Lesson 1

Digital analytics is the process of collecting, measuring, and analyzing data from digital sources
such as websites or mobile apps. This data can be used to understand how users interact with
their digital properties and to improve your marketing and business decisions. If you run a
business that uses a website or mobile app, you may want to know things like how your users
interact with your website or app, the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, and which
content is the most helpful in achieving business goals, and how users find your website or app.
Digital analytics tools like Google Analytics can answer these questions.

Here's a simple marketing funnel that shows the different stages of a customer journey.
Acquisition involves building awareness of your product or service and acquiring user interest.
Engagement is when your users interact with your business. Monetization is when a user
becomes a customer and makes a purchase.

Digital analytics uses data to align this funnel with your business objectives. Acquisition at the
top of the funnel is where you can see which marketing channels bring customers to your website
or app. Engagement in the middle of the funnel is where you can see what content users engage
with and share with others. Monetization and retention at the bottom of the funnel is where you
can measure how many users become customers and how often they return to your website or
app.

These insights can help you better optimize your brand's performance and make informed
decisions based on behavioral data. Let's look at some real world examples. The Google
Merchandise Store is an online retail store that sells branded products like T-shirts and coffee
mugs. E-commerce sites like these use analytics to gain insights into customer behavior on the
website to see how users find the Google Merchandise Store, the products the users view and add
to their shopping carts, and which products users actually purchase and how many they bought.

Another example is a mobile gaming app called Flood-It. Analytics can show how users find the
app and download it, which screens within the app the user visits or gets stuck on, and how many
users make purchases in the app.

We'll use the Google Merchandise Store website and the Flood-It app as examples throughout
this course. We'll provide you with access to each of their Google Analytics properties so that
you can test out features and get familiar with the report yourself.
Lesson 2

Let's take a look at how data flows into Google Analytics, and how that data is processed to
create insightful reports.

To connect your website to Google Analytics, you'll need to add a tag to your site. A tag is a
small piece of code that is added to each page on your website in order to measure user behavior,
or ad functionality. Tags can be added directly to your website's code, or by using a tag
management system like Google Tag Manager. There are several ways to tag, based on how your
website is built. We'll cover this in more detail later.

Once the Google Analytics tag has been added to your website, the tag will collect information
about users, like the device type, and their geographic location, and how they interact with
different pages on your website or app, like page views and form submissions. As your
customers engage with website or app content, these interactions are sent to Google Analytics as
events. Many common interactions are automatically collected as events in Google Analytics.

For example, when a user first visits your website or app, Google Analytics will log this action
as a first visit, or a first open event. And when a user clicks an outbound link to leave your site,
GA will record this as an outbound link click event. As events are collected, they are processed,
and then turned into information you can see in reports. You can then analyze this data to gain
specific insights.

For the Google merchandise store, analytics can show how many users visit a page that sells
clothing, compared to a page that sells housewares. Or, it could show you how many users
purchased an item, like an Android doll, by tracking whether they made a purchase on the
confirmation page.

In order to collect data from apps, you'll need to add the Firebase Software Development Kit, or
SDK, to your app. We'll dive a bit deeper into the SDK later.

For the Flood-It! app, the Firebase SDK will collect and send data, similar to the Google tag for
websites. This data is processed into reports that could show you how many users are reaching a
certain level on a gaming app, or it could tell you how many users made a purchase in the app,
and what those purchases were.

You can also create custom events to capture what is unique and important to your business. For
example, you can log events when a user signs up for a newsletter, makes a purchase, or reaches
a new level on a gaming app.

Once analytics processes the data, it can't be changed. So remember, when you set up your
configuration, don't exclude any data you think you might want to analyze later.
Lesson 3

Let's look at each level of a Google Analytics account, starting with the account itself. An
account is a collection of properties whose data is owned by a single business entity. Underneath
accounts, a property represents a grouping of user data, like from a website or an app. It's also
the level where Google Analytics processes data and where you can create links with other
products, like Google Ads. Underneath each property is a data stream that represents the flow of
data from a website or an app to the property, and the level where you can control things like
what data gets collected. There are web data streams for websites and app data streams for
mobile apps. If your business has both a website and a mobile app, you may have a data stream
for the website, a second data stream for the iOS app, and a third data stream for the Android
app.

Note that in most cases, you should use a single web data stream to measure the web user
journey to ensure consistent user and session reporting for web journeys that span domains, use a
single web data stream combined with cross domain measurement. When creating your Google
Analytics account, you should map the account and properties you set up back to your business
structure. In general, it's a best practice to set up your account structure with one account per
company and one property per brand or business unit. Let's look at a few examples and how
they've structured their account. The first business is a fashion blog that has a single website.
Their account structure would look something like this. One account, since data is owned by a
single business entity, one property for the website, and one data stream.

