Can the Same Person Referrer to Google Again

Have you ever gone into your Shopify account and your Google Analytics accounts and discovered that they both testify unlike website traffic numbers?

This is a common predicament that many eCommerce businesses and agencies find themselves in (or any business that has Google Analytics set upwardly across multiple websites.)

This usually happens because Google Analytics isn't configured to track multiple websites properly. And then, you lot might accept duplicate traffic or are missing a bunch of traffic altogether.

For case, hither are three employ cases where you desire to set up Google Analytics on multiple websites.

• Yous have i main Shopify store for your company. Ex: TheHatShop.com. And so, you lot utilize a landing page tool similar Instapage, LeadPages, or HubSpot to create multiple microsites on their own subdomains. Ex: Wholesale.TheHatShop.com.
• Your blog is on its own subdomain.  Ex: blog.thePPCshop.com
• Or, you lot run a fast-growing hamburger franchise. You have 25 franchise stores across the U.Southward. Each of these stores have their own localized sites, just they use the same template.

In this post, we reached out to 33 Google Analytics pros with tips for how to properly fix your Google Analytics when y'all take multiple accounts.

1. Know the deviation between accounts, properties, and views
2. Add all sites under a single Google Analytics account
3. Create multiple views for each belongings
4. Add together each site every bit unique accounts
5. Configure roll-up reporting
6. Add your tracking codes in Google Tag Manager
7. Verify your analytics fix in Google Tag Banana
8. Set upwards a custom dashboard to view all of your information in one identify
9. Implement cantankerous-domain tracking
10. Update your Referral Exclusion Listing
11. Block bots
12. Use the note feature

Related: Google Analytics Reporting: A Consummate Guide to Reports, Metrics, Dimensions, and More

PRO TIP: How to track these 10 popular Google Analytics metrics

Sure, at that place are dozens (and dozens?) more GA metrics y'all could runway. But, starting with these 10 commonly tracked GA metrics will requite you a pretty high-level view of how your marketing is working…

1. Sessions: The number of sessions can tell you how many times people are returning to your website. Obviously, the higher the improve.
2. Sessions by organic keyword: Which organic keywords bring in the most traffic to your website? This may assist yous determine whether your SEO investments are paying off.
3. Bounce rate: Practise visitors leave presently afterwards landing on your website? Or practise they stick around?
4. Average session duration: How much fourth dimension are people spending on your website? Users with a loftier average session duration are most likely relevant to your company.
5. Goal completions: How many users responded to your call to action?

If you want to rails these in Google Analytics, you might find the visualizations limiting. It's also a bit fourth dimension-consuming to combine all the metrics you demand in 1 view.

To improve understand how your website performs in terms of traffic growth and conversions, nosotros've made this plug-and-play dashboard that contains all the essential metrics for understanding how successful you are at optimizing dissimilar aspects of your website.

This Google Analytics dashboard offers a complete view of how your website is performing and converting at-a-glance and helps yous gain valuable insights such as:

• How much traffic does my website go daily or monthly? (sessions)
• Which channels are driving traffic to my website? (sessions past channel)
• Which keywords are driving the nigh organic traffic? (sessions by keyword)
• How much time are visitors spending on my website? (average session elapsing)

And more…

You can easily set information technology upwardly in just a few clicks – no coding required.

To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:

Step i: Get the template

Pace 2: Connect your Google Analytics account with Databox.

Stride 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.

How many websites are you lot managing in Google Analytics?

Of the people we surveyed, nearly 50% are managing 10 or more websites or backdrop in Google Analytics. When yous are juggling that many Google Analytics sites, y'all need a defined framework, or else you may find yourself with a lot of incomplete or missing reporting information. For example, not being able to see how many people from one microsite become dorsum to your main site and vice versa.

"In Analytics, your business organisation is an "Account," and a website is a "Property," says Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media. "So keep things organized and put every site nether the same account. Information technology'southward like a family with grandparents and parents. Inside each property, in that location can be many different "Views." These are like the kids."

