Account Structure:

Check if the structure of the Google Analytics account is respected. Google recommends that we always keep the default unfiltered view with the raw data, then create a second view reserved for testing and then the main view where we can apply filters. This structure allows us to modify the main view at any time and at the same time to permanently keep access to raw data unfiltered.

Many mistakes are made when setting up the Google Analytics account and some setup options are forgotten due to a lack of knowledge. You should create at least 3 data views during setup. 

In addition to the data view set-up, the following points should be considered along with many other points:

• Referral exclusion
• Default URL Setup
• Link Attribution
• Link to other Google services
• The choice of time zone
• Setup of eCommerce tracking
• Site Search / Category Search Setup
• AdWords integration
• Integration of the Google Search Console

The Installation Of Filters:

GA audits can also give you insight into how well your filters are working. You may think you’re getting accurate data, but one or more of your filters are completely disabled or misconfigured.

Performing the audit gives you the opportunity to rework the filters to obtain more reliable data

Bots, spam, or even internal traffic have a significant impact on the reliability of the statistics displayed in Google Analytics.

Here are the main filters that can be put in place in order to have cleaner and more relevant data:

• Exclude internal traffic (calls from internal IP addresses)
• Exclude spam referrers and traffic from known bots
• Include only hostnames related to your site.

Association With Other Google Products:

Do not forget to use the association features available in Google Analytics. Combining tools allows us to greatly enrich our data and increase our analysis potential. So check the association of your Google Analytics account with other tools such as Google Adwords, Google Adsense, or Google Search Console. When associated with Google Adwords, we can, for example, analyze how well our ads result in conversions and then analyze the final profitability of our Adwords campaigns.

Having mixed data in an account is also useful when creating reports. This avoids the creation of additional sources and facilitates the data visualization procedure.

Marking Errors:

If during the analysis, you detect atypical situations such as no conversions, a too-low or too-high bounce rate, URL problems or loss of parameters, or an unexpected drop in traffic, it is very likely that ‘there is an error tagging or configuring items in your Google Analytics account.

Implementing Google Analytics seems simple enough, but you may have done it wrong in your site, account, or tag. The tracking code itself can cause some problems on websites. Google updates tracking codes from time to time, so it’s possible that your code is too old to report the correct data in your account.

Other issues include incorrect code location and duplicate codes. If a code is duplicated on a page, it artificially inflates the statistics since the script will be activated several times.

It is, therefore, necessary to launch an additional tag configuration analysis in order to identify the causes that may have caused this unforeseen situation.

Understand Where Your Traffic Is Coming From:

If your GA code is not present on all your pages, you will necessarily miss some data allowing you to better understand your environment. To get the right data, you need to have the right settings.

This is why a Google Analytics audit can provide you with a lot of information about the quality of your data. The distribution of your traffic is a particularly important element for your future positioning choices.

Incorrect settings in the filtering quickly ensure that too much or too much data is filtered out. This inevitably leads to significantly fewer measured page sessions. For this reason, the filter set should be checked and adjusted during the Google Analytics audits.

Properly Track The Sales Of Your Online Store:

Another common problem discovered during a Google Analytics audit is the inaccuracy of the data in the e-commerce part. Your transactions may not be correctly integrated into Google Analytics.

Performing an audit not only uncovers the problem but also gives you the opportunity to fix it by adding parameters and putting conditions to remove bad data using filters.

Check The Achievement Of Objectives:

The importance of setting Google Analytics goals for your website cannot be underestimated. What’s the point of tracking anything if you’re not working towards a specific goal?

It is possible that goals are incorrectly defined in Google Analytics. Goal tracking can also be compromised. An audit can reveal any problem, which could tell a very different story about how close or far you are to achieving your goals.

Google Analytics is not an end in itself. Optimization only makes sense with stored business goals. Against this background, the so-called goals should be set in the Google Analytics backend and conversions in the form of leads or sales should be recorded. It makes sense here to display the recorded conversions (if they build on each other) as a funnel.

Identify The Pages With A High Conversion Rate:

Another great insight you can get from an audit is knowing which pages on your site are driving more conversions than others. You may even be able to identify high-converting keywords and phrases if you push the content analysis.

With this information in your possession, you can adjust your content strategy to include more keywords of the same type or any other type of elements that will make these pages successful.

