When talking to a potential client one of the things I usually ask is if I could take a peep into their analytics, even if analytics isn’t the service we are providing. Reason being, before my team decides on doing any type of usability study for a website I try to discover what the current online patterns are and if the analytics account is stable for a business continuity plan. You might be asking why does having a good analytics account matter, but just because your done with a usability study it doesn’t mean the optimizing ends there. Having a platform to continually record a user’s behavior is a practice  every marketer or website owner should establish. A strong analytics environment makes sure that the data is:

1. Relevant- is your analytics solution collecting information you need.

2. Reliable- is it providing accurate data.

3. Usable- is it presenting data in actionable summaries.

Big questions now is “how do you check a new account and make sure that it is reliable and collecting the appropriate data”. Well it’s not super simple but it’s not super hard either, below are the five ways in which I quickly audit a Google Analytics account.

1). KPI Awareness

I know I know at times this could be like pulling teeth because the answer always is “to generate more leads and increase revenue.”  Don’t roll your eyes, instead ask your client what is important for a user to do on the website, and also how are they supporting their business goals. If you still don’t get a good answer then usually what I do is go through the website and experience it like a user. I buy and return something, fill out a form (soft joins too), download software, double very my email, whatever it takes to understand what the website and how a user experiences it.This gives me a high-level perspective of what data I would want to see if I was the analyst, such as a commerce report that displayed the following:

• Purchase order (SKU number, sales amount, color, etc)
• Returns
• Cart Abandonment

Doing this exercise helps me understand what data I need to see within Google Analytics to create valuable KPI’s. The next step is checking the code, and making sure all the variables have there I’s dotted and T’s crossed.

(Tip: I usually open a excel file and snag-it every page that I go through to make comment, and collect the URLs of the pages.)

2). JavaScript Scan

If you simply just want to find out if the website has properly place the Google Analytics tracking code on the website just go to SiteScan put your URL in and wait for the report to be delivered. (It once found that a client had both the legacy Urchin code and the new Google Analytics on their website!) For more custom data, let’s take the ecommerce example above checking to see if this code fires up correctly gets a bit more extricate. For this I usually view and copy the source data when I am going the website and if the numbers don’t match up I take it to my awesome developer to find out why.

(TIP: You can’t do this for every single thing just the important information you need for those KPI’s.)

3). Profile Configuration

When you log into a account you will see that you can edit a profile, open i

t up and see what you’re working with. Check to see if:

• Site search is turned on (if applicable)
• Ecommerce is turned on (if applicable)
• Goals/Funnels have been implemented
• Filters includes/excludes have been properly implemented

While you’re under the knife check if there are any other profiles set-up within the account. Again this would only be necessary if it was a KPI concern. For instance traffic patterns from Google organic search is extremely important to create revenue for your client. A separate profile would be something your client should have then because sometime segments just don’t cut it.

(Tip: In order to check profile set-ups you need admin access.)

4). Reporting Overview

This is the fun part; you get go inside the reporting suite and check out what the situation is (no pun intended). I review the following items:

• Dashboard (is it custom or the generic profile setting)
• Goals & Funnels
• Segments
• Intelligence Reports
• Google Adwords integration/PPC tracking and reporting
• Site Search
  

  

5). Customization

I like seeing if any customizations have been activated, most people don’t know of the cool stuff that Google Analytics can do. Some of the top set-ups I look for are:

• Advanced Segments
• Custom Reports
• Events
• Pivot tables
• Website Optimizer integration
• Kampyle integration
• Mailchimp integration
• Saleforce integration

I also check and see how clients are receiving their data. If they are collecting data one report at time I highly recommend that they invest $30 and get ShufflePoint (or any API tool).

Well those are my top five ways to do a Google Analytics audit. Of course they are not the end all be all and I would love to hear your experiences or what tools are you using.