Reporting In Google Analytics: (part-3) 2

This post is going to discuss Reporting in Google Analytics as another main component of GA. Reporting constitutes the forth main part of how Google Analytics works. In the two previous posts, we covered the way Google analytics collects, processes and configures data the ways you see it on your Google Analytics interface.

Reporting In Google Analytics

Google Analytics starts collecting data about user’s behavior when JS or SDKs have been detected on a website or mobile app. It is then the roles of processing and configuration come in to organize and transform data into meaningful tables and percentages.  Having a Google Analytics account, you can use Google Analytics Reporting interface or APIs (Application Programming Interface) to call any sort of information you may need for reporting and analysis.

It is important to keep in mind that GA reporting system is based on blending or combining different dimensions with corresponding metrics. In this way, you are able to create or generate almost indefinite reports to analyse in GA.

Let’s clarify the following in little more details:

I — Reporting In Google Analytics: What Dimensions and Metrics are?

Reporting in Google Analytics depends so heavily on Dimensions and Metrics blocks to create data tables or charts. Simply put, a dimension represents a reference information about something that can be measurable. In other words, a Google Analytics dimension is a given descriptive attribute or characteristic to a certain object that can have many different values or percentages. Let’s put an example here, Geo network in Google Analytics could have dimensions such as Continent, Sub-Continent, Country / Territory, Region, Metro (Designated Market Area), City, Latitude, Longitude etc. Country / Territory name dimension could have values  like Morocco, France, Cyprus, USA, Canada.

Tip: Take advantage of Primary Dimension and Secondary dimension for better visualization of your data tables. A super great feature in GA platform.

On other hands, Google Analytics metrics are used to measure and count data ( quantitative measurements). To explain more, metrics are used as individual elements in a dimension that is measured with a ratio, percentage, or sum. For instance, the dimension ”Country/Territory can be tied up with metrics like  Sessions (total number of sessions within the date range), %New Sessions, New Users, Bounce Rate, Avg. Session Duration. Note when you open your data tables, you are able to see some dimensions and metrics pre-populated by default.

Tip: You can really go deeper and deeper by customizing your reports or setting up, adding and combining different dimensions with their associated metrics.

II — Reporting In Google Analytics: Dimensions and Metrics Scopes?

Please recall that reports are made of combining Dimensions with Metrics. They are working together in conjunction with one another.  However, there are certain limitations! In this respect, you can not combine each metric with every dimension. Both dimensions and metrics are governed with a sort-of-connected relationship or scope that reflect level of data correspondence and hierarchy. To know more, you may refer to GA help center.

Tip: There is a complete list of dimensions and metrics that create a valid combination — available in Google Developers. It is a documentation for API, Web and App, you can filter accordingly.

Overview:

Reporting in Google analytics helps you gain control on your website or app data. Taking advantage of Google analytics reporting interface or reporting APIs can help you to organize, segment and filter your business table data and visualization. With deep understanding of the notion of Dimensions and Metrics in Google Analytics and how they are working together, you can draw many meaningful, insightful, actionable and beautiful data pictures. In general, you can conclude that the four main components of Google analytics are closely interconnected and each one is built with some strong basic fundamentals and scope to generate the data tables that we enjoy on our GA Interface.

I hope you enjoy this post and was helpful for you :’). If you have or want to share more helpful tips and insightful views, please you can share with us here in the comments section below! Subsucribe to our free newsletters feeds to receive free marketing updates and analysis.

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