Web Analytics India

TIME IS PRECIOUS: Don’t use it as ‘Reporting SLAVE’ but as ‘KING Analyst’

- Contributed by Saagar Shinde

Most of the web-analyst in world does reporting-analysing on Daily & Weekly basis. Most of the time they have to go through the painful process – Visiting Google Analytics (GA), going to different profiles, selecting the required reports & then export or copy-past reports/data into the respective dashboards/reports. It’s becomes a hassle when your client asks for an ad-hoc, while you are busy with your weekly or monthly reporting. Seems more like, the web ‘analyst’ has become a clown in the office juggling between ‘n’ number of reports at the same time! It is important to manage time appropriately while using option called ‘Custom Reporting’ in GA. Custom Reporting means to ‘design, a kind of report which fits your need’ as defined by GA. Here, you can also create a report and use it the rest of your life. ‘Custom Reporting’ somewhat helps you to transform into ‘KING Analyst’ from being a ‘Reporting Slave’. Most people don’t use ‘Custom Reporting’, a perfect and thoughtful gift from Google Analytics to those who value time. They don’t use it because they proibably are ignorantor they love their old ways or they just prefer spending the day collecting data. Ok that is the theory bit, now miving to some real time reporting, Let’s make a Report which can be used weekly or monthly & then see how we can schedule it.

4 Steps / 4 minutes to save your precious time & effort:
(Ofcourse also to shed that shameful tag of being a Reporting Slave!!!)

I hope most of you are familiar with GA, a boon to web those seeing analytical help in the online space, which comes free of cost & user friendly.
1. Click on “Create new custom report”

2. Let’s make a report for “Engagement by Medium”. You can use 10 metrics in a tab. If you need any more metrics then add into Second Tab.

Remember you can make the simplest report & also the most complex one. Simple Reports needs common sense & Complex reports needs some smartness. Also remember we are doing this for significant purposes i.e. to save time.

3. You can click on ‘Preview Report’ tab to view it before its actual report generation. This will help you to make any changes if required. If you have previewed the report and are satisfied then click on ‘Create Report’ & Boooom! You have created the custom report & now you can view it. Note that you can use different advanced segments also for the same and it further facilitates date comparison if needed.

4. You can export the report in the format as per your requirement or schedule it. You can schedule the reports to different members in your team.

It is so simple to create custom reports & schedule it. Next time make sure you don’t waste your time by visiting your GA account & downloading it. It will be in your Inbox. Also note that you can use a similar subject line for your report. This will help you to filter the reports from your Inbox. If you ever get suspicious about your data which you have received, you can always do a quick quality check for authenticity of numbers by logging in to your GA account.
This time gained can help you change yourself from being a mere ‘Reporting Slave’ to a ‘KING Analyst’! You can invest your time for analysing the data you have received, ultimately giving your outputs, suggestion, advice, etc. Hope you enjoyed ‘the Custom Reporting which is so common still uncommon with Web Analysts’. You can comment below about your experience with ‘Custom Reporting & Scheduling reports’.
Not sure about all the tools in the industry but Omniture also provides you with such privileges.