Preparing for the Exam

Tips Based on How I Prepared for the GAIQ Exam

     As you have probably guessed, I believe passing the GAIQ on the first attempt is very likely with adequate preparation.  I believe several steps are definitely required for passing the test, while other actions are optional and can be used to really understand the entire process.  Here are the steps I took to prepare for the GAIQ and pass the exam:

• Watch the tutorials in Analytics Academy.  12 hours

• Digital Analytics Fundamentals
• Google Analytics Platform Principles

           Take good notes and be ready to read them again before the exam.  While some indicated watching the videos twice was a good idea, I found taking good notes and reading them a couple of times was more than adequate to understand the material.  The tutorials move very fast and pausing to take thorough notes is recommended.  Also, each tutorial has questions or exercises at the end.  Take them.

          Other tutorials are available in analytics academy, but these were more than adequate to pass the test.  I did listen to the e-commerce tutorial, but it was not essential.

• Open a Google Analytics account.  10 minutes

          This step is critical to understanding how the platform works.  It is easy to do and most people probably have a google account through Gmail or Youtube,  During the test, there will be questions about certain reports and having google analytics open is very helpful.

• Open a blog and place the tracking code on your pages.  30 minutes

          I highly recommend you create some web pages that will generate data that you can actually monitor.  It is very interesting to observe google analytics in action and to understand how you can create reports and plots / graphs with the data.  Unfortunately, you are unable to observe actual web data without someone providing you user rights to their web page code or creating your own web page.  

          Why aren't there practice web pages to analyze real data?  This explanation requires a little background to understand.  Google analytics requires a java script with a tracking code and unique identification number that is provided by google for each page that is to be monitored.  This is used to a) initiate the process of sending data to google analytics (java script); and b) indicate how google analytics should organize the data (which google analytics account / property the information should be sent to based on the id).  If you do not have the identification number, you can't receive the data.  Google controls the tracking number in a google analytics account and does not allow you to set the tracking number, meaning that if your java script with the appropriate tracking number is not included in a web page, you can't see the data.

• Look at your data and learn how to make goals and reports.  as much time as you can

     I was amazed at how many people were looking at my test blog page.  Most were bounces but the data indicated my pages were quite popular for people on other continents.  Some clicked on my links.  Plus, you can watch the behavior of your own actions such as (sample question spoiler alert)

• Real time reports no longer show a user is active after 5 minutes of inactivity while a session remains active for up to 30 minutes of inactivity (default).
• You can close a browser and reopen it without creating a new session due to the current procedure of looking at the utmb cookie (session cookie) and ignoring the utmc cookie (deleted when the browser is closed).  

• Read available information on other web pages (very helpful).  10 hours

          While the tutorials do provide a lot of information that can help you pass the test, it is still not enough.  I recommend a sources, such as a blog by Jens Sorenson (very thorough), Natalie Henley, and Josh Waldrum. There are many others available as well, but this is more than adequate.

• Take some practice test questions (helpful).

          There are many websites that contain practice questions.  Some are collections of test preparation questions and others are actual test questions.  Believe it or not, these are two independent sets of questions.  Which is better for you?  Well, that depends...

• Test preparation questions are written by expert users of google analytics to challenge your understanding.  

          The website http://www.googleanalyticstest.com/ provides very in-depth questions which are much more difficult than the actual exam.  Fortunately, the questions also include the answers and explanations for the correct answer.  This site will help you gain conceptually how the process works.

          Many of the questions have been written years ago and the screen shots of google analytics are not fully up to date, but the content is consistent with the current platform.  If you can answer 50 percent of the questions correctly and understand the reasoning behind the answers, you are definitely ready to confidently pass the exam.  I enthusiastically recommend this site.

• Actual test questions are really more useful to recognize that you are ready to take the exam and pass it.  

         These questions will give you confidence in taking the exam knowing you are knowledgeable with google analytics.  While you can leave these types of pages open during the exam to assist, why are you learning google analytics?  If it is solely to add a certification to your resume, does that mean you are ready to perform web analysis professionally?  Inadequate understanding of google analytics will be obvious to your employer and you are wasting your time taking the exam if that is the platform you are planning to use for web analysis.  Is it not better to pass the test when you can answer the questions which were designed to show demonstrated proficiency without google searching each question?  All right, enough of the soap box preaching.  

         In the end, I am pretty sure you can pass the exam simply by google'ng each question and finding the answer on different websites.  If that is your goal, it is not really cheating since this is an open book test.  Enjoy!

     You can also return to see what I learned.