Google Analytics has a completely new look! If you haven’t checked out the new Google Analytics experience, you might need a guide to help you along the way. 

What’s different?

Here’s one Google Analytics Report that may be familiar: the Acquisitions Overview report, showing how visitors found their way to our website. 

We’re looking at a couple of days of visits to our lab site. A pie chart shows us that Organic Search (blue) brings us nearly all of our traffic. 11% of our visitors come directly (green) and we have an orange sliver of social traffic. 

Line graphs show us the number of visitors and the number of e-commerce sales. Below those three charts is a Bar Graph Showing more detail about the sources of traffic. 

The screen shot below shows us the new Traffic Acquisitions report for a brand new website for the same time period. 

Top left there’s a line graph showing the first few visitors to the website. Next comes a bar graph showing that all the visits came directly. Below that we get more details on engagement. Data on conversions can be see by scrolling past the darker bar.

Both reports show

• the number of visitors
• the source and medium of the visits
• the number of sessions 
• the length of time spent
• the number and revenue of conversions

But the information is in different places, with different kinds of charts. The reports are different enough that you won’t be able to read the new reports easily just because you can read the old reports. The new Google Analytics experience is definitely new!

First steps

Let’s start with the basics. What reports  are in the old analytics? Look on the left in the screenshot below and you will see Realtime (the visitors who are at the website right now), Audience, Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions.

Each of those reports has a drop down menu showing more details. 

The screenshot below, showing the new G4 reports, offers two major divisions below the Realtime report.

Life cycle includes Acquisition, Engagement, Monetization, and Retention. User shows Demographics and Tech. 

As we know from comparing the two Acquisitions reports, having the same name doesn’t guarantee that the old and new reports are covering the same things in the same way. 

Step by step

We’re going to walk through all the reports here at the blog over the next week or two. Please join us. At this point, you can choose to stick with the classic Google Analytics, or to try out the new version. Step through the reports with us and you’ll be ready to decide which way to go.

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