Google analytics introduction
- 1. Google Analytics Workshop for VisitWiltshire 21st November 2013 Dr Philip Alford http://uk.linkedin.com/in/philipalford/ https://twitter.com/philipalford palford@bournemouth.ac.uk
- 2. About me … • Senior Lecturer at Bournemouth University School of Tourism • Project lead on Digital Destinations project • Board member of VisitWiltshire • Chair of VisitWiltshire Online Marketing Group • Web design, social media, email marketing with www.MapleCommunication.co.uk / www.TourismusTraining.at
- 3. Measurement is key ‘Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted”
- 4. Customer Engagement Customer engagement: “Repeated interactions that strengthen the emotional, psychological or physical investment a customer has in a brand” Customer engagement strategy: “A strategy to encourage interaction and participation of consumers with a brand through developing content and experiences with the aim of meeting commercial objectives. It is closely related to the development of content marketing and social media strategy.”
- 6. Developing the strategy Situation: where are we now? Objectives: where do we want to be? Strategy: how do we get there? Tactics: how exactly do we get there? Action: what is our plan? Control: did we get there?
- 7. Situation analysis • Customer Insight: Identify distinct customer segments and why they buy from you • Product Insight: What is your unique offer and is it clearly communicated online? Think about this in terms of specific customers rather than in general • Internal Resources: for example customer database that isn’t being used effectively • Identify issues, weaknesses, challenges, opportunities which could inform objective-setting • Competitor analysis – points of differentiation? • Your digital marketing analytics should inform this stage
- 9. Introductory video • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpgY7BQ4 HRA&feature=endscreen
- 11. Top Key Phrases from Search Engines Search is the game baby, and even more so for our SMB friends who have very small ad budgets and have to leverage the power of search engines. Do this to infer intent of your customers, do this to know if you are getting the traffic you think you deserve. If you are not take action.
- 12. Top Referring URL’s Taking the above recommendation to the next level. Many SMB’s create partnerships with other SMB’s or associations etc. As you look at the referring URL’s do you see any that are interesting and surprising? Do you have some relationships with them? If not should you? Then, my favorite, segment out those referring url’s that are sending you traffic that meets your goal criteria (a order, a lead, a particular page view etc)
- 13. Site Content Popularity Websites are small and websites are big. Do you know what content is being consumed the most by your visitors? It is probably less than 20%, it is important to know which 20%. In my experience we are always surprised by what content is being consumed by our customers, specially if you segment out content consumed by those who meet your site goals. Start with most popular pages viewed on the site, go from there.
- 14. % of Visitors Who Visit the Home Page This recommendation is more a reaction to the fact that 90% of website owners are way to enamoured by the home page and perfecting it. In reality around half or less of the site traffic sees the home page. Do you know what this number is for you? Knowing this will mean you can assign resources optimally, focus on other pages, if you have “golden content / promotions” you won’t just show it on the home page.
- 15. Click Density / Site Overlay In-Page Analytics It takes a lot to interpret the Click Density report but there is nothing simpler for a SMB owner to start with. Web Analytics comes to life, they can “see” the clicks and relate to visitors in a new and more profound way. Click Density’s real power comes when you look at segmented click density, where do purchasers click vs everyone else. Actionable insights. For a SMB owner, if you see “interesting” click density behavior do simple experiments with layout, content, navigation to optimize.
- 16. Site Bounce Rate I define this as visitors who stay on the site for less than 10 seconds (or one page only, though for reasons I’ll blog about some day I prefer the 10 seconds). Specially for a SMB owner who has precious few resources to spare each visitor is valuable and it is hyper critical to know what this number is (and then segment by campaigns, referring urls, top paged on site with high bounce rate etc to know who is sending you valuable traffic).
- 17. Google Analytics Basics: Essential Stats
- 18. The Marketing Objectives Checklist Navigate your way to an effective objectives-led marketing mindset Identify the biggest growth opportunities for your business... with new customers: with existing customers: speak to more people get more people to try reach more people get people to buy more often get people to buy more increase prices Seek activities to drive awareness Seek activities to drive trial Seek options to increase distribution Seek activities to drive frequency Seek activities to fuel weight of purchase Seek ways to add product value NB: segmentation simplified for the purposes of the checklist Understand who you need to talk to... those unaware of the brand Output: those aware but not yet buying those buying but not very often those buying but not very loyal those buying regularly those who only buy your brand Our core objective is to get ........... customers who are ................... to ........................... i.e. Our core objective is to get new customers who are unaware to be aware of our brand
- 19. What does VW measure? Audience • website unique visitors - year on year comparison (audience overview) • domestic and overseas (geo) • % new visitors (behaviour) • number of pages viewed (behaviour – engagement) – page depth • dwell time (behaviour – engagement) – visit duration Acquisition • top referring sites (acquisition overview) • top search terms (keywords – organic) Behaviour • top pages viewed (site content – all pages) • social network referral traffic • landing pages (site content – landing pages) • exit pages (site content – exit pages)
- 21. Set targets for KPIs • Open rate and CTR (what percentage?) – base against past performance (time period), industry average, or what would expect (informed guesswork)? You need a start point • Engagement with web content: number of visits, pages viewed, bounce rate, conversions (goalsetting) • Engagement with FB: number of posts, Likes, shares, traffic to website from FB
Editor's Notes
- #6: Awareness: Linking: showfeatured products screenshot from a New Mind website
- #20: website unique visitors - year on year or month on month comparison: you can choose different metrics – e.g. bounce rate;domestic and overseas (geo): % new visitors (behaviour): also look at ‘engagement’ – page depth – page depth 1 = bounce rate; top referring sites: look at acquisition overview and then drill into referral; use secondary dimension to compare new and returning visitors; can also change the view to landing page; add context to the sites – look at the behaviour of people from those siteslanding pages (site content – landing pages) – look across the columns toanalysebehaviour of visitors that land on different pagestop pages viewed (site content – all pages) – also look at ‘entrances’ which show that the person entered on that page