TURN DATA INTO ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS Google Analytics Workshop

Google Analytics Glossary

Below you will find the definitions for some of the vocabulary that
we cover in the Better U Google Analytics presentation. The goal
is to give you a guide that you can reference quickly to gain clarity
around some of the terminology that you may or may not be
familiar with.

Definitions
Average Time on Page: Average Time on Page represents the average amount of time in
seconds, a visitor spends on a particular page.

Average Session Duration: The average length of a session.

Bounce Rate: The percentage of single-page sessions in which there was no interaction
with the page. A bounced session has a duration of 0 seconds.

Keywords: A word that is used as a reference point for finding other words of its kind or
any information regarding those words.

Landing Pages: Landing Pages represent the number of sessions that started on a
specific web page or group of web pages, helping you identify what content is bringing
people into your site most. An entry page where a user accesses the website.

New Session: An estimate of the first time visits.

New Vs Returning Visitors: New visitors are users that have not visited your site
before. Returning visitors will have made at least one visit to at least one page on your
site previously.
• Google Analytics uses cookies to detect previous visits. If Google cannot detect a
cookie, one will be placed on the users browser, as long as the user has not disabled
cookies in their personal browser preferences.

Page/Session: Pages/Session (Average Page Depth) is the average number of pages

viewed during a session. Repeated views of a single page are counted.

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 TURN DATA INTO ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS Google Analytics Workshop

Pageviews: This is the number of times users view a page that has the Google Analytics
tracking code inserted. It’s a count of viewed pages and not individual visitors.
• Covers all page views.
• If a user refreshes a page, or navigates away from the page and returns, these are
counted as additional page views.
• This helps you to identify your most popular pages.

Sessions: Total number of Sessions within the date range. A session is the period of
time a user is actively engaged with your website, app, etc. All usage data (Screen Views,
Events, Ecommerce, etc.) is associated with a session. A session is ended after 30 minutes
of inactivity or when a user exits your site.

Total Pageviews: The total number of pages viewed. Multiple pageviews in a session are
counted in the total.

Unique Pageviews: The unique pageview is the count of all the times the page was
viewed in an individual session. If a visitor only viewed the page once, or if they viewed it
five times during their visit, the number of unique pageviews will only be counted as one.

Users: People who engage with your site or app over a given date range.

Traffic by Channels Definitions

Direct Traffic: Users who are already familiar with you or your organization and typed
your domain name directly into the browser.

Email: Traffic that is acquired from email or email marketing.

Events: Events are user interactions with content that can be tracked independently from
a web page or a screen load. Downloads, mobile ad clicks, gadgets, Flash elements, AJAX
embedded elements, and video plays are all examples of actions you might want to track
as Events.

Event Tracking: The process of Tracking specific user interactions with particular content,
content types (such as video) and identified individual or organizational goals.

Organic Search: Users who entered a keyword into a major search engine that drove
organic traffic to your website.

Other: Sources of traffic that Google has a hard time identifying and for some reason or
another deems it as “Other” traffic.

Paid Traffic: Traffic acquired from utilizing paid ad platforms like Google AdWords, Bing,
and Facebook ads.

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Social: Traffic that is acquired from social media platforms. 2
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Campaigns Definitions
Campaigns: In its broadest definition, campaign tracking refers to a method of identifying
how users discover your site. Specifically, you use campaign tracking in Google Analytics
to accurately track online advertising campaigns to your website, both from AdWords-
generated campaigns as well as from other advertising sources.

Goals: Goals can be set up your Google Analytics account to monitor the conversion rate
of the different activities that you want your users to take. Activities may include a visitor
making a purchase, signing up for an email newsletter, or downloading a white paper. You
can also assign a monetary value to each goal completion to help determine the return
on investment from your website.

UTM: Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) parameters are five variants of URL parameters used
by marketers to track the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns across traffic
sources and publishing media.

NEED HELP? That’s what we’re here for. Let us know what questions you have.
Keyon Whiteside, Director Of Digital Services, [email protected]
Haley Kuehl, Digital Strategist, [email protected]

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