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• Unveiling GA4 Issues : 8 Questions from a Marketer That GA4 Can’t Answer

  8 janvier 2024, par Alex

  It’s hard to believe, but Universal Analytics had a lifespan of 11 years, from its announcement in March 2012. Despite occasional criticism, this service established standards for the entire web analytics industry. Many metrics and reports became benchmarks for a whole generation of marketers. It truly was an era.

  For instance, a lot of marketers got used to starting each workday by inspecting dashboards and standard traffic reports in the Universal Analytics web interface. There were so, so many of those days. They became so accustomed to Universal Analytics that they would enter reports, manipulate numbers, and play with metrics almost on autopilot, without much thought.

  However, six months have passed since the sunset of Universal Analytics – precisely on July 1, 2023, when Google stopped processing requests for resources using the previous version of Google Analytics. The time when data about visitors and their interactions with the website were more clearly structured within the UA paradigm is now in the past. GA4 has brought a plethora of opportunities to marketers, but along with those opportunities came a series of complexities.

  GA4 issues

  Since its initial announcement in 2020, GA4 has been plagued with errors and inconsistencies. It still has poor and sometimes illogical documentation, numerous restrictions, and peculiar interface solutions. But more importantly, the barrier to entry into web analytics has significantly increased.

  If you diligently follow GA4 updates, read the documentation, and possess skills in working with data (SQL and basic statistics), you probably won’t feel any problems – you know how to set up a convenient and efficient environment for your product and marketing data. But what if you’re not that proficient ? That’s when issues arise.

  In this article, we try to address a series of straightforward questions that less experienced users – marketers, project managers, SEO specialists, and others – want answers to. They have no time to delve into the intricacies of GA4 but seek access to the fundamentals crucial for their functionality.

  Previously, in Universal Analytics, they could quickly and conveniently address their issues. Now, the situation has become, to put it mildly, more complex. We’ve identified 8 such questions for which the current version of GA4 either fails to provide answers or implies that answers would require significant enhancements. So, let’s dive into them one by one.

  Question 1 : What are the most popular traffic sources on my website ?

  Seemingly a straightforward question. What does GA4 tell us ? It responds with a question : “Which traffic source parameter are you interested in ?”

  

  Wait, what ?

  People just want to know which resources bring them the most traffic. Is that really an issue ?

  Unfortunately, yes. In GA4, there are not one, not two, but three traffic source parameters :

  1. Session source.
  2. First User Source – the source of the first session for each user.
  3. Just the source – determined at the event or conversion level.

  If you wanted to open a report and draw conclusions quickly, we have bad news for you. Before you start ranking your traffic sources by popularity, you need to do some mental work on which parameter and in what context you will look. And even when you decide, you’ll need to make a choice in the selection of standard reports : work with the User Acquisition Report or Traffic Acquisition.

  Yes, there is a difference between them : the first uses the First User Source parameter, and the second uses the session source. And you need to figure that out too.

  Question 2 : What is my conversion rate ?

  This question concerns everyone, and it should be simple, implying a straightforward answer. But no.

  

  In GA4, there are three conversion metrics (yes, three) :

  1. Session conversion – the percentage of sessions with a conversion.
  2. User conversion – the percentage of users who completed a conversion.
  3. First-time Purchaser Conversion – the share of active users who made their first purchase.

  If the last metric doesn’t interest us much, GA4 users can still choose something from the remaining two. But what’s next ? Which parameters to use for comparison ? Session source or user source ? What if you want to see the conversion rate for a specific event ? And how do you do this in analyses rather than in standard reports ?

  In the end, instead of an answer to a simple question, marketers get a bunch of new questions.

  Question 3. Can I trust user and session metrics ?

  Unfortunately, no. This may boggle the mind of those not well-versed in the mechanics of calculating user and session metrics, but it’s the plain truth : the numbers in GA4 and those in reality may and will differ.

