How Do Marketers Use Google Analytics? (5 Key Metrics)

Google Analytics is the world’s most popular free tool for tracking your website’s traffic. But how do marketers actually use it? What are some of the common statistics you should be tracking in Google Analytics?

To help answer these questions, we’ve come up with a list of the top 5 Google Analytics metrics you should be tracking in 2023. This post will also cover how to interpret your analytics data so that you can use it effectively to improve your website’s performance.

1. Measure traffic based on users and pageviews

Pageviews measure the number of times a user loads a web page. This can help determine which pages are popular and which ones aren’t, but it doesn’t tell you much about who is visiting your site.

On the other hand, users give you a more accurate idea of how many people are coming to your site and what they’re doing when they’re there.

For example, if you have 10 users visiting your site and they each load the same page twice, that page will register 20 pageviews. However, if a user visits your site and loads 10 different pages, those 10 pages will only register one pageview.

2. Analyze traffic sources

Traffic sources are the paths that users take to get to your site.

A traffic source can be an organic search engine result, a referral from another site, or even a link on your own website.

When you’re looking at your traffic sources, look for trends that indicate whether specific sources are more effective than others at bringing users in.

Organic search

This is any visit that comes from a search engine (like Google) and isn’t a referral from another site.

Traffic from search engines is very valuable because it’s likely to be highly targeted.

User’s found you searching for a question, a product, or a service, and your content showed up as the best possible result for the query.

That means that visitors who come from a search engine are more likely to have an interest in what you have to offer than those who are referred by another site.

For example, if someone goes to Google and types in “best cat food for indoor cats,” they’re probably looking for information on how to feed their kitty—and if your site has that information, then you could get traffic from that person’s query.

Direct Traffic

Any visit that comes from typing the URL directly into your browser’s address bar counts as direct traffic.

Typically from users that already know you or that saw your website URL in another place (like a business card, a paper, tv, or radio ad, etc.)

The main distinction between direct and referral traffic is that direct visitors typed your URL on their web browser.

Referral traffic

Referral traffic is when users come to your site from another website. It’s also known as “referrers.” This can be a blog post, an article, or any other resource that links to your content.

Referral traffic reports are valuable because they show you where people are coming from and what they’re interested in learning about. It gives you insight into what referrers are effectively sending visitors to your site.

This makes it easier for you to know which other brands or sites may be worth collaborating with and understand the effectiveness of your email or ad campaigns with influencers and other digital publishers.

Geo-location of visits

Geo-location data can help you understand where your audience lives and how they interact with your website.

This information can be used to personalize marketing campaigns or to adapt your posting schedule to the times they are online.

If you have visitors from more than one location, this metric will help you figure out what kind of content resonates with each of them and where you might want to expand your business in the future.

Interests of visitors

Attribution data can help you understand your audience’s interests and what types of content they’re interested in.

This is particularly helpful in refining your buyer personas and gives you interest-targeting ideas to complement your ad campaigns.

For example, you may be selling bicycle gear but may notice that a high percentage of your visitors like Forbes magazine.

The more you know your customer, the better you’ll be able to serve them.

You may also like: 7 Tips to create highly engaging content (on any channel!)

3. Assess site engagement with bounce rate and time on page

Site engagement is determined by how much time your visitors spend on your website, as well as whether or not they bounce (leave without clicking through to another page).

It’s helpful for understanding which pages are most popular and which ones need some work.

Let’s take a close look at the KPIs that make up site engagement 👇

Average session duration

This is a metric that indicates how long users are staying on your site. The average session duration is calculated by dividing the total time spent on your site (including pages visited) by the number of unique visitors.

If your average session duration is low (less than thirty seconds), then you may want to consider whether there are any usability issues with the site or if there’s something else going on that’s causing people to leave quickly.

Bounce rate

The bounce rate is the percentage of users visiting one page and then leaving your site.

If you have a high bounce rate, it could mean that there’s something wrong with your page or that users found what they needed when they landed on one of your pages (without navigating to other parts of your site).

This is not necessarily bad if you are a blog monetized with ads, but in general, brands want to reduce bounce rate because the more a user navigates your sites and reads your posts and your static pages, the more they become acquainted with your brand.

Time on page

This metric indicates how much time people spend on each page after clicking through the search engine results page (SERP).

If users are spending a lot of time on your site, then it’s likely that they found what they were looking for and are devouring your content.

If people leave after just a couple of seconds, then there may be something wrong with the content on that page.

Page views per session

If you have a high pages-per-session rate, it means that users are spending more time on your site, visiting more than one page.

As a result, they’re likely finding what they need and engaging with the rest of the content on your site (don’t just the page they landed on).

If your ‘page views’ per session is low, then it means people are not navigating to other pages on your site.

To improve this you should add relevant links that may be of interest to the readers of each of your blogs.

4. Exit pages report

This report will tell you which pages users are exiting from so that you can optimize them.

It also shows how many people leave your site before viewing a page.

For example, if 80% of those who land on your homepage leave before visiting another page, you should work on your copy to lead your visitor down your funnel.

Perhaps you can rearrange the sections of your page so that important information about your product or service is seen earlier and thus inspires the visitor to learn more (click through to an article or a contact form).

5. Set up conversion tracking

When you set up conversion tracking, Google Analytics will track how many people who visit a specific page on your website end up taking a desired action.

For example, if you have an online store and want to know the number of people who add something to their shopping cart.

This is especially helpful if you want to know how many people sign up for your email list, download an ebook or whitepaper, or attend a webinar.

If you have something specific in mind that you want visitors to do on your website, set up a goal to track it more efficiently.

Takeaway: Understanding Google Analytics’ metrics will allow you to make changes where it matters most

In conclusion, Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can help you understand your audience, their needs, and how to improve your content.

The metrics we’ve discussed here are all designed to give you insight into how your business is doing—and where it can improve. The more you look at them, the more they’ll become part of your regular routine.

If you want to track your site’s performance and determine new content creation opportunities, reach out to one of our specialists today.