Analytics

When you integrate external services to your website to measure its performance or that of the advertising campaigns that you have launched, you generally have to juggle a large number of code snippets.

This requires, in addition to a certain programming know-how, a good overview. If it is not possible to access the code base directly, you must communicate with the responsible programmer each time that new analysis and monitoring services are implemented.

To counter this, Google released years ago the Google Tag Manager which greatly simplifies the integration of different codes.

Summary

1. What is Google Tag Manager?
2. How exactly does Google Tag Manager work?
3. Tags, triggers and variables: the basic components of Google Tag Manager
4. Integrating code snippets with Google Tag Manager: the advantages
5. Tutorial: using Google Tag Manager for your personal web project

What is Google Tag Manager?

Google launched in October 2012 its internal management system for the integration and administration of JavaScript and HTML tags.

While the first version was mainly designed for the solutions developed by Google, namely Analytics, AdWords and DoubleClick, the tag manager supports an increasing number of third-party tags since version 2 (2014), thanks in particular to the release of the official API.

Google Tag Manager is not limited to the implementation of analysis and conversion tools: Remarketing and Affiliate tags as well as test tool snippets such as AB Tasty or Mouseflow (Heatmap tool) can also be integrated into your project (websites and mobile applications) using Google Tag Manager.

Note

You will find the official list of supported tags in the Tag Manager Help forum.

How exactly does Google Tag Manager work?

Well Google Tag Manager is  used to connect a website or an app with tools of all kinds  quickly and easily thanks to its tag system.

And these tools can be: web analytics, measurement of digital marketing campaigns (sponsored ads, remarketing …), optimization of the user experience, heat maps, A/B tests, etc.

These are just a few examples of all the tools you can use with tags through Google Tag Manager:

➤ Google Analytics : web analytics tool (the one I have connected in GTM for this blog and I am going to explain how to do it step by step)

➤ Google AdWords : tool to launch sponsored search campaigns in Google searches (SEM), display ads, video ads, mobile apps, etc.

➤  DoubleClick by Google : advanced and very complete tool to manage digital advertising campaigns of all kinds and in detail.

➤  Google Optimize : tool for optimizing the user experience with testing A / B experiments, etc. (I have to try this one!)

All implementations are then done through the web interface from Google Tag Manager. The snippet container functions as a central location from which all the tags that you configure via the browser interface are set up.

Subsequent changes can also be made directly in the Tag Manager. If you never need a tag anymore, just delete it from the container.

Tags, triggers and variables: the basic components of Google Tag Manager

In order for the snippet container to capture the interactions and information desired by the user and transmit it in the correct way, you must create the appropriate tags and triggers in your Google Tag Manager.

Variables can also be used to specify these two basic elements of the Google tool. For the three components, there are different ready-made models, but you can also make your own settings if necessary. Below shows you exactly what the tags, triggers and variables do.

Tags

Tags are the units at the heart of Google’s tag manager. They are in the form of code and determine what information is sent to which places.

In principle, tags are nothing more than code snippets that you could include yourself in HTML code. In addition to the standard tags, there are specific JavaScript tags that do not pass information, but fire additional tags.

However, Google Tag Manager generally loads all the tags contained in a container independently of each other and in parallel with the other elements of the website.

An intelligent caching mechanism optimizes the number of requests that the web server must respond to.

Trigger

In Google Tag Manager, you use triggers to define the conditions under which a particular tag should come into play. More specifically, it is a question of what actions or events the user is driving when a code is executed, that is to say when it is “triggered”.

It can be simple page views, loaded windows or the appearance of error messages, but also clicks of visitors on a specific button.

You can of course also set as a tag trigger the filling of a form, the subscription to a newsletter or the viewing of a video. The same trigger can be used for several tags.

Variables

If you want to refine the parameters of the defined tags and triggers, you can use the variables in the tag manager. For tags, variables offer the possibility of entering dynamic values.

If, for example, for an online store, information such as the transfer of purchased products must also be tracked, the variables can be used. It works very similarly with triggers; variables are used to specify them.

While you can define for example exclusively with a trigger that a tag should be executed when a page is called, you can use a variable to specify exactly which page (s) or URL (s) it should be ‘to act.

Integrating code snippets with Google Tag Manager: the advantages

Google Tag Manager is essential for anyone who works with different tracking and analysis tools for various purposes. Here are some of the benefits of Google software:

• Tag caching minimizes server requirements and shortens the loading time of websites.
• Source codes are optimized to a minimum.
• The integration and administration of all tags is easy and convenient via a single web interface after a simple access to the source code.
• Continued blocking of unwanted snippets or types of snippets increases the security level of your website / web application.
• Different ready-made templates for tags, variables and triggers are available.
• Automatic tag verification with preview and debug mode.
• Record all tag activity and changes to Google Tag Manager account settings.