Yoann Bierling of International Consulting adds, "When sharing admission with other contributors, make sure that they have access to the right accounts or properties. Managing these two dimensions correctly can greatly simplify collaboration with other actors that need to access some analytics of some of the sites."

Since Google allows you to have up to 50 properties in one account, this is the simplest option for tracking multiple sites. You can simply list all of your websites every bit "dissimilar properties" nether this account.

Stein Jurgen of Smartphones Revealed says, "We collect all of our websites on the aforementioned analytics business relationship. Otherwise, you tin can hands spend as well much time on making an overview of all your websites if you take many."

David Ehrentreu of Calibrate Media adds, "Keep information technology simple! There is no need to brand things complicated. Make sure when you create a new Google Analytics property to create it from the top-level (Account Level.) Since it is possible to make multiple tracking backdrop on i website."

"Always nest your Google Analytics accounts for multiple sites under 1 main tracking ID.," says William Chin-Fook of Pickfu.com. "What that means is you set up 1 business relationship and so set up-up your different websites under this account. This will get in easier to keep tracking of Google Analytics properties and also organize them (and any views) as you create them."

Arvind Patil of SRV Media chimes in, "Apply a single account id in Google Analytics and add multiple sites as dissimilar properties to rail performance and traffic information. In lodge to track the customized details, you can create unlike views nether a unmarried holding."

In improver to creating a property for each site, you'll also want to set up multiple views for each property.

"Make sure to create multiple views for each belongings," says Alex Kalavrezos of Healthy Links. "In each view, accept your data filtered properly and then yous tin see data from organic, paid, social, etc. It'due south way easier to clarify that way."

"Create custom views and so you tin can isolate sessions that beginning or stop on a particular subdomain," adds Joseph Colarusso of Core Search Marketing.

Lewis Peters of Online Turf adds, "I of the beginning things I exercise when taking over a new analytics account is ensuring that the data is equally accurate as possible, by utilizing views.

A view enables you to see your information from a sure perspective – and so you can have many views inside i GA property. Past default, yous will have 1 view named merely 'all website data."

There are three views I recommend setting up for each website you want to track in GA:

• Your main view, where all appropriate internal filters & whatsoever goals should exist enabled here.
• A raw fill-in view, just in instance something goes incorrect with your main view
• A test view that can be used safely as a testing environment without risking losing your main data."

Kim Doughty of Leadhub recommends taking this process a step farther by starring specific views.

"When using Google Analytics for multiple websites, the best thing you lot tin do, especially at an bureau level, is to star the view you lot are using virtually," says Doughty. "For one customer, we may accept more than than one Google Analytics view, which can confuse team members working on the aforementioned account. Staring the view prevents usa from sending inaccurate analytics reporting to clients and allows united states to stay organized on an agency level."

An culling way to set this up to add together multiple sites in your main Google Analytics as unique accounts. This allows you to rail each site with unique Analytics tracking codes.

Jennifer Neylon of Supplement Warehouse says, "Create multiple Google Accounts per each website that you want to track. This manner, you can track each website's behavior completely separately from each other."

"I'k the Co-Founder of ND2A Grouping, which owns a portfolio of websites which are visited over 2M times per calendar month," says Robert Janes of ND2A Group. "I am currently managing 17 websites with Google Analytics. The most helpful tip that I tin can give anyone is to group websites by category or function. For example, here at ND2A, we have multiple websites that are in the wellness space, so I created an analytics account called "ND2A Health" and create property tags for each website, app, and YouTube channel."

Khris Steven of Khrisdigital adds, "In using Google Analytics for multiple domains or websites, you accept to create a new business relationship in your existing Analytics business relationship from the Account column.

Hither are a few tips to follow:

• Make sure you enter an Account Name unlike from the i yous have already.
• Use a specific descriptive proper noun so that y'all can easily tell what the new account is for when you see the proper name in the Account list.
• Then make sure to accept the default to add the account to your electric current organization.
• And finally, if you plan on tracking more than than one property in this account, utilise a specific and descriptive proper name. Then make full in other necessary details."

