Google Analytics:

Md Mamun
Mar 15, 2021
7 min read

To start collecting basic data from a website:

Create or sign in to your Analytics account:
- Go to google.com/analytics
- Do one of the following:
  - To create an account, click Start for free.
  - To sign in to your account, Click Sign in to Analytics.

Set up a property in your Analytics account. A property represents your website or app, and is the collection point in Analytics for the data from your site or app.
Set up a reporting view in your property. Views let you create filtered perspectives of your data; for example, all data except from your company’s internal IP addresses, or all data associated with a specific sales region.
Follow the instructions to add the tracking code to your websiteso you can collect data in your Analytics property.

Next steps Configure your account, properties, and views to determine access to your data and which data is available. For example, you can:

Grant permissions to make configuration changes and to interact with data. Learn more about user management.
Link your Google Ads and Analytics accounts so you can share data between them and develop a more comprehensive understanding of how your marketing efforts drive user behavior on your sites or apps. Learn more about linking your accounts.
Set up reporting views so you can align Analytics users and relevant data. Learn more about views.
Set up goals to identify the actions you want users to take on your site or app, and to give a monetary value to those actions. Learn more about setting up goals.
Browse the Solutions Gallery for dashboards, custom reports, and segments that you can use in your Analytics account.

Modify your tracking code to collect additional data such as:

User interactions with links, buttons, video controls, and other dynamic elements of your site or app. Learn more about event tracking.
Ecommerce activity like user engagement with product lists and internal promotions, and how successfully users moved through your purchase funnel and checkout process. Learn more about ecommerce and enhanced-ecommerce data collection and reporting.

Download the Analytics app Once you have installed the tracking code on your site or app, and have configured your Analytics account, download the Analytics app from Google Play so you can take Analytics reporting with you anywhere (well, anywhere you have a connection). Learn more about the Analytics app Download the playbook for digital media managers The Google Analytics team has developed a step-by-step playbook to help you get the most out of linking your Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts. Learn how to unlock deeper insights and create smarter Google Ads campaigns. Take a look at this page on the Google Marketing Platform site, and download the PDF of the playbook. To learn about the full capabilities of Analytics, browse this help center at support.google.com/analytics, and check out the free online courses at Analytics Academy.

Find your way Around Analytics:

Learn the main features and controls of an Analytics report. New to Analytics? Use this interface map and the numbered sections below to familiarize yourself with the main Reporting tools and controls. Reporting-interface mapNote: access to certain features or pages in Analytics depends on your permissions. Additionally, some features are only available to 360 users. So it's possible you won't see all the elements or features described here. In this article:

Organization and account links, search
Diagnostics and Google accounts
Report navigation
Action bar
Add segments, set the date range
Report tabs
Graph
Data table

Organization and account links, search The breadcrumb links at the top of every page in Analytics give you access to the Google Marketing Platform organizations and product accounts, as well as Analytics accounts, properties, and views associated with your current login credentials.

Organization: Within Google Marketing Platform, the representation of your company, and the management framework for your company’s product accounts and users. Learn more
Product accounts: Other Google Marketing Platform product accounts like Tag Manager and Optimize.
Account: Your access point for Analytics, and the top-most level of organization within the product.
Property: A website, mobile application, or device (e.g. a kiosk or point-of-sale device.) An account can contain one or more properties.
View: Your access point for reports; a defined view of data from a property.

Learn more about accounts, properties, and views. Use the search box to search Analytics for reports, ask questions, and query for help content. Back to top Diagnostics and Google accounts Every page in Analytics also gives you access to notifications and diagnostic messages, and lets you manage your Analytics user settings and your Google accounts.

Click to see any messages generated by Analytics' automated diagnotistics.
Click to change user settings, send feedback to Google, or get help with Analytics.
Click to manage your Google account, and to sign out of Analytics.

Click a report category to open that list of reports.
The Customization category includes Dashboards, Shortcuts, and Custom Reports.
Click to open Admin, where you manage your accounts, properties, and views.

Throughout this Analytics Help Center, you'll see references to reports like this: Acquistion > All Traffic. This is a shorthand meaning, "the All Traffic report in the Acquisition category. Back to top Action bar The action bar appears at the top of the reports in Analytics. The action bar includes the report title, the sample percentage, controls that act on the report as a whole, and a link to the Intelligence panel.