The next business is a gaming company that created a mobile racing game for both Android and
iOS. Their account structure would look something like this. One account, one property for the
app and two app data streams, one for the Android version and one for the iOS version. The last
business runs a food delivery service. The service has two user bases, customers and delivery
drivers. So they've created two different apps, one for each user base. Their apps are on both iOS
and Android, and they also have a website with two distinct sections, one for customers and one
for their delivery drivers. Their account structure would look something like this. One analytics
account with two properties, one focused on customers and the other focused on delivery drivers.
The first property for customers would have three data streams, one web data stream for the
website, one app data stream for the Android app, and one app data stream for the iOS app.

The second property for delivery drivers would also have three data streams, one web data
stream for the website, one app data stream for the Android app, and one app data stream for the
iOS app. These are just a few examples of how you could structure your Google Analytics
account for your business. Note that Analytics 360 is an enterprise level version of Google
Analytics that provides additional flexibility for managing your data with things like sub-
properties and roll-up properties.
Lesson 4

Let's walk through the steps to create a new account and property. To set up a new Google
Analytics account, first visit analytics.google.com and select start measuring. Then, name the
account and choose your data sharing settings. We'll name our account, my new account, and
select next. You can create multiple properties under an Analytics account, but most small or
medium-sized businesses will have a single account and property, depending on the structure for
things like lines of business, parent entities, and more. Name your property and select the time
zone and currency for your reports.

Then, you'll answer a couple of basic questions about your business. Let's say we're a medium-
sized business. Next, you'll be asked to choose your business objectives. This step is important
because it will generate reports specific to the business objectives that you choose. If you aren't
sure, choose the get baseline reports option. You can always change and customize these reports
later, but choosing your correct business objective will make the reports more relevant to your
business. Once you choose your business objectives and agree to the terms of service, your
account and property will be created.
Lesson 5

Once you've created your Analytics account and property, the next step is to create your data
stream and start collecting business data. If you have a website, this means you'll want to create a
web data stream.

To tag your website you'll first navigate to the data stream's creation screen, choose web, and
then enter your website URL. This will generate a measurement ID and website tags specifically
for your website. If you are using a website builder or a CMS system, you should copy the
measurement ID and paste it into your website builder account. You can select your website
builder to view instructions on how to add the measurement ID to your website.

If you do not use a website builder, you'll need to install the Google tag on your website. There
are two options to choose from. The first option is to use Google Tag Manager to install the tag.
Google Tag Manager allows you to install code on your website pages and add to or change that
code at any time using the account's interface instead of having to go back and edit the code
itself. In addition, Tag Manager serves as a central place to manage and update all of your
marketing and website tags. For this reason, we recommend using Google Tag Manager to install
your Analytics tag. If you are already using Google Tag Manager for your website, you can
easily add the Google Analytics tag in your Tag Manager account.

Note that you can also use Google Tag Manager with a CMS or a website builder. So instead of
entering your measurement ID directly into the website builder integration for Google Analytics,
you would create the Google Analytics tag in Google Tag Manager.

The second option is to manually install the tag on each page of your site. When you choose this
option, you'll see the new website tag listed in the UI. This tag will need to be installed on every
page of your website immediately after the head tag. Once you install the Analytics tag on your
website, you'll start collecting many points of data automatically to the Google Analytics
property. With a bit more implementation, you can even enhance your data collection with
recommended and custom events, which we'll cover later.
Lesson 6

In this lesson, we're going to learn how to set up a data stream for an app. You can use Google
Analytics to measure websites, apps, or both in the same property. App data streams are powered
by the Firebase software development kit. If your app is already using Firebase, you can enable
analytics from the Firebase console. If your app does not use Firebase, Google Analytics can
create a project for you. Go to admin, then click on data streams. Now, add a new data stream for
your app's platform, iOS or Android. If your app is on both platforms, you'll need to create a data
stream for each platform. For Android, you'll need your package name, and for iOS, you'll need
your bundle ID. Enter the details about your app, and then click Next. Google Analytics will
begin to create your Firebase project and set up your app data stream. Once complete, GA will
provide you with additional details on how to configure Firebase for your apps platform.

You or your app developer must implement the Firebase SDK in your app before you can
measure user activity. Once Firebase is configured for your app, a number of events are
automatically collected for you, like first opens, in-app purchases and screen views. These are
common across all apps. You also have the option to collect any recommended and custom
events that are relevant to your business. You'll use the log event method in your app's code to
define and collect up to 500 different event names with no limit on total volume. While the
method of data collection differs slightly between web and app, with Google Analytics, you're
able to analyze all this data together in one property to understand how users navigate across
different devices. Interact with your web or app and perform actions that are important to you
and your business, such as sign up, login and purchases.
Lesson 7

Once Google Analytics starts to receive data, the data first appears in the Realtime report, and
then in other reports shortly after. You can use the Realtime report to confirm that data from your
website is actually being collected successfully. First, check that user traffic to your website
appears in Google Analytics. In your Analytics property, navigate to Reports, and then Realtime.
If no data is showing, open up your website or app so that you're an active user. If data is being
collected, you should see close to immediate realtime activity in the Realtime report.

