The Right Way to Setup Google Analytics

Disclaimer: There are a million right ways to do Google Analytics, but this is how we do it for all of our clients who we manage analytics for. It works well for us and should work well for you, too.

If you already have a Google Analytics account, you can skip to [section name] to learn about the setup.

1. Visit https://analytics.google.com/ and sign in with your credentials

2. If this is the first time you have tried to access Google Analytics, you will need to Sign Up for the service. Click the Sign Up button that appears.

3. To create your Google Analytics account for your website, you will need to add the following information:

   • Account Name: 

     1. The name should be related to your brand. If you are a single brand, use that name. If you are a hotel group that may, at some point, If you want to manage multiple websites under this account you might want to have a name here that applies to all websites. 

     2. If you only have one website you might want to type the name of your website, or your business

   • Account Data Sharing Settings: Optional data-sharing settings that you can opt-in or out of.  We recommend opting out (Google gets enough data outside of your account to make product-based decisions).

4. Click Next

5. Property Name
   Add a name to identify the website/digital experience you will be tracking. Sometimes you may want to use the website URL.

6. Reporting Time Zone
   Select the timezone where your brand is located. This can be changed in the future if need be (changing this is a new feature, so you may read other how-to guides that say it cannot be changed).

7. Currency
   If your website handles transactions, this is where you should select the currency your website uses. 

8. Click Show advanced options

9. Click Create a Universal Analytics property. Add the following information:

   1. Website URL
      Select https:// and add your website URL up to the end of the top-level domain (e.g. .com, .hotel, .org)

   2. Create both a Google Analytics 4 and a Universal Analytics property: Yes

   3. Enable enhanced measurement for Google Analytics property: Yes 

   4. Industry Category / Business Size / How do you intend to use Google Analytics: Select the ones that apply. It doesn’t change anything, so don’t worry about it being very accurate.

10. Click Create

11. Review and accept the Terms & Conditions

12. You will be sent to the Google Analytics account you’ve just created. On the top left corner select your Universal Analytics property (Not the Google Analytics 4 (GA4) property.

13. Your Google Analytics tracking ID (UA-*) will be used for implementing Google Analytics in Google Tag Manager.

Create Your 3 Google Analytics Views

When you create your new Google Analytics property, it will automatically create a View named All Web Site Data. While this is fine, we recommend you immediately edit this view name and add 2 more views for a total of 3 views per Google Analytics property.

• 1.0 Primary View: The Primary view is where you do all of your analysis, connections to 3rd party tools, and dig into your digital data.

• 2.0 Test View: This is where you test new filters before migrating the data to the Primary View. Generally we test for 3 days of data before moving down to Primary. The Test View will always have the same filters, goals and customizations as the Primary View, plus any additional that are in testing.

• 3.0 Unfiltered View: This view is created with no filters or adjustments to have a fallback auditing and analysis opportunity.

Create Your Google Analytics Views

1. Visit https://analytics.google.com/ and sign in with your credentials

2. Navigate to the admin page

3. If you have more than 1 Google Analytics account, make sure the correct account is selected at the top of the screen. 

4. In the right-hand column View, click the View settings

5. Edit the View Name field to match this structure: 1.0 - [website url] - Primary

6. Click Save

7. In the right-hand column View, click the View settings

8. Click Copy View

9. Edit the New view name field to match this structure: 2.0 - [website url] - Test

10. Click Copy View

11. In the right-hand column View, click the View settings

12. Click Copy View

13. Edit the New view name field to match this structure: 3.0 - [website url] - Unfiltered

14. Click Copy View

15. You now have your 3 Google Analytics Views, all set to collect data.

Enable E-commerce and Enhanced E-commerce tracking

If you collect payments during any part of your digital experience (whether you run a D2C store or a hotel with check-out), you will want to pull that data into Google Analytics.

1. Visit https://analytics.google.com/ and sign in with your credentials

2. Navigate to the admin page

3. Inside your Google Analytics account, on the sidebar, click “Admin”

4. If you have more than 1 Google Analytics account, make sure the correct account is selected at the top of the screen.

5. Switch to 2.0 Test view.

6. In the right-hand column, click E-commerce Settings

7. Toggle on the 2 options:

   • Enable E-commerce

   • Enable Enhanced E-commerce Reporting

8. Click Save

9. Wait 3 days to confirm data is pulling in as expected. Once you verify the data is accurate (as accurate as Google Analytics can be), add the same toggle options to your 1.0 Primary view.