Tutorial: using Google Tag Manager for your personal web project

How do I use Google’s tag manager for my website or app now? Because the tag manager is web-based, no installation is necessary; you can access the interface via any standard browser.

There are also no user fees, so you can get started right away. The only prerequisite is to have a valid Google account . If you already use services such as AdWords, Gmail or Google Drive, you already have an account, if not, you will have to go to create a Google account to then be able to access Google Tag Manager.

Step 1: Configure your Google Tag Manager account

Go to the Google Tag Manager page and sign in with your Google Account to start setting up the manager . A new menu will open automatically, allowing you to add your Tag Manager account.

To do this, enter the name of the desired account and the country in which you are located. Click on the “Continue” button to confirm the data entered.

When you check the box “Share data anonymously with Google and third parties” when creating your Google Tag Manager account, you activate the benchmarking function, which compares your performance with that of competing web projects.

Step 2: Install the container

Then create the container in which you will later insert your snippets. First choose a name. For a website, it’s useful to use the URL here, especially if you plan to manage different sites (each with its own container) via the Tag Manager account.

In principle, however, you have a free choice. To complete the creation of the container, specify the type of project (website, AMP or App) and click on “Create“.

Step 3: Integrate the Google Tag Manager container snippet

It literally takes seconds for Google to generate the snippets. If the process is successful, the tag manager will present the container snippet in two parts.

The first is simply integrated by a copy / paste in the header of your pages. The second is inserted in the same way in the “Body” space of the desired HTML document, directly after the opening tag: thus, you are sure that the extract will be loaded as soon as possible in order to provide the measurement data as precise as possible.

After linking your snippet from Google Tag Manager, the configured tags, triggers and variables become active.

Note: The Google Tag Manager code snippet can be retrieved at any time after this step. To find it, go to the “Admin” tab and click on “Install Google Tag Manager”.

Step 4: Add tags

Once you have integrated the tag manager code, you can start filling the container . The first step is to create the tags to implement the tracking and analysis codes in your website or application.

Simply go to your workspace via the tab of the same name and select “New tag” or “Add a new tag”.

You can configure up to three workspaces in your Google Tag Manager and select different parameters (for example to test new tags, and, in case of doubt, to return to the original variant in one click).

Click in the “Tag configuration” option and select the type of tag that suits you. We will take as an example the “Universal Analytics”.

Further down the list of tag types, you’ll find the “Custom” section for custom HTML codes and image tags that are not supported by Google Tag Manager by default.

Then, you define what Analytics should follow (in this tutorial: “page view”), and check the box “Enable overriding settings in this tag” (necessary if you do not add a variable).

You can now enter the ID for your Google Analytics account following the corresponding line. To use Google Analytics respecting the privacy of visitors to your site and the confidentiality rules, add the field “anonymizeIp” under “More Setting” -> “Fields to Set” and insert the value “true”. Thus, the IP addresses registered by your web server will be transmitted to Google anonymously.

The accounts for the different analysis and tracking tools must be created separately: it is only if you have the appropriate IDs that you can integrate the services into Google Tag Manager.

Step 5: Add a trigger

Just before the tag is saved completely, Google Tag Manager offers to add a trigger so that the Analytics tracking code is read during the desired interaction. To create a new trigger, select “Triggers” from the left menu bar, then click “NEW“.

Click in the “Trigger configuration” field to have an overview of the types of triggers available. Find the one that suits you and click on the corresponding entry. If you need a trigger event for which there is no template, select “Custom event”. In this tutorial from Google Tag Manager, we will use the “Page view” trigger that was already determined as a follow-up target in the previous step. For this type, you can also specify whether this should apply to all views or only some.

Then select “All Page Views”. This will send a signal to Google Analytics that you want to track all page views across all pages of the website.

Step 6: Connect the trigger to the tag

Return to the tag created in step 4 using the left menu “Tags” and then select the desired tag. Click in the “Trigger” space and then select the trigger you want to associate from the list.

Choose your trigger to add it to the tag.

Step 7: Test the functionality of the tags created

Google Tag Manager gives you the opportunity to test the functionality of tags and built-in triggers (and possibly variables) before validating the publication. To do this, click on “PREVIEW“. After a short wait, the following message appears to indicate that the tag manager preview mode is active:

Preview mode in Google Tag Manager can be started and ended at any time.

