8 Essential Google Analytics Reports For B2B Marketing

Have you been using Google Analytics for awhile but have a sneaking suspicion that you just aren’t using it to it’s full potential? Want to take your skills to the next level? Perfect. This blog is to help you use Google Analytics to get the insights that are most valuable for b2b marketing.

Are you completely new to Google Analytics? Need help getting it set up? Check out this in depth guide from Moz. Do you have Google Analytics set up, but need help understanding what’s what, or need a refresher? Check out this incredibly helpful guide from Social Media Examiner. Still with me? Let’s get into it shall we…

So what’s all the fuss about?

Google Analytics is possibly the most effective free website reporting tool out there. Understanding Google Analytics will help you:

• understand what content is working and what isn’t
• understand who’s coming to your site
• understand the performance of your website
• understand where your website viewers are coming from
• understand how people engage with your site
• understand how people get to your site
• define your audience and buyer personas
• and more…

For your reading pleasure, I’ve organized my Google Analytics tips into aspects of b2b marketing: website development, content marketing, audience analysis/buyer personas,  you will find the Google Analytics Let’s start with everybody’s favorite…

Content Marketing Reports

Google Analytics is a great place to find out what’s working with your content marketing and what can be improved.

1) Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels 

This is a great view for understanding the channels that bring visitors to your site. Get a glimpse into how many sessions are coming on social media and search.

Session count isn’t the only important metric. Take a look at the Bounce Rates for each channel. Usually bounce rates in the 90’s are cause for concern.

Look into what social channels are driving the most traffic by clicking on “Social” in the “Default Channel Grouping” column.

Actionable Insights: 

• Which channels are driving the most traffic to your website?
• Are there channels that have a high bounce rate? How can you bring that down?
• What percentage of visitors from each channel are completing your goals?

2) Behavior > Site Content > All Pages 

This report is great for understanding which pages on your website are getting the most engagement. Again, take a look at your bounce rate.

Actionable Insights: 

• What website content is driving the most traffic? Create more similar content.
• Which pages are people spending the most time on? Create more similar content.
• Which pages have the highest bounce rate? Make sure the headline is relevant to the page content. Consider updating and improving the content as well.

SEO Reports

Google Analytics has a number of reports that can help you improve your website’s search rankings.

3) Behavior > Site Speed > Speed Suggestions

Site speed is an important ranking factor. Slow page loads can exasperate site visitors and kill search rankings. This report will give you suggestions for speeding up your website pages. If you click on the blue number total next to each page, you can see a detailed breakdown of that page’s speed and suggestions for making it faster.

Actionable Insights: 

• Which pages are taking the longest to load? Follow the suggestions to fix them.

4) Acquisition > Search Engine Optimization > Queries

Keywords aren’t dead. While Google won’t show you a lot of your keywords, this report is a great way to get a glimpse at which keywords are driving traffic to your website.

Actionable Insights: 

• What are some of your higher performing keywords?
• What are some topics that you could write more content on?

Want to know more reports that can help with your SEO efforts? Check out this post: 18 Useful Google Analytics Custom Reports, Segments and Dashboard for SEO.

Buyer Persona Reports

Google Analytics offers a range of reports that can help you create buyer personas, or tweak existing ones.

5) Audience > Demographics > Overview 

This report gives you insights into the age and gender of your visitors.

Actionable Insights: 

• What age group is on your site the most? Keep this information in mind when designing the UX of your website.

6) Audience > Interest > Overview  

Get insights into what Affinity Categories and In-Market Segments your website visitors are in.

Actionable Insights: 

• What kind of person is your website appealing to? You can use these insights to create content that relates to your audience.

7) Audience > Geo > Location 

This report allows you to see where your site visitors are located (you can see what city they’re viewing your site from).

Actionable Insights: 

• Where are your website visitors coming from? You could do a lot of things with this information – create smart content for visitors from certain regions or hold an event in places where a lot of your visitors live.

UX/UI Reports

Google Analytics offers a few different reports that help you analyze and improve your websites user experience.

8) Behavior > Behavior Flow 

The Behavior Flow report is a visual representation of how visitors move through your website. The white tabs are landing pages, the green pages are starting pages, the red paths represent users who left the site and the blue paths represent users who continued on to another page.

Actionable Insight: 

• What pages are users leaving from the most? If a large percentage of users are leaving a page, you may be taking too long to load, or have another problem.
• Are there pages that you would like to give more visibility? Find ways to make that page more prominent on your site by linking other more prominent pages to it, or featuring it more prominently in your site navigation.

Other Resources

There are a lot of ways you can use Google Analytics to gain insights into your marketing efforts. If you’d like some more pointers, here are some great places to look:

Essential Google Analytics Resources For Marketers: A Complete Guide

The Top Ten Essential Google Analytics Metrics

12 Awesome Custom Google Analytics Reports Created By The Experts