Have you ever looked through your website’s analytics and saw a spike or sudden drop in traffic or actions? Have you had to think back to see if you changed anything during that time period? Or, maybe you couldn’t remember when you started that A/B testing?

This is where annotations can come in to help!

Just getting started with Google Analytics? Start with my intro to Google Analytics article.

Annotations In Google Analytics

Annotations are a way for you to add notes in Google Analytics for when you or your team are reviewing reports in the future. These notes are stored in the “view,” so they will appear in all reports within the view, including Acquisition, Site Content, and Goals.

On any report you view, you will see icons representing any annotations during that time period. When you see those, you could click down the arrow just under the dates to reveal the list of annotations.

When To Add An Annotation

Almost any change you make to your site or marketing efforts can result in changes to your traffic, conversions, and revenue. But, you probably don’t need to add every thing you do every day as notes.

When making changes to your site or your marketing, be sure to add an annotation in Google Analytics! Click To Tweet

Some reasons you may want to an annotation would be when you:

• Perform a significant update to your Content Management System (WordPress)
• Make a design change
• Make a server or hosting provider change
• Begin a new marketing campaign, such as a new Facebook ad
• Release a new product
• Add a new payment method to your checkout
• Fix an issue on your site

How To Add An Annotation

To begin, sign in to your Google Analytics and go into the “view” you would like to add an annotation to.

From there, navigate to any individual report, such as the “Behavior Overview” report. Change the dates to the date range that includes the date you want to add a note for.

Click on the small down arrow along the date’s of the graph.

Click the “+ Create new annotation” link on the right side.

Select your date and enter your note.

In most cases, you will want anyone on your team to see this annotation so you can keep the “Visibility” set to “Shared.” However, if this annotation should only be seen by you, you can switch this to “Private.”

Lastly, click the “Save” button. Your annotation is now ready!

What’s Next?

Now that you are adding annotations to your reports, it’s an excellent time to review your UTMs and your event tracking to ensure those are up to date as well.