  

  The reason is that GA4 uses the HyperLogLog++ statistical algorithm to count unique values. Without delving into details, it’s a mechanism for approximate estimation of a metric with a certain level of error.

  This error level is quite well-documented. For instance, for the Total Users metric, the error level is 1.63% (for a 95% confidence interval). In simple terms, this means that 100,000 users in the GA4 interface equate to 100,000 1.63% in reality.

  Furthermore – but this is no surprise to anyone – GA4 samples data. This means that with too large a sample size or when using a large number of parameters, the application will assess your metrics based on a partial sample – let’s say 5, 10, or 30% of the entire population.

  It’s a reasonable assumption, but it can (and probably will) surprise marketers – the metrics will deviate from reality. All end-users can do (excluding delving into raw data methodologies) is to take this error level into account in their conclusions.

  Question 4. How do I calculate First Click attribution ?

  You can’t. Unfortunately, as of late, GA4 offers only three attribution models available in the Attribution tab : Last Click, Last Click For Google Ads, and Data Driven. First Click attribution is essential for understanding where and when demand is generated. In the previous version of Google Analytics (and until recently, in the current one), users could quickly apply First Click and other attribution models, compare them, and gain insights. Now, this capability is gone.

  

  Certainly, you can look at the conversion distribution considering the First User Source parameter – this will be some proxy for First Click attribution. However, comparing it with others in the Model Comparison tab won’t be possible. In the context of the GA4 interface, it makes sense to forget about non-standard attribution models.

  Question 5. How do I account for intra-session traffic ?

  Intra-session traffic essentially refers to a change in traffic sources within a session. Imagine a scenario where a user comes to your site organically from Google and, within a minute, comes from an email campaign. In the previous version of Google Analytics, a new session with the traffic source “e-mail” would be created in such a case. But now, the situation has changed.

  A session now only ends in the case of a timeout – say, 30 minutes without interaction. This means a session will always have a source from which it started. If a user changes the source within a session (clicks on an ad, from email campaigns, and so on), you won’t know anything about it until they convert. This is a significant blow to intra-session traffic since their contribution to traffic remains virtually unnoticed. 

  Question 6. How can I account for users who have not consented to the use of third-party cookies ?
  

  You can’t. Google Consent Mode settings imply several options when a user rejects the use of 3rd party cookies. In GA4 and BigQuery, depersonalized cookieless pings will be sent. These pings do not contain specific client_id, session_id, or other custom dimensions. As a result, you won’t be able to consider them as users or link the actions of such users together.

  Question 7. How can I compare data in explorations with the previous year ?

  The maximum data retention period for a free GA4 account is 14 months. This means that if the date range is wider, you can only use standard reports. You won’t be able to compare or view cohorts or funnels for periods more than 14 months ago. This makes the product functionality less rich because various report formats in explorations are very convenient for comparing specific metrics in easily digestible reports.

  

  Of course, you always have the option to connect BigQuery and store raw data without limitations, but this process usually requires the involvement of an advanced analyst. And precisely this option is unavailable to most marketers in small teams.

  Question 8. Is the data for yesterday accurate ?

  Unknown. Google declares that data processing in GA4 takes up to 48 hours. And although this process is faster, most users still have room for frustration. And they can be understood.

  

  What does “data processing takes 24-48 hours” mean ? When will the data in reports be complete ? For yesterday ? Or the day before yesterday ? Or for all days that were more than two days ago ? Unclear. What should marketers tell their managers when they were asked if all the data is in this report ? Well, probably all of it… or maybe not… Let’s wait for 48 hours…

  Undoubtedly, computational resources and time are needed for data preprocessing and aggregation. It’s okay that data for today will not be up-to-date. And probably not for yesterday either. But people just want to know when they can trust their data. Are they asking for too much : just a note that this report contains all the data sent and processed by Google Analytics ?

  What should you do ?

