I have been wanting to create an article about Google Analytics terms, at least a dictionary-like content for a long time. However, the intensity of both my graduate courses and my business life caused me to spend some time on my blog. Thankfully, as of January 2018, I got over the intensity and I will continue my writings from where I left off. Now it’s time to explain my knowledge about Google Analytics and Google Analytics Terms in the form of a dictionary. So let’s get started!
Google Analytics Terms
While explaining the terms in Google Analytics in my article, first of all, the terms that everyone knows or should know if they do not know; and then I’ll explain other terms that I see many people don’t use. Analytics is one of the primary tools that should be included in the digital marketing specialist’s tool kit. That’s why any information we add to ourselves about Google Analytics will add value to us.
Google Analytics Terms Everyone Should Know
Property: It is the component created under the Analytics account, which is used to specify which web page will have the data. Structures such as domain.com or sub.domain.com represent separate properties. Max 50 pieces can be added.
Appearance: It is our interface for reading the data configured under Property, with custom settings. Sometimes it may be useful to open a separate view when analyzing and sometimes sharing data with our business partners. 25 can be added per property.
Dimension: The items that define the data. It does not contain numerical data. You can find answers to questions such as which city, landing page etc.
Metric: Items containing measured numerical values. Concepts such as conversion rate, number of sessions are called metrics.
Sessions: The traffic that comes to your website in a certain time period (usually 30 minutes) and is active. When websites share their traffic, they say the number of sessions.
Users: The number of unique visitors who have come to your website in a certain period of time. If 1 person comes to your website 2 days in a row, 1 user creates 2 sessions.
New Users: The number of unique visitors who came to your website for the first time in a certain period of time.
Page Views: The number of views of all the pages on your website. If 1 user came and visited 5 pages, the number of page views here is 5.
Average Session Duration: The average length of time a user who visits your website spends on your website. If 2 people came to your website, one spent 1 minute and the other 2 minutes; With 2 sessions, the average session duration will be 1.5 minutes.
Page / Session: It shows the average number of pages visited by the incoming user in 1 session. If 2 pages are visited in one session and 4 pages in the other session, the number of pages / sessions will be 3.
Bounce Rate: It shows what percentage of users who come to your page exit without switching to a second page. The fact that the content related to the searched item is insufficient along with the poor quality/insufficient content increases this value.
Conversion Rate: The realization rate of the action you have targeted. If filling out forms is your goal, it can be calculated as the ratio of the filled forms to your total number of visitors.
Some Google Analytics Terms You Should Know
Assisted Conversions: Last Click or Direct Engagement Conversions are the ratio of the number of conversions in which the channel is in the supporting role to the number of conversions where the channel is the last interaction. If a channel has assisted multiple times in the path of a single conversion, only one conversion is added to the rate as an assisted conversion.
E-Commerce Tracking: It is a code snippet that you can add to your site or application to collect transaction data such as product sales, shopping amounts and billing locations and transfer them to your Google Analytics account.
Path Length: It is a report showing how many steps a user has taken until a conversion occurs. The path length of a user who came first through AdWords, then Google Organic, and finally Facebook Ads and converted is 3.
Segment: It is the feature we use to classify data on Analytics. For example, those aged 25-34 who came to our website from Izmir, etc.
Attribution Model: It is the rules that determine how much credit will be given to points that are not on this path until a conversion takes place.
Smart Goal: It is the type of goal that Google determines and recommends to be added. Google strongly recommends adding AdWords optimization to make it more successful.