Google Analytics Individual Qualification Exam Answers

Scenario: The Google Merchandise Store recently launched a mobile responsive website and started a few new ad campaigns. When looking at their overall traffic in Google Analytics, they noticed that they have a bounce rate of 85%. Which of the following dimensions would be useful when analyzing their traffic to determine the cause of this high bounce rate?

Device Category

landing page

Campaign

A and C only

A, B, and C

the google merchandise store recently launched a mobile responsive website

Explanation:

A bounce is a single-page session on your site. In Analytics, a bounce is calculated specifically as a session that triggers only a single request to the Analytics server, such as when a user opens a single page on your site and then exits without triggering any other requests to the Analytics server during that session.

Bounce rate is single-page sessions divided by all sessions, or the percentage of all sessions on your site in which users viewed only a single page and triggered only a single request to the Analytics server.

These single-page sessions have a session duration of 0 seconds since there are no subsequent hits after the first one that would let Analytics calculate the length of the session.

Source

A bounce is a single-page session on your site. In Analytics, a bounce is calculated specifically as a session that triggers only a single request to the Analytics server, such as when a user opens a single page on your site and then exits without triggering any other requests to the Analytics server during that session.

Bounce rate is single-page sessions divided by all sessions, or the percentage of all sessions on your site in which users viewed only a single page and triggered only a single request to the Analytics server.

These single-page sessions have a session duration of 0 seconds since there are no subsequent hits after the first one that would let Analytics calculate the length of the session. Learn more about how session duration is calculated.

Is a high bounce rate a bad thing?

It depends.

If the success of your site depends on users viewing more than one page, then, yes, a high bounce rate is bad. For example, if your home page is the gateway to the rest of your site (e.g., news articles, product pages, your checkout process) and a high percentage of users are viewing only your home page, then you don’t want a high bounce rate.

On the other hand, if you have a single-page site like a blog, or offer other types of content for which single-page sessions are expected, then a high bounce rate is perfectly normal.

Lower your bounce rate

Examine your bounce rate from different perspectives. For example:

• The Audience Overview report provides the overall bounce rate for your site.
• The Channels report provides the bounce rate for each channel grouping.
• The All Traffic report provides the bounce rate for each source/medium pair.
• The All Pages report provides the bounce rate for individual pages.

If your overall bounce rate is high, then you can dig deeper to see whether it’s uniformly high or whether it’s the result of something like one or two channels, source/medium pairs, or just a few pages.

For example, if just a few pages are the problem, examine whether the content correlates well with the marketing you use to drive users to those pages, and whether those pages offer users easy paths to the next steps you want them to take.

If a particular channel has a high bounce rate, take a look at your marketing efforts for that channel: for example, if users coming via display are bouncing, make sure your ads are relevant to your site content.

If the problem is more widespread, take a look at your tracking-code implementation to be sure all the necessary pages are tagged and that they’re tagged correctly. And you may want to reevaluate your overall site design and examine the language, graphics, color, calls to action, and visibility of important page elements.

You can use Optimize to test different versions of your site pages to see which designs encourage users to engage more.

If you have a single-page site, learn about non-interaction events that you can implement to better capture user engagement and identify single-page sessions that are not bounces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvLawi5l2LU

You recently set up a new AdWords campaign and you are interested in using Smart Goals to optimize your performance. Which of the following is a prerequisite to using Smart Goals?

The linked AdWords account must have sent at least 1000 clicks to the selected Google Analytics view over the past 30 days .

You must modify your tracking code to support Smart Goals data collection.

You must enable “Smart Goals” in your property settings.

The selected Google Analytics account must have at least 500 sessions over the past 30 days.

You recently set up a new AdWords campaign and you are interested in using Smart Goals to optimize your performance. Which of the following is a prerequisite to using Smart Goals

Explanation:

Measuring explicit conversions, using either AdWords Conversion Tracking or imported Analytics Ecommerce transactions, is the best way to optimize your bids, your ads, and your website. However, if you aren’t yet measuring conversions, Smart Goals is an easy way to use your best sessions as conversions. You can then use Smart Goals to optimize your AdWords performance.

Source

How Smart Goals work

Smart Goals are configured at the view level. Smart Goals uses machine learning to examine dozens of signals about your website sessions to determine which of those are most likely to result in a conversion. Each session is assigned a score, with the “best” sessions being translated into Smart Goals. Some examples of the signals included in the Smart Goals model are Session duration, Pages per session, Location, Device and Browser. (Remarketing Smart Lists use a similar machine learning model to identify your best users.)

To determine the best sessions, Smart Goals establishes a threshold by selecting approximately the top 5% of the traffic to your site coming from AdWords. Once that threshold is set, Smart Goals applies it to all your website sessions, including traffic from channels other than AdWords. After enabling Smart Goals in Analytics, they can be imported into AdWords.

