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

Chapter 7. Advanced Analysis Concepts and Features

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Using Segmentation to Find Meaning in Your Data

• Analyzing Data with Advanced Segments

• Bringing Together Key Metrics and Dimensions with Custom Reports

• Visualizing Data Across Multiple Dimensions with Motion Charts

• Grouping and Analyzing Data with Pivot Tables

• Measuring Spikes and Trends with Intelligence Reports and Custom Alerts

This chapter dives into concepts critical to successfully conducting advanced analysis and provides a practical review of the built-in tools in Google Analytics designed for this purpose. If you're not excited about reading this chapter already, then you should get excited now! Why? Because advanced analysis is where everything comes together and where the greatest value lies.

Think about it: Most valuable things take digging to find, like gold or diamonds — so why should Web analytics be any different? And in fact it isn't — the proverbial goldmine of insight from Web analytics is buried deep beneath the surface of the data just waiting to be found using advanced analysis techniques and tools.

Using Segmentation to Find Meaning in Your Data

Think of advanced analysis as an X-ray for your online marketing and Web site data, allowing you to peer inside and see what's really going on. Indeed, the picture you see from looking at the "outside" of the data (consider Figure 7.1) may be starkly different from what you'll find when looking beneath the surface (see Figure 7.2's segmented data). The tools covered ...