Google Analytics Spotlight: Custom Reports

Google Analytics Custom Reports feature has been around for a while now, but many of us are still playing around with it and finding great ways to slice and dice our data. Some of you may not have had time to poke around, so I’ll share one of my favorite custom reports with you, and let you know how to set it up yourself and get some actionable insights out of it! I realize the report name need a little work – just humor me for now.

Traffic Medium Goal Completion Effectiveness Report

This report looks at your traffic mediums and how effective they are at not only getting people to start a goal of yours (put an item in a shopping cart for example) but then out of the people who start the conversion process, how many complete your goal. Most people will look at goal completion by medium, but looking at how many people start, and any discrepancies between start and completion rate should really show you what traffic is most valuable.

In your custom report:

1. Under Metrics pull out your Goal 1 Starts (or whatever goal number you want to track) and your Goal 1 Completions under the E-Commerce section.
2. Under Dimensions select Medium under Traffic Sources. If you want to get really gritty you can look at your sources, keywords or referral path, but for now we’ll keep it simple.
3. Name & Save your report.

Pretty easy huh?

Now, if you aren’t a math whiz (guilty) throw this into Excel to pull your percentage. In the report you can get your goal abandonment rate included, but I’m a glass half-full kind of gal, and like to see the completion rate instead.

Great. Now I know that my email campaigns and PPC efforts are doing a pretty good job of getting someone to not only put something in their shopping cart, but actually buy it. Although the volume is much lower, it’s very qualified traffic, and I know I’m doing a fairly good job of targeting my PPC in particular. However,  my referral traffic definitely lacks as far as getting people to buy. Now may be a good time to look at what my top referring sites are, and if there is anything I can do to improve that traffic.

Happy Analyzing!