No Google Analytics in 2018

[Ryan Everson]

That depends on a whole lot. How much historical data do you have and is it worth the trouble? Although I would agree attempting to understand who has access to your account(s) is probably the best method, I wouldn't do it if it's too much trouble. Just keep in mind you can always start over.

I’m willing to bet there’s quite a bit of data because typically analytics is installed at site launch and forgotten about. And I’m always willing to put in an honest reasonable effort to retain this valuable historical data.

Don’t give up and start from scratch without trying first. 6 months from now when your general manager questions why he’s paying you for your SEO skills, you’ll want to be able to show historical data for the gains you’ve made. Best of luck if you say you don’t have any historical data to compare to and to just trust you. No matter how good of a job you’re doing, you will always occasionally be asked to justify your expense existence and you’ll need data for that because you don’t want to rely on a dealership manager’s unpredictable gut feeling instead.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

@GerryFoster, instead of removing your current GA code and starting from scratch. You could simply go into your current GA account and create a separate view on the same GA ID.

Simply click here


And then click here


Now this view doesn't pull in historical data BUT, you still have all your historical in the other view and its collecting as it always has and will continue collecting. You can structure this new view anyway you want to. You can filter out all the unnecessary events and see exactly what you want your view to show. To swap views is very simple.

Just click on the view you want to see. I think you can ad up to 20 diff views per GA ID. You can also include your paid search, social and any other data into your custom views as well.


Heres some more info about creating custom views!
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2649553?hl=en

 

[Alexander Lau]

I’m willing to bet there’s quite a bit of data because typically analytics is installed at site launch and forgotten about. And I’m always willing to put in an honest reasonable effort to retain this valuable historical data.

Don’t give up and start from scratch without trying first. 6 months from now when your general manager questions why he’s paying you for your SEO skills, you’ll want to be able to show historical data for the gains you’ve made. Best of luck if you say you don’t have any historical data to compare to and to just trust you. No matter how good of a job you’re doing, you will always occasionally be asked to justify your expense existence and you’ll need data for that because you don’t want to rely on a dealership manager’s unpredictable gut feeling instead.

@GerryFoster, instead of removing your current GA code and starting from scratch. You could simply go into your current GA account and create a separate view on the same GA ID.

Simply click here
View attachment 3909

And then click here
View attachment 3910

Now this view doesn't pull in historical data BUT, you still have all your historical in the other view and its collecting as it always has and will continue collecting. You can structure this new view anyway you want to. You can filter out all the unnecessary events and see exactly what you want your view to show. To swap views is very simple.

Just click on the view you want to see. I think you can ad up to 20 diff views per GA ID. You can also include your paid search, social and any other data into your custom views as well.
View attachment 3912

Heres some more info about creating custom views!
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2649553?hl=en

If you want to create another view and manage it OK (as Rick said it'll fail to pull historical data, but at least you'll not need to reinstall property code). You would need to reinstall Personal Tools and Assets mechanisms (which at the very least you should have Custom Channel Groupings definitions / rules in place) as they do not pull over into a new View. However, you can copy these as a template from one View and re-import to another View.

He makes it seem as if there are multiple parties with access on at the very least PROPERTY level. If that is the case beware and this is where I said "it depends on your situation." If there's mismanagement from 3rd parties delete various users (if you are the super admin).

I just encountered a shit show at a fairly large PA dealer group, they had no idea who was managing what (which e-mail addresses represented who's), but I can tell you the agency / web provider culprit for the mismanagement is heavily mentioned in these waters. I killed their entire account and started over, they are fine. Their historical data didn't really tell them much because of how screwed up it was (zero goals installed, Ads / Adwords wasn't connected, Custom Channel Grouping were devoid of definitions, etc.).

