Google Analytics Implementation Checklist
No matter if you are just about to start a new website and want to track it using the power of Google Analytics or you are one of the early adopters of the powerful web analytics platform, an implementation checklist might be handy. This series of articles comes from my own need in having a clear checklist when starting any new client with web analytics consultancy.
First thing is first. As the owner of the website, make sure you own the analytics data for it. I’ve seen many cases where consultants create the Google Analytics profile on their username and share it with the owner of the website with read only rights. When the website owner wanted to switch the consultant guess what happened?
Yep, losing your analytics data is not cool at all. So, the owner of the website should be the one who creates the Google Analytics profile and shares it with as many consultants he wishes to. You can start by using your already existing Google account or create a new one.
So, here are the checklist chapters:
- Implement the right tracking code and make sure you track your whole website
- Accuracy in tracking traffic sources
- Setting up goals, funnels and ecommerce tracking
- Bonus tracking tips and hacks (filters, segments and others)
Here is the short version of the checklist:
Let me know your feedback on it or if you would like me to cover any other aspects as well.
4 Comments
Nice list though I would add another essential filter to keep your data clean: one that only passes data going to the correct hostname.
This error can occur if someone is using your GA ID in their tracking code. This really messes your data up by inflating it
It happens more than you’d expect: when a client is running sub-domains for testing/development eg test.domain.com, using your GA ID, and you’re tracking domain.com!
Hey, nice list.
In the slideshare-presentation you have a bullet-point under own domain in referral-reports, that says that 302-redirect might be a reason.
Is this right? I would mean that 302/301-redirects does the same thing, from a GA-tracking-POW, the server-message is just different.
I’m not sure though.
One thing I’ve noticed in the self-referral-problem, is that its often caused by the GA-cookies being reset or lost – this have been the case in many big websites, which had a lot of internal cookies and such. Browser limit of cookies has also been a reason.
Hi Bror,
To be honest I was hesitant when I placed that bullet there and maybe I should just take it out. Some time ago I had changed quite some email with the Google Analytics group about this issue, them stating that the 302 redirection (because it cuts off the referrer) would get you the self-referrer-problem. It didn’t make sense then and to think about it even more now it still makes no sense.
As for the cookie deletion I guess they can be guilty for self-referral problem but I would assume only isolated (unless complex situations like you describe). It’s a valid point though, yes.
Thanks for the comment.
Hi Andy,
Yes, I totally agree with you. Thanks for the heads up.
Untill now I was using filters to take out the IP of the development team so I didn’t have problems with this issue yet, but you are totally right. A simple filter should take care of the hostname issue which will keep you safe even from websites cloning content from your website together with your analytics tracking code.