

70 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

Uncheck Password Protect Your Storefront:

Then click Save:

■■Note  If you are paying attention, you might notice that you can connect Google Analytics to
your storefront. When you do that, what you are mainly gathering is “conventional” analytics, such
as behavior and number of visitors to your Shopify site. You could try that, but the focus for now is
on setting up conversion tracking. I suggest filing that away for later, if you plan on wanting to learn
about e-commerce analytics using an ongoing store.

Click Back to Admin:

Setting a Price
For any product you sell, you’ll need to set the price. Click on the Products
link:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 71

Then select a product to price:

In order to have a price, you have to make a “variant”. E-commerce items like
t-shirts will often have different sizes, colors, etc., so for a digital download,
you could just have a name for a particular edition, like “First Edition” or
“Version 1.0”.
To proceed, click the Edit link:

Type in a variant name and price:

■■Note  By continuing to read, you agree I’m not giving you business or tax advice.

If you’re doing this as a limited time experience, you may not need to charge
taxes, and unless you are shipping physical goods, you don’t need to require a
physical address:
72 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

So uncheck both of those boxes and click Save and Close:

■■Tip  If you plan to sell things on an ongoing basis, I recommend finding an accountant. The
old principle is, focus on what you do the best (such as marketing) and work with others to do the
rest (such as accounting). You can do preliminary research on Google, such as “do selling digital
downloads require charging taxes?”. You can also call Shopify support for questions. Most likely
they will help you configure your site, but will probably say that ultimate tax strategy should be
determined in conjunction with an accountant. At a high level, the landscape seems to shift. In
some cases, if you’re shipping to the same area as your business, taxes may apply, and because
of changing legislation, there may be taxes anyway. For a long time businesses like Amazon didn’t
have to charge taxes for online purchases, whereas buying in a local retailer would cause local
sales tax. But local and state governments are catching up with this and starting to push for
tax revenue. Something to research if you’re interested in e-commerce. Ultimately, I recommend
working with an accountant. Better to do it right than get burned later.

Next, you might like to scroll up on the screen and click View in Your Website:

Then take a look. Congratulations! You have fought half the battle in setting
up an e-commerce site. In the next chapter, you’ll get everything configured
and find some visitors.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 73

The link for your site will be something like this: https://casamarket.
myshopify.com.

Making More Tweaks

These tweaks are not strictly necessary, but recommended. Even if you took
the blog link off, there might still be a News section on your front page:

To get rid of this, you can click Themes:

74 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

Then click Customize Theme:

And Footer:

Then click the X next to blog:

■■Note  This page also happens to be where you can configure “where” your social media icons
point. I wouldn’t worry about it, but you can always come back later and add this. In the meantime,
if anyone clicks on those icons, they will be taken to Shopify.

Finally, click Save:

Updating Content
You’ll want to spruce things up a bit. Click on Pages:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 75

And then click Frontpage:

Add some descriptive text:

For example, using the sample text/files mentioned earlier, you could add the
following and click Save:

(If you want to “go pro,” hire a copywriter, locally or through elance or
odesk.)
76 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

Next, click Pages:

Click on the About Us link:

Using the sample text or your own text, enter the About Us text. You can use
Shopify’s suggestions as a guide:

Feel free to use the sample text as well:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 77

Then click Save:

Adding the Digital Product

Next, you’ll need to upload a digital product, using the Shopify app.
Click on Apps:

Then click Visit the App Store:

Type in digital downloads and select from the drop-down list:

78 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

Next, click Install Digital Downloads:

Now you need to select a product that you set up before. Click the Product
link:

Then select your product you want to upload:

Click on the “…” icon and choose Add Digital Attachment:

Next, click Upload File:

The file should begin to upload:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 79

Congrats! You set up a digital download.

To see your store, click on the middle icon at the bottom of the left navigation:
80 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

Buy Your Product

At this point, I recommend buying your own product, just to test it out and
get that sense of satisfaction that comes from setting things up. Click Add to
Cart:

Click at the cart icon at the top of the screen. If you want to make it clearer to
visitors what to click on and where, you can add text to your product descrip-
tion, such as “Click on Add to Cart to buy, then click on the Cart icon at the
top of the screen to check out.”

Next, you can click Check Out:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 81

You’ll get the standard user experience. For digital downloads, it collects an
e-mail:

■■Note  If you plan to do this on an ongoing basis, you’ll want to establish a privacy policy and
put it on the site in relation to e-mails you capture. Ask Shopify about this.

Next, you’ll get a confirmation, and buyers can download “now” or through
the e-mail they receive.
82 Chapter 5 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part I: Shopify

Take a Deep Breath

Okay, take a deep breath.
Congratulations! You made it through setting up an e-commerce site. It’s live
and ready to advertise!

Learning More
To learn more about Shopify, this link might be helpful: http://docs.
shopify.com/manual.
The docs.shopify.com/support page also has options for e-mail, live chat,
and calling 24/7.
You can also get assistance from a Shopify expert, in hiring someone to help
you set things in motion, via http://experts.shopify.com.

Conclusion
I think that going through the process of setting up an e-commerce site gets at
the heart of analytics, bringing you closer than ever to being able to experience
ROI first hand. Not many online marketing professionals can say they’ve done
this, especially on their own. Even if you don’t plan on selling anything yourself,
I recommend considering this. If you end up with an employer or client who
is trying to figure this out, you’re one step ahead. You might end up doing
analytics in a situation where all the underlying connections have been made,
and I still recommend learning about this, so that you can have the “Aha!”
moment. It’s partly about inspiration. I do believe that ROI is one of the most
important concepts, if not “the” most important concept, in online marketing.
This is true whether you see analytics as your full-time job or just a skill in
your toolbox.
Getting your head around ROI, really understanding it, will help you to be
a stronger analyst and online marketer, period. If your emphasis is on ROI,
you will be helping yourself, your employer, and your clients create more
sustainable online marketing efforts.
 CHAPTER

Fun with
E-Commerce
Analytics Part II:
AdWords
The purpose of this chapter and of Chapter 5 is to capture the full lifecycle
of analytics and take a close look at ROI (return on investment). The goal is
to shed light on an elusive question—when you are spending money on ads,
how can analytics help you determine how much money you are making? The
exciting thing is that AdWords provides a way to do this.
Shopify provides a foundation for e-commerce, and AdWords provides a way
to advertise a site and track conversion. If you haven’t read Chapter 5 yet, I
recommend starting there. If you haven’t read Chapters 1-4, I recommend
starting at the beginning.
E-commerce and AdWords are billion dollar industries, but with the right
approach, anyone can explore this world in a microcosm. As part of learning
about analytics and specifically about Google Analytics, it’s worth the effort.

