Google Analytics: Other Metrics

Click Density reports give a visual representation of the links that users clicked on our website.  Google Analytics' click density report is called In-Page Analytics.

In-Page Analytics does have a few limitations.  It cannot differentiate between two links which go to the same destination, so it will not be able to tell us how many users clicked on the same link in the drop down menu vs a sidebar for example.  It also does not show statistics for links which lead to external websites or non-webpage content.  For data on these items, see the Event Tracking box.

To activate In-Page Analytics:

1. Log in to Google Analytics and click on the appropriate site.
   
   
2. Click Content, then In-Page Analytics.
   
   
   
3. This will open the website within the Google Analytics window.  The website will contain orange markers indicating the number of times the link was clicked, expressed as a percentage.
    

Features of In-Page Analytics

Click the drop-down menu to view analytics by Goal completion instead of clicks.

Click the Show bubbles, Show color or Browser size buttons to view the metrics in different ways.  Bubbles is the default.  Color displays clicks as a color spectrum, rather than a percentage.  Browser size shows a visual representation of commonly used patrons' browser sizes.

Google Analytics tracks website usage as pageviews.  However, our sites contain content such as PDF transcripts and YouTube videos that are not web pages and therefore cannot be tracked in this way by Google Analytics.  Additionally, Google Analytics does not track links that lead to another website.  

We can fool Google Analytics into tracking these items by using event tracking.  Event tracking uses JavaScript to set up a fake pageview for a link each time it is clicked.  Google Analytics will then collect data on this link as if it was a web page.  More about Event Tracking from Google Analytics.

To set up event tracking:

Add the following code to the link that you wish to track:

onclick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Category', 'Action', 'Label']);"

Replace the Category, Action and Label placeholders with the appropriate values for your link.  For example, if we wanted this code to track how many patrons click the WorldCat link on the Books page, the placeholders could read:

onclick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Links', 'Click', 'WorldCat link on Books page']);"

Here's an example of the full code in context:

<P>Search for a book at <A onclick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Links', 'Click', 'WorldCat link on Books page']);" href="http://www.worldcat.org">WorldCat,</A> a worldwide library catalog, then enter your location to see libraries near you that have it.</P>

To view a report of tracked events:

1. Log in to Google Analytics and click on the appropriate site.
   
   
2. In the left column, click Content, then Events, then Overview. 
   
   
   
3. To sort the top events by label, click the Event Label link under Top Content. 
   

Sorting by Event Label will likely be the most useful for our purposes, especially if the label is descriptive.  Sorting by Event Category can be useful to quickly differentiate different types of content - usually documents and videos - but the utility is limited.

Occasionally, we may want to collect data on links to site content that exist outside our website.  For example, the Reference Manager may want to see how many patrons click a link to a guide within a reference email.  The Marketing Working Group may want to track the effectiveness of their latest marketing campaign.  To accomplish this, we can add a bit of code to the link that we want to track.  This process is known as link tagging.

Example of a tagged link: 

https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/library/articlesbytopic?utm_source=Testing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Articles+By+Topic+Test

When you click on a tagged link, Google Analytics will place a cookie on your computer which can then be used to track your activity.  Of course, if the patron has disabled cookies on their computer, their information will not be tracked.  More on link tagging.

Set up link tagging

1. Go to the Google URL Builder and fill out the form.
   
   
• Enter the URL that you want to track in Step 1.
  
  
• In the Campaign Source box, enter the name of the group that you are sending the message to.  Commonly used values for this box are: students, faculty, NURS 6000 students, etc.
  
  
• In the Campaign Medium box, enter the type of communication that will contain this link, e.g. email, blog post, etc.
  
  
• In the Campaign Name box, enter a unique value that describes the link.
  
  
• Skip the Campaign Term and Campaign Content boxes.
  
  
2. Click the blue Submit button.  This will generate a URL, which you can place in your email or external site.
   

Viewing link tagging reports

1. Log in to Google Analytics and click on the appropriate site.
   
   
2. Click Traffic Sources, then Sources, then Campaigns.
   
   
   
3. This will bring up a list of campaigns that have directed traffic to your site along with a list of general information about the campaign.  To view more information about a campaign, click on the campaign's name.
   

Note:  Campaign data may take a day or two to populate to Google Analytics.

Path analysis shows the route the user took while navigating the site.  It shows the top entrance pages to the site, and which pages the patron clicked until they exited the site.

Path analysis is useful to determine how patrons are using the site.  Of course, we cannot know intent by looking at a path analysis report, but path analysis reports can give us a visual sense of how patrons use the website and what pages are difficult to find.

How do I create a path analysis report?

Google Analytics' path analysis tool is called Visitors Flow.

1. Log in to Google Analytics and click on the appropriate site.
   
   
2. Click the Visitors Flow link in the left column.