Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Taking The Google Analytics IQ Test

I've just passed my Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) certification, something I've been wanting to do for a good while. While I've been using Analytics for almost a decade, I had been somewhat daunted by the example test questions at Googleanalyticstest.com. Not only were they often ambiguous, but they delved into parts of Analytics not often seen in your run-of-the-mill usage.

But fear not - the actual exam is easier than the example questions. Here are a few tips.

1) You've got 5 days to complete the test from the moment you start, but you are limited to 90 minues in total for the 67 questions.  But don't worry, you can pause the test at any point, and take your time to answer. Put another way, over the five days you could do around 20 questions a day and still have a day or so to review your answers. Just don't exceed the 90 minutes.

For example, I did the exam in two dedicated mornings, and still had about an hour left on the clock.

2) There are options to Mark or Review a particular question. I didn't use these, nor the option to strike-through an answer that you knew to be wrong.

What I did was copy the questions into a Word document, then use this to check  my responses.

3) It's been said before, but there's no substitute for having a live Analytics account open when you take the certification. If the question asks 'Where would you find such-and-such a report', go find it. And use the Analytics Help.

4) You need to know something about Adwords. Analytics and Adwords are as thick as theives, and there's a good number of questions on Adwords.

5) There are also good number of questions on the basics: for example, the difference between Dimensions and Metrics, and how Profiles fit into things. Make sure you'd got a handle on these topics.

In short, it's not a hard exam. You'll need 80% to pass, so you can get a dozen questions wrong and still pass, but given all the resources you need are at your fingertips, you've no excuse!

My only complaint was that you don't get to see how you fared on a question-by-question basis. As the end you'll be told the areas in which you were weak, but I would have loved to have known the questions I got wrong!