Yesterday we hosted a Startup Lab workshop on Google Analytics best practices for our portfolio companies. Josh Knox, Google Analytics Global Operations Manager, recommended five steps on how to approach the tool: setting strategy, designing key actions, implementing tracking, refining data, and optimizing for insights.

1. Setting strategy: stakeholders across business units should identify goals, set key performance indicators, and set targets. For example, a community site may want to create ongoing engagement around local events. A key performance indicator could then be visitor loyalty, measured by targeting a 50% rate for repeat visits.
2. Designing key actions: businesses need to determine which website elements and actions need to be measured to capture the site’s performance. Key website actions include anything from form submission and checkout to search or social actions.
3. Implementing tracking: the basic Google Analytics code snippet covers basic tracking for pageviews, geographic location, browser types, etc. However, richer tracking for events, e-commerce, or social plug-ins require additional integration. Spending the effort to set up goals and funnels can help you identify bottlenecks in your web flows.
4. Refining data: this step focuses on ensuring data is clean and organized for processing. It involves confirming that all key actions have been tagged properly, thinking about account permissions, integrating dashboards with other Google products, and creating easy-to-consume reports.
5. Optimizing insights: Lastly, there is the optimization piece that is usually forgotten. There are various features, such as custom alerts, dashboards, and multi-channel funnels, that can help reveal insights about your website.

Thanks to the over 30 portfolio companies who attended at the Startup Lab or remotely via livestream. Tomorrow we’ll be back at the Startup Lab to talk about “YouTube for Marketers” — if you’re at a portfolio company, please sign up to be reminded of upcoming events!

Posted by Jennifer Gee, Google Ventures Intern