Google Analytics is a website analysis tool that provides details about your website or mobile app traffic. It is the most widely used web analytics service on the Internet. University Communications & Marketing uses Google Analytics data to check on the health of our website, development marketing strategies and site improvements.

Gaining Access to Google Analytics

Campbell University school/college web contributors and administrators may request access to 1) an easy-to-read analytics dashboard, 2) monthly/quarterly analytics report emails, or 3) in some cases direct access to Google Analytics.

Campbell University administrative department web contributors and administrators may request monthly/quarterly email reports or analytics dashboard access.



Common Analytics Terms

Duration

How long users visit your website displayed in hour:minutes:seconds (00:00:00).
Example: If you have 10 users, 5 visited for 3 minutes and 5 for 1 minute, the average session duration would be 2 minutes.

Average Time on Page

How long the average user views a web page displayed in hour:minutes:seconds (00:00:00).
Example: 10 Users: 5 viewed a page for 2 min and 5 viewed for 1 min, average time on page is 1 min, 30 secs (00:01:30)

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of single-page sessions a website experiences. A bounce happens when a visitor views one page of a website then exits.

Channel

Groupings source and medium of your inbound marketing campaigns. Default channels include Organic Search, Paid Search, Social, Email, Direct, and Other. 

Direct traffic includes people who typed or bookmarked your website’s URL, clicked a link in an email application (that didn’t include campaign tags), or Google Analytics was unable to determine the source of the visit. 

Other is used for data that doesn't fit into the default channel groupings. May include some ad campaign data.

Conversion

A conversion is when someone completes a desired goal based on business needs. Campbell’s biggest conversion goals are for more users to apply, visit or give. 

Example: A web visitor visits our site after clicking an Campbell blog post on LinkedIn, they browse the site, then apply to an online degree program. This would be a conversion.

Internal Links (Crosslinks)

Internal links connect pages and posts on your website to other .campbell.edu websites. Use a single page link no more than once within your content.

Example: Add a link to your homepage in a calendar or blog post to create an internal link (crosslink).

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

A  KPI is a measurable value that shows us how effectively our website is achieving key University business objectives and goals.

Not Set

Not Set can be seen in a number of different reports and indicates that a particular piece of information is not available within the report.

Pageviews & Unique Pageviews

A pageview is reported each time a user visits a page.

A unique pageview is a single page visit counted once during a session. Example: A user views an individual page 5 times during a session, but the unique pageviews report counts only one visit.

Referral

A referral is reported when a user visits our site from a non-campbell.edu website. This allows you to see who is sending traffic to your website. The referral report allows you to drill-down to see the "referral path" to see individual pages linking to your website.

Session

A session is a period of time that a user is actively engaged with a website (page views, link clicks, video views, form completions, etc).This increase shows that our search engine optimization (SEO) has improved.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's organic  results. Campbell University focuses on Google’s best practices and updates due to its contribution of 49.5% of our traffic in 2018.

User Engagement

User Engagement is the level of user involvement with a site. Page/User Interactions are actions take while engaging with the site (clicks on cards, hover over menus, clicks to watch videos, form submissions)

Users & New Users

A User is an individual person who visits your website. The user is tracked by a cookie stored in their browser. They may visit multiple times as an existing users until they clear their cache or access the site from a different device or browser.

A New User is one that visits a website for the first time in a selected date range. If a user clears their cache or visits from another browser or device during a given time period, they will be considered a New User during their next website visit.