1. Getting the Most Out of
Google Analytics
MACVB Education Summit

2. This year, digital travel sales are expected to reach $198
billion. More than 140 million U.S. adults will research a trip
online.
Source: Social Media Today

3. During the travel research process, 43% of consumers said
they use their smartphones to look for accommodations,
and 76% said they use their desktop computer.
Twenty-five percent of consumers said they used their
smartphones to book their accommodations, and 67% said
they used their desktops.
Source: Social Media Today

4. Seventy-eight percent of travelers said informative content
from destinations or travel brands can influence their
decision-making process, and 46% said ads with informative
content can be influential.
Source: Expedia

5. What you’re going to learn today:
1. The basics and definitions
2. Align your business goals with your website goals
3. How to set up event tracking and create conversion goals
4. How set up your website according to yours and visitors’ goals
5. How to segment and build audiences relevant to your website/goals
6. Discover what content is performing best and how it’s converting
7. Identify which marketing channels convert best
8. Set up custom dashboards and reports

6. The Basics & Definitions

7. Areas of Analysis
● Audience: Who are your visitors?
● Acquisition: How did they find you?
● Behavior: What did they do on your website?
What content gets viewed the most?
● Conversions: Are visitors’ and your goals
being met?

9. Interests

10. Location - Region

11. Benchmarking - U.S. Travel Industry

12. Devices

13. Overview

14. Source/Medium

15. Behavior Overview

16. Landing Page Report

17. Event Tracking
● An event is an interaction with a web element
on your website such as a video, button or a
podcast.

18. Conversions

19. Align Business Goals & Website Goals
Event Tracking & Goal Setting in Google Analytics

21. CVB Business Goals & Website Goals
● Generate tourism dollars to
increase economic impact
● Generate overnight lodging
business
● Become a conference/event
destination
● Promote area events and
activities
● Generate interest in what your
tourism area has to offer
● Position your tourism area as a
destination worth visiting (for
business or pleasure)
● Provide high-quality, relevant
information to influence the
target audience
● Encourage visitors to book a
stay

22. How do we best measure…
● Interest
● Engagement
● Value
● Intent

23. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
● Must identify KPIs that demonstrate progress toward goals
● Examples:
○ Watched a video
○ Downloaded a visitor’s guide
○ Joined email list
○ Clicked on an external link
○ Shared your content on social media
○ Viewed multiple pages to learn more
○ Responded to Calls to Action
○ Took a quiz
○ Saved an agenda
○ Requested a travel guide

24. Is your website set up to track
engagement?

25. Examples of Events
● Downloading a file
● Loading of Ajax, JavaScript or flash contents
● Loading of a dynamically generated web page
● Loading of pop-ups, light boxes (think email pop-ups or video lightboxes)
● Loading of a video on a webpage
● Scrolling down the page
● Viewing of a video
● Viewing video footage of certain length
● Clicking on a video’s play/pause/stop button
● Interaction with a gadget
● Clicking on an image or an external link
● Abandonment of a form field
● Logins
● Sharing/printing a blog post, article, video or image
● Clicking on a button
● Movement of mouse

31. Event tracking - not the same as goals
● Use your webmaster to help set this up - requires code be added to your
website
○ Event tracking code
○ Google Tag Manager
Resource: https://www.optimizesmart.com/event-tracking-guide-google-analytics-simplified-version/

32. How to set up a goal

35. Key Takeaways
● Align business goals with website (visitor) goals
● Guide your visitors to take the next step with strong calls
to action (CTAs)
● Track actions on your website through event tracking and
create goals to measure engagement

36. Segmenting & Building an Audience

45. Key Takeaways
● Review audience data to gain insights about audience attributes:
○ Geo
○ Demographics
○ Interests
○ Behavior
○ Technology
○ Mobile (Devices)
● Create market segments that make sense:
○ Interests, location, converters, etc.
● Build audiences based on market segments to build targeted remarketing lists
and search campaigns in Google Adwords

46. Analyze Behavior: Content Engagement

47. Pageviews (no goals)

48. Landing Page

49. What’s driving landing page traffic?

50. Key Takeaways
● Gain more insight about goals with landing pages vs. pageviews
● Review secondary dimensions (source/medium) to uncover why content is or
isn’t reaching goals
● Set goals for every page! What do you want visitors to do next?
● Brainstorm ways to make content work harder toward goals
● Remember: Bounce rate doesn’t always indicate a poor performance (i.e.
fishing report)

51. Analyze Marketing & Campaigns

52. Acquisition Overview: How did they get here?

53. Dig Deeper

54. UTM Codes
● A simple code that you can attach to a custom URL in order to track a source,
medium, and campaign name.
● This enables Google Analytics to tell you where searchers came from as
well as what campaign directed them to you.
● Use the Google UTM Code generator (Discover → Campaign URL Builder)
● Only way to view Ad Content and track each campaign (other than AdWords)

56. Conversions: Top Conversion Paths (Channels)

57. Source/Medium Path

58. Assisted Conversions

59. Key Takeaways
● Dig deeper into how people got to your website with
secondary dimensions
● Use UTM codes for any URLs involved with every
campaign - stay organized!
● Pay attention to conversion paths and understand it’s
often more than one visit that contributes to conversions

60. Dashboards & Custom Reports

61. Dashboards & Custom Reports

68. I hoped today you learned:
1. Analytics basics and definitions
2. How to align your business goals with your website goals
3. How to set up event tracking and create conversion goals
4. How set up your website according to yours and visitors’ goals
5. How to segment and build audiences relevant to your website/goals
6. Discover what content is performing best and how it’s converting
7. Identify which marketing channels convert best
8. Set up custom dashboards and reports

69. Thank You!
katg@wafishermn.com