CSL 019 – How To Set Up Google Analytics for your Church Website

What You’ll Learn

Are you overwhelmed trying to set up your Google Analytics for your church website? Or maybe you started to set up your analytics account but got frustrated and simply needed a helpful guide to walk you through the process. Google Analytics is a powerful tool to understand your church website performance.[truncate]..but it can be confusing if you’re new to the platform!

Tune into ChurchSpring Live, Episode 019 to learn how you can easily set up Google Analytics for your church website. Special guest Peder Aadahl will remove all confusion and mystery of Google Analytics in this must-watch live event.

Peder is Google Ads and Analytics Certified and the ultimate digital advertising and analytics genius. Isabelle and Peder walk through each step to set up your church Google Analytics from the very beginning stages of creating an account to the last step of ensuring it’s tracking correctly.

Watch Now

Helpful Resources

  • Special Guest and Digital Advertising Specialist Peder Aadahl put together a special discounted packages just for ChurchSpring Live listeners! Check out Digital Outreach packages to grow your church at digitaloutreach.church/cs 
  • Create your free Google Analytics account at analytics.google.com
  • Learn how to integrate Google Analytics on your ChurchSpring website.
  • Add and edit admins to Google Analytics
  • Learn how you can track the performance of your church website to grow your church and communicate better to existing church members in ChurchSpring Live Episode 008. Understand why Google Analytics is the best tool for website tracking and how to set S.M.A.R.T goals for your church website. Watch at churchspring.com/csl008

Show Notes

  • Welcome to ChurchSpring Live Episode 019 – What to Expect & Intro to Special Guest (00:03:08)
  • Let’s Learn: How To Set Up Google Analytics for your Church Website 
    • Step-by-step process to create your Google Analytics account (00:16:00)
    • Q&A (00:31:39)
  • Action Item & Commitments (00:44:40): Create your Google Analytics account
  • Wrap Up & Sneak Peek at Next Week (00:44:58):  You set up your Google Analytics account but … now what? How do you interpret the data in Google Analytics to keep your website visitors engaged & asking questions? Tune into ChurchSpring Live, Episode 020 at 10am CT, Thursday, October 8 to learn how to use Google Analytics for your church. Isabelle and Digital Marketing Specialist Peder Aadahl will remove any confusion of how churches can use Google Analytics. We’ll review the top 3 data points churches should look at to understand what is happening on your website and digital marketing to ultimately grow your church.

TUNE INTO CHURCHSPRING LIVE EACH WEEK!

Watch each live stream every Thursday on our Facebook Page, @gochurchspring. Watch previous ChurchSpring Live episodes here.


CSL019 Transcript

Isabelle Faletti (00:00):

Hello. Hello and welcome to ChurchSpring Live episode 19. I am so excited to have everybody here today. While I am waiting for people to jump on the live event. Go ahead and introduce your church name and your location in the comments right below. I always like doing the right below, cause I feel like a YouTube hit whenever I do that. Yeah. So go ahead, introduce yourself. I’d love to know who is joining us today. While you do that, I do want to welcome some new members to the ChurchSpring family. So welcome. We have Thomasville United Methodist church from Alabama. We have from Ohio, One Church from Ohio, and then we also have Salem Lutheran Church from Texas. So welcome to those new members. We are really honored to have you part of the family here. If you are new to ChurchSpring, if you just stumbled across this live event we have a very simple mission and that is to help churches build intuitive, affordable, and frustration free websites.

Isabelle Faletti (01:11):

And we love what we do. We love working with churches all across the nation. Awesome. It looks like we have a couple of members and live stream viewers saying hello. So welcome Judy from St. Paul. we’re excited to have you so keep, keep adding your comments, keep introducing yourself. We are in for a very exciting ChurchSpring Live. I will tell you more about that as you probably noticed. It’s just me today. If you watched ChurchSpring Live, you’ll notice that I normally have my partner in crime. Rohn co-founder of ChurchSpring with me. Today, we do not. So,ustay tuned of, of why — we have a special guest. I’ll give you that. UBut this is a conversation. So this is like you and I are sitting around the coffee table, just talking about church communications, talking about Google analytics.

Isabelle Faletti (02:12):

So throughout the entire episode, I want to hear from you. So be sure to engage, ask questions throughout the live stream. If you’d like something that we, that we are talking about that re-teaching let us know and drop a comment and say that was amazing. Or I didn’t know that I would love to hear what you’re thinking throughout the, throughout the entire live stream. So make sure to use, use the comments and the way that it is created. If you do know someone who could benefit from our topic today, learning how to set up Google Analytics for your church website, make sure to tag them right now, right now. Share the comments or share this live stream with any friends, with any coworkers at your church. Yeah, so tag share, do all those social things that we love that we love to do on social media.

