Google Analytics - Platform Principles

There are four main parts of the Google Analytics platform:

• Collection
• Configuration
• Processing
• Reporting

Collection

Collection is all about getting data into your Google Analytics account.

To collect data, you need to add Google Analytics code to your website, mobile app or other digital environment you want to measure. This tracking code provides a set of instructions to Google Analytics, telling it which user interactions it should pay attention to and which data it should collect. The way the data is collected depends on the environment you want to track.

Processing & Configuration

During data processing, Google Analytics transforms the raw data from collection using the settings in your Google Analytics account. These settings, also known as the configuration, help you align the data more closely with your measurement plan and business objectives.  

Reporting

After Google Analytics has finished processing, you can access and analyze your data using the reporting interface, which includes easy-to-use reporting tools and data visualizations. It’s also possible to systematically access your data using the Google Analytics Core Reporting API. Using the API you can build your own reporting tools or extract your data directly into third-party reporting tools.

Conclusion

Throughout the rest of this course, we will dive deeper into key topics about collection, configuration, processing and reporting. Having a comprehensive understanding of each of these platform components will help you better understand the data you see in Google Analytics. It will also prepare you for more advanced topics about how you can customize your data.

Data Model

There are three components to this data model:

• Users : Is a visitor to your website or app,
• Sessions : Is the time they spend there
• Interactions : Is what they do while they’re there