Abhijith VM of Geek'southward Framework adds, "Perfect account belongings and view naming could save you a ton of fourth dimension while doing analysis. This is especially valid if y'all are working for an agency where hundreds of analytics accounts are connected to i master account. The common practice is for clients to share access to their GA properties. Chances are they oasis't thought nigh properly naming their backdrop. I've seen many using generic names. So it's amend to rename the backdrop and the views."

Jonathan Delfs of Trendhim says, "Implement (at least) two accounts on your websites:

1) Ane general account for catching all your domains. Really useful to go expert tracking of traffic you lot go far through one aqueduct to site A – where you lot link to site B. Then you can get a meliorate overview of what you get from your ad spend.

ii) Add another account/view uniquely per domain/market, to go a single view of that market. Corking to avert sampled data, when your sites get as well big to fit a standard costless Analytics programme."

Drew Beechler of High Alpha adds, "Make sure you lot set up a custom filter in gild to display the total URL string. This volition let y'all utilise the same GA tracking code on multiple websites and create custom segments around different URL strings to view the dissimilar website viewers."

"Making sure you are using a roll-up account volition help yous go an overview of all of your websites in 1 place – just will however allow you to come across the data for each website separately," says Jill Caren of two Dogs Media.

Patricio Quiroz of Code Authority adds, "Roll-up reporting will collect data from multiple Google Analytics properties, which will allow you to meet that information in the same report if you would like.

An case of this would be if you ain several backdrop in dissimilar countries, you could then collect this information to compare metrics globally and drill down even further to compare backdrop in unlike countries. The advantage of the roll-upward reporting is that you have two options in aggregating your data. You can gear up individual analytics properties that will include data from a single website, and and then you have the multiple property view to include all of your properties."

"To use Google Analytics on multiple websites, my one tip is to utilise Google Tag Manager," says Samuel Schmitt. "With GTM you will exist able to set up different Google Analytics tracking for different environments. In other words, each website volition have its own Google Analytics Tracking ID (UA-XXXXXX-10), and everything managed centrally from Google Tag Manager."

Omar Fonseca of Medicare Program Finder adds, "Google Analytics is the 1-terminate-store for all website functioning, traffic data, and analytics. When y'all accept multiple websites to track, you can apply a single account to add multiple sites in Google Analytics, which can be washed in ii ways.

You can either add all your sites nether a single Analytics account as different backdrop or add a unique Analytics account ID to each individual site. Then the most important footstep happens; multiple websites means a multitude of codes to enter in your website.

In guild to keep all your codes in one place, which will provide you with only one handy code needed for your website, you lot must fix your subdomains correctly using Google Tag Director (GTM). GTM allows site owners to store, manage, and deploy all your tags to your site from ane location. That manner, if you are tracking information with multiple unlike programs instead of having all those scripts within your header which slow your website down significantly. GTM produces one script, which represents all of your tags in GTM, so Google but has to read one script instead of many. With site speed existence and then important, this reduces the requested resource and keeps your website running smoothly and fast!"

Krzysztof Surowiecki of Hexe Data adds, "I recommend having a detailed Google Analytics implementation framework according to which all new site implementations are carried out. Such a framework defines, among others, basic GA configuration rules. Information technology defines whatsoever boosted elements that are added to the standard GA configuration, e.g., events, custom dimensions, calculated metrics, etc. It defines the naming of elements. In addition, all implementations are implemented through the tag manager, which allows for quick and efficient direction."

"The near important matter to do is always to brand sure that you are looking at the right site," says Andrea Bailey of Tandem Interactive. "Employ the Google Tag Assistant to cheque that the analytics lawmaking matches what you lot are looking at. From here, information technology is important to focus on 1 site at a time to ensure that you do non get confused. Taking screenshots if you lot are looking to compare clients side-by-side or jumping around tin be helpful as well. If you check the analytics frequently, yous volition besides first to become more familiar with each site'south trends and be less probable to get confused."