Isabelle Faletti (03:09):

We are going to go through a very specific step-by-step process today of how to set up Google analytics. And so we, we are going to try to keep this focused on task, but again, if you tune into ChurchSpring Live, you also know that sometimes we do some rabbit trails, but we are going to be focused today. However, no need to record to write down every single step that we’ll be showing you. There is a replay of this at churchspring.com/csl019. So after this episode I will update churchspring.com/csl019 with show notes, any resources that we specific refer to and again, the replay. So you can go specifically to the section when we talk about how to set up Google analytics or some Q&A time. So again, no need to take tons of notes.

Isabelle Faletti (04:07):

You can always have access to that, that replay. Welcome Ken from New York, always, always happy to have you. We have Jason Whittaker from also New York. Awesome. Rosemont Baptist, always great to see some familiar faces, even though I don’t really know what you’ll look like. But yeah. Awesome. welcome to have you and also Cheryl, happy to have you back on ChurchSpring Live also. So as I mentioned, you’ll notice that Rohn co-founder ChurchSpring my, my other guests here on ChurchSpring Live. He’s not here. It’s just me right now. I’m kind of lonely. I’ll be honest. It’s, it’s weird to just see my face on this screen. So,uI may need some extra encouragement from all, all you listeners here. Ubut that’s because we are going to have,ua special guest joining us over the next couple of weeks/months, really into November.

Isabelle Faletti (05:08):

We with ChurchSpring Live over the next few weeks, we are going to talk about some really practical applications of how churches can use Google analytics, Facebook ads, Google ads, all things, digital marketing. And we have the PRO to talk about this with us. There is really no better person that can give us the lowdown. Give us practical applications about digital marketing, about digital advertising. Then my personal friend and ChurchSpring’s friend, Peder Aadahl. He is a digital advertising strategist and truly a master of Google analytics, Facebook ads, Google ads. So much more. You guys, he is a wealth of knowledge. In fact, he’s Google ads and Google ads certified. He has a special title for that, that Google Google gives him that I struggle saying. So we’re just saying that he’s Google certified Peder can, can brag on himself. I like to have him brag on, on himself because he doesn’t talk about himself enough.

Isabelle Faletti (06:22):

He is really an expert, you guys, on how churches can use Google analytics to really grow their church and to know if your website is working. So I will stop talking about this guy that you haven’t met yet. And I will love to introduce Peder to you. He owns a digital marketing firm and a digital agency for churches called digital outreach, that church. So he is an amazing guy and I’m excited to bring him on to ChurchSpring. So enough of me just talking about him, let’s bring him on, I’ll add him to the live stream here. I need a drum roll. So if you’re out, if you’re listening, please join me in a, in a virtual drum roll… Welcome, Peder. How’s that for an intro?

Peder Aadahl (07:15):

That was the, that was quite an intro.

Isabelle Faletti (07:19):

We love you here at ChurchSpring.

Peder Aadahl (07:22):

I know. Well, I love helping you guys and work with the guys too.

Isabelle Faletti (07:26):

Yes. Awesome. Well, to all of our listeners, if you could say welcome Peder, it’s always so funny on a live stream, because if it were in, in, in real life, even though this is real life, if it were in person, you, you could see who you’re talking to Peder, but you just see my face right now. So I know I’m, I’m sorry that I’m all you get right now.

Peder Aadahl (07:51):

I know I’m seeing, I’m seeing a lot of people though. Yeah. Cheryl, Sarah, Kristina, Lynne. Yeah. Wonderful,

Isabelle Faletti (07:58):

Awesome. That’s great. Well, we are really excited Peder, to have you on ChurchSpring Live like I was mentioning before… You are a “go-to” guy for all things, ads, analytics, you have personal experience working with churches and using digital advertising strategy to help grow their church. So I know that our listeners will be benefiting so much over the next couple of weeks, as you just share just a little bit of what, what knowledge you have up there. So before we dive into Google analytics I would love just to hear a little bit more about yourself and kind of where you come from so that our listeners can, can know a bit about why you’re great.

Peder Aadahl (08:52):

Well, yes. Well, thank you. So a little bit a little background on myself. I grew up in the ministry. I’m a pastor’s kid. I’m actually also an only child, which was very interesting. I’m a pastor’s kid, an only child. And my dad served two churches that were 30 miles away from each other for a majority of my life.

Isabelle Faletti (09:12):

Wow.

Peder Aadahl (09:13):

We didn’t move around from time to time, things of that nature. But yeah, I got to be in the car with my dad and my mom ministering to people all across the community where communities, I should say, where, where we lived and things of that nature. So that was my, my childhood upbringing. And yeah, eventually over time, I just began to try to find ways to look at what, as far as the online world – cause I saw lots of opportunity in the online world for churches and ministries and trying to find ways to help them just kind of combine those efforts together to do some amazing, amazing things.

