Google Analytics Dashboards: You never imagined the Possibilities

A Google Analytics (GA) dashboard allows users to get the answers they need at a glance, combining data from multiple touch-points. Dashboards can be tailor-made for specific users according to their specific requirements.

Google Analytics Solutions Gallery is offering many dashboard templates, searchable by category or topic, that you can easily import into your Google Analytics account. The widgets let you choose the metrics and dimensions you will be using.

However, it takes customization, careful application of data filters, accurate use of titles and on-going tweaking to present the most relevant answers out of the ocean of data. A good dashboard should collect reports from multiple ends of GA to one page.

Here are some samples of dashboards, illustrating the possibilities:

General Dashboard:

A quantitative overview of traffic volumes, Traffic Sources and demographics, combining data from several standard GA reports. Age and gender data is enabled through the re-introduction of Display Advertising features in Universal Analytics. On the dashboard you can easily compare data from different time periods or any selected segment. For example, you can view the demographics of new visitors only.

Content Dashboard:

Shows the number of visit and percentage of actual reads of each article. Article Read is the main goal of this web site. Therefore, in order to get the most realistic results, a goal completion was defined as ‘a user staying on a specific page for more than 1 minute’. A script in the site code monitors mouse movements and scrolls, to confirm that the visitor is watching the page.

This dashboard also presents ‘Most read articles’ and Pageviews by Article and by Author. The author and article names are pulled from the site’s content management system and assigned a Custom Dimension in GA. Note how you can easily evaluate the performance of content by author – and by article.

Behavior Dashboard:

Showing user engagement and intentions through search terms in Paid, Organic and Site searches (excluding not-provided). In a standard GA report you’d have to open at least 3 different reports to view all this data.

Campaigns Dashboard:

The dashboard shows and compares all types of campaigns and their conversion data.

Traffic sources:

Shows absolute numbers as well as conversion rates of all traffic segments and specific sources, with graphic visualization of the distribution.

Social:

Focus on the role of social networks in driving traffic and conversions. You can click the links from the dashboard directly to the relevant social network page.