The sample percentage tells you what percentage of sessions during the date range are included in the report. You can switch between a smaller sample (faster response time, less precision) or a larger sample (slower response time, greater precission).
Click Save to save the current configuration of the report.
Click Export to export your report data for use in other applications like Excel.
Click Share to share a report, even if the recipients don't have Analytics accounts.
Click Intelligence to open the Intelligence panel, where you can see insights from your data generated by Analytics machine learning, and query your data using natural language.

Back to top Add segments, set the date range A segment is a subset of your Analytics data. Add segments to a report to compare different subsets of data.

Click + Add segment to add existing segments or create new ones.
Click a segment to edit, copy, or remove it. (You can't edit the default system segments.)

Use the date selector to change the date range of the report, and chose date ranges to compare. Back to top Report tabs Analytics reports display data in one or more tabs, providing multiple views of the data in one place. Most standard reports include an Explorer tab, which typically has 2 parts: a graph of your data on top, and a data table below. Some reports include additional tabs like Overview or Map Overlay. Use the metric-group links below the tab label to determine which metrics are shown in the data table: for example, Summary, Site Usage, Goal Set 1. Back to top Graph The top portion of most Explorer tabs displays a graphical view of your data. Graph controls include:

Graph metric selector: change the metrics plotted on the graph view. You can compare 2 metrics on the graph; for example, Sessions vs. Bounce Rate. Located below the metric-group links.
Graph time-scale buttons: change the time-scale of the graph. Choose between day, week, or month. Located to the right of the graph metric selector.
Graph type buttons: change the graph display. Choose from line graph or motion chart. Located next to the graph time-scale buttons.
Click to open the Annotations drawer. You can make a note directly on the report. This control is located immediately below the graph's time axis.

When the creators of Annotations delete their Google accounts, Annotations they've made on any Analytics views, whether shared or private, are also deleted. Back to top Data table The lower portion of the Explorer tab displays data in tabular form. The primary dimension and metrics displayed depend on the type of report and on the metric group selected in the Explorer tab controls. Data-table controls include:

Primary dimension links: change the primary dimension in the report.
Plot Rows button: add rows you've selected to the graph.
Secondary dimension menu: add another dimension to the report.To remove a secondary dimension, click X in the dimension column's header.
Sort Type menu: change the order of the rows in the data table. Your choices are:
- Default: basic alphanumeric sort. The default order is high to low. You can change this by clicking the column header.
- Absolute change: sorts date range comparison data by amount of change rather than absolute values
- Weighted: sorts percentage data in order of importance instead of numerical order.

Search: display only rows matching your search term. Click advanced to define more complex filters.
Table display buttons: change the way the data table is displayed. Your choices include:
- Data: displays the data in a tabular view. This is the default table view.
- Percentage: displays a pie chart, showing the contribution to the total for the selected metric.
- Performance: displays a horizontal bar chart, showing the relative performance for the selected metric.
- Comparison displays a bar chart plotting the performance of the selected metrics relative to the site average.
- Term cloud: displays a visual representation of the performance of keywords (not available for all reports)
- Pivot: rearranges the information in the table for certain reports by pivoting your data on a second dimension.

There are a few additional controls not shown in the interface map image at the beginning of this article:

Pagination controls: change the number of rows displayed, jump to a specific page of data, or navigate page by page using the controls below the data table.
Refresh report link: update the data displayed in the report by clicking the link located at the very bottom of the page, next to the generation date.

Understanding and interacting with the data table The first column of the table is the primary dimension. Your data is grouped by this column. If you select a secondary dimension, that appears in the next column, further grouping your data. The remaining columns in the table are the metrics associated with the selected dimensions. You can perform a number of actions directly on the table, such as:

Use the checkboxes preceding a row to select that row. You can then plot the selected rows on your graph view using the Plot Rows button.
Hover over the ? icon in a column label to see a definition of that dimenion or metric.
Sort the table by a column by clicking the column header. Note: this is a simple ASCII sort. To perform a more sophisticated sort, use the Sort Type button.