The most important checkpoint is to check which insights can be generated with Google Analytics for the company. The specific business value should be the focus of the efforts. The versatile uses of Google Analytics quickly help to get better insights into your own business.

Alerts:

To react as quickly as possible, consider configuring alerts in the Google Analytics interface. They allow you to send an e-mail according to the conditions you have defined in order to correct the problem identified as quickly as possible. Here are some examples of useful alerts to set up in Google Analytics:

• No data was recorded during the day
• Drop in traffic
• Decrease in the number of transactions
• The bounce rate is too high

After performing the generic account audit, we can customize it by taking into account the main objectives of the analyzed site.

Go Further In Your Approach:

Google Analytics doesn’t have to be too complicated, but you might not use it as effectively as you thought. An audit could show you how unreliable your data is and how you can improve it with the expertise of a data analyst.

Scorecards:

Analysis of the site’s target audience is an important marketing function that helps to form a user profile and, based on this, make effective marketing decisions, correctly position products, optimize landing pages, and adjust the site structure. After checking the settings and settings of the analytics counters, the analysis of the quality and completeness of the data collected in Google Analytics is performed. First, the main indicators that are collected by the counters are analyzed: bounce rate, page views, browsing depth, and so on.

A reporting foundation is developed in tandem with the execution of data gathering to guarantee that the strategy’s goals are achieved by sending reports to the appropriate parties at the appropriate intervals. We will work with your team to give useful insights from the data collected, whether your needs are covered by the reports offered inside your analytics product or if you need data extracted for reporting using a business intelligence solution.

Checklists:

The analytics experts will translate the specifications and the architecture into a data-gathering implementation once the Analytics Tracking Strategy has been authorized.

This entails establishing the data layer and coordinating its correct deployment with your development team. The selected tag management system is set up and appropriately connected to the data layer while working with development on the data layer to satisfy both analytics and marketing data requirements.

After that, the analytics solution is implemented into the tag management system. The adjustments required to get the data your company needs have all been set up. We are able to manage every aspect of the analytics tracking GA setup thanks to the tag management system.

The framework includes a fix for any missing or improperly configured components. Each Google Analytics feature can be fixed according to a common recommendation or process, that makes our work consistent and impress our client.

A consistent structure, such as a checklist, is essential for making sure that everything is monitored and set up properly. Due to the fact that it provides a visual picture of our client’s Google Analytics, it also provides you with excellent documentation for reporting.

Communicate:

Web analytics to measure marketing results have brought about a radical change in the way products and services are marketed, and audits are a tool that guides companies to know if they are on the right track. Do not panic if you do not know how to do a Google Analytics audit, because you have time and you can learn with this article, which is a small guide to Google Analytics for beginners. We communicate with each client and ask about their needs.

We will review your Google Analytics and apply all necessary fixes, filters, and improvements. Once the review is finished, you will receive a report with detailed information, so you know exactly what I did. From now on you can be sure that your Analytics has been implemented correctly and that the data you are receiving is clear and meaningful.

What Is Included In The Basic Audit Plan?

• Installation of the tracking code on the site
• Account/Ownership/Views setup and best practices
• Filters for traffic generated by you or your team
• Advanced filter for phantom spam
• Filters optimized for spam crawler
• Referral Exclusion List
• Unnatural direct traffic analysis
• Review of other essential settings
• Detailed report and personal support

What Is Included In The Intermediate Audit Plan?

• Advanced tracking and customizations
• Custom implementation
• Goal Setting
• Custom dashboards and reports
• Scheduled emails/reports
• E-commerce Tracking
• Tracking between different domains
• Dynamic IP filtering
• Google Tag Manager Settings
• New Data Studio Configuration

What Is Included In The Advanced Audit Plan?

• The main goal of the audit is to increase the efficiency of investment in traffic and increase the conversion of the online store:
• Understand how the site is convenient for visitors;
• Identify problems that users face when passing through the sales funnel;
• Identify the reasons for low conversion and its growth points;
• Improve behavioral factors, which will positively affect the growth of positions in search engines.
• Audit of web analytics systems of the site,
• Target audience analysis,
• Web analytics,
• Frontend and functional testing,
• Usability testing,
• Usability testing on real users,
• Making recommendations and a plan to improve the site.
• Audit of web analytics systems of the site