Hey Reader! It seems a bit too early to be thinking about the end of the year, but here we are in Q4, which means year-end wrap-ups are coming whether we're ready or not. Now is the time to start planning what information you want to include in your year-end summary! It doesn’t matter if your summary is just for yourself, or something to share with your company or clients, it’s still a great exercise to put one together. Think about: What were the highlights? What were the lowlights? What...
17 days ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader! There was a huge shake-up in the SEO world recently that revealed something pretty alarming about our analytics data. Google made changes to how ranking tools can scrape search results, which caused a massive drop in impressions in Google Search Console across the board. Brodie Clark has a great breakdown of the technical details, and it reminded me of something I posted on LinkedIn earlier this year about how you could clearly see spikes in impressions in GSC for low-volume terms...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader! We welcomed Jaime Rowe to the Kick Point team last week as our newest Digital Marketing Analyst, and her arrival reminded me of something that happens way too often in our industry. You know how it goes — someone new joins the team and suddenly you realize all those "obvious" processes and decisions that live only in your head aren't documented anywhere. It's like that moment when you're trying to explain why you set up a particular GA4 event a certain way, or why certain URLs are...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader! My webinar on "Uncovering AI Insights in GA4" happened last week, and I got a number of questions but there are two that stuck with me that I want to share with you. "Can I Use AI to Rate Content Complexity?" Amy asked about using AI to analyze content and rate blog posts 1-5 based on how complicated the English is, then cross-referencing that with traffic metrics. This is actually a great use case for AI, but the prompt needs work. The word "complicated" would trip up any AI tool...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Ch-ch-changes! Hey Reader! We're making some changes around here that I wanted you to hear about directly from me before they start rolling out. The big one is that we’re changing our name from Kick Point Playbook to Analytics Playbook. The courses and resources from me aren’t changing, but this name change will better reflect my focus, the courses I'm creating, and the content you'll be seeing from me going forward. This transition lets me focus on what I do best — helping you navigate the...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Next Action in Funnel Explorations Funnel explorations in GA4 have a number of handy features, including the next action option. When you create a funnel in GA4, one of the options in the settings panel is next action. That will show you a list of the most common actions users in the funnel took as their next step. Here’s an example from our own site, of users who triggered the begin_checkout event—when they add a course to their cart to purchase. How next action helps you improve your...
3 months ago • 5 min read
Why Your Google Ads and Analytics Data Don’t Match Your client saw 500 clicks in Google Ads and only 425 sessions in Google Analytics, and now they’re asking what went wrong. Here’s the truth: a 10–20% difference is normal, and no, it doesn’t mean your tracking is broken. TL;DR - Watch Dana explain why your data doesn’t match Clicks and sessions measure different things. Clicks = someone clicked the ad.Sessions = the page fully loaded and tracked the visit. So what causes the mismatch? Back...
3 months ago • 6 min read
Do You Have Enhanced Measurement Turned Off? Events are the heart of GA4, which is why enhanced measurement is one of its best features. It saves you setup time by automatically tracking key interactions like file downloads, form fills, and video plays. TL;DR - Watch Dana explain enhanced measurement and form submissions. But sometimes, enhanced measurement is turned off. The only time you should disable these events is if: You’ve set up a custom version of that event in Google Tag Manager,...
4 months ago • 5 min read
The Analytics Maturity Framework: A Digital Marketer's Guide to Data Success Are you making the most of your analytics or just making noise? There’s a big difference between reporting data and using data to make decisions. Too often, we fall into the trap of dashboards, spreadsheets, and slide decks that look impressive, but don’t actually move the needle. That’s where the Analytics Maturity Framework comes in. It helps you figure out where your analytics practice really stands and what to do...
5 months ago • 5 min read