Google Analytics Individual Qualification Tips – I Just Passed My Test
I just passed my Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ) test today and scored 94%! Not bad eh? The passing score is 75%. So thought I’d post some tips here while the exam questions are still fresh in my mind.
You have 2 hours to complete the exam (more than enough) and there’s 70 questions that consist of multiple choice, true/false and select all that applies type questions. Basically the trickiest one I found was the select all that applies type questions.
Materials To Go Through – Conversion University
Before you start the GAIQ exam, make sure you go through the materials at Google‘s conversion university – especially the ones that you don’t know much about. I didn’t go through all of them, just the ones I thought would be handy to refresh myself with.
The ones that I think will be handy are:
- Profiles in Google Analytics
- Filters in Google Analytics
- Cookies and Google Analytics
- E-Commerce Tracking
- Domains and Sub-Domains
Knowledge To Learn
In my opinion, these are some of the things you should’ve had some experience implementing before doing the test. If you haven’t, go play around with it!
- E-Commerce Tracking (addTrans, addItem methods)
- Cross Domain / Sub-Domain Tracking (link, linkByPost, setDomainName, setAllowLinker, setAllowHash methods)
- Goal Setup (note: Multiple same goal conversions within a session are unique)
- Profile Setup (note: What are the benefits of creating more than 1 profile? What can/can’t you do with profiles?)
- Filter Setup (predefined, include/exclude, search & replace and custom – advanced)
- Integration with Google Adwords (cost data import, auto-tagging)
- Google Analytics interface (reports, user/filter management)
- Regular Expression (note: You don’t have to be a pro, but it definitely helps)
- Cookies (note: Google uses first-party cookies and you cannot identify an individual through it)
Handy Links
Here are some handy links that you should have open during the test:
- Google (note: don’t think you can ace the exam just by Googling everything. You still need to know your stuff).
- Google Analytics Interface (d’oh) – make sure you’re logged in
- Google Analytics API – you may need this for the e-commerce tracking questions
- IP Address Range Regex Tool
- Cookie Reference
Adwords Information
Google has announced that Adwords advertisers now need to link their Google Analytics together to ensure that Google Analytics will pick up Adwords traffic (google/cpc) or else it will show up as direct (direct/none) traffic. Stupid I know. We’re still having debates in the GAAC forums. [Note: This has been updated. See my post on 'Update to Adwords Cost Data Import'.]
Once linked, you’ll need to go to Analytics’ profile settings and check the apply cost data import check-box to ensure that Google Analytics imports cost data from Adwords (if auto-tagging is enabled).
In the exam, you’ll need to know what’s the purpose of auto-tagging and manual tagging. What happens if you don’t have auto-tagging on and what are the reasons you’d want to go manual tagging instead?
Conclusion
I hope this information helps guide you in preparation for the exam. It isn’t overly difficult so long as you’ve had sufficient experience with Google Analytics and brush up on the things you’re not knowledgable on.
Good luck and let me know how you go :)
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Tags: gaiq, google adwords, Google Analytics, google analytics individual qualification, linkedin
Great tips :-)
Just passed with a whopping 100% yesterday.
[...] I just passed my Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ) test today and scored 94%! Not bad eh? The passing score is 75%. Google Analytics Individual Qualification Tips – I Just Passed My Test | dannytalk ™ A Danny Ng … [...]
Great tips- thanks alot.
Helped me to prepare better for the actual exam for which I scored 91%. Not too bad, eh?
Jon.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Szymon Szymanski, Eli Hermans. Eli Hermans said: #googleanalytics qualification tips http://ow.ly/40o6p #gaiq [...]
Hello guys,
Thanks a lot for those nice tips. I passed the exam today.
kind regards
Leogf
hey nice tips…going through all for exam
in next week im going to give test for that….hope it will help me lots…thanks again for sharing such a great tips
Hey Danny,
Great post, really helpful for us. I’d add just one more link to your “Handy Links” section: Tips for Preparing for the Google Analytics IQ Test http://www.marketingsutra.com/blog/gaiq-exam-preparation/
Thanks,
Alex
[...] Google Analytics Individual Qualification Tips – I Just Passed My Test [...]