  Credit should be given to the Google team – they have done a lot to enable users to answer these questions in one form or another. For example, you can use data streaming in BigQuery and work with raw data. The entry threshold for this functionality has been significantly lowered. In fact, if you are dissatisfied with the GA4 interface, you can organize your export to BigQuery and create your own reports without (almost) any restrictions.

  Another strong option is the widespread launch of GTM Server Side. This allows you to quite freely modify the event model and essentially enrich each hit with various parameters, doing this in a first-party context. This, of course, reduces the harmful impact of most of the limitations described in this text.

  But this is not a solution.

  The users in question – marketers, managers, developers – they do not want or do not have the time for a deep dive into the issue. And they want simple answers to simple (it seemed) questions. And for now, unfortunately, GA4 is more of a professional tool for analysts than a convenient instrument for generating insights for not very advanced users.

  Why is this such a serious issue ?

  The thing is – and this is crucial – over the past 10 years, Google has managed to create a sort of GA-bubble for marketers. Many of them have become so accustomed to Google Analytics that when faced with another issue, they don’t venture to explore alternative solutions but attempt to solve it on their own. And almost always, this turns out to be expensive and inconvenient.

  However, with the latest updates to GA4, it is becoming increasingly evident that this application is struggling to address even the most basic questions from users. And these questions are not fantastically complex. Much of what was described in this article is not an unsolvable mystery and is successfully addressed by other analytics services.

  Let’s try to answer some of the questions described from the perspective of Matomo.

  Question 1 : What are the most popular traffic sources ? [Solved]

  In the Acquisition panel, you will find at least three easily identifiable reports – for traffic channels (All Channels), sources (Websites), and campaigns (Campaigns). 

  

  With these, you can quickly and easily answer the question about the most popular traffic sources, and if needed, delve into more detailed information, such as landing pages.

  Question 2 : What is my conversion rate ? [Solved]

  Under Goals in Matomo, you’ll easily find the overall conversion rate for your site. Below that you’ll have access to the conversion rate of each goal you’ve set in your Matomo instance.

  

  Question 3 : Can I trust user and session metrics ? [Solved]

  Yes. With Matomo, you’re guaranteed 100% accurate data. Matomo does not apply sampling, does not employ specific statistical algorithms, or any analogs of threshold values. Yes, it is possible, and it’s perfectly normal. If you see a metric in the visits or users field, it accurately represents reality by 100%.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Question 4 : How do I calculate First Click attribution ? [Solved]
  
  You can do this in the same section where the other 5 attribution models, available in Matomo, are calculated – in the Multi Attribution section.

  

  You can choose a specific conversion and, in a few clicks, calculate and compare up to 3 marketing attribution models. This means you don’t have to spend several days digging through documentation trying to understand how a particular model is calculated. Have a question – get an answer.

  Question 5 : How do I account for intra-session traffic ? [Solved]

  Matomo creates a new visit when a user changes a campaign. This means that you will accurately capture all relevant traffic if it is adequately tagged. No campaigns will be lost within a visit, as they will have a new utm_campaign parameter.

  This is a crucial point because when the Referrer changes, a new visit is not created, but the key lies in something else – accounting for all available traffic becomes your responsibility and depends on how you tag it.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Question 6 : How can I account for users who have not consented to the use of third-party cookies ? [Solved]

  Google Analytics requires users to accept a cookie consent banner with “analytics_storage=granted” to track them. If users reject cookie consent banners, however, then Google Analytics can’t track these visitors at all. They simply won’t show up in your traffic reports. 

  Matomo doesn’t require cookie consent banners (apart from in the United Kingdom and Germany) and can therefore continue to track visitors even after they have rejected a cookie consent screen. This is achieved through a config_id variable (the user identifier equivalent which is updating once a day). 

  

  This means that virtually all of your website traffic will be tracked regardless of whether users accept a cookie consent banner or not.