Peder Aadahl (09:57):

And eventually that led me to where I am today of Sioux falls or I’m living in South Dakota right now. I’m a beautiful wife, been married 10 years. We’ve got three, three kids that are now finally get a little older eight, six, and four. I will tell you, four, two and a few months was a little rough growing up, especially as an only child, never really having siblings or anything like that, but yeah, no loving it. I would like to throw this out there for those that know this. I’m in any, I’m a seven on the Enneagram, as well as Isabelle, Isabelle. So watch out, watch out. We try to keep things reigned in.

Isabelle Faletti (10:38):

Why did Rohn Rohn did this? He knew that too, Enneagram sevens were going on ChurchSpring Live. So for those of you who don’t know Enneagram is, mh personality assessment, mnd it’s, there are numbers one through nine. And sevens -we are known as the enthusiasts, and we get excited and we’d like to talk a lot basically. And so when you get two sevens like Peder and I are, while you are in for a show, let me promise you

Peder Aadahl (11:14):

Well, yeah, the little background myself, and then as time went along just, Oh, I know we’ll be talking more about these things over the next weeks and, and a little bit of the month upcoming and things of that nature, but just looking at different ways that church can benefit from digital outreach, especially utilizing their website and things of that nature. Just even, I’ll just say some more recent things here that I’ve done here recently that hopefully built to share a little bit about, you can add aspects of what we talk about can be incorporated into that. But just in some recent recent things with coronavirus outreach through a ministry here locally, that actually went so big that actually the state asked us to hop in and start doing for the state, which is really awesome, done some housing, ministry opportunities, things of that nature nature, working with a different church groups, as well as working with churches to try to help bring new people into the church that have never been in a church before. And we can talk more about that, but that’s, that’s some of my, I mean, those are some things that really make me excited and why I love talking about this stuff. Yeah,

Isabelle Faletti (12:19):

Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, I know that you and I were talking before of how, I mean, you’re using Facebook ads to, for a local church to truly bring in new visitors into their front doors. And like you said, with, with Corona, with COVID with the 2020 year that we’re experiencing digital advertising is so important especially for churches who are doing live streaming and you may not, they may not have the opportunity for people to actually come into their physical building. So I’m, yeah, I’m really excited, not just for this episode, but for the upcoming weeks that we have, because we’ll be diving into Facebook ads, Google ads, analytics but we’re gonna stay focused on today. So for, for everybody that’s listening today’s episode is really part one of Google analytics. So Google analytics for beginners, I would say we are going to really bring you through each step of how you can create a Google analytics account for your church websites.

Isabelle Faletti (13:37):

Before you get into Facebook ads, before you get into Google ads, you need to have tracking set up and set up correctly on your church website so that you can know if your website’s working so that you can know if your outreach, if your Facebook ads, if it’s, if it’s doing something as we always say here on ChurchSpring Live, what gets measured gets managed. And this is why Google analytics tracking is so important. If you really want to know kind of where your church is at, where how it’s, how it’s performing, how it’s using the tools that we have at our hands, you need to use tracking. So we actually discussed tracking and how to set up smart goals for your website in a previous episode ChurchSpring Live episode eight. So I’ll just pop that up here as churchspring.com/csl008.

Isabelle Faletti (14:40):

If you haven’t listened to that, or if you have any need a refresher, I recommend that after this episode, you go back, listen to that, listen to that episode. And again, we, we really talk about the why of tracking, why is it important for church websites to have tracking? And again, we talked through details of why you need to have goals for your websites and what is, what does that actually look like? So we, I know we had a question already about why Google analytics why is tracking important? We did talk about that in the episode, so we won’t be focusing too much on that because we want to give time for Google analytics, how-to here. But Google analytics really is the best to use it’s free, which budgets love free tools, especially when it’s as robust and just full of amazing resources like Google analytics. And it’s, it’s widely used across every single industry. So this is the best of the best. And again, it’s free. So when you combine those two, I don’t know what else we would even want here. Anything you had added that Peder?

Peder Aadahl (15:55):

No, that’s a, that’s a great overview of it all. Yep.

Isabelle Faletti (16:00):

Okay, perfect. Then let’s just go ahead and let’s jump in and Peder, I’m going to share your screen here, and if you can walk us through how to create a Google analytics account you will be, you will be helping out so many of our members, I get this question, how do I set up a Google analytics account? It can be confusing. It can also be frustrating. So the goal of this is to remove all of that frustration, all that confusion. So for all of our live streamers, who’s attending live. If you have questions, pop it in the comments below we’ll review it as they come in or at the end after Peder is done walking through the entire process of how to set up a Google analytics account.

Peder Aadahl (16:51):

Yes, indeed. So, yeah. So today we’re going to try to go through all the way from hopefully here, just actually the first page that you will see when when starting the process of even setting up Google analytics period for yourself all the way to actually installing it on a ChurchSpring website. So this is, this is going to be very exciting to walk through and couldn’t agree more that this is the reason why we’re doing this course is just to make sure that we understand what is happening on our website so we can make better informed decisions. So to begin with you’re going to start first off realizing that you need that Google account. Now, what I mean by that is for a lot of you, that’s probably gonna mean that you’re need a Gmail account, a Google mail account. And if you want any, if you do just, it’s going to look something like this, but that’s, that’s essentially what it is.

