1. Introduction
Welcome to the first volume of the Analytics Benchmarking Newsletter!This month, we are replacing the standard "benchmarking" report in your Google Analytics account with data shared in this newsletter. We are using this newsletter as an experiment to surface more useful or interesting data to Analytics users. Data contained here comes from all websites which have opted-in anonymous data sharing with Google Analytics. Only those website administrators which have enabled this anonymous data sharing will receive this "benchmarking" newsletter.
You may be wondering, how many websites are in this "anonymous data sharing" pool? Currently, hundreds of thousands, and we've endeavored to make all of the metrics here statistically significant.
The date range of comparison for this newsletter is from November 1, 2010 - February 1, 2011. Comparison is done with data from November 1, 2009 - February 1, 2010. Absolute metrics such as total # visits, pageviews, or conversions for all opted-in websites are not reported.
To simplify the prose, the phrase "websites" will represent "websites which have opted into anonymous data sharing with Google Analytics" for the rest of this newsletter.
2. Site Metrics
Compared to a year ago, websites have seen reduced pages / visit, average time on site, as well as bounce rate.| 11/1/09 - 2/1/10 | 11/1/10 - 2/1/11 | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pages/Visit | 4.9 | 4.5 | -0.4 |
| Bounce Rate | 48.2% | 47.0% | -1.2% |
| Avg Time on Site | 5:49 | 5:23 | -0:26 |
2.1 Breakdown by Geography
Our anonymous database has aggregated geographic breakdown at the country level. Here are a few representative countries and their respective aggregate metrics. The first number in each cell represents the metric for the date range 11/1/10-2/1/11. The parenthesized number is the Year over Year delta compared to a year ago.| Country | Pages / Visit | Bounce Rate | Avg Time on Site |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 4.7 (-0.1) | 42.5% (-6.1%) | 6:06 (-0:10) |
| United Kingdom | 4.9 (-0.3) | 41.5% (+0.2%) | 5:38 (-0.27) |
| France | 4.4 (-0.4) | 49.7% (+1.4%) | 4:40 (-0:08) |
| Brazil | 4.1 (-0.1) | 47.8% (-2.9%) | 5:20 (+0:03) |
| China | 4.1 (-0.1) | 58.2% (+1.0%) | 3:46 (+0:37) |
| Japan | 3.9 (-0.1) | 48.6% (-9.0%) | 3:47 (-2:59) |
2.2 Breakdown by Traffic Sources
Traffic sources below are identified by how the "source" and "medium""" parameters are received by the Google Analytics collecting servers. Here is an article describing what these designations refer to.| Traffic Sources | Pages / Visit | Bounce Rate | Avg Time on Site |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | 4.0 (-0.5) | 47.2% (-4.0%) | 5:21 (-0:07) |
| Referral | 5.0 (+0.1) | 43.1% (-1.1%) | 6:36 (-1:48) |
| Organic Search | 4.9 (-0.1) | 47.9% (-1.1%) | 4:43 (+0:06) |
| CPC Search | 5.6 (+0.0) | 41.4 (-1.7%) | 3:57(+0:07) |
2.4 Conversion Rate Distribution
Many marketers' favorite metric is conversion rate. Here is the worldwide distribution of Google Analytics "goal conversion rate" by country.
3. Traffic Sources
Traffic sources below are identified by how the "source" and "medium" parameters are received by the Google Analytics collecting servers. Here is an article describing what these designations refer to.| % Visits from Sources | 11/1/09 - 2/1/10 | 11/1/10 - 2/1/11 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | 36.5% | 36.8% | +0.3% |
| Referral | 21.0% | 19.4% | -1.6% |
| Search Engines | 27.0% | 28.0% | +1.0% |
| Other | 15.5% | 15.8% | +0.3% |
4. Operating Systems
Browsers and Operation Systems (OS) are identified by the "referrer" string sent by users' browsers.| % Visits from OS | 11/1/09 - 2/1/10 | 11/1/10 - 2/1/11 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows | 89.9% | 84.8% | -5.1% |
| Macintosh | 4.5% | 5.2% | +0.7% |
| Linux | 0.6% | 0.7% | +0.1% |
| Other | 5% | 9.3% | +4.3% |
5. Comments
This is the first volume of our Analytics Benchmarking Newsletter. We hope that it provides useful insights. If you have specific comments or suggestions on how to improve this newsletter, please send your feedback to: analytics-benchmarking@google.com.Happy analyzing, Google Analytics Team