  Question 7 : How can I compare data in explorations with the previous year ? [Solved]
  

  There is no limitation on data retention for your aggregated reports in Matomo. The essence of Matomo experience lies in the reporting data, and consequently, retaining reports indefinitely is a viable option. So you can compare data for any timeframe. 7

  

• FFMPEG = I tried resizing a video, but got different resolution than I wanted [closed]

  10 janvier 2024, par wakanasakai

  I downloaded a video that had some black bars (left & right), so I used the following command in FFmpeg to make various changes to it. I tested it on a 10 second clip to see what the result would look like.

  


  -ss 00:04:44 -to 00:04:54 -vf "crop=1870:20:20:0","scale=640x480:flags=lanczos","eq=gamma=1.5:saturation=1.3:contrast=1.2"

  


  The original video is an mp4, with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. Besides trying to crop it & adjust the gamma, saturation, & contrast, I also tried to resize it to 640 x 480. Instead, it's resulting resolution is 44880 x 480 ! I have a link to it for anybody who wants to examine it directly. (It's only 487 kb.)
text

  


  I've tried using FFmpeg before, & it never did anything so insane. (It cropped it, & adjusted the gamma a saturation (I didn't test the contrast until THIS time), but it did not resize it at all.)

  


  Here is FFmpeg's log file for it. Guesses as to the cause of the insane result, & advice on how to achieve the DESIRED result (in 1 pass, if possible) are requested.

  


  ffmpeg -hwaccel auto -y -i "/storage/emulated/0/bluetooth/Barbie & the Rockers=1080-Out of this world (1987).mp4" -ss 00:04:44 -to 00:04:54 -vf "crop=1870:20:20:0","scale=640x480:flags=lanczos","eq=gamma=1.5:saturation=1.3:contrast=1.2" "/storage/emulated/0/Movies/Barbie.mp4"