© Todd Kelsey 2017

T. Kelsey, Introduction to Google Analytics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-2829-6_6
84 Chapter 6 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part II: AdWords

How does AdWords relate to Google Analytics?  When you’re in an e-commerce

situation, you can use Google Analytics to track behavior on your shopping
site, just like you can track any other kind of site, in terms of visits, how much
time people are spending on the site, etc. Platforms like Shopify can connect
directly to Google Analytics for this kind of information. But what AdWords
brings to the table is the ability to track conversions—measuring the journey
customers take from clicking an ad to making a purchase.This is why AdWords
is so important in generating information and why search engine marketing is a
desired skill, and important for online marketers to understand.
If you want to learn more about SEO, check out my book titled Introduction to
Search Engine Marketing and AdWords (Apress, 2017).
Okay, let’s dive in!

Get Started with AdWords

To get started with AdWords, you can follow along in this chapter, if you want
to dive right in. I have covered the bases as best I can, in a way that allows you
to move along and try it directly.
If you want some background information first, there are also resources you
can review, which are also included at the end of the chapter in the Learning
More section.
• www.google.com/adwords for general information and
links for learning more
• https://support.google.com/adwords is the learning
center, including guides
If you come to see the value of having AdWords as a skill, I encourage you to
explore Google’s learning material and consider getting AdWords Qualified.
It’s free and it can help your career in a direct way.
To get going, the first step is to create an account. Woo-hoo!

■■Tip  Free AdWords credit. If you’ve been following along and created a Shopify site in the last
chapter, there are ways to get free AdWords credit, which is basically free money (or free ad budget
at least). See:
http://ecommerce.shopify.com/c/ecommerce-marketing/t/aha-this-is-how-to-
get-your-google-adwords-and-facebook-credit-121154
 Introduction to Google Analytics 85

Creating an Account/Getting a Tracking Code

To start an account, go to http://www.google.com/adwords.
Feel free to wander around. The How it Works link may be of interest. When
you’re ready, click Start Now:

■■Note  You may want to write down the toll-free support number (1-800-919-9922). It’s in
Google’s best interest to help you succeed, and they have pretty good support.

When you have an account started, go to Tools ➤ Conversions:

Click Conversion:

This process is setting up a connection between AdWords and your

e-commerce site. It results in a bit of code that you can bring into Shopify,
which allows AdWords to track your site.
86 Chapter 6 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part II: AdWords

For example, the scenario you are setting up is that a person sees your ad,
clicks on it, reaches your site, and ideally buys something. This “conversion
code” you’re creating allows Google to make a connection between the ad
and your site. When the visitor reaches the Order Confirmation page or the
Thank You page, the code is there. Google can report that this specific ad was
clicked on and resulted in a purchase.
This basically allows you to determine that when you spend a certain amount
of money on ads, it results in a certain amount of revenue on your e-commerce
site. AdWords does not magically sell things for you.There’s an art and science
to selling, but the fundamental opportunity is significant for any business, and
it’s very solid, compared to traditional forms of advertising.
If you’re planning on connecting AdWords and Shopify, you may want to
review this link, which provides an overview and additional information around
connecting the two:
h t t p://docs.shopify.com/manual/you r - s t o r e / d a s h b o a r d /
google-adwords
After clicking the Conversion button, enter a conversion name:

Click Save and Continue.

Then click “The value of this conversion action may vary”. This allows you to
set different prices.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 87

Next, set the Conversion Category to Purchase/Sale:

Make sure that the Markup Language is set to HTML:

Then click Save and Continue:

In the next section, click “I make changes to the code”:

Finally, click the Done button.

88 Chapter 6 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part II: AdWords

Next, Google will give you the code, and you should copy it (Ctrl+C):

Connect AdWords to Shopify

Back in Shopify, go into Settings:

Click Checkout:

Paste the code into the Additional Content and Scripts area:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 89

Click the Save button:

To Modify or Not to Modify

In terms of actually changing the code, Google says you should do it:

The Shopify documentation provides a way to do it (even showing relevant

parts in red):

If you are approaching this as a learning experience, you don’t have to change
the code, though. Just remember that when you try the ad out and get
someone to click on it and buy your test product (even if it’s a friend), you’ll
get a conversion value, but it will be $1.00. If you actually want it to represent
the price of the products, you have to replace the code.
Don’t be alarmed about the code; just think of it as a recipe.
For example, a recipe might say:

1) Get some bread

2) Put some peanut butter on a slice
3) Put the other slice on
90 Chapter 6 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part II: AdWords

Google is giving you a recipe for Shopify:

1) Here’s some code

2) Shopify, the value we place on the items will be $1.00
unless we change the recipe
3) Have a nice day
It might look a little different (everyone has their own lingo, right?)
var google_conversion_label = "ntvnCPWE5goQu92B8gM";
var google_conversion_value = 1.00;
var google_remarketing_only = false;
You go to the Shopify article and select the relevant recipe replacement:

And you replace the particular part of the “code recipe” with something new:
var google_conversion_label = "ntvnCPWE5goQu92B8gM";
if ({{ subtotal_price }}) { var google_conversion_value = {{
subtotal_price | money_without_currency }}; }
var google_remarketing_only = false;
If we bring it back into the kitchen, all you’re really doing is saying that instead
of peanut butter, you can choose what to put in the sandwich. So instead of this:
1) Get some bread
2) Put some peanut butter on a slice
3) Put the other slice on
You end up with this:
1) Get some bread
2) Put some [whatever you want] on a slice
3) Put the other slice on
All the code is doing is having one computer speak to another, or one program
speak to another, etc. It’s basically just a set of directions to do something.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 91

Given the fact that you have the article, Google support, and Shopify support,
I think you can do it.The advantage to changing the code is that then your site
is real. That could be exciting, to know you’ve done it, and to be able to say
you’ve done it.
But don’t feel bad if it seems like too much—you can always come back later
and try it for real.
Even if you don’t modify the code, you’ll still end up being able to test the
connection between AdWords and Shopify, and all your wildest analytics
dreams will come true.

