Digital Analytics MiniDegree from CXL — every marketer must try — Part 5 Review
Yes, we are here again for the 5th time reviewing CXL Institute’s Digital Analytical Mini degree. As always I start by saying analytics is the sexiest word, for at least the professionals who understand it, most of the students and professionals are following this as a career, rather for the pay than its actual understanding and passion. Let’s not argue over this, since it has lots of points balancing on either side of the equation.
Before I go any further I will just give a brief on myself, I am Nischith a sales & marketing professional working in the health sector. I live in Bangalore India and I am from Mysore, City of Heritage.
The information shared below is based on the learnings from CXL Institute, you need to have a bare understanding of what Digital Marketing or Google analytics is, as CXL themselves say their courses are not for beginners. Let’s dive in, I hope I give you a good insight into their teaching.
Today we will see a gist of what we need to audit in the Google Analytics account — Universal account. We will have to consider various parameters to help you tackle and measure properly, then the same is suggested to be noted down in a spread sheet or excel helping you audit top to bottom.
There are a few chrome extensions that will be helpful to audit refer below hyperlinks for the same,
Using the above chrome extension we will see what to use the developer’s console to see all traffic being sent to Google Analytics.
We will go through this audit considering factors, and I will mention what points have to be looked into in each factor, I will also share related blogs to have a further deep understanding,
- Audit in the setup
- Accuracy in the data received
- Audit for Correct Data Sources
- Content Grouping
- User Interaction
- Identify PII (Personally Identifiable Information) & EEC (Enhanced Ecommerce)
All the details here are the parameters that you need to verify whether it has been implemented or not, mentions are the ones that are standard, you can exclude or include anything else of your requirement.
1.Audit in the setup: The Account and Property The Account and Property Overview:
Tools used to audit
1. Google Tag Assistant
2. AdSwerve dataLayer Inspector +
The first thing you need to know is whatever it takes, tracking is important to store the data, so you need to check if the code installed in all pages in your website is working or not. So, what is that you need to do is always go with the tools mentioned above.
You need to audit using the tools as shown in the image above. This says the website is getting tracked.
What to see?
Overview
GA Account: Demo Account
GA Property Name: Google Merchandise Store
GA Property Id: UA -3457095002
GA View: 1 Master View
Number of Views: 3
GA Which Version(Universal & Global): Universal
GTM: GTM-CGSQ
Account Level
Filters Exist: Yes
IP Filters: No
Hostname Filter: Yes
Number of Filters: 3
Number of Users: 15
Number with “Manage Users”: 4
2.Audit in the setup: GA Property and View:
Property and View
Property
Default URL:
Default View:
Google Search Console: Yes/No
Referral Exclusion: Yes/No
Custom Dimensions: Yes/No
Views:
Number of Views:
Name of the main view:
Raw View Exists: Yes/No
Test View Exists: Yes/No
Main View:
Default: Yes/No
Bot Filtering, search, Search Query Parameters: Yes/No
Google Ads Present: Yes/No
Annotations: Yes/No
Low traffic Alert: Yes/No
Raw View:
Raw View has filters: Yes/No
Raw View includes search Ads, EEC etc.,: Yes/No
3. Accuracy : Page Views
Undercounting: Yes/No
Overcounting: Yes/No
Using the Google Tag Assistant & Adswerve DataLayer Inspector+ you can audit whether you are recieving proper number of images.
4.Accuracy : Hostnames
This is same as mentioned in the previous reviews that is including proper hostnames and excluding ghost, spam traffic
Hostname filter: ExistsYes/No
Is applied to raw view: Yes/No
Is correct: Yes/No
Spam any Indication: Yes/No
5.Accuracy : IP Filters
Same as the hostnames which we have seen in the previous review
IP Filters Exists:
Are the IP Filters Working correctly?: Yes/No
is anonymous IP being used?: Yes/No
Are there any exclude/Include filters?: Yes/No
Do they Work?: Yes/No
6.Data Source : Default Channel Groups
Default Channel Group — other (Percentage): 21%
Default Channel Group — Other- example Mediums(Percentage):
Default Channel Group — email (Percentage):
Default Channel Group — Direct (Percentage): 21%
Lower case medum filter: Yes/No
So here we need to identify what percentage of the traffic is coming through each channel, further to understand other traffic and direct traffic should be less than 21%(suggested as a standard value).
7.Data Source: Site Crawling
Analytics js on every page: Yes/No
gtag js on every page: Yes/No
GTM on every page: Yes/No
Pages with utm_parameters: Yes/No
You can use any software available in the market like Screamingfrog to audit this.
8.Content Grouping: Content Grouping and Query Parameters
Are Query Parameters present in page views?: Yes/No
if, so which ones?:
Are there trailing slashes?: Yes/No
Are there lower case filters?: Yes/No
Are the” excuded query parameters” in the view settings working?: Yes/No
Exclude Query Parameters at the View or Account level?:
Does the raw view exclude any query parameters?: Yes/No
Is there any Content Grouping in the view?: Yes/No
If, so is it working?: Yes/No
9.User Interaction: GA Events
Here before going ahead you need to have in mind
- Do they exist
2. Do they make sense
3. Too many / too few?
Points to focus
Events are being tracked: Yes/No
Number of Event Categories:
Outbound Links are tracked:: Yes/No
Downloaded / Viewed files are tracked: Yes/No
Event Labels are being duplicated: Yes/No
Are Action and Label being Duplicated?: Yes/No
Do the Actions and Labels make sense?: Yes/No
EEC Labelles Properly Set: Yes/No
Missing Events: Yes/No
10.User Interaction: GA Goals
Number of Active Goals:
Number with Conversions:
Do the goals reflect the purpose of the website?:Yes/No
What Goals, If any, Should be added?
Similar to events you need to audit GA Goals
11.PII & EEC
(Personally Identifiable Information)
Keep in mind
1. Identify PII (Personally Identifiable Information)
2. In all the places it can hide
3. Remediate
Google’s Thoughts on PII — https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2795983?hl=en
Where does PII live?
1. Page Content
2. Event Category, Action, Label
3. Search Terms
4. Custom Dimensions
Points to focus during Audit
Kindly refer the blogs below to have an in-depth understanding
Did you find PII in Page Content? Yes/No
Did you find PII in Search Term? Yes/No
Did you find PII in Event/Action/Label? Yes/No
Did you find PII in Custom Dimension? Yes/No
Simo Ahava
https://www.simoahava.com/gtm-tips/remove-pii-google-analytics-hits/
Brian Clifton
https://brianclifton.com/blog/2017/09/07/remove-pii-from-google-analytics/
EEC(Enhanced Ecommerce)
You know EEC, here to audit, follwoing points has to be focused,
Are event labels consistently being used?: Yes/No
Does the shopping behaviour funnel make sense?: Yes/No
Does the checkout Behaviour follow the actual site?: Yes/No
Are all four product performance categories being tracked?: Yes/No
Do Transaction id revenue Amounts match the ecommerce store?
From an onsite-review, what is working well ?
From an onsite-review,what is missing?
For further details refer below blogs and course
2. Analytics Mania — Julius Fedorovicius
https://www.analyticsmania.com/courses/intermediate-google-tag-manager-course/
3. Simo’s Advanced GTM course on CXL Institute
This was it the idea shared here is only with points to focus on while Auditing Google Analytics account, to know further in depth on how to do?
visit: CXL Institute’s Digital Analytical Mini degree