What is Analytics?
TL;DR
Analytics is the collection and analysis of data about your website or app to understand user behavior and business performance.
Example
What analytics tools track:
- How many people visit your website
- Which pages they view
- How long they stay
- Where they come from (Google, social media, direct)
- What devices they use
- Where they drop off
- Which buttons they click
Popular analytics tools:
| Tool | Best For |
|---|---|
| Google Analytics | General website tracking (free) |
| Mixpanel | Product analytics, user journeys |
| Hotjar | Heatmaps, session recordings |
| Amplitude | Product-led growth companies |
| Plausible | Privacy-focused, simple stats |
Example insight: Analytics shows 70% of mobile users leave your checkout page. You investigate and find the form is too long on mobile. Fix it → conversions increase.
Explanation
Key Analytics Metrics
Traffic metrics:
- Users: Unique visitors
- Sessions: Total visits
- Pageviews: Total pages viewed
Engagement metrics:
- Bounce rate: % who leave without interacting
- Session duration: Average time on site
- Pages per session: How deep people explore
Conversion metrics:
- Conversion rate: % who complete a goal
- Goal completions: Total conversions
- Funnel drop-off: Where people abandon
Setting Up Analytics
- Install tracking code on your website
- Define goals (purchases, signups, downloads)
- Set up conversion tracking
- Create dashboards for key metrics
- Review regularly and take action
Why It Matters
For Business Owners
You can't improve what you don't measure. Without analytics, you're guessing. With analytics, you're making informed decisions.
Analytics reveals ROI. You can see which marketing channels actually drive sales, not just clicks. This tells you where to invest more.
Analytics finds problems. High bounce rate on a page? Something's wrong. Long load time? Users leave. Analytics surfaces these issues.
Analytics validates changes. Made a website update? Compare before and after metrics to see if it actually helped.
Common Mistakes
- Tracking everything but analyzing nothing
- Making decisions on too little data
- Ignoring mobile vs desktop differences
- Not setting up goal tracking
- Checking daily (creates noise) instead of weekly/monthly
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