Congrats Danny, great post.
I have written an article with tips for taking the test, including information about the exam, most important topics to prepare, and key resources. I thought it could be useful for others so I wanted to share it:
Tips for taking the Google Analytics Individual Qualification test
Cheers,
Antonio
Took and passed the test last night after reading this post. The pass mark is now 80%. There are a lot of online resources to help but the “select all that apply” questions make it very hard to get full marks.
[...] “Google Analytics Individual Qualification Tips – I Just Passed My Test” [...]
[...] “Google Analytics Individual Qualification Tips – I Just Passed My Test” de Danny NG. [...]
Just want to say thanks to Danny for his tips in taking GA IQ. It helped me a lot when taking the exam. Got 94% for my score. :)
[...] would also use this time to thank you several websites that helped preparing me for this exam: Danny Ng, WhiteRabbit at Thinkerati.com, and Heidi Strom Moon. These fellas helped me to muster up my [...]
Dude- awesome. Im about to jump in and I think Ill review some of your links before taking the test. If 75% is all I need I think Ill be Ok.
Thanks
[...] Danny Ng’s Guide to passing your Google analytics IQ test. [...]
great info Danny, thanks.. i finished nearly all cases on conversion uni about analytics, after searching some more, hope will pass the test..
Just finished – 94%. Thanks for the helpful information!
Thanks Danny, I found your website and was very helpful to pass the exam.
Wow, I got almost all e-commerce questions. Not exactly my specialty but I did learn a lot in the process. I do have to say having the videos go through the information before hand definitely saved my @#$. Thanks for the tips.
Chris
Hi Danny. Very helpful info. One thing, though – they give you 90 minutes, not two hours. Still plenty of time. I passed with a 91%, and I have very limited practical experience, just went through Conversion University.
Hi Danny, I had gone through this post a month back and your tips helped me prepare for the test better, and get a score of 100% exactly !
Thanks!
[...] Danny Ng’s Guide to passing your Google analytics IQ test. [...]
Hello Danny,
Thanks for providing this useful information. I am preparing for this exam & found your tips very useful.
Again thanks a lot!
[...] you’ve read my previous post about the GAIQ exam tips, you’ll notice in the section called Adwords Information, I talked about how the initial [...]
Congratulations. I got 96% but that’s because I studied all the videos about two weeks before I finally sat down for the test. It’s a lot easier than I thought. It’s a shame they don’t do public listings of GAIQ individuals. That’s the very least they could give for $50
I am preparing for this exam. Can you please let me know whether getting thro’ Conversion University is more than enough or is there anything else?
Like Google Adwords exam where we’ll get 60% practical and 40% from Google adwords learning center is the same applies to Google analytics certification too?
I would you recommend you actually experience the implementations and debugging yourself to get a better grasp of GA. You may learn the “theory” of it through conversion university, but when there are cause and effect questions (i.e. this happened, what caused it?) then you might get a bit stuck.
Don’t know exactly what is the percentage split between theory & practical. Best to have a go if you feel you’re ready (confident in providing consulting services to GA implementation) to clients.
[...] in a Google Analytics Authorised Consultants (GAAC) accredited company and also having a Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ), it is essential that I master the art of setting up goals and funnels in Google Analytics [...]
I passed mine following your tips! :)
hey congr8s for certification, thanks for tips it’s helpfull me for preparation of exam.
Hi Danny,
I just passed my test. Thank you for the information to prepare for the exam.
God bless u.
PS: nice website!
Hi Danny, I just got 98% :-)
I think I was lucky and got a test with a high percentage of easy answers.
Well done Stuart! It’s not a surprise you’ve got your phd :)
It’s beyond bad…That’s so high. Congratulations! :-D
To think, I got more or less 10 wrong answers ‘coz I failed to prepare much. :-( Though, I passed the exam as well. :-)
Hehe, yeah was quite surprised I got such a high mark. It helped a lot that I had to do a lot of analytics implementations for clients, so got me diving deeper into the technical aspects of it.