How to Use Google Analytics to Improve Your Social Media Marketing. Have you ever wanted to know which of your links are driving more traffic? Seeing referral traffic from Facebook is great, but which wall post drove the traffic? Do visitors who come from Twitter tend to spend more time on the site than visitors coming from a banner campaign? This article shows you how to take your social analytics strategy to the next level. About Google Analytics Custom Campaigns You can assign a custom campaign tag to the links you share on social networking sites. This enables you to fully use Google Analytics to gain valuable insights into how well your various social networking site presences are working for you. Google Analytics makes custom campaigns incredibly easy to work with. Google Analytics can then give you much more information based on how people use your custom links. Google Analytics Custom Campaign Parameters There are five parameters that can be added to a URL: You need to set parameters for your custom campaign. 49 likes and 51 comments is impressive.
7 Link Quality Metrics That Matter. The classic way that people have determined link value is by using Google PageRank. It is well known that Google doesn't use PageRank as a direct determinant of link value, but it remains convenient and available as a metric, so it's only natural that people continue to use it. If you're using Internet Explorer, you can get this information from the Google Toolbar, and third party tools that use the API can also display it: People often refer to the home page of the linking site when referring to the value of a link: "I have a link from a PageRank 8 site" means that the home page of the site containing the link has a PageRank of 8, though the link can come from any other page on the site. If one is forced to rely on PageRank alone, there is some merit to this as it may communicate something about the level to which a link can be trusted, but clearly you should consider the PageRank of the linking page as well.
Google calculates PageRank for a page as soon as it discovers it. TrustRank. How Little Old Google Competes With the Big Dogs in Analytics. John D'Arcy | January 9, 2013 | 0 Comments inShare42 The recent announcements made about Google's free analytics tool mean that you will now be able to track your customers' behavior using multiple devices. If you're like me, you go to California not just for the sunshine but to get hooked on the latest developments in the world of data analysis. And if you love digital analytics, you should have heard by now about the recent announcements from Google about its free analytics tool. A couple of weeks ago, in sunny Mountain View, Google announced the latest developments and functionality that makes Google Analytics comparable with the big paid-for players in the web analytics industry.
First to the buzzwords: "universal analytics. " This change in measurement protocol and a philosophy that all data is good data have further benefits. How does "little" Google still manage to do this? SEO icon image on home page via Shutterstock. How to Measure Your Social Media Traffic Using Google Analytics. Do you have a grip on your social traffic? Measuring your social media impact can be overwhelming. A tried-and-true favorite social media measurement tool is Google Analytics.
Google Analytics can track the impact of social media traffic on your site, going beyond clicks, retweets and other vanity metrics. Here’s how to measure your social media traffic using Google Analytics. #1: Identify Where Your Social Traffic Comes From Google Analytics can help you understand the users’ social networks and their physical location. To see your social media traffic, you need to first set up an advanced segment in Google Analytics. When you’re logged into your Google Analytics account, head to Advanced Segments, +New Custom Segment, then add your social media traffic sources to the segment.
You can see this below. Use one catchall segment to capture all of your social media traffic at once. Once that’s set up, head to Audience – Demographics – Location, and you’ll get a grid that looks like this: Awesome. Google Updates Analytics with Real-Time Segmenting. Google updated its Analytics service in August, including a new feature that segments real-time data in reports so that users can track marketing campaigns as they move forward. The segmenting update allows a user to click on a dimension in a real-time report, in order to track data by that metric. A user could, for instance, click to select referral information, and then segment that information by visitor source or traffic channel. Another possible use is to click on a city name to segment data by that city.
Shortcut to Data The company said this allows a user, for instance, to measure which content is most popular in a large metropolitan area. Other use cases include following the results of a geographically-targeted pay-per-click campaign, or seeing how social media might be affecting site traffic after an industry conference. Another recent update to Analytics provides the ability to create Shortcuts in order to more quickly find a particular path to data. API for Multi-Channel Funnels. 7 Time-Saving Google Analytics Custom Reports. About Social Analytics - Analytics Help. Social is increasingly important as a marketing channel. But, how do you measure the impact and effectiveness of your social initiatives?
Four elements define your social impact: Network Referrals: As your content is shared and people come to your site, it's important to understand how visitors from different social sources engage with your site. Conversions: Shared content URLs become the entry points into your site, driving traffic from social sources. Measuring the conversion and monetary value of this traffic will help you understand the impact of Social on your business. Landing Pages: People increasingly engage with, share, and discuss content on social networks. It's important to know which pages and content are being shared, where they're being shared, and how. The Social reports allow you to analyze all of this information together and see the complete picture of how Social impacts your business. Social Reports Overview Network Referrals Data Hub Activity Landing Pages Trackbacks.
How to Track Social Media Traffic With Google Analytics. You have a website and you are building traffic to it, but what do you know about your visitors? Do you know where they come from, how engaged they are with your website or if they have converted as a reader, subscriber or customer? You can see all of these insights for free using Google Analytics. Why Google Analytics? Google Analytics allows you to see where your visitors come from and if they engage with your content or leave immediately. Additionally, you can set up goals that match your business goals and measure if visitors are meeting those goals. With Google Analytics, you can get valuable insights about your visitors and in this article I am going to show you how to track social media traffic. This will help you identify the social media sites that send the most visitors back to your website to see which one needs more attention.
You will also discover how you can learn more about the visitors who come to your site from Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or other social media sites. How to Get the Most Out of Google Analytics. After we published a primer for using Google Analytics, readers said they were hungry for more. Google Analytics has since revamped its design, giving it not only a cleaner look but also updated data sets. You can now find everything from real-time stats to details about which mobile device your site visitors come from. Though the data possibilities seem endless, Google Analytics product manager Phil Mui says the design reflects three core metrics: acquisition, engagement and outcome. Let's take a closer look at what these numbers mean and how you can track them with one of the most widely used web analytics platforms. Acquisition The lowest-hanging fruit of web analytics is counting metrics. SEE ALSO: 10 New Google Analytics Features You Need to Start Using The tool has long provided information about where your visitors are coming from (geographically and on the web), what language they speak, how often they visit your site and what computers and browsers they use to get there.
Engagement. 10 New Google Analytics Features You Need to Start Using. Rachael Gerson spearheads the Analytics division at SEER Interactive. Follow her on Twitter @rachaelgerson. Over the past eight months, Google has steadily released one revolutionary new feature after another. On March 17, the company announced a new version of Google Analytics. Up until this point, users could decide whether they preferred to stick with the old interface or switch to the new one. However, Google recently announced that the old version of GA will be turned off in January 2012. If you're not already familiar with the new version, take the next few weeks to get comfortable with it. To help you get started, let’s review the top 10 features of the new Google Analytics. 1. Dashboards got a much needed overhaul in the new GA. At a minimum, these four widgets would benefit the average user.
Visits - Timeline (can also include Metric)Goal Completions and/or Transactions - TimelineSource/Medium - TableBounce Rate - Timeline 2. 3. 4. Why is this important? 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. How to Access the Best New Features in Google Analytics. 10 New Google Analytics Features You Need to Start Using.