ffmpeg version 6.0 Copyright (c) 2000-2023 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 4.9.x (GCC) 20150123 (prerelease)
  configuration: --enable-version3 --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --disable-indev=v4l2 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libvpx --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-libopus --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libfreetype --enable-libass --enable-libfribidi --enable-fontconfig --enable-pthreads --enable-libxvid --enable-filters --enable-openssl --enable-librtmp --disable-protocol='udp,udplite' --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libspeex --enable-libsoxr --enable-libwebp --enable-libxml2 --enable-libopenh264 --enable-jni --prefix=/home/silentlexx/AndroidstudioProjects/ffmpeg/ffmpeg/build/arm-api18-r13b --sysroot=/home/silentlexx/Android/android-ndk-r13b/platforms/android-18/arch-arm --arch=arm --disable-shared --enable-static --enable-pic --enable-ffmpeg --disable-ffplay --disable-ffprobe --disable-ffnvcodec --disable-avdevice --disable-debug --disable-doc --disable-htmlpages --disable-manpages --disable-podpages --disable-txtpages --disable-symver --cross-prefix=/home/silentlexx/Android/android-ndk-r13b/toolchains/arm-linux-androideabi-4.9/prebuilt/linux-x86_64/bin/arm-linux-androideabi- --target-os=android --enable-cross-compile --pkg-config-flags=--static --extra-libs='-lgnustl_static -lm -lpng -l:libz.so -lpthread' --enable-asm --enable-neon --enable-small
  libavutil      58.  2.100 / 58.  2.100
  libavcodec     60.  3.100 / 60.  3.100
  libavformat    60.  3.100 / 60.  3.100
  libavfilter     9.  3.100 /  9.  3.100
  libswscale      7.  1.100 /  7.  1.100
  libswresample   4. 10.100 /  4. 10.100
  libpostproc    57.  1.100 / 57.  1.100
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '/storage/emulated/0/bluetooth/Barbie & the Rockers=1080-Out of this world (1987).mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : mp42
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: mp41isomiso2
    creation_time   : 2024-01-04T01:46:07.000000Z
  Duration: 00:45:33.10, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 3404 kb/s
  Stream #0:0[0x1](und): Video: h264 (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709, progressive), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 3272 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 15360 tbn (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2023-06-25T13:25:03.000000Z
      vendor_id       : [0][0][0][0]
  Stream #0:1[0x2](eng): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 128 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2023-06-25T13:25:03.000000Z
      vendor_id       : [0][0][0][0]
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (h264 (native) -> h264 (libx264))
  Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (aac (native) -> aac (native))
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] using SAR=561/8
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] using cpu capabilities: ARMv6 NEON
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] profile High, level 3.0, 4:2:0, 8-bit
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] 264 - core 158 r2984 3759fcb - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2019 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=3 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=12 lookahead_threads=2 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=23.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00
Output #0, mp4, to '/storage/emulated/0/Movies/Barbie.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : mp42
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: mp41isomiso2
    encoder         : Lavf60.3.100
  Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709, progressive), 640x480 [SAR 561:8 DAR 187:2], q=2-31, 30 fps, 15360 tbn (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2023-06-25T13:25:03.000000Z
      vendor_id       : [0][0][0][0]
      encoder         : Lavc60.3.100 libx264
    Side data:
      cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 0/0/0 buffer size: 0 vbv_delay: N/A
  Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 128 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2023-06-25T13:25:03.000000Z
      vendor_id       : [0][0][0][0]
      encoder         : Lavc60.3.100 aac
frame=    0 fps=0.0 q=0.0 size=       0kB time=-577014:32:22.77 bitrate=  -0.0kbits/s speed=N/A    
frame=    0 fps=0.0 q=0.0 size=       0kB time=00:00:00.16 bitrate=   2.4kbits/s speed=0.00197x    
frame=    0 fps=0.0 q=0.0 size=       0kB time=00:00:00.71 bitrate=   0.5kbits/s speed=0.00867x    
frame=   13 fps=0.2 q=29.0 size=       0kB time=00:00:01.48 bitrate=   0.3kbits/s speed=0.0178x    
frame=   45 fps=0.5 q=29.0 size=       0kB time=00:00:02.55 bitrate=   0.2kbits/s speed=0.0304x    
frame=   78 fps=0.9 q=29.0 size=       0kB time=00:00:03.66 bitrate=   0.1kbits/s speed=0.0434x    
frame=  114 fps=1.3 q=29.0 size=       0kB time=00:00:04.85 bitrate=   0.1kbits/s speed=0.057x    
frame=  146 fps=1.7 q=29.0 size=       0kB time=00:00:05.92 bitrate=   0.1kbits/s speed=0.0692x    
frame=  178 fps=2.1 q=29.0 size=       0kB time=00:00:07.03 bitrate=   0.1kbits/s speed=0.0817x    
frame=  209 fps=2.4 q=29.0 size=     256kB time=00:00:08.03 bitrate= 261.1kbits/s speed=0.0928x    
frame=  240 fps=2.8 q=29.0 size=     256kB time=00:00:09.07 bitrate= 231.0kbits/s speed=0.104x    
frame=  300 fps=3.4 q=-1.0 Lsize=     445kB time=00:00:09.98 bitrate= 365.2kbits/s speed=0.114x    
video:275kB audio:159kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 2.692692%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] frame I:10    Avg QP:20.34  size:  2434
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] frame P:129   Avg QP:21.89  size:  1292
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] frame B:161   Avg QP:21.69  size:   555
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] consecutive B-frames: 20.0% 18.7% 20.0% 41.3%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] mb I  I16..4: 30.2% 66.5%  3.2%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] mb P  I16..4: 14.3% 17.7%  0.2%  P16..4: 12.7%  2.7%  0.4%  0.0%  0.0%    skip:52.1%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] mb B  I16..4:  2.1%  1.1%  0.0%  B16..8: 21.9%  1.7%  0.0%  direct: 1.5%  skip:71.6%  L0:46.0% L1:53.0% BI: 1.0%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] 8x8 transform intra:54.9% inter:98.2%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 10.3% 14.9% 1.5% inter: 2.2% 5.4% 0.0%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] i16 v,h,dc,p: 93%  2%  2%  4%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 69%  1% 28%  0%  0%  1%  0%  0%  0%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 76%  3% 17%  1%  1%  2%  0%  1%  0%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] i8c dc,h,v,p: 45%  2% 53%  1%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] Weighted P-Frames: Y:0.8% UV:0.8%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] ref P L0: 57.0%  8.7% 24.0% 10.4%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] ref B L0: 79.7% 17.3%  3.0%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] ref B L1: 95.6%  4.4%
[libx264 @ 0xf38cd180] kb/s:224.32
[aac @ 0xf38cd880] Qavg: 457.489


