Like many people, I use Google Analytics to keep track of visitors and usage of my Web site. Very helpful, but I don’t like having to remember to log in and check it every week. Is there some way to have the reports emailed to me automatically?
We’re talking about Google, so you should not be surprised to know that there is ineed a way to do what you ask, to have Google Analytics send you a Web site traffic report on a daily, weekly, monthly or even quarterly basis. It’s not particularly obvious, however, because there’s so much going on with the Analytics interface.
In fact, I saw search engine maven Danny Sullivan send out a message on Twitter about this very topic, saying “just realized google analytics can email me regular reports. how did i fail to do this!”
Suffice to say, you’re not alone in wishing this were a capability without realizing that it is indeed included with Google Analytics.
To set up scheduled email reports you need to start by logging in to your Google Analytics account and get to a site reporting page. The top left corner will look approximately like this:
Now, like me, you might be tempted to promptly click on the “Email” link on the left side, under Settings, but that’d be wrong. That’s how you manage already scheduled email reports but, confusingly, there’s no link from there to how you can set up a scheduled report.
Instead, you want to click on the small “Email” link with the envelope immediately underneath the word “Dashboard” in the middle of the screen.
At this point you need to look beyond the form that’s in front of you and click on the “Schedule” tab: this can generate an email report for you, but once it’s sent it’s forgotten and won’t solve your problem.
The report will automatically be sent to you with a subject line like “Analytics www.yourdomain 20080901-200080908″ If that works for you, there’s nothing you need to do here. Otherwise, tweak it to make it a bit more human friendly as you desire.
Notice that in addition to yourself, the report can automatically be sent to one or more additional parties, perhaps advertisers or partners with whom you work on the site. It’s a nice feature for many webmasters.
The “Description” is so that other parties have a clue what the email is about when received. If you’re just sending it to yourself, as is the default, you can probably safely leave this box empty too.
Scroll down a bit…
In addition to picking which format you’d like the report, note that you can also choose between daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly here, and have date comparison data if you have sufficient archived data in Google Analytics. What’s that mean? That you’ll be able to see at a glance if your site is getting more, less, or approximately the same traffic as it did in the past.
Before you click on “Schedule” notice in the top right that there’s a little preview box that shows to whom the mail will be sent and roughly what it’ll look like:
Looks good? Click on that “Schedule” button.
A little yellow message confirms that the email report is scheduled!
Finally, now if you click on the “Email” link on the left column in the “Settings” box, you’ll have something to view:
Nice, eh? So that’s how you schedule email reports from Google Analytics.
The tough part is actually acting on the information gleaned from looking at your historical trends…
Nothing better than turning what you have into an advantage. Nice article!
same question as Muddassir
I have more than 25 accounts, under 1 gmail account, can I set up an email reporting for all the accounts?
Ditto Paul’s comment. I need year over year comparison also.
Hi Dave, like Rob above…Is there a way to “Schedule” a year over year comparison. I want to auto-email a weekly report that compares this to traffic from the same week a year ago… I can’t find a way to do this?
Been looking for months! Surely it’s not only me and Rob that need this feature? 😉
Great tutorial, this is great for SEO companies wanting to send reports automagically to their clients.
Thanks for the post. This will be helpful.
Very good, BUT there’s a big annoying thing that Google hasn’t thought about… and it shocks me that the BIG GOOGLE hasn’t given it a thought.
What if you want to receive an example of the scheduled rapport? What if I have 7 different things in my report… for instance keywords, visitors, unique visitors, map, e-commerce, and a lot of other stuff… Why do I have to wait for the next day to have them send the e-mail to me with combined reports? Instead of the “SEND NOW” e-mail of only one thing, is it really true I have to send 7 e-mails to myself? There should be a “SEND NOW” button, even for the scheduled e-mails.
Thanks a lot! really helped me.
couldn’t find the settings on the analytics new interface, so i switched to the old one
aha that’s where the pesky link is! Right in the centre of the page! Thanks v much this was driving me mad.
THANKS i was pulling my hair out trying to figure this one out!
I am sending myself a daily automated report. Is there a way to get it to send earlier in the day (preferably before 5 a.m.)? Sometimes a report for one day doesn’t come until the evening of the next day.
Thanks!
Thank you! Very very helpful Dave! 😀
Paul, according to Analytics help: “Quarterly reports are sent on the first day of each quarter (i.e. January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1) and report the previous quarter’s data.” Now we both know. 🙂
When do quarterly reports start? Is it 3 months from the date the Schedule was set up or is it predefined, like Jan 1, Apr 1 etc. ?
Is there a way to automatically schedule a report that comes every week and is weekly, monthly, and YTD?
Hi Dave,
Did you get a relpy on your comment? Is there a way to automatically schedule a report that contains YTD data?
Well… I’ve lost you on the first step. My right panel doesn’t have that “Email” link as in your screenshot :S
You might be right about Google having many things, but company’s products often have broken interfaces :/
Thanks. Very helpful and informative.
Thanks, very helpful! Now only if there was a way to have a consolidated email sent for all sites.
Hi Dave, Is there a way to “Schedule” a year over year comparison. I want to auto-email a weekly report that compares this to traffic from the same week a year ago… I can’t find a way to do this?