Analytics

Gain insights through tracking and data analysis.

Drupal analytics overview

Aim

Gain insights into how users are using your site and the content they find value in. Track user actions and the goals they have achieved to monitor the success of your campaigns.

Approach

Install an analytics solution into the site for basic page level tracking and extend that to handle custom user actions.

Outcome

Visibility into how your site is being used and gain insights into how it can be improved and strengthened.

Drupal analytics

Most sites will use some form of analytics software to gain insights into how the site is being used. There are many modules in Drupal to support the inclusion of tracking software on the site. Common modules for this include Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and Matomo.

The GDPR and data processing

The analytics software you use will often come down to continue using the solution your organisation has settled on. Google Analytics is the leader in the field and is a very popular go to solution. For those who are paying attention to the GDPR with a view to how their user data is being processed, a solution such as Matomo provides an alternative which is a viable options.

Going to the next level

Analytics solutions will generally work out of the box for tracking pageviews on the site. Users can be tracked across the site and this information can be correlated against their IP address and geo location. This provides good insight into what is popular, how long users are staying on your site and where they are coming from.

However, analytics solutions can be used for much more, including tracking different "dimensions" of data and actions users are taking on your site. Tracking these things can open up a new world of insight into how things are changing on your site.

Morpht expertise

Morpht will often implement more advanced tracking solutions so that user actions can be tracked. Javascript on the site can listen out for certain actions and then send these to your analytics, further extending the visibility and insights you have.

Frequently asked questions

Pageviews alone rarely answer the questions leadership actually cares about: task completion (did the visitor find the form, the fact sheet, the service they needed?), content findability, search success/failure rates, and drop-off points in key journeys. A mature analytics setup on Drupal ties these behavioural metrics back to specific content types and site sections so content owners can see which pages are underperforming and why.

Yes. Privacy-conscious analytics (first-party tracking, consent-aware tag management, avoiding third-party ad-tech trackers) is achievable on Drupal and is the expected default for government sites, which typically can't use the kind of invasive tracking common on commercial marketing sites. This is also the same underlying approach used for privacy-respecting personalisation.

Personalisation and recommendation engines are only as good as the behavioural data feeding them; analytics is the input layer that makes DXP capability (targeted content, recommendations, journey optimisation) possible in the first place, so an analytics strategy shouldn't be scoped separately from a personalisation strategy.

Insights

A colourful image representing analytical data visualisation
Article

Get ready for Google Analytics updates

Google Analytics has recently introduced a new update. As a result of this update, Universal Analytics (the current system) will be retired on 1 July 2023.
Google Tag Manager logo
Article

Taming Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager (GTM) allows you to track user interactions on your website that aren’t collected by software such as Google Analytics by default. You can configure what is tracked without touching a line of code. In this article we will show you how to track custom user interactions on your website, and then send that data to Google Analytics for later viewing.

Related content

Information architecture
Service

Information architecture

SItemaps and content models support the needs of the user and help them discover the information they are looking for.
Content strategy
Service

Content strategy

Designing content for purpose and structure so that it supports the needs of users.
Content modelling
Service

Content modelling

Drupal is a powerful system under the hood and is capable of the most demanding content modelling needs.
Performance
Service

Performance

A fast site is better for user experience, SEO and conversion rates.