Easy to Read Automatic Google Analytics Reports

Whether you are working at an agency or on the client side, in all likelihood, you are spending at least 1 day a calendar month pouring over your Google Analytics (GA) account to pull together reports for various parts of your site. Even people who know there is a better way will oftentimes postpone written report automation over and over once more because of the initial investment of hours needed to set things up.

Nigh of the time nosotros will excuse the work to ourselves and others by pointing out that the monthly report is pulled together much quicker these days equally we have been doing it for so long and nosotros are used to the process. Other times, we volition point out that spending the time automating reporting will set the states dorsum in other tasks. For others, in that location is the issue of not knowing where to commencement or fearing possible costs (sometimes even the worry that it may non work).

Withal, for most marketers, Analytics reporting tin can exist reduced to a few clicks of a mouse simply by spending a 24-hour interval or so automating the whole process. When you lot consider that this tin all be done using freely available Google programs, the cost relative to the potential benefit is one of the almost unevenly matched positives you are probable to come across in marketing.

While this can be configured to include AdWords data, we will be dealing with Analytics simply for this blog post, though I may write once again on AdWords in the future.

Pace One: What You Will Need to Begin

Other than your GA account, yous will need just three things in guild to begin the procedure of automating your reporting:

1. Google Sheets: -available every bit a gratuitous Google alternative to Excel, Google Sheets is the plan into which y'all will be pulling your data. Google Sheets is available here.
2. The 'Google Analytics' addition: -  Available here, this improver allows you to connect Google Sheets and your GA account. It also provides a wizard to speed the procedure along.
3. Google Information Studio: - Data Studio is a data visualizer currently in beta and available here. By linking your Google sail to Data Studio, you can create easy to parse reports for a whole manner of different KPIs.

Step Ii: How to Begin Your Automation

The first step is to define what you want to see in whatever eventual study. While many will have a template to piece of work from, if you are non currently reporting, or are looking to update your metrics, then now is the fourth dimension to practise this – before you lot get any further.

The reason for this is simply that, if you are at all like me, having a near limitless set of possibilities and variations can send you down a rabbit hole of constant tinkering, equally – some may notice it overwhelming (what is known as ' Analysis Paralysis').

For those that don't have a template or previous marketing report to work from or replicate, I will bear upon briefly on reasonable some written report types for a couple of different kinds of sites (many sites could and practice apply many of the KPIs mentioned below).

A Blog (personal or professional person)

Your blog, if you already are or are looking to monetize your web log, will (unlike my own) be regularly updated with fresh, useful content. As such, the number of pages will increase fairly speedily – as will the number of event or destination goals you will rail. This can cause the reporting time to increase concomitantly.

The main aims of reporting for a blog (at the almost base level) are to rails sessions, deportment, the functioning of posts, time on page and (if required) goal conversions.

A Brand Website

A make's website, which is looking to provide a similar, positive user experience (UX) equally a simple blog (though it may include one), has some slightly different requirements for reporting.

In addition to session information and goal conversions, brands will be looking to track tiptop performing pages, referral sources (I know this is true of blogs, also, simply bear with me), exit pages and more.

Stride 3: Setting Upwards Reports

The first thing to practise is to install the add-on and allow it admission to your Analytics data (which can exist done in the 'Add together-Ons' drop downwards in the menu bar); from at that place information technology is a case of knowing what to expect for and how to discover it.

For a basic report, it is possible to utilize the same wizard – which volition let you to set the bones parameters for your report. It is as good a identify every bit any to get-go and the metric and dimension finder works on a text search, which can relieve time in the early ready-upwardly.

The sections of the wizard are reasonably cocky-explanatory for the most part, but for the purposes of a walkthrough:

Name Your Report –While it is a perfectly simple instruction, I did make the mistake of failing to proper name reports sufficiently, and distinctly, with my first set of reports. Depending on the complexity of the effect you are looking for, these reports can stack upwardly fairly quickly, so name the report in a manner that volition make information technology easy to find what you lot need and rediscover.

Select Account Information –The three options in this department relate to your GA account. Depending on how many accounts y'all are managing, y'all will need to make sure you pick the right ones. While you can edit the details in the main report tab, it is but quicker to make doubly sure here.