  


• Web Analytics Reports : 10 Key Types and How to Use Them

  29 janvier 2024, par Erin

  You can’t optimise your website to drive better results if you don’t know how visitors are engaging with your site.

  But how do you correctly analyse data and identify patterns ? With the right platform, you can use a wide range of web analytics reports to dive deep into the data.

  In this article, we’ll discuss what website analytics reports are, different types, why you need them, and how to use reports to find the insights you need.

  What is web analytics ?

  Website analytics is the process of gathering, processing, and analysing data that shows what users are doing when they visit your website. 

  You typically achieve this with web analytics tools by adding a tracking code that shares data with the analytics platform when someone visits the site.

  

  The visitors trigger the tracking code, which collects data on how they act while on your site and then sends that information to the analytics platform. You can then see the data in your analytics solution and create reports based on this data.

  While there are a lot of web analytics solutions available, this article will specifically demonstrate reports using Matomo.

  What are web analytics reports ?

  Web analytics reports are analyses that focus on specific data points within your analytics platform. 

  For example, this channel report in Matomo shows the top referring channels of a website.

  

  Your marketing team can use this report to determine which channels drive the best results. In the example above, organic search drives almost double the visits and actions of social campaigns. 

  If you’re investing the same amount of money, you’d want to move more of your budget from social to search.

  Why you need to get familiar with specific web analytics reports

  The default web analytics dashboard offers an overview of high-level trends in performance. However, it usually does not give you specific insights that can help you optimise your marketing campaigns.

  For example, you can see that your conversions are down month over month. But, at a glance, you do not understand why that is.

  To understand why, you need to go granular and wider — looking into qualifying data that separates different types of visitors from each other.

  Gartner predicts that 70% of organisations will focus on “small and wide” data by 2025 over “big data.” Most companies lack the data volume to simply let big data and algorithms handle the optimising.

  What you can do instead is dive deep into each visitor. Figure out how they engage with your site, and then you can adjust your campaigns and page content accordingly.

  Common types of web analytics reports

  There are dozens of different web analytics reports, but they usually fall into four separate categories :

  

  • Referral sources : These reports show where your visitors come from. They range from channel reports — search, social media — to specific campaigns and ads.
  • Engagement (on-site actions) : These reports dive into what visitors are doing on your site. They break down clicks, scrolling, completed conversion goals, and more.
  • E-commerce performance : These reports show the performance of your e-commerce store. They’ll help you dive into the sales of individual products, trends in cart abandonment and more.
  • Demographics : These reports help you understand more about your visitors — where they’re visiting from, their browser language, device, and more.

  You can even combine insights across all four using audience segmentation and custom reports. (We’ll cover this in more detail later.)

  How to use 10 important website analytics reports

  The first step is to install the website analytics code on your website. (We include more detailed information in our guide on how to track website visitors.)

  Then, you need to wait until you have a few days (or, if you have limited traffic, a few weeks) of data. Without sufficient website visitor data, none of the reports will be meaningful.

  Visitor Overview report

  First, let’s take a look at the Visitor Overview report. It’s a general report that breaks down the visits over a given time period.

