Navigating Google Analytics can be tricky. There’s a lot of data in there, but data is only as good as how you use it.
So that you don’t get overwhelmed with data, we’ve highlighted four pieces of data in Google Analytics that you can use to make business decisions.
Mobile device
Mobile traffic to the world’s websites acounts for a little over 50% of all traffic (not including tablets).
You can check how much of your site’s traffic is coming from mobiles vs desktop using the mobile overview report.
From here, you can also see transactions, revenue and conversion rate per device category. This can inform your marketing strategy and may lead to decisions around a website redesign. For example, if most of your traffic is coming from mobile, but your mobile conversion rate is very low, you might need to optimise your website for mobile.
Where to find it: Audience > Mobile > Overview
Acquisition channels
Do you know where your customers are coming from? This report will help you know just that.
Find out if your customers are coming from social media, organic search, email, referals or direct traffic.
Similarly to the Mobile report, you’ll be able to see transactions, revenue and conversion rate for each channel.
Knowing which traffic source is bringing in the most revenue, as well as having the highest conversion rate can help you develop your marketing strategy.
Where to find it: Acquisition > All traffic > Channels
Landing pages
Now you know where your traffic is coming from, it’s time to learn where people are coming to.
A landing page is the first page on your website someone visits in a session. This can make a big difference on someone’s likelihood to convert.
In this report, you can see which pages are landed on most and which ones have the highest conversion rates.
If a landing page has a high amount of traffic but a low conversion rate, this is an indication that changes need to be made.
Where to find it: Behaviour > Site content > Landing pages
Time to purchase
The final report we recommend looking at in Google Analytics is the Time to purchase report.
Not everyone will land on your site and purchase straight away. Sometimes a potential customer will leave to review your competitors or talk about it with a partner or friend before buying.
Time to purchase shows two stats – Days to transaction and Sessions to transaction. A session is when someone visits your site. If they close the site or are inactive for 30 minutes and then return, that is a new session.
This report is helpful for setting up remarketing campaigns through Google Ads or Facebook Ads. For example, if you have a high percentage of customers buying after more than one session, you could target customers who have visited the site and not purchased with a reminder or offer ad to encourage them back. Similarly, if you see a lot of people returning after seven days, you can set up ads to target people 7 days after they’ve visited you.
Where to find it: Conversions > Ecommerce > Time to purchase
There’s so much to see in Google Analytics, but if you start with these four reports, you’ll be on the right track for improving your website’s performance.
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