What’s Going On
To come back to Earth from the galactic analytics kitchen, consider the Order
Confirmation page.The code that Google gives you, a “snippet” of code, which
you can either use as is or tweak, is used by Shopify on the Thank You page.

So when someone clicks on your ad, purchases something, and checks out,
they end up on the Thank You page. When it displays, it tells Google there was
a purchase.
92 Chapter 6 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part II: AdWords

■■Fun  If you don’t believe me, you can test the shopping cart process out (after you’ve added
the conversion code). Then, in your browser, right-click on the page (Windows) or Ctrl+click (Mac),
and choose View Source. Pretend you’re looking at a recipe book and see if you can find something
that looks like the conversion code that Google gave you. Then you’ll win a prize! Okay, the prize is
the knowledge that you’ve discovered the code you planted there.

Create an AdWords Campaign

Now that you’ve connected Shopify and AdWords, you can create an ad so
that you can try it in real life.
Alternatively, you can get something a friend wrote and sell it as a digital
product, or even find a physical product. But to keep the momentum going, all
I’m saying is there are options.
In short, the world’s your oyster!
What you’ll see very soon is that AdWords ads cost money—surprise! But
that’s fair. In order to make money, you have to spend money. Analytics allow
you to see if you’re spending money effectively. Did your ad work? If people
clicked on it, did they buy anything?
To be clear, Google charges you when people click on your ad. This provides
you visitors. It’s up to you to get people to buy something.
There’s competition, so when you’re paying Google for the clicks, it’s like a kind
of eBay auction. For example, say you own a company that sells basketballs
and there’s another company that does the same.You both want to get people
to click on your ads. When people type “basketball” into Google, there’s a
bidding situation.
This is where it can be helpful to review some of the background info, as
mentioned earlier.
On the bright side, you can sometimes get free ad credit. Check out:
http://ecommerce.shopify.com/c/ecommerce-marketing/t/aha-this-
is-how-to-get-your-google-adwords-and-facebook-credit-121154
At this point, you can limit your “ad spend”. You bid very low and make your
product price very low, just to get some friends to find the ad, click, and buy
the product, so you can test things out. Then you can always come back and
try the finer points by experimenting with different prices and bidding, in an
effort to get “real” customers. That can be exciting. Think of that—an exciting
analytics learning experience.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 93

Yes, it can take money, but it can be exciting. Especially if you’re doing it for a
client, a friend, or an employer. At that point, I definitely recommend getting
AdWords Qualified, so that you can increase your chances of selling effectively.
At any rate, when you’re ready to try AdWords, go into AdWords and click
Campaign:

For the moment, click Search Network only.

Next, give the campaign a name:

Next you will be given a chance to set a budget. Ignore everything else for
the moment.

I suggest $5.00 a day for learning. It doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily spend
$5.00/day; this is only if people actually click on the ad. But you can limit a
budget and change it later, and that’s the important thing to remember.
94 Chapter 6 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part II: AdWords

Feel free to click on the little question mark icons wherever you see them to
learn more.

Then click Save and Continue:

Next, the wizard will ask you to enter your landing page:

You can get this page URL by going into Shopify and clicking on the middle
icon on the bottom-left side:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 95

Technically, your site page can be your landing page. This is the page where
people go when they click the ad.
As with other aspects of AdWords, there is an art and science to landing
pages, which is part of the way you increase the chances of someone buying
something (by selling the value proposition, etc.). Just for learning purposes,
you can copy that link from your browser and bring it back into AdWords.
Next, you can give your ad group a name if you like.What AdWords is doing is
giving you an opportunity (by scanning your “landing page”) to get some ideas
for keywords.
When creating an ad, ultimately you are targeting a particular keyword or set
of keywords related to your product. Ask yourself, what would people type in
Google if they were interested in my product?

This screen gives you the ability to get some ideas. Click on the little arrow
icons on the right:

■■Note  If you’re getting confused or need some advice at this point, try calling the Google help
line at 1-800-919-9922.
96 Chapter 6 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part II: AdWords

You can use the Automatic Ideas wizard, and you can also type in phrases of
your own:

Then click Continue to Ads:

My advice is, especially if your head is swimming, to make an ad and not

to worry about the particulars or keywords too much. This is just for the
learning experience. Delete or cancel the ad as soon as are ready and then
come back and try again. It’s more important to try the full process of making
an ad, without worrying about getting it exactly right the first time.
This is the core of making the ad in Google, whether you follow the initial
wizard or create a campaign first, and then create an ad group, and then create
an ad.
The Destination URL is the link to your e-commerce shopping page. Remember
you can always click on the little question mark icons for more information.
Next, enter a headline. Try it; you won’t hurt anything. Look at what happens
on the right:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 97

Try experimenting a bit with headlines and with the ad text. Try to think of
something that would get someone to click it.

Think creatively. Dream wild! When you are ready, click Save:

Next, you can click Review Campaign:

98 Chapter 6 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part II: AdWords

Here’s where you can bid. Just like with eBay, there’s an art to bidding, but you
can always just use $1.00 to start:

Google may try to convince you to spend more and bid more:

The fact is that this example has its limits. My goal is to provide a cheap/free
way to try things out that might result in you actually selling something (woo-
hoo!), even if you used this free social media marketing book as an example.
But for better or worse, especially with social media, there’s always competition!
There happen to be a lot of trainers, schools, consultancies, etc., that are all
interested in people who want to learn more about social media marketing.
The prices of their products and services are much higher than a little social
media marketing book, so they can afford to bid more on keywords.
When you don’t put quotes around a keyword, Google will automatically
create variations of it. Google takes something like this:

Learning social media marketing

And makes a variation like this:

Social media marketing

 Introduction to Google Analytics 99

You could end up in competition with someone who is selling social media
marketing as a service and charging a lot more money. The bidding will be
higher than someone who is selling a service to learn about social media
marketing, or selling a book.
This is just a little taste of how eBay—I mean AdWords—works.
The way it relates to analytics is that there’s data around the competition
for keywords, their average bidding price, and so on. There are analytics in
AdWords, in addition to the information that AdWords generates. At the end
of the day, it can help your career and business.
You can try putting quotes around words so Google uses those exact phrases
only:

To play this game a bit better, try a tool called the Keyword Planner, discussed
next.