Peder Aadahl (17:40):

You’re looking for a Gmail or a Google apps account. We won’t get into too much in the Google app side of things, but a Gmail account is what you’re going to need to probably start off having Google analytics to get that process started. So once you have your Gmail account and you can just go to Gmail and sign up for account, it literally typed it into Google and you can start the process of that. You’re going to come to the URL, analytics dot, google.com, and just kind of highlight that up here at the top. This is we’re going to start out and you’re going to see a page, something similar to this. We’re just going to say, okay, let’s get started. So let’s do that. Let’s, let’s start the process. So we’ll click on this start measuring, and you’re gonna come right into the, into this screen here.

Peder Aadahl (18:28):

It’s going to ask you create an account. And this account is just once again, it’s think of this as like the cloud, the cloud level. This is, or maybe even the ozone layer level, like this is super high, super high level overview, just name it, whatever you’d like. So I’m just gonna name this Peder’s ChurchSpring sites, maybe here as well. And then you’re going to come down here and account, and you’re going to see account data sharing and settings. You can review some of these this information as well. But the main thing here is if you want to have more insights from Google, maybe even inside of your inside of Google analytics, telling you kind of some information, as well as maybe getting some recommendations every now and then from Google, you’re gonna want to leave these boxes checked. Cause they’re going to be ones are also going to be monitoring your Google analytics account at the same time that you’re also looking at the data as well. So I always, for the most part, I recommend just taking, just kind of like leaving things, check marked as is on this page.

Isabelle Faletti (19:39):

Yeah. That makes sense. If, if Google recommends that that is check marked in this scenario, just leave it as is and click next.

Peder Aadahl (19:50):

All right. And then you’re gonna come to this page right here. And for all of you, this is probably gonna be the main thing that you’re just going to click on. You’re gonna be clicking on a web because you’re using a website like ChurchSpring to to help host your host, your church website. And therefore you’re not going to be using anything with apps or anything of that nature. So you will select web, which is, that’s what it defaults to thankfully like next. And then just going to go to something called the pro property setup, which maybe this is maybe more applicable. So if account level appear at the top was the ozone layer. Okay. Property is like the cloud layer. It’s just, just one step down. Essentially. What this means is that if for some odd reason you were to have multiple church sites or maybe church ministries underneath one group, you would have multiple properties underneath one account for most of you, you’re just going to have one. So anyways,

Peder Aadahl (20:58):

Of course you name it, whatever you want to name it for your church specifically. And then for me for the website URL, this is going to be you’re going to go to your website URL, where you host your church where your church lives website lives on the internet. And I know that’s gonna be different for everybody, but you’re going to put that in here. And just to make a note for example, this is mine right here. I’m going to come in here and I’m gonna paste that in here. And you’re gonna need to remove the HTTPS when you paste in, usually from your website URL, but otherwise then it will not give you the error, but you want to make sure that you just make sure that this URL is HTTP, which I think for all of you is probably going to be an HTTPS, especially using the ChurchSpring website.

Isabelle Faletti (21:52):

Peder are you able to zoom in a little bit on that specific area?

New Speaker (21:57):

Yep, we can do that, is that better?

New Speaker (21:58):

Yes. Perfect. Yep. All right. Great. Thanks.

Peder Aadahl (22:04):

And then industry there’s a decent chance here. I’m pretty sure we might end up choosing other yeah. I didn’t really have one for church websites, but reporting time zone. This is one that actually is really important to try and make sure you get set up right the first time. And you just need to understand, you know, what time zone where you live, which is pretty simple. For me, it is central time. That’s what I’m looking for. All right. And once you have this, then everything’s set up right here. You’ll just click create. And then once again, we’ll come to another terms of service agreement. You can read through all these different things, but this essentially is to make sure that you’re okay with customer data and things of that nature. You can read through that.

Peder Aadahl (22:58):

At the end of the day, if you’re gonna use Google analytics, you’re need to accept these accept these terms,

Isabelle Faletti (23:07):

Just the normal take my life, my dog.

Peder Aadahl (23:14):

All right. So, and then I’ll give you some email communication questions, if you want to take a look into that. Once again, this goes back to what I was talking about earlier. If you want to leave these things and you’re getting notifications every now and from Google that might help give you some insights into maybe some things that you can be doing. You want to leave, especially these performance suggestions and updates. You wanna make sure that’s checked marked featured announcements. This is just new features inside of Google and like set are announced and feedback and testing and offers from Google. You can, you can decide what you’d like, but yeah, you can leave them unchecked or check them all.

