What are the most important Google Analytics metrics you can measure, and what can you use that data for? If you have a website, you’ve probably heard of Google Analytics. It’s a pretty standard tool that website owners use to see how many people are visiting their websites and what they’re doing while they’re there.

If you’re not yet using Google Analytics or just getting started, you’re probably looking for some basics on what Analytics can track and what it can tell you about your website and your visitors.

Let’s take a look at the most important Google Analytics metrics you should track to grow your traffic and your business. But first, a little background information on metrics.

In Google Analytics, a metric is a number that measures different ways users engage with your website, such as sessions, pageviews, and engaged sessions. Metrics measure user activity and engagement on your website, providing insights into performance and user behavior.

Although the most useful metrics for you will differ depending on your business type, your goals and marketing activity, here are 5 Google Analytics metrics that are relevant for most small businesses, and that it’s worth taking the time to understand and review regularly.

1. Users

‘Users’ is an obvious metric as it helps you measure the level of traffic to your site and is the basis of almost any other analysis. 

• ‘Users’ shows you how many people have visited your site in a given time. 
• ‘Users’ are calculated based on cookie identifiers, so does not necessarily show you individual people (as the same person could be using different devices in different locations), but is a reasonably accurate measure of them.
• Users can be broken down into ‘New’ and ‘Returning’ users. ‘New’ users are people who have never been to your site before and came for the first time in your chosen date range. ‘Returning users’ are people who have been to your site before and are visiting it again.

Using this metric

• Applying number of users as a base for performance and engagement metrics can give you an idea of how your existing traffic is interacting with your site - including in your conversion rate.
• Looking at total users over time can give you a top level idea of your audience growth.
• New vs Returning users can also help give an overview of your retention, which you can tie in with other retention analysis.
• Looking at volume of users by traffic source can help you see which marketing campaigns are driving traffic and sales.

2. Conversion rate

This is a fundamental metric to help you understand how many of your users buy something from you.

Conversion rate is the ratio of sales to users and shows you the percentage of users on your site who completed a purchase or took a specific action. It is one of the easiest and most valuable metrics to use in your account. 

In simple terms, a high conversion rate means that lots of people who came to your site completed a purchase - which is amazing. A low conversion rate on the other hand could point to a problem. 

Using conversion rate

• Conversion rate can help you gauge topline success of different traffic sources against each other, for example do Instagram ads convert at a higher rate than Facebook? And, if so, you can look deeper to find out why.
• Conversion rate can also help you measure emails or ads against each other in a specific campaign, but remember to look to the other key metrics detailed here to back this up.

This is why conversion rate is a key metric, but not the only one you should focus on.

3. Customer Acquisition Cost

Calculating your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is key to setting strong KPIs and targets for your marketing. Cost per customer acquisition is a calculation of how much money it cost for you to acquire your customers. Rather than extracting it from Google Analytics, you will need to calculate it manually by dividing the total cost to gain your customers by the total volume of paying customers.

Using CAC

As with any small business, success comes down to making a profit - that is taking in more money than you spend. When you are planning your marketing activity it is important to know how much you can afford to spend. Also when you are analyzing the performance of each channel, it is useful to understand how much it cost you to acquire that customer, and whether that is profitable or not.

• Compare your total cost per customer acquisition against your average order value to assess the profitability of your site.
• Set firm CAC targets for each marketing channel to keep you on the right track (note each channel will likely have a different CAC depending on its role in acquisition, retention, etc.).
• Compare CAC of one marketing campaign against another to gauge profitability and highlight any improvements that can be made.

4. Return on advertising spend

Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) can help you understand which areas of your marketing generate the most income.

ROAS shows you how much revenue each advert has delivered, so is the total revenue from that ad, divided by advertising spend. For example, if you are running a Google ads campaign, you will see how much budget you spent on the campaign vs how much revenue it delivered.

Using this metric

• Compare ROAS with your CAC targets to gain an understanding of how those ads are performing.
• Compare ROAS from different ads within a campaign to see if any promotions or messaging are more profitable than another.
• Compare ROAS across your paid advertising to see where improvements could be made.

5. Abandonment Rate

Abandonment rate can help you understand blocks to conversion within your site. Abandonment rate is the percentage of users who start a purchase but don’t complete it. Abandonment rate is expected in any small business. You will always have users who start a purchase but for whatever reason are not ready to or no longer want to complete it.

However, shopping carts generally have several steps involved in the process from ‘adding to basket’ to ‘order completion’. Although a drop-off throughout this funnel is expected, analyzing abandonment rate between these steps can be key to helping you understand if there are any steps in the process that are putting your customers off, which could potentially be streamlined to improve purchase completions.

Using this metric

• Look at abandonment rate at each stage of the process - if one seems much higher than others, investigate why this could be. Is the content confusing? Is there a surprise cost?
• Analyse abandonment rate after any significant changes to your site to see if there is any impact.

Once you’ve mastered these metrics it is worth investing time to understand all of the reports that you can use within Google Analytics. For more information on any metrics have a look at Google’s help section or get in touch with the experts at HostingCT. 

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