#238 WP-Tonic We Talk About Google Analytics With Benjamin Ilfeld from 10up.com

This week Benjamin Ilfeld from 10up.com joined Jonathan Denwood and his co-host Kim Shivler to discuss Google Analytics. Benjamin is the Lead Audience and Revenue Strategist at 10up. They focus on the audience and revenue side of the business for their customers. Benjamin explained that while Google Analytics is a tool to provide insights into traffic visiting your site, it’s like a Swiss Army Knife that isn’t specific to one need. It’s generic and to get the most from it, you need to configure it to meet your needs. For example, if you are running an eCommerce store, you want to filter out bot traffic to make sure anyone visiting is a potential customer. Ben also recommended configuring views and filters in order to fine tune what you see. He always recommends creating a test view that is your sandbox. Use this like a test or staging area before putting anything into a live view. Once it’s live it will show up in your reports. Google Analytics and other tools give you insights into your data, but what is really important is to set goals and have a measurement plan. The tools them provide the measurements, but if you don’t know your goals and what you want to measure, the numbers don’t matter.