Custom Reporting in Google Analytics

The custom reports tab in Google Analytics may very well be the most powerful and most underused piece of functionality that the free service offers.  It is definitely the most flexible.

The reason that this functionality is so under-used is probably because of just how intimidating it is.  Think about it - Google is giving you complete control to create a totally unique report using any metrics or dimensions that you want.  And with great power comes great responsibility...well maybe not in this case, but it can certainly be intimidating.  So much so that when you first click on the Custom Reports tab, Google gives you a screen that includes a "Learn how" link as well as suggestions for example custom reports.

Then, once you finally get the courage to create a custom report, you are presented with the most intimidating screen in all of Google Analytics.  It is a screen of possibility.  The workspace you see is full of empty boxes, just ready to be filled with all of your favorite metrics.

OK, now that I have you terrified, let's walk through creating one of these reports so that you can see how helpful they can actually be.  You can create a report that shows you exactly what YOU want to see so that every time you take a look at your analytics, you can view the report containing the metrics that you find most important.

Custom Report - Conversion Traffic Sources

For my example, I want to create a custom report that I can use to analyze all of the traffic that came to the Newfangled website and ended up converting a goal.  In this case, goals include filling out a contact form, subscribing to our newsletter or blog digest, or registering to watch a webinar.  These are all goals that I have set up ahead of time, and now I want to look at all the traffic that resulted in a conversion and see how they arrived on our website.

Step 1: Choose your first metric.  This is the metric that will serve to filter out a certain segment of your traffic.  In this example, because I only want to look at traffic that ended up converting a goal, I will choose "Total Goal Conversions."  This is under Metrics > Goals.  You could also do this for any single goal, but in our case, I am more concerned with the fact that they completed a goal, not which goal they completed.

Step 2: Choose the other metrics that you would like to see.  For this, you are going to pick metrics that relate to this segment of traffic and that you will find of interest.  In my example, I am going to choose "Total Goals Started" because I want to see the difference in people who began one of our goal funnels but did not ever complete the conversion.  I am also going to choose some good overarching stats of interest to me: bounce rate, % new visits, pages/visit, and average time on site.

Step 3: Now that you have your metrics selected, you will have to add a dimension.  This will be how all of the items in your report are organized.  In our example, I want to know where this traffic was coming from, so I am going to choose "Medium" as my Dimension.  This will result in a list of how this traffic arrived on the site (organic, direct, referral), with metrics on each one.

I sometimes like to also use "Source/Medium" instead of either "source" or "medium" because it's a 2-for-1.  The report will display the source of the traffic, and whether it was organic, email, referral, or direct.  You may prefer to set up just the Medium as your dimension, then set up "source" as the sub-dimension...which brings me to the next step.

Step 4: Once you have your dimension set, you will need to choose sub-dimensions.  A sub-dimension is how the data will be organized once you click on any individual item based on the main dimension.  For example, if I set my dimension to be "Medium," once I click on an item (i.e. Organic), it will then show me all of the sources in that medium (i.e. Google, bing, yahoo, etc.).

You can set up as many sub-dimensions as you would like, allowing you to click through and drill down deeper into each one.  Again, it is up to you to decide what dimensions you want to see.  Just ask yourself, "how do I want my data organized" at each level.

In this example, I have set up my dimension as "Medium," and my sub-dimensions as "Source" then "Keyword."

Now that we have our metrics and our dimensions picked out, it is time to save the report and see what we get!

You can see in the screenshot above that all of my metrics are across the top and my first dimension (Medium) is being listed out.  If I were to click on any of these, I would get a list of sources, then a list of keywords for the organic search items.

So there you have it.  How to use this uber-powerful tool in only 4 steps.  Obviously there is much more you can do and you can create all kinds of reports.  So I encourage you to play around with it.  Ask yourself what questions you want answered and what statistics are most important to you.  Then have at it.

Let me know if you create any really great custom reports!  I am always looking for new effective ways to purge all of the mass amounts of data delivered in Google Analytics.