  

  What this report shows :

  • Trends in unique visits month over month
  • Basic engagement trends like the average visit length and bounce rate
  • The number of actions taken per page

  In general, this report is more of a high-level indicator you can use to explore certain areas more thoroughly. For example, if most of your traffic comes from organic traffic or social media, you can dive deeper into those channels.

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  Location report

  Next up, we have the most basic type of demographic report — the Location report. It shows where your visitors tend to access your website from.

  

  What this report shows :

  • The country, state or city your visitors access your website from

  This report is most useful for identifying regional trends. You may notice that your site is growing in popularity in a country. You can take advantage of this by creating a regional campaign to double down on a high performing audience.

  Device report

  Next, we have the Device report, which breaks down your visitors’ devices.

  

  What this report shows :

  • Overall device types used by your visitors
  • Specific device models used

  Today, most websites are responsive or use mobile-first design. So, just seeing that many people access your site through smartphones probably isn’t all that surprising.

  But you should ensure your responsive design doesn’t break down on popular devices. The design may not work effectively because many phones have different screen resolutions. 

  Users Flow report

  The Users Flow report dives deeper into visitor engagement — how your visitors act on your site. It shows common landing pages — the first page visitors land on — and how they usually navigate your site from there.

  

  What this report shows :

  • Popular landing pages
  • How your visitors most commonly navigate your site

  You can use this report to determine which intermediary pages are crucial to keeping visitors engaged. For example, you can prioritise optimisation and rewriting for case study pages that don’t get a lot of direct search or campaign traffic.

  Improving this flow can improve conversion rates and the impact of your marketing efforts.

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  Exit Pages report

  The Exit Pages report complements the Users Flow report well. It highlights the most common pages visitors leave your website from.

  

  What this report shows :

  • The most common exit pages on your website
  • The exit rates of these pages

  Pages with high exit rates fall into two categories. The first are pages where it makes sense that visitors leave, like a post-purchase thank-you page. The second are pages where you’d want your visitors to stay and keep flowing down the funnel. When the rates are unusually high on product pages, category pages, or case study pages, you may have found a problem.

  By combining insights from the Users Flow and Exit Pages reports, you can find valuable candidates for optimisation. This is a key aspect of effective conversion rate optimisation.

  Traffic Acquisition Channel report

  The Acquisition Channels report highlights the channels that drive the most visitors to your site.

  

  What this report shows :

  • Top referring traffic sources by channel type
  • The average time on site, bounce rates, and actions taken by the source

  Because of increasingly privacy-sensitive browsers and apps, the best way to reliably track traffic sources is to use campaign tracking URL. Matomo offers an easy-to-use campaign tracking URL builder to simplify this process.

  Search Engines and Keywords report

  The Search Engines and Keywords report shows which keywords are driving the most organic search traffic and from what search engines.

  

  What this report shows :

  • Search engine keywords that drive traffic
  • The different search engines that refer visitors

  One of the best ways to use this report is to identify low-hanging fruit. You want to find keywords driving some traffic where your page isn’t ranked in the top three results. If the keyword has high traffic potential, you should then work to optimise that page to rank higher and get more traffic. This technique is an efficient way to improve your SEO performance.

  Ecommerce Products report

  If you sell products directly on your website, the Ecommerce Products report is a lifesaver. It shows you exactly how all your products are performing.

  

  What this report shows :

  • How your products are selling
  • The average sale price (with coupons) and quantity

  This report could help an online retailer identify top-selling items, adjust pricing based on average sale prices, and strategically allocate resources to promote or restock high-performing products for maximum profitability.

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  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

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  Ecommerce Log report

  If you want to explore every single ecommerce interaction, the Ecommerce Log report is for you. It breaks down the actions of visitors who add products to their cart in real time.

  

  What this report shows :

  • The full journey of completed purchases and abandoned carts
  • The exact actions your potential customers take and how long their journeys last

  If you suspect that the user experience of your online store isn’t perfect, this report helps you confirm or deny that suspicion. By closely examining individual interactions, you can identify common exit pages or other issues.