The Realtime report displays user activity that occurred in the past 30 minutes. You'll see the
number of users as well as what devices are being used. For checking that data is properly being
collected, you can focus on two main things. First, is there any activity shown in the past 30
minutes? Second, check that the data you expect is coming into Analytics. Look at the event
count by event name card. This card shows all of the events being collected from your tag site,
such as page views and any click events that you're sending.

This card is interactive. You can click through an event name to get the list of parameters
associated with that event. And when clicking into a parameter name, you will see the value
collected for it. For example, if you click on the page view event, and then on the page location
parameter, you should see the URLs for all of the pages that users visited in the past 30 minutes.
If any pages aren't showing up as expected, you want to review your implementation. This is a
great way to debug your data collection or to generally get a better idea of what kinds of data
you're collecting.

If you're still not seeing data, you may have an issue with your website tag implementation.
Below you'll find a link to the Help Center where you can find some common issues and how to
resolve them.
Lesson 8

The admin menu is an essential tool to manage users, accounts, properties, and data streams. It's
also where you manage the creation of advanced features such as custom dimensions and
metrics, audiences, and more. Let's take a look at the admin section where you can manage your
Google Analytics account and property settings.

If you want employees or colleagues to access your reports and data, you can add or remove
users in your account. On this screen, you can view who has access to your account and the level
of permissions they have.

Let's add a new user. Enter the user's email address, and then choose which level of access the
user should have. There's a brief description under each role. The administrator role provides full
control of the account, including adding additional users. The creator of the account has
administrator access by default. Let's say you grant access to an analyst on your team. You
would choose the analyst as the role, which will allow the user to create and edit dashboards and
reports. However, they will not be able to edit account and data settings or manage user
permissions. Next, you can restrict business sensitive data like cost and revenue metrics. In this
case, the analyst should be able to see this data, so you should leave these options unchecked and
click add.

An administrator can always edit a user's access level or delete users at any time. Additionally, in
admin, you can edit the account property and data stream settings. In data stream settings, you
can do things like modify, enhance measurement settings, and configure your main tag settings.
There are additional data settings outside of the data stream where you can enable or disable
various data collection features, including data retention. You can adjust the retention period for
data collected that is associated with cookies, user identifiers, or advertising identifiers. This
setting doesn't affect most standard reporting, which is based on aggregated data, but will affect
the data used in more advanced tools like Explore.

If at any point you want to delete a data stream, property, or even an entire account, you can do
so in the admin menu. When you delete an account property or data stream, it will move into the
trash can where it'll be held for 35 days before being permanently deleted. You can see what's
scheduled to be deleted in the trash can, and you can restore anything you've deleted before the
35 day window expires. You can view changes you or others have made to the account in the
account change history.

There are many more settings found in the admin menu. If you can't find what you're looking for,
try using the search located at the top of the page.
Lesson 9

With each interaction to your website or app, an event and parameters containing information
about the interaction are sent to analytics. An event could be when a user first opens your app,
watches a video, or views a page on your website. Events are sent with additional data called
event parameters. Event parameters add context to the event.

For example, when someone watches a video on your website, an event is fired when someone
clicks play and is associated with event parameters, like the name of the video and how long the
video was watched. Along with events and event parameters, user data, like geographic location
and the device being used, are also sent. These are called user properties. Google Analytics uses
events, event parameters, and user properties to aggregate data into reports. To visually represent
this data in reports, analytics uses dimensions and metrics. A dimension is an attribute of your
data. It describes your data, and it's usually text as opposed to numbers.

An example of a dimension is the event name, which shows the name of an event that someone
triggers on your website or application, such as a click. A metric is a quantitative measurement,
such as an average, a ratio, and a percentage. It's always a number as opposed to text. One way to
think about metrics is that you can apply mathematical operations to them. An example of a
metric is event count, which shows the total number of times an event was triggered. Google
Analytics already includes a number of common events and parameters that you can use to
collect information on your website, like page views and purchases, but in some cases, like the
events collected with enhanced measurement, you will need to register custom dimensions and
metrics before they show up in your reports.

When you first set up Google Analytics, data automatically gets collected and starts flowing into
your reports. However, there will be events that are specific to your website or app that you can
set up to make your data even more useful and specific to your business needs. We'll cover
custom events and how to register custom dimensions and metrics in the next course.
Lesson 10