Isabelle Faletti (23:56):

Whoo. Look at that. You just created a Google analytics account, and that was in, I mean, a handful of steps. That was a very simple process. You don’t need a genius degree to set that up. You just follow the prompts really that Google analytics gives you. And the, what you had mentioned setting up your time zone is super important and putting the correct URL or domain name in that setup process that is key to making sure that the setup process works correctly for when you will put it on your website, which I know you’ll show at a later time here.

Peder Aadahl (24:36):

Yes, indeed. And yeah. So I mean, to your point, that that’s a pretty straightforward process of just getting that quickly set up like that. Obviously they’re going to talk about a couple of things. Google wants to make sure that you know, that, Hey, you can check analytics on your mobile app if you’d like. And actually I do do that. Obviously I look at that data every day, but I do use that from time to time. And then right here, this is, this is where everything kind of comes together, that you’re going to want to make sure you look at, and that is the tracking code section. And just to this, this script right here, this is what it’s going to need to be pasted into your website in order for Google analytics to actually showcase the data inside of it. And we’ll just kind of make sure that you can see this step by step to make sure that this gets verified, that things are working properly, but essentially you’re going to copy this code and you’re going to come over to your church website. So I’ve got my ChurchSpring website right here, and then I’m going to go to actually, I’m logged in already. I’m going to go to settings and then I’m going to go to website and then I’m going to go into analytics and then paste your Google analytics code here. So you’ll just go back here once again, copy this, paste it in and save it.

Peder Aadahl (26:11):

There we go.

Isabelle Faletti (26:11):

Easy enough. That’s it.

Peder Aadahl (26:13):

That’s it. So I’m a do a little quick test here to showcase some things, copy this. So once you have, once you have a pasted on, into your website, into the backend of your website, you’re going to, if you want to test to make sure that that is working properly, at least so that the data is firing into Google analytics. So that data is coming over saying, there’s somebody on this website right now, how you would test that is you would go over to the left hand side here and where it says real time you click on that and click overview. And as you can see, I came to the homepage here. It’s firing.

Isabelle Faletti (27:00):

There you go. They were instantaneous instantaneous. So Peder, can you go back to the, the tracking area and yep. So show people the process of how they can get their tracking info. So let’s say they created their Google analytics account, and then for whatever reason, they left their, their analytics account. So then they need to go back to their account and find that tracking info. How, how can they get their their embed code for their website kind of starting from scratch?

Peder Aadahl (27:43):

Yes, absolutely. So that’s a great question because for a lot of you, you’ve actually may log into analytics and realize you actually even started the process of creating one book beforehand or something of that nature. So that’s, that’s a great question. And more than likely what’s gonna happen is you’re going to come to your property level here, viewing the data, and it’s gonna look something like this. This is typically somewhat of the default home screen. When you log into Google analytics once you have created the actual analytics profile ready. So what you’re going to do is once you’re on the home screen, you go to this bottom area where says admin, you’re in click on that. And then in most, again, once again, ozone layer, right? Here’s ChurchSpring websites– property level: Peder’s church website specifically, and then I’m gonna go down here to tracking info and tracking code. And then there’s my tracking code that I should send or just to excuse me “to paste” on the website.

Isabelle Faletti (28:45):

Yep. Awesome. And then again, you just copy that and you paste that into your ChurchSpring website. Yup, yup. Yup. Awesome. That that’s super helpful to have you go through that process because I know for some of our members who this is completely new to it can be a confusing process of exactly where to get that specific information. And also just to clarify for those who are new to Google analytics that the tracking code that Peder just showed you how, how to access that is basically the bridge between your website and your Google analytics account. So step one is you have to create your Google analytics analytics account, and then you have to tell it who to talk to basically. So in this case, we want your website to be talking to your Google website to be pulling that tracking information. So you, that this embed code is important to create that bridge between the two.

Peder Aadahl (29:51):

Yup, yup, absolutely.

Isabelle Faletti (29:55):

Awesome. Oh, I love it. It really, it really is that simple. And I, I tell members and those who aren’t even ChurchSpring members, that it really is an easy process, but when you, when you search how to set up a Google analytics account on Google, ironically it can look really overwhelming. And I think the fact that you just showed how to do this in a couple of steps, hopefully can help relieve some stress that people were experiencing over Google. So thank you, Peder, for, for walking through that step in a very calm way.

Peder Aadahl (30:31):

Yeah. I do understand the fact and we’ll get into this later that, you know, when you still log into Google analytics, it’s, it may be still be overwhelming, but these are the things that you’ll just want to check, or I guess the steps you want to use to make sure that you have the right tracking code in the right spot.

Isabelle Faletti (30:49):

Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. So really the testing to make sure that it’s working, it was exactly the process that you did. You just went to your website, you refresh your page, you then went to your Google analytics account and you have one active user that would be you. And that’s how, you know, if it is working. Yeah. Ah, great. This is exciting. I know how to set up my Google analytics account, but I want to go set up another one just because it looks so fun. I’m maybe a nerd. I think that’s what that may mean. So it looks like we have a couple of questions about Google analytics. So I’ll just pop that on the screen here and then we can answer them. So Judy had a good question. She asks it automatically tracks on each page, correct?

