Most of you will not be surprised that A nalytics has become one of the most frequently inflected buzzwords in the world of digital marketing. Data collection and the ability to process it correctly are highly valued in business. Many marketers are trying to jump on this runaway train and make the most of it.
This post summarizes the 5 most dangerous myths about Google Analytics. These myths are often the reason for a poor marketing strategy. Therefore, it is important to learn how to work with data. Avoid the following mistakes and learn how to set up your campaigns really effectively.
Each coin has two sides and the data that Google Analytics provides you need to be viewed from several angles. When evaluating them, several factors need to be taken into account more and not just blindly looking at the numbers.
Myth # 1: Every “bounce” is evil
In web analytics, “bounce” is when a user comes to the site, takes no action on it, and leaves the site immediately. The often mentioned “bounce rate” in this case is the percentage of visitors who left vs. those who spent some time on the site and were also active on it. Bouce rate is the most important KPI for engagement. This means that you are trying to find out how satisfied the visitors of your site are. Current statements suggest that each bounce rate expresses visitor dissatisfaction. Therefore, we can say that sites with a high bounce rate do not respond sufficiently to the requests of the visitor who came to the site. In many cases, this assumption applies, but it is not the rule. “Bounce” happens for several reasons. These don’t have to be just negative. There are also cases when a visitor finds what he has searched for on the site and immediately leaves the site. We must also take into account the fact that the Internet is full of robots, spammers and realize that paranoia around the bouce rate is just pettiness. What I want to say is that bounce rate is just a piece of the puzzle. It cannot be 100% said that this is a negative phenomenon and that your visitors are unhappy and dissatisfied. Bounce is just a part of the puzzle that only makes sense if you know what the role is for the site.
Myth # 2: Longer time spent on the site indicates better engagement
The average time spent on a page reflects how visitors felt about your site. At best, it’s just a rough estimate, but in the worse version, it’s just a shot in the dark. Average time spent on a site is undoubtedly an important indicator. However, you need to think about it more deeply and evaluate the conclusion yourself.
Imagine that half of your site’s visitors are real users and spend an average of 4 minutes on the site. Then imagine that the other half are robots and spammers who spend about 1 minute on the site. Consider the average of these two groups. All the numbers we get in this way are really only approximate and strictly sticking to them would be a step aside. Another thing to keep in mind is that the average that came out in this case, 2 minutes and 30 seconds, is not really realistic. In fact, the reality is that the user spent more time on the site than average or, conversely, was only a few seconds away.
From a user point of view, there are two cases. The first is better if the user spends more time on the site and the second is better the exact opposite. For example, if you sell computers and your site offers software download support, the shorter time spent on your site indicates that the user immediately found what they were looking for.
Myth # 3: The more pageviews, the better
More page views can generally be described as positive statistics. It usually speaks of high interest in content from visitors. On the other hand, it may indicate a bad navigation scheme. This is most often the case when the website has many other sub-sites. Visitors are guided to it, but they will not find what they are looking for. To get a better idea of whether your pageviews are okay or not, compare pageviews with the time you spend on the page. In this case, a shorter average stay on the site may indicate a negative user experience.
Myth # 4: Unique users
I often come across different opinions about unique users. Determining their exact number is really difficult. Let’s take into account that I use my computer as a user, but in addition to me, my siblings, parents, grandparents also have access to it, and last time my aunt looked for a vacation on it. But does a cookie know this? Not. Cookie thinks he’s still the same user. It is similar if I as a user can use several computers at once. As a result, it is almost impossible to say how many real users have access to the site and how many of them are unique. So even in this case, Google Analytics only provides a rough estimate and not exact numbers.
Myth # 5: Unhappy Exit Page
An exit page is generally defined as a page where the visitor did not find what he was looking for and so went elsewhere. Before we start to derive conventional opinions about it, let’s take into account that some sites are simply more prone to leaving quickly than others. E-shops, for example, have this tendency. The visitor has viewed the offer, is not interested and is leaving. In the second case, he could be interested in the offer, make a transaction and leave as well. Leaving the site is faster, but the customer leaves satisfied. Conversely, some sites naturally have a lower exit rate. These are often the home pages of blogs or sites in e-commerce sites. High exit rates can also be caused by the usual slow page speed.
In business, we try to invest in things that pay off for us. Google Analytics is not just about numbers. It’s about knowing and constantly improving our content, how you can understand your audience. Properly evaluating numbers and understanding how the customer thinks are the way to give the customer what they expect.
I hope the article helped you and you will never repeat the mentioned mistakes 🙂
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