Google Analytics: marketers' Bible

If you are asked which tool marketers should know by heart, the answer should be: Google Analytics.

Before we start to discuss about Google Analytics, I want to ask you something: would you trust a doctor who is not able to read your X-rays? Probably not, right. Why should we then trust marketers who don't know how Analytics calculates a bounce rate?

The comparison might appear extreme but it conveys my message. If you want to become a real marketer, Google Analytics is essential part of your knowledge suitcase. I met Senior Marketing Managers, handling big marketing budgets and still not able to navigate through Analytics interface. How can you optimize your campaigns without knowing how your users behave, in which step of the funnel they drop?

Which level of GA knowledge do we need as marketers?

There are a few people in the entire planet who knows everything about GA, the product is quite complex, so don't worry if you feel there is still a lot of learn. The level of GA knowledge required depends on your seniority. However we should expect that every person who is allocated in the (Performance) Marketing team knows at least the Analytics fundamentals. If you never worked with custom segments and custom reports, probably you are at the beginning of discovering Analytics.

Knowing how the metrics are calculated helps you to read the numbers in the correct way and enables you to take appropriate business decisions. It is not enough to say: we have a bounce rate of 70% from Paid Search if you can't explain what a bounce is for Analytics.

In the upcoming weeks, we will share a lot about Google Analytics. For the moment, the only message I would like to spread is: please find time to learn about Google Analytics!