Peder Aadahl (31:47):

Yes. When you especially with ChurchSpring, when you’re able to pace it to essentially a site-wide level, it gets pasted into essentially every single page on your website. It’s just part of the it’s just part of the website overall. Absolutely. Yep.

Isabelle Faletti (32:05):

Yeah. And Judy, we are actually going to be diving into your analytics account next week. So Peder showed you kind of the dashboard that you’ll log into. There’s a wealth of information that your analytics account holds and it, again, it can be overwhelming. So next week we’re going to dive into what to do with that information. But again, the first step is to make sure that you have your analytics account set up correctly so that you can be getting good real data. So make sure to come back next week duty to understand what to do with each of that page information. Rosemont Baptist said, “Peder, that’s so much simpler than the YouTube tutorial videos.” I know, right? Peder is very at taking complicated…

Peder Aadahl (32:56):

No, I agree.

Isabelle Faletti (32:59):

Yes. Oh, that’s awesome. Thanks for the feedback. And then we also have a question from, let me scroll back up from Reverend Christina. It’s not popping up here real quick on my comments, but I know that she asked another question about Google analytics. So let me just pull that up on my other screen for anybody else who’s listening. If you have another question about Google analytics pop it in the comments right now, this is the time to ask Peder any questions that you could possibly have about Google, Google analytics. Again, I know it can be overwhelming, so okay. It looks like Rosemont Baptist has. Ooh, a good question about Google accounts. “If We have multiple Google accounts or Gmails underneath a master Google account, can one nested under the master account set up an analytics account?”

Peder Aadahl (34:03):

That’s a good question. If, and I’m gonna, I’m gonna assume a few things on that. So if, if you have a, and if I understand correctly, it’s, it’s what we call a Google apps account. In other words, it’s a, Oh, for example Peder@ChurchSpring or something like that, but there’s Isabella@ChurchSpring things of that nature. Technically as long as there are some permissions that get set up at the master level. So that is a good question. If you are not able to do that below the master level, that the master level would need to allow those permissions, but I think for the most part, most of that is defaulted to allow that. So any sub sub-Google accounts underneath something like that should be able to create a Google analytics account.

Isabelle Faletti (34:55):

Yep. Okay. Okay. Great.

Peder Aadahl (34:57):

Great question though.

Isabelle Faletti (34:57):

Yeah. and then Ken asks also another email Gmail question. “How Can I change the email address the analytics was set up with?”

Peder Aadahl (35:08):

Okay, great question.

Isabelle Faletti (35:09):

That’s a good question, Ken, because that can change as volunteers or people who have set up your Google analytics account, if you want to change admin access to that.

Peder Aadahl (35:22):

So how, how would it do with that Ken and this is a great question. There’s, I’m gonna assume it’s mostly, it’s probably a Gmail account in this case for, for Gmail account. The the kicker is that that analytics account is tied to that account technically. So this is how I would typically recommend going about that is you’re going to work towards actually, you can still have a separate Google account. That’s completely fine, but if you’re able to log in to the old Gmail account, you can add underneath on the on the account level that it was own layer level. Okay. On that level you can add in other users and you can add yourself as a user or as an admin user underneath that with your new E with your new Google email address. And then technically you can just remove yourself from the old one, or you can re remove the old email address. So that’s, if that’s something, if that can be worked otherwise, you know, who, if somebody else owns that you are going to have to work with them to try to get access to that in some capacity, that is, that can be the frustrating thing about it.

Isabelle Faletti (36:37):

So really creating the owner of the analytics account for, for a generic email for the church would be helpful. So such as info@firstbaptist.com, whatever your, your church email addresses, if you have a generic email address that would be best to have that be the account owner. So then if you have the different volunteers as if, if you do have staff turnover, that email address will always have access to your Google analytics account.

Peder Aadahl (37:11):

Yes, I will add to that at the same time. It probably would be helpful to also add other people on there. Just for this same reason of what that of, you know, losing access to that in some capacity, cause things happen even on a level like that, things still happen and it’s good to have other people that can still have access to the account.

Isabelle Faletti (37:36):

Right. That’s huge. Judy had another really good question about properties and she asked if we had already set this up, is it easy to delete the property and start over?

Peder Aadahl (37:50):

Ooh, Ooh. Yeah. yes. Technically, you know, there’s, there’s probably some multiple ways you can go about that. I’m pretty sure there’s a way you can delete that property level. I think Google is very concerned about you doing that because I know if you delete it, you lose all the data that was on that property. Right. That’s the only thing that I would say Google is gonna at least try and go through the process and going to get all nervous about what I would say is probably the easiest thing to do is to actually just create another property. So like I talked about that ozone layer. I mean, if you need to create a different, a new, a brand new account or a new email address to create new account, that makes sense. But when it comes to the properties, you can have lots of properties underneath one account, you know, switch to that one. And actually you can even move, you can even move properties from one account to another account, a similar concept. So anyways, that’s getting a little bit into the weeds there, but hopefully that makes it make some sense. It can help help you out in that, in those types of, yeah.

