The base of effective analytics & reporting is to allow you to have data-driven decision-making. There are two parts that we are going to discuss but the end goal is to better your business using the data you have available.
Analytics, specifically GA4, allows you to get a bird eye view of your business, website, and consumers. It provides you a platform where you can bring all your activity together & dive into it to better understand your customers.
We have split up our tips into two sections as it is not a simple task. The first section is your base level approach that includes how you are tracking your data & how you should approach analytics in general. The second section is our actionables, what insights you can strive to uncover, how you can apply your analytics & reporting skills to your business.
Base level approach
1. Conversion tracking
Before you even think about reporting on numbers, you need to make sure you have conversion tracking in place. If you aren’t tracking your most valuable actions on your website, think purchases or lead forms, then you won’t be able to pull valuable insights that will impact your bottom line.
2. What metrics to report on
People can get caught up in the high & easily inflated metrics (users, sessions, pageviews). While they are important, there are more valuable metrics to include in your analysis for maximum impact. The metrics you always want to come back to is conversions or conversion rate.
3. Go in with a question & what you want to discover
Google Analytics 4 can be a confusing & overwhelming place, we recommend identifying an answer that you want to uncover before diving into the platform. This will help to keep your analytics & reporting structured & effective.
4. Server Side tracking & enhanced conversions
If you want to take your data tracking to the next level & unlock more insights, we recommend implementing server-side tracking & enhanced conversions. This will be essential to include in your strategy as we move into a cookie-less future.
5. Visualise your data
There is nothing more boring than a bland table. Visualise your data in creative & impactful ways though tools such as Looker Studio to really have an impact on who you are reporting to. Ignore the fluff & focus on the metrics that mean the most, this will help capture your audience and keep them focused on what you are reporting on.
Actionables to benefit your business
1. Understand user behaviour
GA4 has some great reports that allow you to dive deeper into how users are interacting with your website. A few we commonly use are, “Engagement > Events”, “Engagement > Pages & Screens” and “Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition”.
2. Understand your business performance and trends
There are so many trends & segments you can look into via GA4 to uncover business performance & trends. A few we frequent are;
- E-commerce purchases, find what people are buying, and what they aren’t buying
- Events/Key events, what actions are users taking and what are they not taking, how can we improve the ones that impact our business the most
- Traffic source, identifying trends in the key drivers to your business & how you can better improve them.
3. Focus on what will impact your bottom line.
There is so much data you can report on, and as a business owner it is important to block out the noise and focus on the metrics that impact your bottom line. Focusing on revenue, sales and leads, and the factors that lead users, this will help keep your analytics and reporting effective.
4. Use it to drive action
Effective analytics allows you to understand your performance & adjust your approaches to improve it. GA4 provides you with an essential tool that will give you great insights. The part that makes for effective analytics & reporting is driving actions from the insights you uncover.
An example of this is uncovering a particular channel that drives most of your revenue, or a particular geographical region should be targeted in your advertising.
5. Custom tracking to enhance your data
If you want to step it up a notch, you can enhance your data with varying levels of custom tracking. These can be secondary events that lead up to the main conversion which drives revenue for your business. Alternatively, it can be small interactions a user makes on your website that help to inform trends of what users want, this data can help inform the direction of your business.
There is a lot more to analytics & reporting to ensure it is effective than one would initially think. We tried to keep it simple and give you our most valuable tips and tricks, but if you need additional support understanding the metrics behind your business and how they can benefit you, give us a call.
