Foundations of Analytics

Google Analytics is undoubtedly the most widely used web analytics application. Emerged from and based upon the analytics-package developed by Urchin Software Corporation (which was bought by Google in April 2005), the tool has become publicly available for free under the new flagship of Google Analytics. In May 2007 the application was heavily edited, developed and released; the design was simplified and more advanced featured were added. Over years Google Analytics managed to gain on popularity because of its simplicity and many advanced features for curious site owners and professional marketers.

Google Analytics can generate up to 85 different reports that will help you analyze all possible data about your website traffic. It not only tracks visitors to your site or the number of page views, it can be used to see which content gets the most visits, time on site per visit, which ads are driving the most visitors to your site, it track the performances of your marketing campaigns, including AdWords, Adsense and emails and much, much more.

GA Tracking Code

Google Analytics will only track pages that contain the Google Analytics tracking code, this is a small Javascript snippet that needs to be added to each page of your site, either manually or through the use of plugins or tool. You will find some tools and plugins to help you do this near the bottom of this post.

For a static webpage or if you want to manually install the code into your pages, copy and paste the code segment into the bottom of your content, immediately before the body tag of each page that you wish to track.

Analytics and Flash and Flex Content

One of the most common Google Analytic implementation challenges has been tracking Flash content. In the past, Flash tracking was not provided out of the box, and every implementation had to be tailored to each individual site, developers who tracked Flash had to create their own processes to get it working.

Social media analytics

Social media analytics as the gathering of data from social media platforms to help inform us and guide our marketing strategy. By paying close attention to social media analytics, you can measure your performance against your social media goals.

Buffer Analyze is social media analytics tool for online brands that want to make better decisions about their social media strategy and measure their results without feeling overwhelmed.

3 cool features:

• Instagram Stories analytics
• Posting strategy recommendations
• Create professional reports in as few as two clicks

Social media channels:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a great combination of social media management, listening, publishing and analytics tools. It helps you ascertain what kind of content is working for you, increase the reach of your posts, improve the effectiveness of your ads, and get your whole social media team working in tandem. It has in-depth analytics features that give you a clear understanding of your performance across all social platforms.

Features:

• Customize reports by choosing from over 200 metrics and export them in PDF, Excel, or PowerPoint formats.
• Measure your customer care team’s response and resolution time on Facebook and Twitter.
• Track brand mentions better by integrating with specialized tools like Brandwatch and Talkwalker.

Social media channels:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Pinterest