Isabelle Faletti (39:06):

And Judy, it may help if we know a little more information, so you can just email us in and we will, we’ll pass your question on to to Peder here. And you can answer, or you guys can have more of a conversation about that. If you have your, your Google analytics account already set up for your old website, and let’s say you changed your website providers. So that’s now ChurchSpring. Your, this is probably getting too much in the weeds, but if your domain is the same and you’ve set up tracking on your website, your ChurchSpring website, you won’t need to create a new account for Google analytics. Google analytics is smart. It will update the analytics in real time. So then you could actually go back and say, last year we were on our old website this year, we were on our new website and you can see the difference of traffic. You can see the difference between this two times. Yeah. So if you have specific questions about that, Judy, just email us in. Or if you’re, if you’re a member, send us a ticket and we can help you answer that specific question more.

Isabelle Faletti (40:22):

Yeah. Yup. Okay. I think we have time for a couple more questions here. Sarah asks, why not use a green account that way? You don’t have to worry about people as the come and go? I’m not quite sure. I understand that question, Sarah,

Peder Aadahl (40:43):

I’m Sarah, if you’re talking about, if I understand correctly, you’re talking about kind of like an evergreen account. It’s just always there that stays with, stays with the church. And that’s, that’s a, if that’s what you’re talking about, I would agree. That’s a good idea to have in place. We, this may get into some other things here. But, and even though I it won’t necessarily completely effect it, like Facebook and other things of that when we talked on the road, but if you have an account that is for the church specifically, then all the logins to social profiles might be needed for that church can stay underneath that account as well. So I completely agree with that, so,

Isabelle Faletti (41:23):

Yup. Yup. Okay, good. Yeah. Sarah just responded saying yes, that is what she meant. So perfect. Okay. Well, if we have any last questions, I’m going through the questions here and it, like, we covered all the questions and kind of general topics. I do see a few questions about specific use of analytics. Again, we’ll talk about that next week, actually. So good. I’m glad to hear those that you’re thinking about that. Because this is step one, but we need to keep moving forward, have forward action. Judy, you also asked is the harvested harvested data downloadable. Peder, I’ll let you answer that question.

Peder Aadahl (42:06):

That is actually a really good question, Judy. I think there’s, yeah, I’m pretty sure there is a way that you can export the data in some capacity if you, if you really would like to do that. The only thing I would say, especially cause I know, I think you talked about earlier about deleting the property in some capacity. I would say if you want that proper, the only thing I am always hesitant of just deleting the property is one thing to leave it. Is it gone versus kind of working to view it as almost more like your archive unit? If you do feel like you want to start over with a different, with a different analytics ID and start fresh, which I understand some of those ideas or concepts as well. It’s still nice to be able to reference back to Google analytics cause as Google analytics updates, even in the future, some of that data will be kind of updated in a way as well that you can reference for future things as well. So that’s why I would say yes, you can technically download some of the data for sure. And you can export it in different reports and things of that nature. But I would, I would personally recommend looking at more like trying to archive it unless it just really does need to be getting rid of for some odd reason. Right. Yeah. Okay.

Isabelle Faletti (43:26):

That is great. Yep. Judy says, okay, so looks like that’s, that was a question that thanks for the feedback, by the way, that is always helpful to know. Well, Peder, this was incredibly helpful. For everybody who’s listening, drop a comment, let us know if this was helpful to you. Let us know what you learned. If you were new to Google analytics, if you didn’t know how to set it up, then drop a comment and let us know that you now know how to set up your Google analytics account. If you are again, if you’re starting from ground zero, you haven’t set up an analytics account. This is the time to take action. This is the time to commit to setting up a Google analytics account. So at the end of this episode, when we go go dark, when we, when this live stream is done I want you this week today, even this afternoon to set up a Google analytics account for your website, as you just saw with Peder, it doesn’t take that long.

Isabelle Faletti (44:36):

I mean, gosh, maybe 10 minutes max. So go ahead and set it, create your Google analytics account. If you have questions, reach out to us, we want to help you, whether you’re a ChurchSpring member or if you’re not a ChurchSpring member, our mission is still to serve the church. So reach out with questions that you may have. And then also put on your calendar for next week, Thursday, October 8th. We are going to do a part two of Google analytics, Peder, again, he’s our pro, he is our master at Google analytics. And he’s going to dive into the what now of Google analytics. Now that I set it up, what do I do with all this information? So make sure to tune in next week for that. Oh, Peder, it looks like Sarah said very helpful Rosemont Baptist said yes, I will get our analytics setup immediately. Thank you. That’s great. I love to see that commitment. That is what we like. All right. Peder, how can listeners contact you? I know that you partner with churches specifically on digital advertising you help churches grow their, their church. You, you help increase their awareness in their community with advertising. So if a church is interested in partnering with you and having you be a part of really their marketing team, what are the next steps that they can take?