Use Keyword Planner

To try Keyword Planner, choose AdWords ➤ Tools ➤ Keyword Planner.
100 Chapter 6 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part II: AdWords

This is the toy you can play with to figure out keywords. I mean, this is the tool
you can utilize to attain clarity on keyword potential.
I played around with it and found that the competition is pretty high.

I dug a little deeper and found that the average “CPC” (cost per click) of
“social media marketing training” was $7.00. So I thought, okay, I’ll try an ad
where the bid is $7.00 and I’ll set the price of the product to $7.00 in Shopify.

I adjusted the ad:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 101

Then I created a couple more ads, trying different copy:

All this is to say that you should experiment, leverage the analytics, try things
out, and see what works the best.

AdWords’ Tricky Timing Settings

The other important thing to remember when playing with AdWords is to
keep track of when a campaign starts and ends. For whatever reason, Google
added a couple extra steps for actually ending a campaign.You could say that it
is because many campaigns are ongoing. Or you could say that they are doing
this because they are apt to make more money.
Either way, I recommend reading this article:
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2404203?hl=en
Basically, when you create your campaign, be aware that you will want to go
into Campaign Settings and click Edit next to the Campaign Type:
102 Chapter 6 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part II: AdWords

Then you will want to click the All Features radio button:

Then click Save.

In my opinion All Features should be enabled by default, or there should be an
easier, more apparent, way to set the schedule (the start and end dates). But
until that happens, be sure to take these steps to make sure Google doesn’t
drain your bank account every day, if you are just learning.
Next, after enabling this feature, go into Advanced Settings (cough, cough, it
should be a basic setting).
Click Schedule:

Doh! Google has decided that your campaign of giving them money has no
end date:

Click the Edit button and set an end date.

Ah! Much better. Just be aware of these hoops you have to jump through.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 103

It’s Not Quite as Simple as This

I’ve covered a lot of ground, but I think it’s worth trying things out, to get a
sense of how tracking conversion works.
And yes, it’s not as simple as this. Because clicks don’t necessarily mean
conversion into sales. Someone might click on the ad and not actually buy
something.
The art and science of AdWords involves working with a variety of analytics. In
theory, if someone buys something, you can track ad budget against revenue,
and that is the primary basis for $40-50 billion of Google’s revenue each year,
which represents a large amount of revenue made by businesses.
Here was the competition I was up against in my little test:

Where oh where is my ad?

104 Chapter 6 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part II: AdWords

Eventually I did find it, on the third page of results. I had a friend click on it to
test things out.
Depending on what your goal is—to learn or to actually sell something—you
might want to give yourself the freedom of not worrying too much about the
keywords and not worrying too much about the bids. Just set things up live
and get a friend or two to search on Google for your keyword until they find
the ad. Then buy your product (at a low price!), and give yourself 24 hours to
look back in AdWords to see the results.
What you’re hoping is to see some converted clicks:

That is the magic of Shopify and AdWords. It’s pretty much at the core of $50
billion of Google revenue each year, and maybe a trillion dollars of e-commerce
revenue around the world.
You don’t have to be a big company to do it. You, can in fact, as an analyst or
online marketer, help people explore this kind of thing, even if you hire an
AdWords specialist and just review the information.
In short, it’s a technique that millions of businesses—large and small—use, and
it’s a really solid approach. It can be fun as well.

Learning More
My apologies if your head is swimming. You should check out the following
links for more information.
Shopify
• Help center: https://help.shopify.com/
• Connecting to AdWords: http://docs.shopify.com/
manual/your-store/dashboard/google-adwords
 Introduction to Google Analytics 105

• Free AdWords credit: http://ecommerce.shopify.

com/c/ecommerce-marketing/t/aha-this-is-
how-to-get-your-google-adwords-and-facebook-
credit-121154
• AdWords: www.google.com/adwords
• AdWords Help Center: https://support.google.
com/adwords#topic=3119071

Conclusion
Congratulations on making it through this wild ride of the last two chapters!
Have I convinced you to try things out? Did you have a good experience? Was
it intimidating? Inspiring? Best wishes!
 CHAPTER

Fun with
E-Commerce
Analytics Part III:
Gumroad
This chapter takes another look at e-commerce analytics, courtesy of
Gumroad, a free, super easy-to-use platform. In some ways, this chapter is
a back up to the previous two chapters, because it provides another way to
learn about analytics in a live setting. In the case of Gumroad, there’s an easy
way to link to Google Analytics, and it also has its own built-in analytics. Even
though you can’t track conversion directly back to a specific ad, you can get a
sense of how Google Analytics works with e-commerce, and it is completely
free. And fun!

© Todd Kelsey 2017

T. Kelsey, Introduction to Google Analytics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-2829-6_7
108 Chapter 7 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part III: Gumroad