"Create a custom web analytics dashboard that has all the most important information for your niche, and utilise that for all your websites' analytics," says Toni JV of JVT Media. "This will plain differ from every website and business depending on their goals, just if yous work in a specific niche, oftentimes, you can duplicate the dashboards from your other website'southward analytics, saving you fourth dimension and headache. Now yous tin quickly go and look at the most important data for your website without getting confused and overwhelmed. And nigh importantly, continue it unproblematic. Y'all don't want to overcomplicate this and overwhelm yourself by tracking likewise many websites and too much data all at in one case."

Jasmine Hippe of Augurian adds, "To hands view all of your Google Analytics information in one spot, I recommend using Google Data Studio. They have templated reports, or you lot tin can create your own custom written report to chimera up insights from all of your GA properties in one easy-to-access spot." You can also apply a custom dashboard software like Databox.

Will Craig of LeaseFetcher says, "Google Analytics is our website tracking treasure chest containing all our own, as well as, all our clients' traffic and performance data.

When analyzing data from multiple sites on Google Analytics, nosotros highly recommend that you lot consider cross-domain traffic. Implementing cross-domain traffic means that cookies from one site are passed onto the next, ensuring that the visit information is reliable and authentic.

If you make up one's mind not to implement cantankerous-domain tracking, all of your sites will appear within the same referral traffic report, which obviously affects the accurateness of this data."

Noriko Harada of 45/RPM adds, "This is the showtime and most important affair y'all need to practise. This volition affect how you run into data from referral traffic to eCommerce transactions. If you miss this, the data you come across on GA might not be right, and you might lose some opportunities to better paid and organic efforts."

Once yous implement cantankerous-domain tracking, y'all'll as well desire to update your referral exclusion list inside Google Analytics to ensure the about accurate site data.

"In some situations, a company has multiple websites that every bit a whole are treated as one," adds Dylan Zsigray of Kiwi Artistic. "For example, a website could have multiple subdomains (due east.g., a blog) that are technically "contained" but are normally treated as part of the parent site. While a user may see a different UI for each site, you care for them as joint as they serve a larger purpose. To avert having inaccurate data in Google Analytics for your goals, it is beneficial to add sites to the referral exclusion listing for each applicative belongings. This ensures that if a user leaves your site and goes to one of your subdomains, they will not be counted equally an inbound referral each time. In other words, a user will travel in-between your sites freely without messing with your data."

Aqsa Tabassam of Brandnic adds, "If you are using Google Analytics for multiple websites and these websites have their subdomains as well, along with the principal domains. This situation might cause a discrepancy in analytics provided by Google and your private web traffic tracker."

"With any cross-domain setup, yous should also recall to add any domains you're tracking to the Referral Exclusion Listing," says Anthony Espinoza of TopSpot Internet Marketing. "Any websites added here will ensure the original, authentic source is kept and will prevent "self-referrals." This feature is only available to the Universal Analytics version of the tracking lawmaking, so make certain the code is up to the latest standard."

Axel DeAngelis of NameFeedback.com says, "For microsites/subdomains, it'southward important to set up up referral exclusions and then that users who click from your main domain to your subdomain only count as one session."

Ballad Hill of Analyticshelp adds, "Make sure that cross-domain is working correctly on all websites and add the websites to the referral exclusion list in Google Analytics."

"If y'all're using Google Analytics on multiple websites, be sure to adjust your settings to cake known bots automatically," says Stan Mead of Elevation Home Buyers LLC. "Bot Traffic describes whatever non-human traffic to a website. Some bots are acceptable, simply some are malicious and tin skew your data."

"Using annotations allows you to identify changes that take been made to your websites every bit y'all monitor sessions, users, and behaviors across your spider web properties globally," says Daniel Kraciun of discover.jobs. "Annotations is ane of the most usable and undervalued features within Google Analytics for multi-site direction."

***

In sum, if you have multiple websites, at that place are ii main means to configure Google Analytics.

• You can add all of your sites equally unlike properties under your master account.
• Or, you tin can add together multiple sites in your main Google Analytics equally unique accounts.

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Source: https://databox.com/how-to-use-google-analytics-across-multiple-websites

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