Section iii is where y'all brand the magic happen. While you can add together ten each to the dimension and metric sections of your report – consider how yous desire the eventual study to expect. It tends to be easier to compile your final Data Studio document from summary sheets and, in plow, it is easier to create these summary sheets if the data you are summarising is easily identifiable in these reports. And so keep your dimensions and metrics short and sweetness (yous tin can always add more afterward on).

Once you have added the necessary metrics and dimensions, yous can click "create written report". This volition populate your sheet with a configure column – adjacent to which will be your report. The first matter yous will find is that there are a number of empty cells in your study – this is where you can brainstorm to tweak your study to ensure it is only giving you the data you want.

The configuration options are a little more complicated because of the refinement options but are – in and of themselves – again fairly obvious.

'Written report Proper name' and 'View ID' are entered during the sorcerer stage (the proper name of your report and Analytics view respectively).

'Starting time Appointment' and 'Terminate Engagement' will demand to exist entered – and will determine the period your study covers. If yous are looking at scheduling a daily report and would like to avoid having to enter an end date each morning, yous can just enter =TODAY() in the 'End Appointment' cell which will update automatically.

'Metrics' and 'Dimensions' were, over again, defined during the wizard – but nosotros will go into these a little more in a moment.

'Guild' refers to how the study will be arranged (i.e., ascending or descending), but I recommend drawing the actual report from a series of summary pages, as information technology is safe to leave this and sort the information either in the summary sheet or in Data Studio itself.

Filters allow y'all to restrict the data – this is especially useful if you are looking to capture data from specific subfolders (a blog or resource section, for instance). One of the reports that run for the Click Consult blog (for example) features the metrics, dimension, and filter on the right.

Every bit yous tin encounter – this pulls the session, time on page and unique folio views, defines information technology by month and limits the data captured by the report to the specific /web log/ subfolder.

'Segments' is another data limiting option – assuasive you to refine data by specific segment parameters. A brand operating in multiple countries, for example, could limit information per country using a cord similar: gaid::-1,segment=sessions::condition::ga:land==United Kingdom.

The 'Limit' option is mostly important for larger sites (e-commerce sites, for example) which have the potential to return thousands or fifty-fifty millions of results. In these cases, limit the data to a manageable number. While many of these functions tin be done later – either in the summary canvas or Information Studio – not limiting the data for big sites can make reporting unmanageable and report run times excessive.

Spreadsheet URL allows you to export results to a second, external canvass (for which y'all must have edit permissions). For almost purposes, allowing the report to output to the aforementioned sheet is perfectly fine.

Metrics and Dimensions

In that location is a consummate list of metric and dimension codes here, but for the purposes of illustration, here are a few that could use to either of the two kinds of sites mentioned earlier.

TIP: an update today near gave me a heart attack, leading to the following pro tip: dissever multiple metrics, etc. with commas or your reports no longer work. Every bit the plug-in merely permits 10 metrics per report, I have split them into two distinct reports – session level and page level:

Session level

Dimensions

• ga:month – Your session level written report will deal entirely with metrics, but the initial set (and some nautical chart types in Data Studio) requires a dimension, so a fourth dimension-based dimension is worth entering. Assuming a monthly report, this will care for the 'calendar month' as a dimension. This tin can be replaced with whatsoever dimension of your choosing – provided information technology's compatible with the metrics (which, if you aren't already familiar with matches, tin be chop-chop checked in Analytics).

Metrics

• ga:sessions – This metric delivers a count of total sessions for the selected view (this matches with Analytics, obviously, where a view created office way through the report period volition return only the sessions in that fourth dimension and not overall for the site).
• ga:users – Returns the total number of users that take produced the previous number of sessions.
• ga:percentNewSessions – Gives a decimal figure for the number of sessions which were 'new' (i.e., from previously unseen users). If you wish to, this will demand converting into a percent figure in the summary sheet.
• ga:avgSessionDuration – Returns a figure representing the average session duration – it volition need to be converted into a time format in the summary canvass.
• ga:pageviews – This is the full number of pages viewed during the selected period.
• g a:pageviewsPerSession – This is the average number of pages viewed in each session on the site.
• ga:goalCompletionsAll – This provides an overview of the total goal completions for the selected view. If you desire to measure specific goals individually, y'all tin can use ga:goalXXcompletions where 'XX' is the goal number of your desired goal in the Analytics goal study (in 'Admin'). If you lot take multiple views, you'll need to create multiple versions of this study before collating the results in the summary sheet.