Conversion vs. Infersion

One of the advantages of writing a book is that I can get away with making up
a word like “infersion”. But I think it has merit. I think that conversion-related
analytics are among the most important, if not “the” most important to learn,
because of how valuable they can be to your bottom line.
On the one hand, you have “direct” conversion tracking analytics available, via
platforms like AdWords. See Chapters 5 and 6. Google wrote the book on
this, and the power of this direct conversion tracking is that you can trace
exactly how effective a specific ad is. Furthermore, you can track how effective
individual keywords are. These “conversion analytics” help you optimize a
campaign. For example, when you connect these pieces, analytics allows you
to optimize, by deleting keywords that don’t perform as well and focusing on
ones that do better. The analytics help you make an advertising campaign more
effective and more efficient, and this is very valuable. It helps you generate
more revenue and use the existing budget more wisely. It is the depth of
insight that the analytics provide, and this insight helps guide your actions.
On the one hand, if you read these chapters and work through them, you see
that it takes more effort to set up and track such things. On the other hand,
it’s worth it. It’s a best practice, and definitely worth learning about and trying.
This is what I call “infersion” tracking. That is, you infer, or guess, what is going
on, but you don’t really know. In a way, most forms of advertising are based
on this principle—billboards, radio, television, etc. You advertise, hope for the
best, look at the sales figures, and hope they go up.
In the case of Gumroad, we are talking about infersion. That is, Gumroad has
built-in analytics that will tell you how many people visited the site and how
many people went on to actually purchase an item. As a learning experience,
these basic analytics are a great starting point.
In order to generate some sample data, I made a post on Facebook to friends
and asked them to buy the digital ebook (I said I would pay them back on
PayPal). I also ran a Facebook ad. I didn’t spend a lot of time tweaking the
Gumroad site—my focus was on generating the data.
In Gumroad, I got 31 views and one sale during the day or two ran this experi-
ment. I was the only one who purchased the item, but for the purposes of the
example, we’ll pretend that someone else purchased the item.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 109

So the conversion rate is 1 sale for every 31 visits. If you divide 1/31, you get
.032, which is basically a 3% conversion rate.
The actual conversion rate isn’t as important as the fact that it provides you
with actionable insight. You can measure the effectiveness of your efforts to
improve things, over time. For example, I could spend more time improving
the site, adding more visuals and a more compelling value proposition and
follow the best practices of digital marketing. I might also make a separate
landing page, where I could focus on these things, and then and only then refer
people to the “catalog”.
After I made these kinds of efforts, I would hope to improve the conversion
rate of people coming to the site. Gumroad’s built-in analytics provides some
limited insight, but it is still actionable.
As for the the Facebook ad I made, Gumroad can’t tell me anything about it. It
also can’t tell me whether one ad was better than another if when have more
than one version.
Technically, if I was only running a single advertising campaign, I could “infer”
how well the ad campaign was based on looking at sales. Since it is my only
ad, I can reasonably guess that it is the force behind sales. But what if there’s
traffic coming from different sites, or what if a blogger picks up the site? That’s
when it gets harder to track the impact. So “infersion” has its limits.
Still, I think it is worth looking at.
As you’ll see, there are a few things you can do in Google Analytics (which
“expands” Gumroad’s basic analytic capabilities), and they can provide a bit
more insight.
110 Chapter 7 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part III: Gumroad

Google Analytics, AdWords, and Gumroad

For those who are interested in looking at the finer points, I mention an
area to look into called e-commerce tracking. My approach and intent with this
book has been to keep things as simple as possible and to focus on learning
experiences that can help you understand some of the fundamental concepts
in analytics.
Technically speaking, in Chapters 5 and 6, the focus was on AdWords and
Shopify. There were analytics “in” AdWords, and in conversion tracking, you
can trace this without ever touching Google Analytics. However, when you
are running AdWords campaigns and have Google Analytics installed, you can
get additional insight by linking AdWords and Google Analytics.
I don’t want to spend too much time on this because I think learning by
doing is the best way to get a handle on things—but suffice it to say that
there’s more than one way to do things. I think you can think of it like layers
in an onion. You can track conversions with AdWords, but linking to Google
Analytics can provide more insight. (Do Google searches on “e-commerce
tracking in adwords” or “linking AdWords and Analytics” for example.)
The same principle applies to Gumroad—there’s a basic way to connect
Google Analytics, but there’s also a way to set “goals” to provide further
insight (see the “Learning More” section at the end of this chapter).
My general recommendation is to Gumroad on its own, then try Google
Analytics, then maybe try setting “goals” in Google Analytics. If possible, try
selling an actual product, even if it is just friends who buy it (or yourself!).
Let’s get started!

Get Started with Gumroad

One of the reasons that Gumroad is simple is because it is built on selling
digital downloads.
To get started with Gumroad, go to gumroad.com and click Start Selling:

Then enter an e-mail address and password and click Create Account:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 111

Next, name your store and enter a description in the bio section:

If you are going to do this for real, you will probably want to expand the
bio. Go back to Settings in Gumroad and edit/expand the text. Gumroad at
present is a bit limited—it’s mainly a streamlined shopping cart for digital
downloads, so it’s not really built to be a “landing page” for an ad campaign,
at least in terms of text formatting, having visuals, and fine-tuning your value
proposition. But if you do want to add credibility, you can expand the bio sec-
tion and see what I did for the text that appears at http://gumroad.com/
casamarketing.
When you choose a username, this is what will appear in the link:

My store link became gumroad.com/casamarketing.

112 Chapter 7 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part III: Gumroad

Next, confirm language settings and set the time zone:

Then enter an e-mail address and choose the desired options:

Then, for now, just click Update Account Details:

You’ll notice that this section has an area to connect Google Analytics, and the
way you get back is to go to Settings in Gumroad. But you need a code from
Google Analytics, so we’ll discuss that next.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 113

Connect to Google Analytics

You may want to start out by just skipping ahead, adding a product in Gumroad,
and buying one yourself to generate data, or post to social, or otherwise just
get a few sales in Gumroad, before jumping into Google Analytics. Nothing
wrong with that.
If you can, I recommend going the extra mile and putting the foundation in
for Google Analytics. In order to do this, you need to know the link for your
Gumroad store (choose Gumroad ➤ Settings).
In my case, it was gumroad.com/casamarketing:

The reason you need it is to tell Google Analytics what site it is tracking.
So, to get a code from Google analytics, go into Google Analytics:

http://www.google.com/analytics/
At the site, click Access Google Analytics:

(This will appear when you are signed in to Gmail/Google and go to the site.
If not, you may have to sign in.)
Next, click on the Admin link:
114 Chapter 7 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part III: Gumroad

There are multiple ways to add a new site, but this one may be easy enough.
You’ll have an account, and you’ll need to add a new property, which is a new site:

Click on the Property drop-down:

Click Create New Property:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 115

Select Website:

Then set up a name (it’s not important as long as it makes sense to you). Paste
in the link of your Gumroad site:

Choose a category, set a time zone, and click Get Tracking ID.

