If you only looked at one piece of information in Google Analytics, what should it be?
Whenever I look at a new (to me) clients’ account I go straight to this report in Google Analytics that tells me instantly how their website (and online marketing) is doing, and what needs to be done to properly set up Google Analytics.
I am going to walk you through this one report: what it is, how to set it up and what it’s trying to tell you.
Conversions by Source / Medium : the most important report in Google Analytics
This magical report is called ‘Conversions by Source / Medium‘ and it’s at the very heart of what Google Analytics (and your website) is all about.
You can find it by logging in to Google Analytics, the Reporting tab then the last item on the left hand side Conversions > Goals > Overview
Here’s what to do if you see ‘This report requires goals to be enabled for the view‘)
The default view will show you Goal Completion Location, choose Source / Medium instead.
There you have it: the single most important report you can see in Google Analytics. A bit buried, but now you know where it is.
If you see ‘This report requires goals to be enabled for this view’
If you see the message below, you know you need to do a bit more work to finish setting up Google Analytics. It’s not difficult – you can often do this without any technical knowledge at all. Here’s a free tutorial on how to set up Goals in Google Analytics (sign up to find out two other key techniques to make sense of Google Analytics)
