Compare Your Google Analytics Data with Other Construction Websites

Google Analytics recently announced they are bringing back Benchmarking reports for all Google Analytics users. If you login to your account you should see “Benchmarking” within the Audience category of reports as shown below. google analytics benchmarking data I’ve just spotted the reports appearing in my accounts as of today and here’s a quick glimpse of what data is available to compare. If you don’t see the reports yet in your account then scroll to the bottom for a quick video on how to set it up.

Choose Your Vertical, Region and Traffic Volume

Once you click on the first report which is ‘Channels’ you will see you can select from a series of options to to compare your data to at the top. google analytics benchmarking criteria

Ideally, you’ll want to select a criteria to your business and website traffic. Adjusting each one until you get a decent number of websites/properties. Just make sure it’s not 3 or 4. Anything above 20 should be ok but don’t quote me on that yet.

Industry Verticals in Construction & Maintenance

Here are the industry verticals for us in Construction to choose from: google analytics construction website data There are other verticals also such as “Renewables” and “Energy” if you think you fit into other specific ones.

Marketing Channel Data:

Now I have to say pretty early on that you may want to put some of these numbers into context when reporting or viewing the data. There maybe a legitimate reason why you’re doing better or poorly in one channel against the other properties.

The below report shows me how my online marketing channels are performing against the other 25 websites/properties who match my criteria. I have a feeling 25 might be too small but then again, I’m not sure many industry websites are sharing their data.

google analytics construction website marketing data In the example above, it looks like we’re not generating as much traffic from social channels compared to other 25 properties – but if you look at the pages per session and bounce rate, we’re doing way better which means better quality traffic. The others maybe attracting the wrong type of traffic who aren’t engaging with the site or content.

Let me remind you again. Put things into context first. These numbers, if not understood, could be very dangerous if viewed without a fuller understanding of the limitations. All websites are different, they’re tagged differently, budgets and resources are allocated differently and I know of some websites where only half the website contains the Google Analytics code. The other half is missing. Thus meaning only half the data is used for comparison.

Ok next useful report….

Benchmarking Desktop, Tablet and Mobile Data:

Below screenshot shows you the data for desktop, tablet and mobile compared to just 47 other websites/properties who match the criteria for this particular website. It’s a smaller website than the one above in terms of daily sessions but lots more websites/properties to compare against this time.

mobile google analytics construction websites benchmarking data I have just checked the same data in this report across other profiles and the data seems relatively consistent throughout where none of the websites stands out in tablet or mobile – pretty much on par across the building materials sector which is interesting.

There is another report which is ‘Location’ but I don’t think this is applicable for many businesses who supply nationwide. Might be of interest if you supply globally though. Do check it out.

Anyway, I’m off to go play with the criteria, try and make sense of the data and and see if I can get some industry insights to report back later.

How to View Benchmarking Data – Takes 37 Seconds

If you don’t see any data when you click on “Benchmarking” then it means you need to amend your settings (in the admin area) and share your data with Google Analytics. Here’s a link to a quick video showing you what you need to do and how to do it – takes 17 seconds: http://quick.as/YenzHXYm

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