Make your website work harder with Google Analytics

Make Your Site W k H d
M k Y Si Work Harder
Simple Tips to Get More From Your Google Analytics Account
g y

Jeff Sauer
Three Deep Marketing
www.threedeepmarketing.com
651-789-7701
@jeffsauer
@threedeep
#mimasummit

Why Google Analytics?
www.threedeepmarketing.com | @jeffsauer | @threedeep

It s
It’s on 50% of the world’s websites*
world s
*According to Google, Google Analytics is on 50% of the Alexa top 1 Million Websites

What can I do with Google Analytics?
• Track Social Media
• Track E il
T k Emails
• Customize Your Dashboards
• Block Internal Traffic
• Set Up Goals and Goal Funnels
• Website and URL Structure
• Link Adwords with Analytics
• Improve Site Search
• Segment Traffic
• Track Events

Is Social Media Working?

Problem: W know we need to do Social
P bl We k dt d S i l
Media, so we have a presence on
Facebook and T itt
F b k d Twitter… but I have no
b t h
idea if this generates incremental visitors,
leads
l d or sales on my website
l b it


Social Media Tracking
How Do I Track the Social Media Traffic To My Website?


Step 1: Building a Tracking URL

Facebook or
Twitter or
LinkedIn

Google Analytics URL Builder: bit.ly/GAURLBuilder

Step 2: Use Your Tracking URL
Add your Tracking URL to each message

/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=so
cialmedia&utm_campaign=Twitterfeed
&utm_content=Twitter

Step 3: Segment Social Media Traffic
Create advanced segments to track social media visits


Social Media Tracking in Action

Social Media
had 15
conversions
this month!


Benefits of Tracking Social Media
Tracking Social Media in GA will:
• Help you understand how social media
visitors behave on your website
• Allow you to fine tune your messages to
match your goals
• Establish
E t bli h accountability f your social media
t bilit for i l di
campaigns and allow them to be compared
to other traffic sources


Are emails generating revenue?

Problem: I know all about the open and
interaction rates of the emails I’m sending,
but I don’t know how much money they’re
generating.

How can I track the ROI of individual
emails, and my entire email program?


Improperly Coded Email Traffic
Why does my email traffic show up as a referral or a
direct visit?


Step 1: Add tracking to URLs

Using the URL builder, generate a unique tracking string for all URLs in your email. Add these to
your email as you would all URLs.

*If you link to a domain other than one you own, and you do not have access to that site’s
analytics, you do not need to add tracking to those URLs (i.e. Facebook, YouTube).

Google Analytics URL Builder: bit.ly/GAURLBuilder

Step 2: Filter site traffic by email
Select Campaigns from Traffic Sources

Filter by Medium

Look for ‘Email’ in the list

Select the Ecommerce tab to see revenue, goals tab to see goals
*Make sure ecommerce tracking is set up properly beforehand


Properly Attributed Email Reports
I can see exactly which email campaign performed the best

Benefits of Email Tracking

Tracking Email Marketing will:
• Assist in measurement of the ROI of your email
program in online retail
• Allow you to start determining the effectiveness of
your email campaigns RIGHT NOW
• Will not replace the reports provided by your ESP
(Email Service Provider), but it can enhance and
inform your email program with respect to:

• A/B testing
• Geographic campaign traction and penetration
• Consumer interest and preference

Right Metrics, Right Time

Problem: Wh I installed G
P bl When i t ll d Google l
Analytics, they created a dashboard for
me, b t th t d hb d d
but that dashboard doesn’t show me
’t h
the information that matters for MY
business and I d ’t h
b i d don’t have ti
time t di i
to dig in
and find what I need


Typical Dashboard View
This information is easy to read, but what does it mean?
Is this good? Bad? Average?
g g


Step 1: Add Reports to Dashboard
You can add any report or views to your custom dashboard!


