Presented 8 Nov 2018 at the National Library of NZ

1. Metrics Analysis for GLAMs
Using Google Analytics
National Library of NZ (and friends)
8 November, 2018
Michael Lascarides
@mlascarides

2. Analytics is
storytelling

3. There are no
absolute
answers

4. Google Analytics: Pro
•Free
•Ubiquitous
•Powerful
•Well-maintained
•Easy to use and
install
•Anonymized
•Accurate
•Well-filtered

5. Google Analytics: Con
•It’s Google
•Could be more
powerful
•Not useful for
bandwidth,
downloads
•Has its limits

6. How it works:

7. How it works:

8. How it works:

9. How it works:

10. http://code.stephenmorley.org/javascript/
understanding-the-google-analytics-tracking-
code/

11. Analytics Help
https://support.google.com/analytics

12. https://analytics.google.com/
dnzgaworkshop @ gmail.com
pwd: DigitalNZRocks

13. Some
definitions

14. Properties
Dates
Reports
Exports
Segments

15. Metrics vs
Dimensions

16. Metrics
Things you can
count: Pageviews,
visits, events, etc.

17. Dimensions:
Things you can sort
by: Country, page
title, OS, browser,
etc.

18. Metrics & Dimensions
Explorer
https://developers.google.com/analytics/
devguides/reporting/core/dimsmets

19. THE FUNDAMENTAL METRICS ARE
Sessions,
Users,
Pageviews

20. Pageview
A load of a single
HTML page.

21. User
(AKA Unique Visitor)
A single person*, to
the best of our
ability.
* Really, it’s a single browser cookie.

22. Session
(AKA Visit)
A sequence of pages
visited by a single visitor
with no more than 30
minutes between pages.

23. Scenario:
Ellen views 6 pages in 10
minutes on Monday
morning, and 5 pages in 20
minutes on Tuesday.

24. Scenario:
Ellen views 6 pages in 10
minutes on Monday
morning, and 5 pages in 20
minutes on Tuesday.
That’s 1 visitor, 11
pageviews, and 2 sessions.

25. USEFUL RATIOS OF THE
FUNDAMENTALS
Sessions per visitor
Pageviews per session

26. ALSO INTERESTING
Time on Site*
* Warning: Easy to misunderstand.

27. OCCASIONALLY UTILITARIAN
Bounce Rate

28. Users,
Behavior,
Acquisition

29. Users:
Who are they?

30. User reports:
•Geographic
location (country,
city, sometimes
more)
•Demographics
(privacy
implications!)
•Screen
resolutions
•Devices
•Browsers&
versions
•More!

31. EXERCISE:
What appears to be the
next-most-popular
language our visitors
speak after English?

32. EXERCISE:
What was the change in
mobile traffic share from
May 2016 to May 2017?

33. EXERCISE:
Is the percentage of our
audience using MacOS
rising or shrinking?

34. EXERCISE:
How many different
countries sent visitors to
us in October?

35. Acquisition:
Where did they come
from?

36. Acquisition reports:
•Referring site
•Search engine
•External search
keyword
•Campaigns
•Direct traffic
•Referring page
•Social Media
•More!

37. EXERCISE:
What were the top 10 terms
searched on search
engines that led to Natlib in
August 2018?
How far down the list do
you have to go to get a
“non-boring” one?

38. EXERCISE:
There was a big spike in
traffic on 4 March, 2015.
Why?

39. Treemaps

40. Behaviour:
What did they do?

41. Behavior reports:
•Pages viewed
•Flow
•Page landed on
•Site search
•Event tracking
•Content Drilldown
•More!

42. GLAMs
❤
Site Search!

43. EXERCISE:
What are the top 20 most
popular pages on the
whole site?

44. EXERCISE:
What are the 5 most
popular blog posts on Natlib
so far in 2018?
Hint: Blog URLs start with
“/blog/”

45. EXERCISE:
What are top 10 most
searched terms on the
Natlib site in May 2018?

46. EXERCISE:
What was the most-visited
collection item on Natlib in
2017? Why was it so popular?
Hint: Item URLs take the form
“/records/IDNumber”

47. GLAM-
Specific

48. Considerations for
GLAMs
•The behavior of your
public terminals
•The seasonality of
your traffic
•The “curve” of your
week
•Understanding
Spikes
•The profile of your
recency/frequency
(ie, dedicated visitors
vs one-timers)
•Don’t forget to track
after the
engagement!

49. Advanced cool
stuff

50. Visitor Flow

51. EXERCISE:
Use visitor flow to
visualise where,
in general, Australians
go on our site

52. Real-Time

53. EXERCISE:
From which NZ city are
the most people visiting
Natlib right now?

54. Advanced
Segments

55. EXERCISE:
How many people visited
the He Tohu site on an
iPad last month vs
August 2017?

56. EXERCISE:
What was the most popular
search term used by
Aucklanders using Chrome
on a Mac in April 2018 who
also visited a Schools page
during their visit?

57. Custom
Variables

58. Event
Tracking

59. EXERCISE:
In the past couple of
months, what search
terms were used by
people who visited at least
one Whites Aviation photo?

60. Goals,
Conversions
and Funnels

61. “Fake
e-commerce”