Channels and Custom Groupings in Google Analytics

Name: Channels and Custom Groupings in Google Analytics
Author: Christopher Pittman

Setting up and understanding custom channels in GA4

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Course: On-Demand

Okay, welcome back. In this video we're going to be talking about our channels, Google Analytics 4, and some customization, some modification, we can use when we'd want to use those in Google Analytics. Right now, we're looking at the Traffic acquisition report. Underneath Acquisition is Traffic acquisition report, it's a separate report. Actually breaks out the traffic fairly decently. So, let's just go through this standard report and look at some of the options here, and then we'll dive into how we use this in our reporting to actually look at what things we need to work on, what things we need to increase in our website, and how these are tracking Google analytics. So, Google actually has a standard formula, which we'll get into in a next video, for identifying each traffic source and assigning it to a channel. So, a channel is where we get our traffics from. So, it's basically a road to our website, what directions customers took to get to our website. We could call that a channel, some people call it funnels, but it's getting people to the website. So, we're going to have these main categories here such as Referral, Organic Social, Paid, Direct, and Organic Search. Okay? They're right here in Session default channel grouping. So, that's what that is, and you can change that here. So, let's go Session source, and when we do that it's going to give us what platforms that traffic came from. So again, we've talked about Shopping and we'll get into that in an upcoming video on how to drill down into channels and channel reporting and why this is important. We'll actually get into this Shopping, Google Shopping, a little bit in some detail. And as we've talked about in previous videos, Facebook, Instagram, both of those have zero seconds, that just looks like bought traffic to me. So, that's how you alter this report and go through and do Source platform, Source campaign, and Source medium right here in this Traffic acquisition report. Which makes it really handy to look and see if you've had traffic, from let's say Google AdWords, we can go to Session campaign, and if those campaigns are set it will actually show us what those campaigns are and what they look like. And then from there, we'll be able to tell what time on page, how many conversions, how much revenue, those kind of pieces within Google Analytics. And then we'd step over to the Ads platform, if we're doing Bing ads, or Microsoft ads, or even Google ads, be able to look over and verify that those two are matching up as far as revenue, and engagement time, and sessions, and generally just clicks. Often there's a disparity in there, and Google tries to explain that every once in a while, but. So, this is your Session campaign underneath. You'll have, if you build an Organic, Direct, and Referral. Referrals are from other URLs and Direct traffic are people typing in your URLs. Organic traffic are your keywords, and then your one Google one right here is our campaign and we'll get into that in an upcoming video. Okay, so this has been channels within Google Analytics 4, channels' going to be your sources of traffic to your website. So, where they came from is going to be your channels. We're going to be looking at custom channels coming up in the next video and how to actually utilize those in Google Analytics 4.

Advanced Provider : Christopher Pittman 3 Lessons · 11m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Urdu, Chinese

Course Description

These lessons cover a collection of topics related to custom channels including how to set up a custom channel. The requirements of a custom channel are coved in depth including how to add a custom channel to the standard acquisition report. Google Analytics is a powerful tool for understanding website traffic with the option to build custom channels for very specific needs makes it even more so. A Custom channel can be as simple as selecting just to get AdWords data or affiliate channels.

What You'll Learn

Define a channel in Google Analytics 4
Set up and customize a custom channel
Identify what bot traffic looks like
Explain how channels can be used to direct marketing efforts
Differentiate between channels and their distinctions
Add a custom channel to the standard acquisition report

Key Takeaways

Google Analytics lets you build custom channels for very specific needs, such as isolating AdWords data or affiliate channels.
The course covers the requirements of a custom channel in depth, including how to add a custom channel to the standard acquisition report.
Channels can be used to direct marketing efforts and to distinguish different sources of website traffic.
Understanding what bot traffic looks like is part of working with channels in Google Analytics 4.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn in this course?

You will learn how to define a channel in Google Analytics 4, understand what bot traffic looks like, explain how channels can be used to direct marketing efforts, and explain the differences between channels.

What topics does this course cover?

It covers a collection of topics related to custom channels, including how to set up a custom channel, the requirements of a custom channel in depth, and how to add a custom channel to the standard acquisition report.

What lessons are included?

The course includes three lessons: Customizing Channels, Custom Channel Settings, and Practical Applications.

Can I create channels for specific data sources?

Yes. A custom channel can be as simple as selecting just to get AdWords data or affiliate channels, allowing you to build custom channels for very specific needs.

What skills does this course help develop?

The course addresses Google Analytics, Marketing Channel, Traffic Analysis, Traffic Classification, Web Analytics, and Web Traffic.