Step 2 (optional): Compare to Past
Add the “Compare to Past” feature for your analytics to
p
provide g
greater depth to y
p your reports
p

Pro Tip: You can also apply advanced segments,
report on goals and add e-commerce revenue to your
dashboard if they are applied to your report

Step 3: Email Dashboards
Once your dashboard is properly configured, you can share
with members of your organizations by sending the dashboard
directly to their inbox

Send as PDF to
Individuals, Other
Formats for automation

Send as often
as needed


Customized Dashboard View

Compare last
month’s
th’
analytics with
current to
determine
growth and
th d
change

See where
sales are Discover if
coming from revenue is
and h
d how your increasing and
sales when orders
conversions are most likely
are to be placed
performing
f i

Benefits of Custom Dashboards
Customizing your dashboard will:
• P id you a quick overview of th
Provide i k i f the
performance of the metrics most important to
you business
your bus ess
• Can be emailed to you daily, weekly, monthly
and quarterly
• Can provide comparisons to performance in
previous days, weeks, months
• All
Allows for flexibility as your b i
f fl ibilit business grows
and changes


Visitors Aren’t Really Visitors

Problem: E
P bl Everybody i our company
b d in
uses our corporate website as their
homepage and I’ not sure if our t ffi
h d I’m t traffic
reports are accurate


Filter Internal Traffic

Is this really an accurate visitor count?
y


Step 1: Find your IP address

Whatismyip.com
Whatismyip com

86.75.30.909
86 75 30 909


Step 2: Filter out IP address

Company‐block.com

Choose the
profile you
want this
filter for
CompanyNo‐Block.com
Company‐Block.com

Properly Filtered Traffic


Benefits of Traffic Filtering

Filtering Internal Traffic will:
• Allow you to see exactly who visited your site
• Make reporting more actionable by showing a
true picture of what happened on your site
• Bring the best metrics to the forefront and
keep reporting on track


What is the Value of my Website?

Problem: I have had this website for
years and I’m not sure if it is generating
new business for my company


What does it mean?
All of this information
and I don’t know what
don t
it means!

Determine Your Goals

Examples of common website g
p goals include:
• Ecommerce Transactions
• Completion of a form (lead collection or
newsletter opt-ins)
• Visitors downloading a whitepaper or p
g p p product
brochure
• Visitor engagement ( g comment, adding or
g g (blog , g
editing a profile, time-on-site, pageviews)


Step 1: Decide What to Measure
Product Locator Usage Tool Usage Time Spent on Site

Page Views

Site Registration
Sweepstakes Entry

Step 2: Map Conversion Process
Determine your path to success; your goal funnel

Paid Search Ad
We are offering 50% off on our
site! Take a look!
www.ourcompany.com
www ourcompany com

Thank you!
Pro Tip: Make sure that each
p
URL in the funnel is unique

Step 3: Configure Goals and Funnels

Registration Conversion

Step 4: See Results
Visitors entering funnel step
Visitors abandoning funnel step

Where did
they go?

Why did they
leave?

Let’s Make it a Success
There is more than one path to success for
your website!


Benefits of Goal Tracking

Defining and Tracking Goals will:
• Assist you in setting up funnels to determine
where visitors drop off on your site
• H l you establish value f actions t k on
Help t bli h l for ti taken
your website
• Allow you to report on the performance of
each individual traffic driver to your site
• Enable you to report on engagement metrics
y p g g
like time on site and total page views
• Let you report on up to 20 specific actions


Page URLs Not User Friendly

Problem: Dynamic URLs don’t make any
sense when they show up in my Analytics
reports and it makes it really hard to do


Step 1: Identify the Problem
These all look the same, I have no idea which page
is which?


Step 2: Establish Page URL Structure

Your Site should have a URL structure that
reflects the pages, not query string ID's

– www.example.com/Products/Product.aspx?ProductId
=46116ccf-816b-4c09-a7e0-1b3oc1aech

– www.example.com /Total-
Stage/Preschooler/Education-Materials.aspx

Which is easier to read? Which URL would
be easier to identify in Google Analytics?
y g y


Step 3: Fix Your URLs
There are many ways to fix your URLs
• Ch
Change URL structure i your CMS
t t in
• Custom Page Names (using
pageTracker._trackPageview(“fixed rl")
pageTracker trackPage ie (“fi ed url"); )
• Friendly URL rewrites (.htaccess for Linux
servers,
servers IIS for Windows servers)


Easy to Read URLs
I know exactly which page I am analyzing now


Benefits of Easy to Read URLs

Making your URLs easy to read will:
• Make page level analysis much easier and
effective
• Help with Organic SEO (search engines
don t
don’t like to read dynamic URLs either!)
• Minimize opportunity for errors in analysis
• Allow for better grouping of pages in custom
reporting


What is my paid search ROI?