■■Note  Even if you are just running a test, you’ll want to set up your own Gumroad store, even
if you just upload a “dummy” PDF file for digital download. In other words, use your own link, with
your own username. If you try gumroad.com/casamarketing, you won’t get any data.

Next, you’ll get a page with code on it.

116 Chapter 7 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part III: Gumroad

Select the tracking ID:

Copy it into memory. Press Ctrl+C, right-click, then choose Copy in Windows,
or press Ctrl+click and choose Copy on a Mac.

Then you can keep it in memory or paste it somewhere.

Back to Gumroad
To paste your Google code, go into Gumroad and then into Settings:

In the Advanced section, paste in the code:

 Introduction to Google Analytics 117

After it is pasted in, click Update Account Details:

Add a Product to Gumroad

To test your Gumroad account further, you need to add a product.
To get started, click Products:

Click Add a Product:

Then click Product type on the left:

It’s very easy, relatively speaking, to add products in Gumroad, compared to

most e-commerce platforms.
118 Chapter 7 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part III: Gumroad

Just type in a name for the product and add a file to it.

It will give you progress on the upload:

You then choose a price and click Add:

You might just want to make the price $1.00 to keep things as cheap as possible.

Next, you need to upload a cover for the product. Gumroad likes square
images. Feel free to use the “cover 250x250” image, review the chapter on
“Content” in my Introduction to Social Media book, use an image created in a
program like SnagIt or Gimp, or try picresize.com.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 119

Click Upload a Cover:

I also recommend clicking on the Describe this Product field and entering a
description.

When you’re ready, click the Save Changes button:

Then click Publish:

120 Chapter 7 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part III: Gumroad

Setting Up Payment
This may not be strictly necessary for testing, but you’ll probably want to set
up payment. Depending on where you’re at in the process, you might need to
click on Products in Gumroad:

The easiest approach is to set up direct deposit. You just enter a checking
account and routing number, which you can get from a check:

Then you click Change on Tax Settings if you want to. If you’re just testing
your account, you can ignore the tax settings for the moment.

■■Note  By continuing to read, you’re acknowledging that I am not giving you financial advice
about e-commerce taxes. If you plan on selling anything on an ongoing basis, I recommend
consulting an accountant. You might also want to click on Gumroad’s Learn More link.

When you’re ready to move forward, click Save Payout Settings.

 Introduction to Google Analytics 121

Check Your Gumroad Site

At some point, if you haven’t done so already, you’ll want to check your
Gumroad site to see what it looks like.
If you’re not clear yet on the link, go into Gumroad and click on Settings:

Then scroll down and see what it says under username:

Then you can copy and paste that link into a browser. I recommend test-
ing with multiple browsers, specifically Firefox (firefox.com) and Chrome
(google.com/chrome). Work with Gumroad in one, and then “test” the site
in the other. The reason is that when you’re logged into Gumroad, the site
appears slightly differently than when you’re not, so by going into a separate
browser where you’re not logged in, you get a better picture of the site.
122 Chapter 7 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part III: Gumroad

Get Some Traffic to Sell

As with earlier chapters and based on techniques in my Introduction to Social
Media book, I suggest trying to get a bit of traffic to the site, through a
combination of making an ad on Facebook, or using AdWords, or both, as well
as making an appeal on social media to your friends.
Gumroad does have some built-in connections to make it slightly easier. Try
going to Timeline:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 123

Then click Share on Facebook:

You can also select and copy the short link (gum.co/etc.) to text, e-mail, or
post to friends.
Then make some kind of kindly appeal for people to click and buy the product,
and click Share:

Reviewing the Analytics

After you get some traffic and at least one purchase, you can go to Analytics
in Gumroad:
124 Chapter 7 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part III: Gumroad

Be aware that you do need one purchase to “activate” analytics in Gumroad.

Divide the number of sales by the number of views to get your conversion rate.
Then, go back to the drawing board, improve the site, lower the price, do
some research on making a landing page, and then link to your Gumroad site
again. See how the statistics change.
For example, you can try a search on landing page tools:
https://www.google.com/#q=landing+page+tools
Or try Googling “landing page best practices” as well.
Link to your Gumroad store and see if you can improve your conversion rate.

Reviewing Google Analytics

■■Note  Google Analytics, and web tools in general, will change interfaces from time to time, so
you might have to dig to find certain features. For example, there are some helpful links at the end
of this chapter that Gumroad provides about connecting Google Analytics to Gumroad. The exact
position of the information may change, though. I still recommend the article, but keep in mind you
might have to dig around for it. The moral of the story is, play around and search for things, and
when all else fails, Google it, because someone else probably had the same question and blogged
about it. Remember, you can blog about it too!

Take screenshots! Share your thoughts on what you learned! Make a blog!
Share it with others! This is how many blog entries came into being that so
many people have found helpful. Someone had to do it, even if they didn’t feel
like an expert. Try it! Build your portfolio!
 Introduction to Google Analytics 125

Go to Google Analytics and select All Website Data in the property you want
to look at:

Next, go down to Behavior on the left, then to Events, and finally to Overview:

You’ll see something like what you see in Gumroad:

126 Chapter 7 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part III: Gumroad

The difference is that you can dig a little deeper. For example, try scrolling
down and clicking on Event Action:

At this level, you’ll get a sense across all products of how many times people
clicked “I want this” in Gumroad, and of those people, who actually made a
purchase:

This is an example of analytics related to abandonment. To learn more, Google

“cart abandonment” and “abandon rate e-commerce”. It’s something that
e-commerce businesses pay close attention to, in terms of looking at how
many people go along the process of visiting the site, and where they tend to
drop off.
For example, if people click on the Buy button but don’t check out, there
could be a misunderstanding about how to check out, or an issue with shipping
prices, etc. By looking at where a person leaves the site, you can pinpoint
actions you can take to reduce abandonment.
The information from Gumroad ➤ Google Analytics is pretty limited,
relatively speaking, but it gives you a general idea. In more extensive analytics
environments, such as Shopify, you may be able to get more information on
the paths people take, as well as get a sense of where the highest percentage
of people are dropping off.
In our example, you could also go to the same spot in Google Analytics and
click on Event Category, and then click on an individual product: (such as
product-bVxL)

This will give you a closer view of an individual product.

 Introduction to Google Analytics 127

Then you can click on Event Action from there.

