Google Analytics

Google Analytics is Google's free analytics tool that collects and presents data about traffic to a website. It helps you understand where visitors come from, how they move through the site, which content draws attention, and which actions lead to a conversion. It is one of the pillars of data-driven marketing decisions.

How Google Analytics works

A tracking snippet (today delivered as a Google tag) is placed on the site; on every visit it records events and sends them to Google's servers. The current version, GA4, bases its analytics on an event model — each page view, click or scroll is a separate event, giving a more flexible picture of behaviour than the old session-based model.

The most important metrics include:

• Users and sessions — the number of visitors and their visits;
• Traffic sources — organic, paid, direct, social and referral;
• Engagement — time on site, number of events, engagement rate;
• Conversions — defined business goals, such as a purchase or form submission.

Practical application

Marketers use Google Analytics to gauge campaign effectiveness, compare acquisition channels and study which pages sell best. Combined with attribution models, the tool helps establish which touchpoints actually contribute to a sale.

Analytics data is often paired with Google Search Console to connect a picture of search visibility with on-site behaviour. Together they cover the full journey from a Google query to conversion, which makes them an inseparable duo in marketing analytics. When deploying the tool, it is worth ensuring GDPR compliance — data anonymisation, a cookie consent banner and a clear privacy policy — since Analytics processes information about visitors.