Prerequisites for using Smart Goals

To use Smart Goals, you’ll need to meet certain prerequisites and complete the following actions:

1. Link your Analytics and AdWords account(s).
2. The linked AdWords account must have sent at least 500 clicks to the selected Analytics view over the past 30 days before you can set up Smart Goals.

   If the linked account falls below 250 clicks over the past 30 days for the selected view, Smart Goals will be deactivated until the clicks rise again to 500 or more.

3. The reporting view must not receive more than 10 million sessions in 30 days.
4. The Data Sharing setting Google products and services must be turned on for your Analytics account. See the instructions below:

Step 1: Enable Smart Goals

If your view is eligible, you can enable Smart Goals by selecting the Smart Goal goal type when following the regular goal setup flow:

Step 2: Import Smart Goals into Adwords

To use Smart Goals to optimize your AdWords performance, you must first import them into AdWords. Here are the basic steps to do this:

Step 3: Optimize AdWords performance using Smart Goals

To optimize your AdWords performance using Smart Goals, we recommend you use Target CPA bidding, a flexible automated bid strategy. You can also use manual CPC bidding if you would like to manage bids yourself.

After importing Smart Goals into AdWords, let Smart Goals run for a few weeks to accumulate sufficient data. Then, to start using Smart Goals to optimize AdWords performance, divide the cost of your ads by the number of completed Smart Goals. This is your cost per acquisition (CPA). You can set your target CPA in Adwords accordingly.

Example:

You spent $2,000 in Adwords over the past two weeks and have 80 Smart Goals conversions. Therefore, the average CPA for a Smart Goals session during that time period is $25 ($2,000 / 80 = $25). This is the average cost for you to acquire a session with a high likelihood to convert, based on the Smart Goals model.

In this example, you should set your target CPA in Adwords to $25.

The Smart Goals report

To help you see how Smart Goals perform, use the Conversions > Goals > Smart Goals report. This report shows you how your Smart Goals traffic differs from other traffic. You can also include the Smart Goals Completed dimension in custom reports.

Limitations of Smart Goals

Smart Goals are subject to the following limits and restrictions.

• Smart Goals are not configurable or customizable.
• You can have one Smart Goal per view.
• Smart Goals will take up 1 of the 20 available goal slots (like any other goal).
• Smart Goals are currently only available for website views. Smart Goals cannot be used for mobile app views.
• Smart Goals are not available for views that receive more than 1 million hits per day.
• Smart Goals do not support View-Through Conversions (VTCs) or cross-device conversions in AdWords

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmQGrUmq_eU

The User ID feature lets you associate engagement data from multiple devices and different sessions with unique IDs. In order to use the User ID feature in Analytics you must

• use Google Tag Manager for your Analytics tracking
• be able to generate your own unique IDs
• create a new Analytics account for User ID reporting
• all of the above

The user id feature lets you associate engagement data from multiple devices

Explanation:

The User ID lets you associate engagement data from multiple devices and different sessions with unique IDs.

Each unique User ID is considered to be a unique user in Analytics, so you get a more accurate user count in your reports. When you send Analytics an ID and related data over the course of multiple sessions, you can also put individual user actions in context and start analyzing ongoing relationships.

Source

User ID lets you associate a persistent ID for a single user with that user’s engagement data from one or more sessions initiated from one or more devices.

Analytics interprets each unique user ID as a separate user, which provides a more accurate user count in your reports.

When you send Analytics an ID and related data from multiple sessions, your reports tell a more unified, holistic story about a user’s relationship with your business.

How User-ID works

User-ID enables the association of one or more sessions (and the activity within those sessions) with a unique and persistent ID that you send to Analytics.

To implement User-ID, you must be able to generate your own unique IDs, consistently assign IDs to users, and include these IDs wherever you send data to Analytics.

For example, you could send the unique IDs generated by your own authentication system to Analytics as values for User-ID. Any engagement, like link clicks and page or screen navigation, that happen while a unique ID is assigned can be sent to Analytics and connected via User-ID.

In an Analytics implementation without the User-ID feature, a unique user is counted each time your content is accessed from a different device and each time there’s a new session. For example, a search on a phone one day, purchase on a laptop three days later, and request for customer service on a tablet a month after that are counted as three unique users in a standard Analytics implementation, even if all those actions took place while a user was signed in to an account. While you can collect data about each of those interactions and devices, you can’t determine their relevance to one another. You only see independent data points.

When you implement User-ID, you can identify related actions and devices and connect these seemingly independent data points. That same search on a phone, purchase on a laptop, and re-engagement on a tablet that previously looked like three unrelated actions on unrelated devices can now be understood as one user’s interactions with your business.

Session unification

Session unification is a User-ID setting that allows hits collected before a user ID is assigned to be associated with the ID.

Learn more

Next steps

To set up User-ID, you must first enable the feature in your Analytics account (Edit permission required), and then modify your tracking code. Learn more

You can verify your setup by checking the data in the User-ID Coverage report.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y0PfFSNIb4

The Google Analytics SDK or tracking code sends campaign and traffic source data through a number of different fields. Which of the following is one of the fields used to send campaign or traffic source data?