If you’ve started preview mode, open your website in a new tab. At the bottom of the screen, the Google Tag Manager console opens, and you can see which tags have been executed under ” Summary“.

As we configured in this tutorial that the extract from Google Analytics should be read directly for page views, the console lists the Analytics tag under “Tags Fired On This Page “.

Important note: To test tags or triggers that require specific user interactions such as clicking a button, you must first perform the corresponding actions.

Step 8: Publish the container

If your container configuration works the way you want, it’s time to start it for your web project. To do this, you need to create a new version and publish it.

To start, click on the “Submit” button  at the top right of the Tag Manager menu bar. Select the option “Publish and create a version”, name your version and possibly add a description (this is particularly recommended if you have many tags).

Detailed version descriptions make it easy to track fairly large Google Tag Manager accounts.

Click on ” PUBLISH ” to finish and finally launch your first Google Tag Manager version.

If you have a WordPress page or blog and want to monitor the traffic and statistics of your site, surely you have wondered: How can I install Google Analytics on my website? Where do I insert the code? Are there WordPress plugins for Google Analytics?

Overtime, I have been seeing a lot of queries on how to install Google Analytics on a WordPress website. And although there are a lot of guides on how to do it, I found them to be a little bit short of technical explanation.

In this post I will explain how to install Google Analytics on your website or blog in two different ways, one simple and one a little more advanced:

Mode 1: WordPress Plugins for Google Analytics

There are WordPress plugins to install Google Analytics on your site quickly and easily, without knowing HTML code. You just need to have a Google Analytics account for your website or blog, and have the UA code that the tool gives us. In most cases, just enter this code and you already have it.

Advantages: It’s quick to set up and you don’t need to be an expert. Simply enter the UA code or synchronize your web page with your Google Analytics account.

Disadvantages: You are using a plugin for something you could do using HTML code. Whenever you can do it in another way, avoid installing a plugin, since in this way you optimize the loading times of your web page and the space on your server, in addition to avoiding possible incompatibilities between plugins when you have many installed.

Remember that Google takes into account the loading times of your website for SEO positioning. If you want to measure and optimize the performance of the plugins installed on your site, I recommend the P3 plugin (Performance Profiler Plugin).

Here are my most recommended WordPress plugins for Google Analytics installation:

Google Analytics by Yoast

Created by Joost de Valk, author of the acclaimed SEO Yoast plugin, this plugin allows you to quickly synchronize your website or blog with your Google account to start recording traffic data. You can also do it manually, by entering the UA code of your website.

Image Source

Once installed and activated, in Settings you can adjust a series of advanced options, such as tracking outbound links and downloads, type of download files to track, activate the universal tracking option, enable demographic and interest reports, monitor subdomains, debug mode , etc… In addition, you have a Dashboard where you can consult the analytical reports within the administration panel of the site.

An excellent option and with the seal of quality of the Yoast Team.

Google Analyticator

With Google Analyticator, as in the previous case, you can synchronize your website with your Google account and access an advanced dashboard in which to monitor your traffic data and configure various options such as outbound link tracking with enhanced functionality, downloads by types of files downloaded, obtain remarketing, demography and interest reports, etc.

In addition, you even have the ability to track your Google Adsense account statistics Entering the ID If you are not interested in using the internal Dashboard functionality in your WordPress panel you can choose to do a simple site crawl to see the statistics in the Google Analytics panel simply by entering the UA code, as in the previous case.

Another fantastic tool to install Google Analytics on your website or blog.

Mode 2: HTML Code in the Header

If you are a bit more advanced user and know some HTML code you have another alternative: paste the Google Analytics code directly into the <head> tag of your website.

If you have designed HTML web pages, you will know that in the code of each HTML page you have an opening <head> tag and a closing </head> tag at the top. Between the two opening and closing tags there are a series of lines of code where the links to the site’s style sheet, sources, javascript files, etc. are usually inserted.

In the case of WordPress, it is a PHP-based system and the pages are dynamically constructed, that is, to create each page the tool takes portions of code from various files and thus builds them intelligently. Normally, among the files of the site, there is one called header.php which includes all the HTML code that you will add to all pages of the site so that they all have the same header.

Therefore, to implement the Google Analytics code, you just have to access the editing area of ​​the WordPress panel and then go to the header.php file, where you will find at the top all the HTML code of the site header : <head><meta> <title> tags, etc. What you have to do here is paste the Google Analytics code into a line between the <head> and </head> tags. Once you’ve done this, Google Analytics can now start tracking your website or blog statistics.

