Today we are going to walk you through the steps needed to get the most out of your Google Analytics Account. Even better, we are going to be building a set of Google Analytics checklists that you can use to improve your account performance.
Why checklists?
Well, Google Analytics can be overwhelming. There are so many features and reports that you can use. And there are so many different things you can do with Google Analytics.
Checklists are a great way to keep things simple and focus on building your account one step at a time.
So, whether you are:
- Setting up a new account,
- Implementing a new tracking solution,
- Or automating your reporting
Checklists can help you become more effective by following the exact steps you need to take to get the job done right.
With that in mind, I am hoping to build a master set of Google Analytics Checklists that you can use to optimize your account and improve the quality of your results.
My team would like to create a set of easy to follow, step-by-step guides for everything GA; from starting a brand new account to auditing your data quality.
But, before we build these guides, I want to hear from you. Take a look at the resources we working on in video and post below.
Then let us know which one of these guides would be the most valuable to you?
Leave your vote for the first checklist you want to see in the comment section below. We'll start working on these Google Analytics checklists based on your votes.
Google Analytics Checklists
Analytics Course student question about checklists
Where did we get the idea? Well, it all started with a question from an Analytics Course student named Steve.
Steve Asks:
I'm still a relatively new SEO Agency and in fact just landed my first “official” client yesterday, a Realtor. If anything, I sure could use a “checklist” of sorts for some basic “must do” analytics. As I'm sure you know, there is just not enough time in the day when trying to get up and running and also trying to get clients.
Steve makes a salient point. A handy checklist would be the perfect resource for simplifying the Google Analytics account setup and audit process.
But, I've never actually seen such a checklist, at least to the quality standards we expect to provide our students. Steve's question got me to thinking about building.
The ultimate set of Google Analytics checklists
There all kinds of techniques and strategies in Google Analytics that a checklist could help simplify.
Checklists also make sense because there are so many different ways to use Google Analytics. But most people only use the default settings, which means they miss out on the bigger picture.
A complete set of Checklists can serve as a menu of what Google Analytics has available. These checklists can help you see which solutions make the most sense for your account. And they can show you the steps you need to take to get the most out of your data.
So here's the list of Google Analytics checklists we've come up with:
Google Analytics account audit checklist
The Audit Checklist is for existing analytics accounts. It would help you make sure your account is tracking correctly. And it would show how to look for upgrades that can improve your data quality.
New account setup checklist
This checklist would be a setup guide for new users. It would walk you through every step you need to consider when you're installing a new account.
Analytics tagging checklist
Tagging is big part upgrading your analytics. This checklist might even work hand-in-hand with an account audit guide. Making sure you install tags the right way, and that they are in the right places, is critical to your data quality.
Better tagging = better data = better decision making.
Google Tag Manager (GTM) migration checklist
Moving to GTM can be a complicated process. If you miss steps, you can bungle up your data or stop your tracking altogether.
This checklist would highlight the critical steps you need to follow when moving from on-page analytics to GTM.
Data quality checklist
At its core, Google Analytics is a data collections system. The quality of your analysis is only as good as the data you collect.
You need to weed out things like self-referrals, spam referrers, internal IP hits, and other sources that can corrupt your data.
This checklist would help you make sure you only have quality data coming into analytics account.
A view consistency checklist
Each property in your analytics account can have as many as 25 views.
When you start adding lots of views, things can get messy.
Having many views in one account can become a problem if team members are relying on views that don't include the same information.
This guide would cover crucial steps like double checking your filters, settings, and goals for each view.
Data integration checklist
Google Analytics can bring in data from a lot of different sources:
Your website, Search Console, AdWords, AdSense and more.
This checklist would help work through your integration form each data source. It would guide you through making sure your integrations are functional and complete.
Goal audit checklist
Goals are essential to your analytics if you truly want to measure the value of your marketing. But they can be confusing to set up.
We can use a checklist to walk through choosing your goals, setting your goal values, and testing your goals.
Channel and content grouping checklist
Want to save a few hours a week analyzing the value of your content marketing? Set up custom channel groupings. We did a full tutorial on custom channel groupings several weeks ago – How to Create a Custom Channel Grouping in Google Analytics.
Channel groupings are another amazingly valuable feature in Google Analytics. Most people overlook this feature because they feel like it's too advanced to use. But we can simplify setting up custom channel groupings by using a checklist.
Essential reporting and dashboard checklist
Analytics reporting is a critical part of many businesses. But if you're the person responsible for running reports, this can be a daunting task.
You can simplify reporting just by knowing what's available and using dashboards. Dashboards are a great way to make running and sharing reports much easier.
This checklist would help you identify what reports are available. And then guide you through setting up dashboards, and other basic reporting automation.
Data deep dive checklist
Want to get more out of your data? We can use a checklist to help you dig deeper into Google Analytics. This checklist would be used to help you assess the full capabilities of the data your collecting. And it would help you see where to add annotations (a feature that's not yet in GA4) so the rest of your team can benefit from your research.
Campaign tracking checklist
You need to make sure your analytics account is set up to track your campaigns.
Every time you drive traffic you want to see the results. Whether you are sending out a product offer over email or publishing a huge blog post, you want to know the return on your efforts. If you're prepared to track your campaigns, analytics can show you how they perform.
This checklist would guide you through how to track and analyze your marketing campaigns.
Attribution checklist
Choosing an attribution model can have a significant impact on how you measure the value of your marketing.
This guide would help you decide which attribution model to use for your business. And it would map the steps to get the best insights from the attribution model you set up.
Account access audit checklist
You should have an access log for anyone using your analytics account. You need to know who in your company has access, and what level of access they have. Tracking this access becomes vital when you're adding new employees and when you have employee turnover.
This checklist would serve as an SOP (standard operating procedure) for tracking your team members' analytics access.
Data import checklist
Importing data into Google Analytics can be a scary job. You don't want to mangle your account with a bad import. This checklist would detail the steps you need to follow to import new data into your account safely.
Any other checklists?
So there's the entire volume of checklist we are thinking of creating. What do you think? Did we miss any strategies or techniques that could be simplified with a checklist?
Vote for your favorite checklist
We will release our checklists based on your comments.
- New account setup checklist
- Analytics tagging checklist
- GTM Migration checklist
- Data quality checklist
- View consistency checklist
- Data integration checklist
- Goal audit checklist
- Channel and content grouping checklist
- Essential reporting and dashboard checklist
- Data deep dive checklist
- Campaign tracking checklist
- Attribution checklist
- Account access audit checklist
- Data import checklist
Leave a comment with the Google Analytics checklist you want the most below.