My goal in writing this book is to help people understand what Google Analytics can do and show you how to actually do it. I’ll start by talking about your business, not about Google Analytics. Before we even touch on Google Analytics, it’s imperative to identify what you want to track on your website. If you don’t know what you want to track, you won’t know how to configure Google Analytics to track it. Next I’ll describe how Google Analytics actually works. I’ll cover how data is collected, processed, and turned into reports. I’ll also include some information about the different data-collection mechanisms, like mobile data collection and application (app) tracking. Understanding how the system works will provide the foundation for our configuration discussion. We’ll talk about all of the various settings you can use to control data access, manipulate data, and track goals on a website. I’ll also spend time discussing how to track marketing campaigns. In my opinion, this is one of the most overlooked features and, when done incorrectly, can completely destroy your data. However, when it’s done correctly it can lead to a deeper understanding of your marketing initiative and analysis nirvana. After marketing campaigns, we’ll move into advanced topics, like configuring websites that span multiple domains, collecting e-commerce data, event tracking, and custom variables.