It will give you similar information for a specific product. This is important,
because if you have multiple products, it’s important to track the difference
between them. In some cases with analytics, you’ll want to drill down to a
specific product level.

Learning More
To learn more about Gumroad, see http://help.gumroad.com/.
There’s also some information from Gumroad on analytics:
• Setting up “goals” in Google Analytics (I highly
recommend exploring and trying this): http://
blog.gumroad.com/post/87921227603/
how-to-set-up-goals-in-google-analytics
• General analytics: http://help.gumroad.com/using-
google-analytics-and-gumroad
Remember that if you follow the description on where to find Google
Analytics, it might be out of date. But it’s still worth reading.
128 Chapter 7 | Fun with E-Commerce Analytics Part III: Gumroad

This link is helpful when working with products:

http://help.gumroad.com/11162-getting-started/adding-a-product

Conclusion
Congratulations on taking another tour through analytics and e-commerce!
I encourage you to continue exploring various connections you can make,
between shopping carts, analytics and ad campaigns. This is the “core” of web
analytics, and Google Analytics can play a central role in helping to make
sense of things. If you haven’t already, you may also want to collaborate—
concentrate on what you do the best and work with others to do the rest! For
example, if you want to focus on the analytics, find a friend or local business
or organization that has something to sell, and work with them on getting a
site up and going. Integrate Google Analytics and get a sense of visitors. Then
try selling something or get someone else to run the ad campaign and look at
conversion tracking. Then optimize the site.
Start out simple, have some fun, and before you know it, you will be considered
a web analytics guru—even if you don’t feel like one!
In the next chapter, we look at the ultimate goal of this book, or one of the
ultimate goals. We explore and inspire you to dig into Google’s free learning
material, and work toward getting certified in Google Analytics. This book
was mainly written to introduce you to analytics, and to help you try a few
things, have some fun, and get some momentum. Learning more about Google
Analytics is the next step. It will give you confidence, it will help your career,
and it might even help you get a new client or a new job for that matter. It’s
doable, and I highly recommend it!
 CHAPTER

Exploring
Google Analytics
Certification
This chapter explores some of the opportunities that Google offers, in terms
of learning material, and the Google Individual Qualification (IQ), which can be
a nice thing to have on your web site or resume.
Maybe you can take me on faith that certification/qualification is doable. It’s
especially doable if you have resources to rely on, including people. The
benefits of going through the process are many, including a definite positive
impact on your career.
Imagine adding a Google certification to your LinkedIn profile:

© Todd Kelsey 2017

T. Kelsey, Introduction to Google Analytics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-2829-6_8
130 Chapter 8 | Exploring Google Analytics Certification

These qualifications give your resume extra impact, whether you are job
searching, interacting with other professionals, or just boosting your creden-
tials at your current job.
It can also be a good thing for your business, when you list your staff on your
web site and show that they have these certifications.
Going through the certification process also helps to round out your
knowledge. It’s smart to be acquainted with new features that you might end
up using at some point.

Exploring Google Analytics Qualification

What’s the difference between certification and qualification? It’s basically
interchangeable, as far as I can tell.
To explore Google Analytics Qualification, check out this site: www.google.
com/intl/en/analytics/learn/.
 Introduction to Google Analytics 131

I think it’s good to go through the process of starting your own account, but
you can try the demo account as well.
Be sure to look at the other articles.

The Analytics Academy is also worth paying attention to. The point is that it’s
free training given by a global company, and it’s in their best interest for you
to succeed.

I recommend going directly to this Google site to become familiar with some
of the self-study material they have:

https://analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com
132 Chapter 8 | Exploring Google Analytics Certification

Start Easy
To get rolling, before you take a course, you might want to watch some videos:

https://www.youtube.com/user/googleanalytics
 Introduction to Google Analytics 133

Click the Playlists link on the YouTube channel to see what’s available:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI5YfMzCfRtZ8eV576YoY3v
IYrHjyVm_e
134 Chapter 8 | Exploring Google Analytics Certification

Roadmap for Certification

My general suggested roadmap is to take a peek at some of the resources
mentioned in this chapter and then do two things in parallel:
• Use Google Analytics: You’ll get more out of the materials
as you prepare to take the Google Analytics test if you’re
actually using the program.
• Go to the Analytics Academy link: Review the roadmap they
set up for studying, and if you like, start by watching some
of their videos.
And at some point, sooner or later, you’ll want to read,“How to Prepare for the
Google IQ” at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3424288.
Remember to review the “Additional Resources” section as well.

Get Ready, Go!

When you’re ready, go ahead and register at google.com/partners. In my
classes I teach, I recommend people take the exam once just to see what it’s
like. So go ahead!
Then study some more so you can pass it. You can do it! It’s doable. I’ve had
many students pass it. If they can do it, you can do it. They all feel good when
they pass, and they can put it on their resume and on LinkedIn. If you have
coworkers or a manager, it’s a great thing to tell them too. If you’re in the job
market, I know for a fact that the certification impresses recruiters.
Not only do I think the IQ is doable, but I think it can have a good impact on
your career, as well as on your business or organization. Even if you’re not in
the job market yet, the fact that it’s a top skill means learning it is important.
As I mentioned in the introduction, LinkedIn shows digital/online marketing as
a top skill that gets people hired year after year, and web analytics is one of the
core digital marketing skills. Being able to understand the performance of web
sites and ad campaigns is important. Analytics is considered a part of business
intelligence, which also figured prominently on the list:
 Introduction to Google Analytics 135

Demand will fluctuate over time, but we are talking about the top skills in any
field that get people hired.
• 2014:   https://blog.linkedin.com/2014/12/17/the-
25-hottest-skills-that-got-people-hired-in-2014
• 2015: https://blog.linkedin.com/2016/01/12/the-
25-skills-that-can-get-you-hired-in-2016
• 2016: https://blog.linkedin.com/2016/10/20/top-
skills-2016-week-of-learning-linkedin
Don’t forget how nice it will look to have this on your LinkedIn profile.
Thousands of people have done it. You can too!

