Google Analytics Setup Guide

Is your data not pulling into Hawke AI the way it should? No problem!

We’ve put together this handy guide for Hawke AI platform users. By completing all 5 steps outlined below, you’ll be able to verify your Google Universal Analytics is set up correctly so that Hawke AI can add ultimate value.

If certain steps haven’t been completed, we’ve included recommendations to help you along.

Account Set Up Basics

There are a few preliminary steps that we recommend all organizations do to set a good foundation for their Google Universal Analytics accounts.

1. Ensure that your admin settings are complete at the Account, Property and View levels (including site URL, time zone, bot filtering, industry category, etc.).
2. If you have multiple team members who will need access to Google Universal Analytics, make sure you grant access at the appropriate levels. This can be done via User Management at either the Account, Property, or View level.
   Please Note: If you give user permissions at the Account level, users will have access to all Properties & Views; permissions at the Property level will give access to all Views. If you want to restrict permissions to a specific View or Property, keep this in mind.
3. Under the View level, filter out internal IP addresses and any other backend traffic – that way, your data will be as reflective of your audience as possible.
   Please Note: We recommended that you set up a raw (unfiltered) view, in addition to your regular filtered view. This way, you can compare data and ensure things are tracking properly.
4. Link Google Ads to your Google Universal Analytics account.
5. Link Google Search Console to your Google Universal Analytics account.

Tracking Best Practices

Some of the most important data you’ll get in Google Universal Analytics relies on proper setup of how that data gets tracked.

1. Retrieve your tracking code, which is available in your admin settings under Tracking Info.
2. Ensure the tracking code is installed correctly on your website. There are a few ways to do this:
   – Insert the snippet directly on your website (not the preferred method, but will still work): Make sure that the snippet is the first item in the tag of every page on your website that you want to track.
   – Google Tag Manager (preferred method): Google has a setup guide that we’d recommend you follow. This will ensure you select the right options for your needs.
   – Backend integration: Some platforms (e.g. Shopify) allow you to easily integrate your platforms with their systems. For Google Universal Analytics, all you’ll need is your Tracking ID# (e.g. UA-1234567).
   Please Note: If using this method, please ensure that it is the ONLY integration method you’re using. If you hard code the snippet alongside this integration process, your data will likely be double counted and will skew Morphio’s data.
3. Set up E-commerce tracking (if applicable).
   – E-commerce tracking makes it easier to get granular data of which products are performing well, how users interact with the checkout process, and more. First, you’ll need to enable E-commerce tracking by going to your Admin settings, then selecting Ecommerce Settings under the relevant View.
   – You’ll then have to add tracking code onto your website. This task will require a decent level of understanding of HTML and coding in JavaScript; Google has a setup guide that we recommend you follow for correct installation here.
4. To track traffic from inbound campaigns, make sure you’re using UTM tagging on all URLs in your paid ads. Google has a free tool that helps you to build your campaign URLs, which can be found here.

Targeting

To help get deeper insights into your customers and their behaviour, it’s important to allow Google Universal Analytics to collect deeper insights.

Go to your admin settings in Analytics and select Property Settings. Once there, enable the following: Demographics & Interests reporting, Enhanced Link Attribution, and the Users metric in reporting.

• Demographics & Interests reporting allows you to see the age and gender of your users, as well as what other topics are of interest to them (based on browsing data).
• Enhanced Link Attribution allows Google to more accurately track links on your page.
• The Users metric in reporting allows you to see how many unique individuals visited your website, which can in turn help you understand frequency rates.

Set up Goals

Goals are crucial to helping Google identify what your business considers desirable actions to be completed on your website. This could be a lead form submission, a purchase, a newsletter sign up, and more. Depending on what you’re trying to measure, Google Universal Analytics offers 3 goal options: Template, Smart and Custom. The following explains how these goal types work, and how to set them up.

1. Goals can be set up by going to the Admin panel at the bottom of the left-hand navigation bar (under View).
2. Template: Templated goals are based on the industry category you selected when setting up your Google Universal Analytics account. Select the one that works best for the action you want to measure.
   – Please Note: While most of the templated goals are set as “destination” goal types, you can manually change this yourself under “Goal Description”. More about the different goal types below!
3. Smart Goal: Smart Goals allow users to automatically turn their most engaged visits into goals. If you want to use Smart Goals, they will need to be imported into the Google Ads account that you’ve linked to Google Universal Analytics. During setup, click the “Learn More” to see how to import into Google Ads.
4. Custom: This is the most flexible option that allows you to define all the parameters that make up the goal. There are 4 main goal types: Destination, Duration, Pages/Screens per Session, Event.
   – Destination – typically denotes a specific page that, if a user visits, signals they’ve completed the desired goal (e.g. example.com/thanks).
   – Duration – use this goal type if you want to count a completed action when users have spent a specific amount of time on your website.
   – Pages per Session – if a certain number of pages denote a completed action on your website, select this goal type.
   – Event – this goal type measures interactions with content on your website that don’t rely on a page load. For example, if you want to track which buttons are getting clicked on your homepage the most, you would use this goal type.
   – Event goals require minor knowledge of your website’s code, as well as having at least one Event already set up in Google Universal Analytics. More information can be found here.
5. Goal Details: This section outlines what conditions you want to happen before your goal will be triggered. For example, a “destination” goal will ask you which URL signals that the goal has been completed.

Verification

1. Check to make sure data is being collected; this can be done by reviewing Realtime report, as well as individual reports throughout the platform.
   If there’s no activity, make sure you’re looking at the right date range. If you still don’t see anything, it may be worth seeking a developer’s help to ensure the snippet has been installed correctly and that there’s nothing in the code that could be interfering with your Google Universal Analytics implementation.
2. Check that events are firing correctly – this can be done in Realtime reports.
   Please Note: make sure you have events set up identically in your filtered and unfiltered views. When testing to ensure events are firing correctly, you’ll need to do so in your unfiltered view.