Peder Aadahl (46:16):

Yes, absolutely. Great question. So you can go to digitaloutreach.church/CS this is a special URL and a special discounts for everybody. That’s part of ChurchSpring. The ChurchSpring family and essentially there’s three tiers that work through that. There’s people who maybe just are in that process of where they, they’re still wanting to just learn a little bit more, maybe do it, kind of do some, do it yourself type concepts as well, as well as then a middle tier that’s this that is got that foundation there as well. But also what we do is we also go in and make sure everything is set up properly, not just with analytics. Cause you could say that that works, that works good, but some tracking and things of that nature, but also things like Google and Facebook and making sure all those things are in place. So when you want to push, go on something, it’s ready to go. Yep. And then the third tier is that concept of this is great. I appreciate this, but I’m ready. I’m ready to go. Like I’m ready to just continue to do some big marketing pushes or digital outreach pushes for ministries. That, that is that tier. And that’s a so we worked at a hop on a phone and talk through some of those things maybe we can work together on. So yeah.

Isabelle Faletti (47:39):

Awesome. Well, I just pulled up that link here that you shared and I’m taking a look at the different, the different levels and it is a steal of a deal. You guys, Peder, he knows he he’s an expert at this. And he’s giving ChurchSpring members a really, really good deal to, for him to work with you. So make sure to check it out. He he’ll have one on one training with you. So make sure if you’re, if you’re interested again and take the next step with like, Oh, I don’t know if I can do all this digital advertising on my own for time or just knowledge Peder Peder’s great guy to work with. So go check that out, reach out to him with any questions that you would have, Peder. This has been so much fun to have you on. I can’t wait for the next couple of weeks where you’ll be a regular friend of, of ChurchSpring Live here. So thank you. And we will see you next week. Alright. Alright

Peder Aadahl (48:46):

Everyone. Thanks for letting me join.

Isabelle Faletti (48:49):

Okay, so it wasn’t Peder. Awesome. I just, I love him. He’s he’s a great friend of mine. So I do, I did already kind of mentioned what we’ll be talking about next week. So if you’re thinking, wow, I had no idea that was so easy to set up Google analytics. What, now that is what next week will be. So we are going to dive into the specific top three data points that churches really should look into in their Google analytics to truly understand what is happening on your website. What to do with the information and really to ultimately grow your church with digital marketing, with advertising. So this is a must attend live event event cause we’ll kind of take away the mystery of Google analytics of the, of the next steps of what now. So again, that’s next Thursday.

Isabelle Faletti (49:50):

At 10:00 AM central time, Thursday, October 8th, that’d be ChurchSpring Live episode 20. So yes, we hit 20 episodes. That is it’s exciting for us. We are honored that you let us serve you in this capacity. So thank you for your support with ChurchSpring Live. If you are new to ChurchSpring and you’re not yet a member, I would love to invite you to attend a special demo webinar. The, our co-founders, Rohn and Mike they’ve put together,uthey dive into what the church platform is, how easy it is. It really is to set up your website. Uso if you wanna learn more about ChurchSpring and how we can help with your website, go to churchspring.com/demo. It’s about a 60 minute webinar and we answer frequently asked questions. We have a live chat on there.

Isabelle Faletti (50:46):

So if you have questions you can just chat in and our team will, will respond right there. Or maybe you’re just thinking, you know, I love, I love church spring. I just send you to any day, try it out myself. We also have a free trial, a free seven day trial that you can sign up for right now. You will not be charged for anything within the seven day trial. So you can go to church spring.com/trial to check it out yourself. It’s yeah, super again, easy to set up. That’s that’s our motto here at Churchspring. It is easy frustration free. It doesn’t have to be complicated to set up your website to manage, to understand if it’s working. So again, this ChurchSpring Live episode 19, it is available for replay. So if you love what you watched and you need to go back to take notes and to implement it you can go to ChurchSpring that comm slash CSL zero 19 for the replay, and show notes all, all the good stuff there.

Isabelle Faletti (51:54):

I will also add some helpful links that Peder had mentioned. So he mentioned that you can add different admins on your Google analytics account. I’ll add that in the show notes. So make sure to go to churchspring.com/csl019 for the, the replay and show notes. All right, well thank you for everybody attending. It was really fun to hang out with you and this in this virtual corner of the internet. And thanks for welcoming Peder. Again, he’ll be back next week on Thursday, October 8th, to talk about next steps of Google analytics and how to really use your Google analytics. So I cannot wait to see you there and I’ll be praying for everybody this week and I will see you next week. God bless.

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