If you’re new (welcome!) or missed the past 3 days, here’s what’s going on:

• Day 1: the plan
• Day 2: landing page optimization
• Day 3: welcome experience

Today’s item was:

“I still don’t have any sort of analytics installed on my site 👉🏻 I’ll install Google Analytics and Hotjar on my site“

I got my first lesson right away.

I thought this was gonna be easy and a quick thing to cross off…

But obviously it wasn’t.

There’s still a bit of a mess in between Google Universal Analytics (the classic version) and the new Google Analytics 4.

If you’re not in the loop with things, Universal Analytics will be sunsetted with the new year. So get up to speed!

Anyway, as I was trying to install it, I had to give up. Apparently now they’re either hiding it or making it almost impossible to find.

So I went straight with the new Google Analytics 4.

To do things the proper way I did the installation through Google Tag Manager to get more control and fine tuning ability down the line (recommended).

You can google “install google analytics with tag manager” to get a ton of guides.

In short:

1. Create a Google Tag Manager account
2. Create a Google Analytics account and GA4 property
3. Connect the two, by adding a GA4 tag to Google Tag Manger
4. The basics are done. You’re now tracking page views.

Next I will have to dig deeper into how to track Events and conversions because of the visual builder I’m using for my site (Elementor).

I didn’t want to complicate it too much for today, but I’ll report back when that’s done.

Second, Hotjar!

If you’ve never used it or a similar user interaction tracking platform, Hotjar is great to see exactly where people click on your site, how far down a page they scroll to and in general how they behave on your site.

You can also record videos of users going through their experience, which is amazingly helpful to spot patterns and learn what to fix.

As expected I stumbled on an issue here, too.

You probably won’t face it, but in my case I was already using my email with my clients’ accounts, and Hotjar doesn’t allow you create a new “Organization” (your site basically), if you’ve been invited to other accounts.

Bummer.

So I’m kind of stuck waiting on their support team here.

A bit of a disappointing experience that I wasn’t expecting from the guys at Hotjar.

But hey, things are in motion at least and I’ll be ready for the next sponsored ad.

A couple of lessons from today:

• You will always stumble on roadblocks and things you have to figure out with some research when it comes to tech stuff. Plan for it, budget it in the time it’s going to take you.
• My main rule of thumb when it comes to tech and software products for your business is: always go with legacy and established products. I could have chosen between a dozen different tools for collecting and analyzing data, but I went with the big players. You don’t want to find yourself one day having to redo everything when your provider gets acquired or goes bankrupt(happened to me with my calendar booking app – it was a pain).
• KISS: Keep It Super Simple. Especially at the start, don’t overcomplicate things. Get the ball rolling, start collecting basic data but at least get started. Don’t let the friction of the process stop you from getting started.
• Spoiler-alert bonus lesson: When it comes to looking at your data, get ready to muster some patience and use logic. Jumping into these platforms with no goal or purpose will render them useless. Instead, you want to form an hypothesis or idea of what might not be working, then start with one data point you can narrow down on to validate it.

That’s it for today.

Tomorrow, I’ll move on with brainstorming ideas for my opt in ebook(s) while my amazing assistant is so kind to categorize all my daily emails into buckets I can use to group them.

I’ll walk you through my thought process for building a super small digital freebie.

Now, I’d love to provide as much value as possible to you.

Is there anything specific you’d like to know how to do with either Google Analytics or Hojtar?

Do you know how to use them to gather insights that can help you boost conversions?

Just shoot me a reply and let me know.

I’ll make sure to send over something you’ll love.

P.S. For the holidays, I’m thinking of running a couple of consulting / coaching calls at a huge discount. Spots will be very limited, but if you want in, just click here to be added to the waitlist and I’ll get back to you.