Problem: I think that my Google AdW d
P bl thi k th t G l AdWords
is successful because I get leads from my
website, b t I h
b it but have no id what
idea h t
keywords are the most valuable and ROI
is t i
i not in my vocabulary
b l


Enhance Your Search Marketing
Without Linking AdWords, my keyword reports
can b b i
be boring


Step 1: Link Your AdWords to Analytics


AdWords Reports in Google Analytics

AdWords reporting provides standard analytics metrics at a
campaign, ad group, and keyword level
campaign ad group and keyword level
(Traffic Sources > AdWords > Campaigns)

Day Parting AdWords in GA

Day Part reports shows AdWords performance
based on the time of day.
(Traffic Sources > AdWords > Day Parts)


Position Analysis in Google Analytics

Keyword Position report gives insight into how keywords perform at
different ad positions on the search engine results pages
(Traffic Sources > AdWords > Keyword Positions)
(Traffic Sources > AdWords > Keyword Positions)


Benefits of Linking AdWords with GA
Linking AdWords to Analytics will:
• Integrate standard AdWords metrics into the
Google Analytics interface, including: Clicks,
Impressions, Costs and ROI
p ,
• Hold your AdWords keywords to a greater level of
accountability
• All
Allow you t i
to increase conversion rates and l
i t d lower
expenses
• Enable you to tightly control your ad budget by
only bidding on keywords that produce positive
ROI


What are they hoping to find?

Problem: I have a search box on my
website, yet I have no idea if people use
it, why they use it, and how they use it


What do they want? Are they finding it?
What do people search for on my website?


Step 1: Configure Site Search

Pro Tip: All you need to configure is enter the search query parameter from your
search results page URL. This is typically something like ?q=keyword or
h l hi i i ll hi lik ? k d
&search=keyword

Dig Into Site Search Data


Benefits of Site Search Reports

Configuring Site Search will:
• Allow you to improve navigation of your
site
• Get your visitors deeper into the content of
your site
• Help you measure how the search
functionality effects the user’s experience
user s
• Identify low hanging fruit on your website
design and information architecture


Let’s Get Specific

Problem: When I look at the reports for
my website, the numbers rarely change
and I wouldn’t know what to do with it if
wouldn t
they did

“Don’t Puke Data… Focus your analytical and
reporting efforts on ‘What's Changed’. “
-Avinash Kaushik

www.kaushik.net/avinash
k hik t/ i h

Step 1: Create an Advanced Segment


Step 2: Enter Segment Criteria


Example: Organic Search Twin Cities


Example: Paid Facebook Ads

• Set up Multiple Profiles
• Use Analytics Intelligence
• Create Advanced S
C t Ad d Segments t
• Track E-Commerce Conversions
• Make Tracking SEO Friendly


Apply Advanced Segments to Reports
Even though it’s a small percentage of visits, Twin Cities
Organic Traffic Performs Very Well!


Benefits of Advanced Segments

Using Advanced Segments will:
• Enable you to provide true insights instead
of presenting data
• Increase your chances of finding
information th t will genuinely i
i f ti that ill i l impact your
t
business
• Allow you to drill down and go three levels
deep


Can’t Track Clicks to Non-Pages

Problem: Measuring page views is greatgreat,
but we also want to track interactions with
our flash elements video interactions
elements, interactions,
outbound clicks and more


Event Tracking
Who interacted with this flash movie?


Step 1: Plan Event Tracking Strategy

1.
1 Define the events you want to track
2. Enable Event Tracking in your reporting
profile
3. For each set of events, create an event
instance
i t
4. Call _trackEvent() in the web page
source code


Step 2: Configure Event Tracking

For each event you’d like to track, add the
following code:
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/threedeepmarketing"
p p g
onClick="pageTracker._trackEvent(‘Social Links', 'Click',
'Facebook');">Check us out on Facebook</a>

Comprehensive guide to event tracking: bit.ly/GAEventTracking


Event Tracking Results

• Event Tracking is used to track events that
cannot be tracked by the standard page
view method of tracking
• Examples of Event Tracking use cases
include:
– Items within a Flash element
– AJAX or JavaScript functionality
– PDF or other file downloads


Benefits of Event Tracking
Configuring event tracking will:
• Allow you to track events that happen on your
site that don’t generate pageviews, like in
Flash
Fl h moviesi
• Give insight into who left your site to external
websites
• Allow you to report on downloads of content
from your site like PDF files
site,
• Enable tracking of video views, plays, pauses
and more


What Else Can I Do?

• Set up Multiple Profiles Using Filters
• Use Analytics Intelligence
• Track E-Commerce Conversions
• Make Tracking SEO Friendly using # in
campaigns
• Benchmark Your Site vs. Industry
• A/B and Multivariate Tests with Google Website
Optimizer


Questions?

Make your website work harder with Google Analytics

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