 

[Rick Buffkin]

@Alexander Lau, from what I gathered from Gerry's post, theres an issue with his bounce ratio and that number is being skewed. Personally, I would suspect that the site provider or a vendor that has tag manager installed on the site, is delaying an event that is firing which in-turn restarts the GA session timer. Each time an event is fired, that timer restarts(Gerry, you can learn more here). Just from my personal experience, after I created a new view in my GA account and got rid of all the other BS events (ex: mega menu load, slideshow load, etc...) my bounce ratio in GA went up 5%, agv. session duration dropped by 30 sec's with the same number of sessions for the exact same time-frame! I'll be honest with all of you guys though. You can't trust GA as much as you want to. If the vendor is shady and they know how to, they can show you any results they want to in GA. It's not very hard!! Actually, it's amazingly simple!! Jus say'n

 

[Ryan Everson]

I just encountered a shit show at a fairly large PA dealer group, they had no idea who was managing what (which e-mail addresses represented who's), but I can tell you the agency / web provider culprit for the mismanagement is heavily mentioned in these waters. I killed their entire account and started over, they are fine. Their historical data didn't really tell them much because of how screwed up it was (zero goals installed, Ads / Adwords wasn't connected, Custom Channel Grouping were devoid of definitions, etc.).

What we've done in instances like this to make use out of the historical data is create custom segments which can replicate the functionality of goals.

I agree that it's a pain when an account is a mess, but their can still be a lot of value in the historical data - even if it is to simply justify your existence by demonstrating the positive impact you've made year over year.

 

[Alexander Lau]

@Alexander Lau, from what I gathered from Gerry's post, theres an issue with his bounce ratio and that number is being skewed. Personally, I would suspect that the site provider or a vendor that has tag manager installed on the site, is delaying an event that is firing which in-turn restarts the GA session timer. Each time an event is fired, that timer restarts(Gerry, you can learn more here). Just from my personal experience, after I created a new view in my GA account and got rid of all the other BS events (ex: mega menu load, slideshow load, etc...) my bounce ratio in GA went up 5%, agv. session duration dropped by 30 sec's with the same number of sessions for the exact same time-frame! I'll be honest with all of you guys though. You can't trust GA as much as you want to. If the vendor is shady and they know how to, they can show you any results they want to in GA. It's not very hard!! Actually, it's amazingly simple!! Jus say'n

If that's the case, I am for such methodologies and for sure the data can be skewed. You could clear out those events, most of which probably are failing to function. Maybe I missed his point, LOL!

 

[GerryFoster]

Hey all. Apologies, I was out of office yesterday, but I appreciate all the input and suggestions. @sausage king, I will be trying your method through console. First I've heard of it and it's ingenious, thank you.

@Alexander Lau I am the administrator for our analytics account. It's not a problem of users in the account, its a problem of other analytics accounts and tags running at the same time. In my other SEO work, the extremely low bounce was often due to multiple installations of the same code, whereas that isn't the case here. Our "primary" analytics is installed once and definitely needs cleanup in the dashboard (an agency made a boatload of silly goals to ensure their goal conversion rate was always above 100% (which is a factor that helped me to fire them. And while this isn't a flame thread, I have no problem calling them out by name because I think they are mega sheisty).

@reverson I appreciate your suggestions too. I will likely be employing all these tactics or a version thereof.

and finally @everyone: are there any good resources or educational blogs/video's where I can educate myself about custom channel groupings, definitions etc? It's a skill/knowledge set I am missing from my toolbox, and I would like to correct that. Anything you know about that is auto dealer centric would help! Otherwise, I'll be hitting up Paul Kochs (he has awesome education).

Thanks again everyone.

 

[Alexander Lau]

@GerryFoster shoot me an E-mail on the Custom Channel Groupings. I can assist you, free of charge.

 

[joe.pistell]

Great Thread, bump to the top

FILTERED - The raw analytics with internal dealership traffic filtered out

Ryan & the group,
I want to isolate dealer traffic to the website. I like to see it both ways, without internal and look at internal only. Any one doing this? Care to share how to set it up? I am a GA4, generations digital user.

 

[George Nenni]

Great Thread, bump to the top


Ryan & the group,
I want to isolate dealer traffic to the website. I like to see it both ways, without internal and look at internal only. Any one doing this? Care to share how to set it up? I am a GA4, generations digital user.

We can likely accommodate Joe, you would need to create a new View in GA Universal for filtered vs. not filtered. In GA4 it is a little more sophisticated, gives you the opportunity to test internal audiences using segments. Instructions in my orange GA4 book, or glad to demo.