Advantages:  You save the installation of plugins, thereby optimizing the speed of the site. Remember: plugins are a wonderful help and one of the strengths of WordPress, but if you abuse them (and if you do not document well and do not test them before) they can become the Achilles heel of your website and ballast their performance, cause incompatibilities and anomalous behavior of the page, etc. Therefore, in general, whenever you can do it without plugins, do it without plugins.

Disadvantages: It requires more advanced knowledge, knowing some HTML code and getting to edit an .php file with the risk that this entails if you are not at all expert. If you do not enter the code in the right place or if you delete or modify lines of code of the subject you can spoil its correct operation and finally have to reinstall everything again.

Apart from this, by doing it through code you are simply enabling the tracking of your web page or blog by Google Analytics, but you are missing all the monitoring and configuration possibilities in an internal WordPress Dashboard offered by some of the plugins mentioned above .

Therefore, before making the decision, I will explain in detail  how to insert the Google Analytics code between the <head> and </head> tags of the HTML code of your website in WordPress.

Access the WordPress file editing area

To access the area where you can edit your files you must go to Appearance> Editor in your main WordPress Dashboard menu.

Locate the header.php file

On the right side of this section you have a list with all the files that you can edit in your theme or template. Find the header.php file and click to display all the code in the central zone.

Locate the <head> and </head> tags and enter the code

Search inside the code for the <head> and </head> tags and anywhere between the two tags press enter to open a new line. Then paste the code provided by Google Analytics for the manual installation of the tracking functionality of your website or blog.

Once you have pasted the code, click on the Update file button in the lower left. Now you have the Google Analytics crawl running for your site.

How to get the Google Analytics code to insert into your website?

You get the Google Analytics code or tracking code by logging into your Google Analytics account. Next, you have to click on the Administrator tab, and in the first column (Account) you select the web page for which you want to obtain the tracking data.

Once the web page is selected (you can have several websites tracked with Google Analytics), you go to the second column (Property), and click on Tracking Information. Then, in the drop-down, click on Tracking code.

Once inside this section, the tool shows you a code that you must enter between the <head> and </head> tags of your web page or blog.

Once you copy the code, go back to the editor and paste it between <head> and </head>. Once done the right way, it will immediately reflect in your source code and will start to record traffic on your website.

A website that is unable to convert is like an empty mail box, it’s there but not for a purpose.

Conversion rate optimization is a process of improving the website’s ability to convert visitors into leads that will eventually become sales. It’s also a technique implemented to websites in order to guide visitors take an appropriate action for them to become leads.

A conversion, by all means is whatever action your visitors you want them to make. It could be email sign up, download a white paper, sign up for newsletter, inquire for a certain product, or even downloading an app. This varies depending on the goal.

Often, this requires analysing data, user flow, events, and many other factors that affect the behavior of the user in the website.

One thing to remember though, this process needs solid data and not on wild guesses. The problem though is that a lot webmasters don’t have access to sophisticated tools to gather data for some reasons.

But when all hope seems lost, there’s still one tool out there that is more than enough to do conversion rate optimization if used properly – Google Analytics.

On this guide, I will grab you by the hand and teach how to implement CRO using Google Analytics. So without further ado, here’s how to do it.

Locate where the traffic come from

Firstly, you need to locate where your visitors come from. Why is this important? Knowing where your visitors come from will give you a clear idea about their internet behavior.

Though this may not be enough to conclude something, it still makes a difference because there’s obviously a difference between the users of search engines and the ones who use social media.

Devices they use

Knowing what device your ideal audience use is one of the most critical when it comes to conversion rate optimization because that will be your guide on which to prioritize first – mobile or desktop.

If majority of your audience are coming from mobile, then it’s a no-brainer that you need to more time optimizing your site for mobile compatibility.

Of course it doesn’t mean that you leave the desktop users behind.

Remember that mobile users are more likely to bounce out faster than of desktop users. You are one swipe away from losing your traffic if your website is not well-optimized.

Consider implementing AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) to your website. This will significantly improve your website’s loading speed once visited using a mobile.

For desktop users, minimizing Javascript, and optimizing the CSS and images will help. Also consider using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to speed up your website.

Test your site’s page layout for both mobile and desktop in order to ensure that everything looks good.

Locate where they land the most

Of course it’s always on the homepage.

That’s already given. What you need to know is the where do they land aside from the homepage of the website. Why is this important? It will provide a clear indication on where you should focus your CRO efforts.

For example, if product page is the second most highest visited page on your website, you might want to add call-to-action button there that automatically leads to contact or inquiry form.

Or you might want to lead them to your top selling products. Your call. What important is that you give them something to follow.

