Performance Marketing with Google™ Analytics: Practical Strategies for Maximizing Online ROI

Chapter 5. Installing and Administering Google Analytics

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Planning an Implementation

• Creating a Google Analytics Account

• Adding the Tracking Code

• Configuration Steps

• Maintaining Your Implementations

Explaining how to implement Google Analytics is no easy task. The reason is that every Web site is different. While sites can share similar characteristics, there is "no one size fits all" implementation plan. Our goal in this chapter is to explain how to plan your Google Analytics implementation. We walk through some of the basic configuration steps, then explain the more advanced implementation processes. Finally, we explain how to maintain your implementation to avoid potential issues with your data. Our goal throughout this chapter is to stress concepts that you can apply to your own configuration.

Planning an Implementation

Most people believe that installing Google Analytics is simply adding JavaScript page tags to your site. While it is true that you need to add some code to your site (we call this process tagging) an implementation is much, much more. Because Google Analytics collects data about your online business, the configuration must be aligned with your business goals. Furthermore, it must be configured to work with the technical architecture of your site. This combination of technical configuration and business configuration is what complicates an implementation.

But installing Google Analytics is not a daunting process. It just takes a little time and planning ...