Google Analytics policy

Google Analytics is a powerful data tool that tracks and reports website and mobile app traffic. 

This policy describes the arrangement between the Digital Communications team and any University members of staff in relation to accessing the University’s Google Analytics account.

The intention of this policy is to highlight who can access University accounts and what the rules are for those who have access.

The Digital Communications team retains responsibility for all University accounts, profiles, views and filters within Google Analytics. Digital Communications will always have access to the main Google Analytics account and reserves the right remove anyone's access to Google Analytics at any time.

What Google Analytics can teach us

The University of St Andrews uses Google Analytics to understand how users interact with the website and measure the performance of content and design. A data-driven approach using tools like Google Analytics helps us:  

  • Understand user behaviour. We can see what keywords users are searching to get to our site, get access to important demographics such as what language they speak and where they are accessing our site from, and what pages they will go to next.  
  • Understand our content. We can get stats on how often content is interacted with on the site, what pages are getting visited and when, and whether users are scrolling through the page or clicking away to other content.  
  • Understand search. We can see search terms used on the site’s internal search and whether users are reaching our pages via google search.  
  • Identify important traffic sources. We can see what sources the main drivers of traffic to our site are and whether paid campaigns are influencing the number of views a page receives.  
  • Improve site performance. We can see how long it takes a page to load find any potential performance issues when accessing the site from around the world.

Accessing Google Analytics data

If you would like information about how your web pages are used, please email itservicedesk@st-andrews.ac.uk. In this email, include what data you are interested in, e.g. number of pageviews, location of users, etc. 

Using Google Analytics data

Anyone with access to the University’s Google Analytics data must:

  • not share any data from the University’s Google Analytics account with anyone outwith the University of St Andrews (without permission from Corporate Communications)
  • accurately present data in Google Analytics in a way that is not misleading or false
  • maintain the confidential information of the organisation
  • not create additional accounts, profiles, views or filters without consulting Digital Communications first.

Users must adhere to the rules listed above or their access to data will be revoked.