Universal Analytics Upgrade – Demographic and Interest Statistics

Google is rolling out a Universal Analytics Upgrade but it is a slow roll out. Another words not everyone has access just yet. Lucky for me Galveston’s CrossFit Tidal Wave granted me permission to use their data to show you how the new demographic and interest statistics will work! Let’s find out, who’s your audience?

The upgrade to Universal Analytics can be seen on your Admin page. Again, not everyone will have access just yet. I’m not sure if this makes a difference but this particular business has a physical location and is connected to all things Google. My belief is that physical locations have more options when it comes to Google products. If you don’t have access don’t worry, you can pin this to your Pinterest board for later.

Step 1:

The first step is to request a transfer which could take 24-48 hours. Upon returning to your Google Analytics account and selecting admin, your page will look similar to this screen shot. You will clearly see a check mark that the property transfer is complete. Congratulations! Now you can move on to step two, Reporting.

Step 2:

In the left side bar under Audience you can see the options for Demographics which will give you a break down of age and gender. Here you will see these instructions to add this one-line update. When you click on the example to see this one line code it will look like this screen shot below.

Step 3:

I know it might be a bit of a challenge to see the code but it is clearly dig for the needle in the hey stack, find the code and switch it out, save your file and hope that you did it right! What if you don’t like code? I did try this by the way and couldn’t get it to work properly and yes there is a forum for it already. However, being the resourceful gal that I am, I found a plugin for you.

Step 4:

Google Universal Analytics is the plugin that I installed and removed the Google Analytics for WordPress. That plugin wasn’t designed or updated to meet this new Universal upgrade. In a matter of minutes it was up and running after inserting the code.

Step 5:

Now you can head back to your Google Analytics account, head back to Reporting and click on that blue validate tracking code. In a matter of a seconds I was able to refresh my screen and get immediate data.

This graph is the overview data under Demographics which will show you the age and gender of your audience. Clearly females are dominating their gender statistics and the 25-34 year old group is their top range of visitors.

Now that your tracking code has been validated you will also be able to see your audience’s interests (affinity, in-market segment and other). The data is really interesting and I’m going to have a lot of fun once my own site becomes part of the roll out for an upgrade.

What do you think? Do you already have the upgrade complete for your site? Leave me your thoughts in the comments below.

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