Web Analytics

This week's introduction to Google Analytics was interesting, but all too brief. There seem to be many factors that can corrupt or skew the data, such as ad blockers, private browsing, and especially lack of planning on the web developer's part. Does the site flow clearly to an end goal? If not, does it serve its purpose, informatively or otherwise? Is conversion well defined? Are engagement times meaningful? What kinds of engagement are meaningful? These all depend on the type of site being studied.

The metrics within Google Analytics provide various ways to slice and dice visitor data. There's also the ability to create dashboards, which I enjoyed exploring. But the thing I found most interesting was Google's Data Studio. Going from Tableau to Data Studio is a natural progression (or regression, maybe, since Data Studio seems somewhat less complex than Tableau). It's easy to create a basic dashboard to monitor site visits and to customize it, like the one I created for the MISonline site below:

However, I'm reminded of the old adage, GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Without a thorough understanding of the numbers - what they actually mean, as opposed to what we might think they mean - even a dashboard could be misleading. Throughout the class, a few themes are emerging for me:

• Do I understand how the data was acquired and what it represents?
• Do I understand the audience that I'll be presenting the data to?
• Do I know how to present the data in a meaningful way?

I wonder if our organization uses Data Studio. I wonder if we understand our site visitors, where they come from, and for what reasons they use our site. Are we accurately filtering out spam visits, backlinks, and bots? We're a nonprofit organization, so have we set conversion goals for donation pages, etc?

I'm having lunch with our webmaster this week. I'll have to find a way to ask these questions without seeming like a know-it-all who has studied this stuff for all of a week. (Or maybe I'll stay quiet at lunch and read up on web analytics a little more before next month's lunch.)

Bookmarks for further reading (before next month):

• Advanced Google Analytics Tricks
• Twenty Must-Know Tips & Tricks
• 16 Secret Google Analytics Segments Worth Their Weight in Gold

That's all for this week. A thunderstorm is coming in, and I'd like to watch the rain approach over the Tucson desert. Web analytics can wait until tomorrow.