Tiptop pages

Dimensions

• ga:pageTitle – This dimension, also, can be subbed for another if needed, but in this instance, the page championship dimension will pull through the meta championship for each page, assuasive you lot to determine the performance of specific posts or landing pages.

Metrics

• ga:sessions – This metric hither volition return sessions per folio championship.
• ga:users – The same is true here, the total will split betwixt each page listed.
• ga:percentNewSessions –This is over again split out per page (and can give y'all some additional data near the usefulness to users of certain pages).
• ga:avgSessionDuration – The average session elapsing of users that have viewed each page.
• ga:pageviews – How many pages a user has viewed in add-on to the listed page.
• ga:pageviewsPerSession – The number of pages in a session that includes the correlating folio.
• ga:uniquePageviews –How many unique page views the page has received in the specified period.
• ga:avgTimeOnPage – How long the average user has spent on the page (good for determining whether they are actually reading the information on the folio).
• ga:goalCompletionsAll – Again, if you want to know how many conversions the folio has led to for each individual goal, you can use goalXX, merely this will give you a total for the page for the view.

There are some obvious omissions – you lot can track bounce rate and referral sources and any other metric or dimension as you cull, only (as I am at more than 2 thousand words already), I thought I'd go out that for you to explore.

Footstep Four: Creating Summaries and Scheduling

While this footstep isn't compulsory, information technology does make the eventual report collation much easier (and appeals to some function of me that requires neatness in numbers). Essentially, it is possible to compile reports through Information Studio using the raw data, just it can become messy and long-winded. Instead, I prefer to create a number of summary sheets that directly reflect the data required for the eventual report.

For the pinnacle performing folio report, for example, you tin create a table which places the dimension ga:pageTitle in column A – using formula =('**REPORT Title**'!A--) to draw through the page title – confronting the various metrics (using the same type of formula if you just crave the exact data returned).

For time calculations, however, you'll need to catechumen the number returned from analytics into standard hh:mm:ss format using a formula such as =sum('**REPORT Championship**'!C--/86400) where the /86400 and selecting hh:mm:ss as the prison cell display will convert the number into the right format.

Once yous have set up summary sheets (including selecting unnecessary but lovely color schemes, ensuring a good cell width and tiptop to brand the table wait balanced… okay, that may but be me — and and then y'all tin can schedule the report from the Add-ons>Google Analytics>Schedule reports options from the card.

Step V: Importing Data to Google Data Studio

This is where you can brainstorm to visualize the report for public (or at to the lowest degree client/employer) consumption. Upon opening Data Studio, select 'New report' and name it – over again, conspicuously and precisely. Following that, you will demand to create a information source.

Clicking the 'CREATE NEW Information SOURCE' button will then take y'all through to a second carte du jour that volition give yous a listing of possible data sources. For this written report, nosotros need to select 'Google Sheets', though as you volition come across yous can pull straight from Analytics if yous feel confident (which point I am even so to accomplish). You can also see that you can import from other Google backdrop as well.

Still, in this example, it is enough to select 'Google Sheets', and then find your saved sheet and select the specific worksheet you wish to utilise in your first report. You lot tin then click the 'CONNECT' push.

Once you accept continued the appropriate sail, you tin can then select a chart type from the toolbar and sketch out the size of the chart you want to create.

Using your summary sheets, you tin then select your desired dimensions and metrics to hands create a variety of unlike report types in seconds.

While it may be necessary to add filters to the reports to exclude zilch results or reduce the number of results pulled through to a reasonable number, once your report is fix up. The process is complete until you lot either need to modify months in Google Sheets (which you can avoid having to do by using EOM and Solar day formula) or add a view or another written report.

While the process of getting there tin be a piffling backbreaking, once completed this written report will run on Google Sheets without intervention, leaving you to generate your monthly (or weekly, daily, etc.) reports at the click of the refresh button.

smithoureshe.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.semrush.com/blog/stop-wasting-time-how-to-automate-your-monthly-analytics-reporting/

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