Locate where they exit

After knowing what pages get the most number of visits, you also need to know which pages are getting the most number of exits. This works hand in hand with the overall bounce rate of the website.

Go to Behavior>Site Content>ExitPages.

List down your most exited pages. This way, you can also take note of the pages that need improvement. Find out why they are leaving these pages and add elements that might help them interact with the content.

Best if you can overhaul the pages to make them more engaging.

Behavior Flow

Behavior flow shows the users journey in the website. It also gives you an idea on how healthy your site structure is.

However, the data is limited to 100,000 visitors. So if your website is getting more than that, you will see a limited flow.

Nevertheless, it’s still a vital tool in analyzing your website when it comes to conversion optimization.

Google Analytics is one of the most powerful data tracking tool in the world. It offers an array of features to track and analyze website traffic. The good thing about this tool is that it’s free – unless you want to pay Google for more advanced tracking.

But for the most part, the free version offers a wide variety of tracking types and will give you an idea on what part of the website you should improve or take advantage of. Advanced marketing practitioners often opt into the advanced segments when mining for data, thus giving them a good insight on where to start.

But on this article, we will be tapping to the 5 most basic metrics that will help you in evaluating your website’s performance.

Behavior flow

Behavior flow illustrates the journey of the user from one page to another. It will help you analyze which point a user drops off or what content is consumed the most. Though reading the behavior flow is a little bit tricky because you need to clearly make a story behind the flow to identify what is really happening to your visitors when they visit your website.

You can choose the type of visitor flow you want to see, be it landing pages, social network, or you can even track a custom variable depending on your preference.

Exit Pages

Exit pages metrics enables you to see which page has the most number of exits. Though in most cases the homepage will always be on top when it comes to exit pages. But it is still important to know the reason why visitors are exiting a page. It can also give an idea about what page should be improved on the website.

This segment can be found under the “Behavior” menu. There are lots of factors affecting the visitors why they exit the website. An airline website who uses a third party online booking engine will normally have a high exit rate due to the fact that users are being redirected to another landing page when making a booking. Nevertheless, it is still important to see which page performs well and which ones are in need of improvements. And Exit pages segment can be a good start in analyzing that together with the behavior flow.

Engagement

This metric allows you to see how many visitors spend a certain amount of time in you website and how deep they dig within the inner pages. Why is this important? You will have an idea on how many of your visitors are checking your other pages and how much time they spend on it. Another reason is that it will help you to determine your loyal traffic. You can do this by adding your preferred segment to this metric.

By using the advanced segments you can further improve your data mining. This will give you a clear idea on whether or not visitors are converting.

Site Speed

In Google Analytics, it gives you a quick overview about the average loading time, redirection, domain lookup, server connection, server response, and page download time. It also provides data about what browser your website performs best. This way you can optimize your site to perform well regardless of the browser used by the user.

You can also see what pages load fast and those that need to be improved. Site speed based on the country is also provided.

In-Page Analytics

This is like a free heatmap tool in Google Analytics. It acts as a visual presentation on how users interact within your website by measuring the number of clicks done on every link of the website.

By analyzing this metric, you will have an idea on whether or not your call to action buttons are effective, if your users are finding the right information on your site or not, and the specific links that they click. Using the data gathered from In-Page Analytics metric, you will be able to come up with a plan to improve your website’s overall performance.

Comscore.com released their top visited websites in Malaysia for September 2015. The data suggest that Maybank2u.com.my and Mudah.my retained their top 1 and 2 spots respectively under the local websites category. This means that these two local websites are getting much of the traffic coming from Malaysian internet community.

In late 2014 we have released a data for the top websites in Malaysia for 2014. And nothing has changed dramatically except for the website Lowyat.net. The website didn’t make it to the top 30 in 2014, however, because of the website’s prominence and online attraction it managed to climb to the top 8 in January 2015 according to Malaysian Digital Association, its last position was top 12 in September.

For the top 30 web properties visited from desktop computers in Malaysia, Google sites and Facebook retained their top 1 and 2 positions as well. Followed by Yahoo Sites and Microsoft websites in the top 4 and 5 respectively.

While there’s no huge changes in both local website and web properties categories, mobile search data suggest a different thing. According to the MDA traffic data, Astro Group dominates the mobile search world by making it to the top spot followed by Malaysiakini Sites. Yahoo Sites trail at top 4. Surprisingly, Maybanku2.com.my is nowhere to be found in the top 20 when it comes to mobile search. This data might mean that Malaysian desktop websites should prioritize optimizing their site to be more responsive to cope up with the fast growing demand for mobile compatibility.