If you’re a business owner, I’m sure you’ve heard a thousand times how amazing Google Analytics is for understanding current and potential customers, website insights, and generally proving invaluable to the commercial success of your business.

However, Google Analytics is incredibly daunting for a newbie and even Analytics experts discover new things about the data-tracking platform all the time. Whether you’re just starting out with Google Analytics or have been using it to help your business for some time, here are some indispensable, yet often under-utilized, features you should know about.

Experiments

Google Analytics allows you to test a wide array of changes and variations to a property to see how it performs with users. We’ve explained the benefits of A/B testing, and with this tool you can identify changes to your website worth implementing so that it performs better with visitors. Creating an experiment is easy and Google tests your theories out on random samples of your users so that you can discover the best ways to connect with your target audience.

(Correct) Filters

We all know we should use filters, but they are often either overlooked or done incorrectly. Filters are important for manipulating data, creating custom views, and excluding unwanted traffic (like your own). You want data that is most relevant to your business goals and you definitely don’t want your own visits to your site skewing your data. Make sure you verify your filter and perform a test view to make sure it is working how you want it to. And don’t forget that filter order matters and you can get completely irrelevant or error-filled data if you have not implemented your filters in the correct way.

Custom Dimensions

Google Analytics is an amazing tool that can be customized every which way to meet your business’s specific needs. Pivoting or segmenting your data using dimensions ensure you are able to isolate data most meaningful to you. For example, though Google Analytics does not allow you to have personally identifiable information on visitors, you can implement a user-level custom dimension, assigning a user ID to visitors so that even if they leave your website and return again and again, you are able to identify them and track their habits, so long as they do not delete their cookies.

Site Content Pages

Most content marketers are well aware of this feature but in case you aren’t, with Google Analytics you can discover your best and worst performing web pages and content. Just go under “Content” and select “Pages” under “Site Content” and you will see what keeps your visitors coming back for more and more. Take a look at how long they stay on specific pages and the bounce rate of those pages to identify which content resonates with your visitors the most and the least.

Integrations

Google has so many platforms, which means more data for you! Integrating additional Google platforms like AdWords and Search Console not only gets you more data to work with but a streamlined way to get a more comprehensive look at your paid and organic marketing activities. The more data you can get into one place, the better.

Google Analytics is a huge investment of time but once you understand how to take advantage of all that Analytics has to offer, you can drive incredible and tangible value out of this free tool. At thirteen05, we are Google Analytics certified and have used this platform for years to analyze and report on data most relevant to our clients.