Telling a story with Google Analytics data - MnSearch Summit 2015

By Jeff Sauer
Founder of Jeffalytics
Tell a Compelling
Story with Google
Analytics Data

http://www.ppccourse.nethttp://www.analyticscourse.net
Hi I’m Jeff and I live in San Francisco

I literally drove here on my motorcycle

Motorcycling and Blouses
Not a good idea

Confession Time

That was actually Prince, not me
Prince gifs found at: http://giphy.com/

My story was untrue
But it got your attention

Most of the stories we tell
as marketers are true
But they are boring as shit

Let’s see another
story

Who has sent/received a report like this?

That was written
by a computer

There is a free tool that does this
Visit Quill Engage at https://quillengage.narrativescience.com/

Can you tell the
difference?

New York Times had a quiz in March
Take the Quiz at New York Times: http://nyti.ms/1HVgnCx

I guessed 50%
correct

That’sTerminator level shit

We have already lost this battle
Time is not on our side

Don’t let the computers take your jorgbhs!

Can a computer
replace your work?
Then we need to do more!

Time to borrow storytelling
skills from Prince Shakespeare

5 Stories we Can
Tell with Google
Analytics Data

Google Releases 70+ Updates Per Year

How do we keep
up?

Test your knowledge
Periodic Table is available at http://www.jeffalytics.com

GoodVs. Evil
Image found at:http://prince.org/Image found at:http://www.rogerebert.com/

Benchmarking the Competition
Bm

Story: Earned Media Rockstars

Story: Email Laggards
Is email performing poorly or just
not being tracked?

Story: Falling behind with paid media
We are not spending anything on
advertising.Should we be?

Story: We are big in Japan

Story: We missed the mark on mobile

How to Benchmark?
It’s super easy

These reports require just one setting
This is done at
an accountlevel

Benchmarks are set by industry vertical

You can choose location and website size

Supplement your
story with
additional data

SEMRush Competitive Dashboard
SEM Rush Competitive Intelligence Tool:
http://www.semrush.com/

Another View from SpyFu
SpyFu Competitive Intelligence Tool:
http://www.spyfu.com/

SimilarWeb for Traffic Comparisons
SimilarWeb Competitive Intelligence Tool:
http://www.similarweb.com/

Moat for Display Intelligence
MOAT Display Intelligence Tool: http://www.moat.com/

Now project your
marketing budget

Low Watermark
(What we are currently doing)
Provide several, well researched options
MediumWatermark
(What our competitors are doing)
High Watermark
(Our market potential)

Develop a low-medium-high watermark
Tweet oremail jeff@jeffalytics.comto get apreview ofthisspreadsheet

Project revenues for each budget

Put together a profit model to share
$-
$5,000,000
$10,000,000
$15,000,000
$20,000,000
$25,000,000
Profit Potential
Profit Potentialof Marketing Initiatives
Low Watermark (current budget) Medium Watermark (competitors budget)
High Watermark (10x MoonshotPlan)

Story: Give us a bigger
budget, and we will
generate $21 Million
in profit!

Coming of Age
Image found at:http://prince.org/

Demographics Reports
Dg

Demographic reports will bring in data

This data is for about 50% of users
~50% of visitors will
report demographics

Affinity and In-Market Segment reports

In Market Segments are a Goldmine!
You can directly
target these
people with
display ads and
remarketing.

Demographic Segmentation Opportunity
Segmentby Age
or Gender

Review users by In-Market Segment

How to Get
Demographics?
One setting and some code

Enable demographics reports setting
Enabling Demographics Reports is Subject to Google Privacy Requirements:
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2700409

This requires one line of code (Universal)

Even easier in Google Tag Manager
Check this box for
Demographics

More on Insights from Demographics
Demographics Insights from Jeffalytics -
http://bit.ly/demosegments

Our content marketing efforts are improving
More coming of age stories you can tell
We have grown our presence year over year,because…
New advertising opportunities to test and learn

Organic Search and (not provided) keywords
(Np)

10 alternatives to (not provided)
Article located at: https://moz.com/blog/proving-seo-value-in-google-
analytics

Custom Channel Grouping
Cg

Default channels are too broad

Define New
Channels,Tell
Better Stories

Story: Brand vs. Non-Brand

Story: Non-Brand Organic Search rules
Non-Brand
Organic
Search by
content
topic

Story: We still don’t know a lot!
We have
no idea!

Story: We are earning it
Earned
the old
fashioned
way

Story: Paid media drives our sales
Paid drives sales

Story: We have 45% unaccountable traffic
We have no idea!

How to Get
Custom Channels?
Define your own settings

Tell Google Analytics your channels

Customize each channel: Non-brand
Non Brand Traffic is traffic not to
your home or aboutpages?

Customize each channel: referrals

Mobile + Organic
More custom channel ideas
Mobile + Paid Media
SocialAds vs. PPC Webmail + Email
Guest Posts vs Earned Links Earned Social vs. Paid Social

Content Grouping
Co

Analyze content performance by theme

Group content by year of publication

How does word count affect organic?

How to Get
Content Groupings
Rules,Extraction or Code

Some groupings require code

The art of content grouping by waterfall

Git my WordPress content grouping code
Get thiscode at: http://bit.ly/GTM_Content

More on Content Groupings
More Content Analysis Goodness: https://moz.com/blog/content-analysis-
google-analytics

Appearance and reality
Image found at:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Story: Look at all of this great traffic!

Let’s tell EVERYONE!

Sorry,but that’s about as
real as ice cream land
Image found at: http://stuffpoint.com/

Or a world where Prince is a sex symbol
Image courtesy of Giphy.com

We have a data quality issue
Dq

Actually, it’s a referrer spam issue
Rs

We first noticed this in late 2014
Article here: http://www.jeffalytics.com/8-steps-eliminating-bad-data-google-analytics/

These referrals are not real. They are CRAP!

From One Person in Russia

http://www.ppccourse.nethttp://www.analyticscourse.net Image via: http://mccluresmagazine.com/
And we all know…

No response from Google for 6 months

Nudged a little harder in April
Article here: http://www.jeffalytics.com/google-analytics-data-quality-
issue/

“This is the most challenging data quality
issue that I have seen in the 10 years I have
used the product.
I worry that if a permanent and swift
solution is not found for this issue, it will
cause long term damage to the credibility
of the product.”
- Jeffalytics, April 2015

Google Responded (sort of)

Simo Ahava Developed a removal Tool
that is Pretty Good (but not perfect)
Simo’s Spam Filter Removal Tool: http://www.simoahava.com/spamfilter/

Google Provided an update to the update

But people are a lot less patient now

We are losing trust in Google Analytics

And we keep on seeing shit like this

And Pageview Spam

And Event spam… and more

Is this what
it sounds
like?
Image via Prince.org

This has become a
massive issue, with
only one solution…

Key Actions

Tell a story from your data
(Don’t let computers win)
Key Actions to Take Today!
Develop a low-middle-high
budget projection
Use demographics to inform
marketing segments
Set up content and channel
groupings for better insight
Install filters to block some
referral spam
Demand a GoogleAnalytics
data annulment

Thank You!
Jeff Sauer
Google Analytics Consultant
San Francisco, CA
Email: jeff@jeffalytics.com
Newsletter: bit.ly/jeffalytics
Analyticscourse.net

Telling a story with Google Analytics data - MnSearch Summit 2015

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