CXL Growth Marketing Minidegree: My Review of CXL’s Google Analytics For Beginners Course

This post describes my experience of Track 3, Course 1 of the CXL Growth Marketing Minidegree.

After two modules focused on theory and frameworks, it was time to get practical. More specifically, it was time to get completely immersed in Google Analytics.

Most of the courses in the Minidegree so far have been 3–5 hours long. This course came in at a whopping 9 hours 17 minutes, and for good reason. It’s probably the most complete primer in Google Analytics out there.

Before I talk more about the course and tutor, I’d like to revisit the “T-shaped marketer” concept mentioned in Track 1 of the Minidegree. Basically, being a T-shaped marketer means having a strong foundation in:

• All or most of the crucial marketing channels
• Analysing data and results
• Project management

… as well as choosing 1 or 2 channels or areas to specialise in.

Before starting with CXL, 90% of my experience and learning had been in one channel (email marketing). Building expertise with other channels and in analytics was one of my main reasons for applying.

This module was really the beginning for me in terms of getting familiar with new platforms. Of course, it made me feel a bit stupid for not learning and using this tool (Google Analytics) earlier. But mostly, it made me realise something very important about the T-shaped concept…

Compounding Your Marketing Skills with Conversion XL

Although they are their own platform, channel, or set of skills…no marketing channel or tool exists in a vacuum. And I soon realised that my new skills in GA are going to change the way I do a lot of things in my current channel (email).

For instance, understanding the true power of UTM tags will make me tag a whole lot more email links in the future. I’ll also probably look to use information in my client’s GA accounts to inform decisions on email marketing more in the future.

That might sound basic. But I think it raises an important point about the whole generalists vs specialists debate. Taking the time to learn a new channel doesn’t deplete your skill in the 1 or 2 channels you’ve chosen to specialise in. Nor does it simply add to your skill. Because these channels can (and should) work together, it actually multiplies your skillset and ability to solve problems.

Putting in the hours to learn these new skills isn’t easy. Especially when it’s just a case of digging in and learning a lot of technical stuff like the basics of Google Analytics. But this multiplier/compounding effect makes it 100% worth doing. And of course, CXL’s instructors are the best teachers you could have!

Learning The Nuts and Bolts of Google Analytics

The Google Analytics courses in the CXL minidegree are taken by Chris Mercer.

The Beginner’s course started with a brilliant summary of what GA is, what it isn’t, and how the basics of the program come together. Straight away, I felt confident from going from zero to competent with the help of the tutor. Right from the beginning he was clear, thorough, and obviously very enthusiastic about GA. I was in safe hands!

The main takeaways from the introduction were that Google Analytics isn’t the be-all end all for data.

In fact, it only really does one job very well. And while GA is great at storing data, it isn’t great at collecting it or displaying it. For those, you’ll want to learn how to use Google Tag Manager and Google Data Studio. Luckily, The CXL growth marketing minidegree has courses on those too!

The biggest takeaway from the beginner’s course was the importance of knowing how the data you’re reading gets there in the first place. As Mercer said again and again…the key to succeeding (or not being misled) by GA is knowing why and how the numbers you’re seeing are there.

As a result, I’d say 90%+ of this course was based on:

• Knowing how Google Analytics stores and shows data in the way it does
• Setting it up properly to get the most out of it

This might not be as exciting as going into GA and instantly finding a huge bottleneck in your funnel. But it really makes sense once you think about it. The sheer amount of numbers you see after entering GA can be overwhelming. It’s a lot easier to feel comfortable when you know what they are…how they’ve been calculated…and if they’ve been set up right.

Setting Yourself Up For Success

Mercer’s lessons on how GA works really do cover everything. And it was great to see how Chris uses his knowledge of GA to set up his account for success. Two simple examples are:

• Setting up multiple GA views to avoid data disasters. Especially for testing things without risking the integrity of your data.
• Using filters to clean up your data and make it easier to work with

These might sound like simple steps. But you’d probably be surprised how many specialists ignore these ‘essential’ steps.

As a beginner in GA, sitting through 6–7 hours of these technical/practical lessons was a little testing. But the instructor was engaging and these principles are vital if you want to world the power of GA without making fundamental errors.

In saying this, I really enjoyed the section on setting up goals and funnel views in Google Analytics. This might be because it looked beyond the data a bit and looked at the customer journey a bit.

For example, I found the tutor’s Aware-Complete-Engage framework for setting goals really helpful. A lot of people just set goals for finish points (finishing a purchase, signing up for the mailing list, etc.) but don’t actually look at the journey there. I’ll definitely be suggesting my clients do the same, as it will let us see where things are breaking down.

Closing Thoughts (Plus A Note On My Journey So Far)

CXL’s Google Analytics for Beginners is a real epic. It covers everything you need to know about how GA works and how to set it up.

The instructor is excellent and the free supporting materials he provides are brilliant. These are two themes you’ll notice again and again in the CXL Growth Marketing Mini Degree.

Learning practical/technical skills was definitely more taxing than learning the frameworks in the earlier modules. But if you want to be a t-shaped marketer, you need to put in the road work!

Going back to the T-Shaped concept, you’ll remember that the three main elements are:

• Channel Expertise
• Analytical Ability
• Project Management

I feel like the Growth Marketing Minidegree builds these skills in exactly the right order.

Why? Because the syllabus:

• Started at the bottom with the growth marketing mindset and frameworks (project management)
• Layered on things like A/B testing (and now Google Analytics) for our analytical skills.
• Moves on to channel specific skills later

By learning in this order, it stops you from going gung-ho with the new channel skills, spells and gizmos you learn. Instead you’ll have solid working and analytical approaches in place first. So you can use your new skills in a better informed and more effective way.

This was my review of Google Analytics for Beginners, a course module in ConversionXL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree. Next week the journey continues with the intermediate GA course and getting to grips with Google Tag Manager!