Mobile Analytics at Walden
The official Walden Library mobile website lives in LibGuides. Mobile users will automatically be redirected to the LibGuides mobile site. Therefore, one must look at our LibGuides mobile statistics to get an accurate picture of our mobile usage.
To get to the mobile site statistics:
- Log in to Google Analytics, and click on LibGuides.
< - Click Content, then Site Content, then All Pages in the left column.
- This will bring up a list of most viewed pages. In the search box at the top of the list, search for the partial mobile website URL:
mobile/1291
This will filter the results list to results which contain the mobile website URL.
Technology
The technology metric tells us what our users' mobile devices can handle, which will help us determine future mobile support strategies and will help us avoid creating a mobile web presence that will not be usable by our patrons.
To examine the mobile technology metric:
- Log into Google Analytics and navigate to the mobile website statistics.
- Click the mobile/1291 link. This link represents the mobile website home page.
- Click on the Secondary Dimension button above the results list, then select Technology from the drop-down menu.
- Click on the metric that you want to track in the drop-down menu. You can choose from:
- Browser
- Browser Version
- Flash Version
- Java Support
- Network Domain
- Operating System
- Screen Colors
- Screen Resolution
The most useful metrics for our purposes are: Browser, Browser Version, Operating System, Screen Colors and Screen Resolution. If the we decide to incorporate more multimedia components in our future mobile offerings, we will need to examine Flash Version and Java Support more thoroughly.
Traffic Sources
The Traffic Sources metric examines how users connect to the mobile site. Since we have a redirect script for mobile devices on the library home page, it is expected that most traffic will consist of referrals from the website, but it is advisable to examine the traffic metric for verification. If additional traffic sources are identified, we may want to adjust our mobile marketing campaign.
To examine the mobile traffic sources metric:
- Log into Google Analytics and navigate to the mobile website statistics.
- Click the mobile/1291 link. This link represents the mobile website home page.
- Click the Secondary dimension button and select Traffic Sources from the drop-down menu.
- Click on the metric that you want to track in the drop-down menu. You can choose from:
- Campaign
- Keyword
- Landing Page
- Medium
- Source
Right now, the Source and Keyword metrics are the most useful for us, since they measure sites which users visited before the mobile site and keywords used to search for the mobile site respectively. Campaign will become more important if marketing efforts include the mobile website.
Visitors
The Visitors metric examines geographic characteristics of our users. It will become more important as Walden expands its global reach and will help inform our international offerings on the mobile website.
To examine the mobile visitors metric:
- Log into Google Analytics and navigate to the mobile website statistics.
- Click the mobile/1291 link. This link represents the mobile website home page.
- Click the Secondary dimension button and select Visitors from the drop-down menu.
- Click on the metric that you want to track in the drop-down menu. You can choose from:
- City
- Continent
- Country/Territory
- Language
- Metro
- Region
- Sub Continent Region
- Visitor Type
Right now, the Visitors Type metric is the most useful for us, since it measures new and returning visitors. The other geographic measures will become more important as Walden extends its recruiting efforts internationally.