Long-Term Goal: Certified Partner

If you work for or will likely end up at a “services” company, where you
help others with marketing, you might want to consider the Certified Partner
program. It’s a bit involved, but in order to compete, to deliver needed value
to other businesses and organizations, you should seriously consider going
down this road:

https://www.google.com/analytics/partners/listing/service

Based on what I’ve seen, analytics is one of those areas that is very, very solid.
You’re providing crucial insight to businesses and organizations, and in a com-
petitive market, it’s a skill set and a service that is in high demand.
It takes some effort and it may take a while to grow things. I just want to
encourage you to consider it. Let’s say you find yourself up against 10 other
social media businesses or 10 other marketing agencies. How many of them
have people who are certified in Google Analytics? How many of them are
actually certified on the business level? If you want to have a steady, long-term
stream of business, to supplement other things, I have a pretty strong feeling
that heading in this direction can only help you.
But don’t take my word for it—do some background research.
A business that has Google-certified consultants inspires confidence:
136 Chapter 8 | Exploring Google Analytics Certification

Learning More
Here are some additional discussion and tips that I think are worth reviewing.
• Benefits of certification: http://smallbusiness.
chron.com/benefits-google-
analytics-certificate-56029.html
• Tips for passing the exam: http://www.webucator.
com/blog/2011/03/tips-on-passing-google-
analytics-individual-qualification-exam/

Conclusion
Congratulations on making it through this chapter! And the book for that
matter! If you want a roadmap for doing the Google IQ, timeline-wise, I
suggest reviewing the “units” at a rate of one per week, so that you’re making
steady progress but also give yourself time to use the program.
After reading the chapters in this book, you should be able to generate some
traffic, even if you aren’t connected to anyone else. I suggest checking to see if
there are any local businesses or organizations who might like some help. Go
to your local chamber of commerce or an organization that local businesses
 Introduction to Google Analytics 137

belong to. Chances are there will be someone who has a web site and would
be interested in having someone look at their web analytics free of charge. If
there’s any way you can set that in motion, I think that actively looking at some
kind of traffic will help give you perspective.
But don’t wait—start reviewing the material.
Best wishes!

■■Special Request  Thank you for reading this book. If you purchased this book online, please
consider going on where you purchased it and leaving a review. Thanks!
 I
Index
A C
Adobe Analytics/Omniture, 6–7 Campaign analytics,
AdWords, 84, 110 reviewing, 37–38
creating account/getting tracking Conversion tracking, 54
code, 85–87 Conversion vs. infersion, 108–109
creating campaign, 92–99
and Google Analytics, 84
revenue, 104
D
to Shopify, 88 Digital/online marketing, 4
to modify or not to modify, 89–91
Order Confirmation page, 91 E, F
tracking conversion, 103 E-commerce analytics
tricky timing settings, 101–102 AdWords, 84
using Keyword Planner tool, 99–101 creating account/getting tracking
Analytics, 1–3 code, 85–87
Academy, 131 creating campaign, 92–99
free and corporate tools, 6 revenue, 104
Adobe Analytics/Omniture, 6–7 to Shopify, 88–91
Google Analytics, 6 tracking conversion, 103
open source analytics, 7 tricky timing settings, 101–102
social analytics, 7–8 using Keyword Planner
tool, 99–101
B conversion vs. infersion, 108–109
conversion tracking, 54
Blogalytics
e-commerce tracking, 110
blog, starting, 9–10, 12
Shopify site
Google account/Gmail address,
buying own product, 80–81
creating, 9
customize navigation, 61–65
Google Analytics account, starting, 13–17
to get started with, 56–61
Google Analytics to blogger, 17–18
live and purpose, 54–55
Bots, 44 tweaking and payments, 65–74,
Bounce rate, 40 76–79
Business intelligence, 5–6 Event Category, 126

© Todd Kelsey 2017

T. Kelsey, Introduction to Google Analytics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4842-2829-6
140 Index

G, H, I, J O
Google account/Gmail address, Omniture, 6–7
creating, 9 Open source analytics, 7
Google Analytics, 1, 5–6, 19–20, 110, 113, Organizational ROI, 6
115–116
account, starting, 13–17
and AdWords, 84
P, Q
to blogger, 17–18 “Personal promotion” platform, 38
Certification Personal ROI, 4
Certified Partner, 135–136 business intelligence, 5–6
exploring, 130–131 digital/online marketing, 4
LinkedIn profile, 129 social media marketing, 4
Roadmap for Certification, 134
Start Easy, 132–133 R
performance review, 39–40
bounce rate, 40 Return on investment (ROI), 1, 83
campaigns and ongoing organizational, 6
blog posts, 42 personal, 4
location, 40–42 business intelligence, 5–6
Overview tab, 39 digital/online marketing, 4
trends, 42–44 social media marketing, 4
traffic in, 44
exporting and scheduling S
reports, 49–50 Shopify site, 54, 126
tracking mobile hits, 45–47 buying own product, 80–81
using dashboards/reports, 47–48 connecting AdWords to, 88
Google Individual Qualification (IQ), 129 to modify or not to modify, 89–91
Gumroad Order Confirmation page, 91
Access Google Analytics, 113 customize navigation, 61–63
add a product, 117–119 adding product to front page, 64–65
Back to Gumroad, 116–117 to get started with, 56–61
bio section, 111 live and purpose, 54–55
check, Gumroad site, 121 tweaking and payments, 65–68
Create New Property, 114 adding digital product, 77–79
Get Tracking ID, 115 making more tweaks, 73–74
Google Analytics, 113, 115–116 picking a plan, 68–69
property drop-down, 114 setting a price, 70–73
reviewing, analytics, 123–124 updating content, 74, 76–77
reviewing Google Analytics, 124–127 Social analytics, 7–8
select, tracking ID, 116 Social media marketing, 4, 33, 99
setting up payment, 120
Social media promotion, 23–24
start selling, 110
link, 24
update account details, 112
making pitch, 25
post on, 26
K, L, M, N promoting post, 27–30
Keyword Planner tool, 99–101 Spam traffic, 44
 Index 141

T, U,V making pitch, 25

post on, 26
Tracking IDs, 15–16 promoting post, 27–30
Traffic for analytics
making ad, 30–36 W, X,Y, Z
social media promotion, 23–24
link, 24 Web analytics, 19