• Location
• Campaign Medium
• Device Category
• Interest Category

The google analytics sdk or tracking code sends campaign and traffic source

Explanation:

Users arrive at your website or application through a variety of sources, including advertising campaigns, search engines, and social networks. This article describes how Analytics collects, processes, and reports the campaign and traffic-source data.

Understanding campaigns & traffic sources

In Analytics, the ad campaigns, search engines, social networks, and other sources that send users to your property are collectively known as campaigns and traffic sources. The process by which campaign and traffic-source data is sent to Analytics and populated in reports has the following steps:

• Collection – values are sent to Google Analytics in the campaign and traffic-source fields using the SDKs or tracking code.
• Processing – collected values are used to populate the final report dimensions according to a processing logic.
• Reporting – campaign and traffic-source dimensions and metrics become available in the web interface and Reporting API.

Collection, processing, and reporting behavior can be customized.

Collection

The Analytics SDKs and tracking code use these fields when sending campaign and traffic-source data:

Note that each session can be attributed to only one campaign or traffic source. Thus, if new campaign or traffic source values are sent to Analytics at collection time in the middle of an existing session, it causes the current session to end and a new session to start.

Processing

During processing, traffic-source and campaign field values are finalized into dimension values and attributed to sessions. The Campaign & Traffic Sources Processing Flowchart illustrates the processing logic.

The following methods apply to processing that uses utm_ parameter values (e.g., display, social, referral, email, paid search, etc.).

• Source precedence—A direct-traffic visit that follows a paid-referred visit will never override an existing paid campaign. Whatever is the latest paid campaign visit is listed as the referral for the visit
• Campaign precedence—Each visit to your site from a different paid source—such as from a paid search-engine link, an Adwords link, or a banner ad—overrides the campaign cookie information set by a previous source.
• One Campaign Per Session—Each visit to your site from a different campaign—organic or paid—triggers a new session, regardless of the actual time elapsed in the current session. Specifically, a change in value for any of the following campaign URL parameters triggers a new session: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_term, utm_content, utm_id, utm_campaign, gclid. For more information on sessions, see How a session is defined in Analytics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pchsqiaUeV0

Which of the following questions can be answered using the goal flow report?

• Do visitors usually start my conversion process from the first step or somewhere in the middle?
• All of these can be answered using the goal flow report.
• Is there a place in my funnel where traffic loops back to the beginning of the conversion process to start over?
• Are there any steps in my conversion process that don’t perform well on mobile devices compared to desktop devices?
• Are there a lot of unexpected exits from a step in the middle of my conversion funnel?

which of the following questions can be answered using the goal flow report

Explanation:

The Goal Flow report shows the path your traffic traveled through a funnel towards a Goal conversion. This report can help you see if users are navigating your content as expected, or if there are problems, such as high drop-off rates or unexpected loops.

You can read more here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2520139?hl=en

The Goal Flow report shows the path your traffic traveled through a funnel towards a Goal conversion. This report can help you see if users are navigating your content as expected, or if there are problems, such as high drop-off rates or unexpected loops.

Goal Flow report prerequisites

You must have set up goals to use the Goal Flow report, and you should combine goals and Funnels for better information.

Access the Goal Flow report

To see the Goal Flow report:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. Navigate to your view.
3. Open Reports.
4. Select Conversions > Goals > Goal Flow.

What can I do with the Goal Flow report?

Use the Goal Flow report to investigate questions like:

• Where do users enter my funnel—at the first step, or are they jumping in somewhere in the middle?
• Are there a lot of unexpected exits from a step in the middle of the funnel?
• Is there a place where traffic loops back?
• Is there one segment of traffic that acts differently than other segments? Is it converting more or less often?

If a segment of traffic behaves differently than you would like at any particular step, take a look at that content. You might find an element that doesn’t render properly or that the navigation from a user’s perspective is different than you expected when you set up your funnel. After an evaluation and making any necessary corrections, revisit the Goal Flow Report in a few weeks to see if the changes you made improved the conversion rate for that specific goal.

Limits of the Goal Flow report

Goal data is processed differently from regular Analytics data. Learn more about features with non-standard data processing.

Next steps

Assuming you have already created at least 1 goal and collected some data for it, access the Goal Flow report now and explore. For information about how to configure the report and use the different visualization options, read Using Flow reports.

Once you have a general idea of how the Goal Flow report works, read the “Example” articles in this topic to see some specific recommendations for using the report to optimize your content and troubleshoot issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yywU3JoqpGo

Which of the following should you NOT collect with the Google Analytics ecommerce JavaScript?

• purchase amount
• product SKU(s)
• billing city
• credit card number
• tax amount

Which of the following should you NOT collect with the Google Analytics ecommerce JavaScript

Explanation:

Credit card number is very sensitive information which should never be collected or try to collect with any script. It may land you in trouble and you may face legal proceedings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27CgQdNadk0