Using Google Analytics toimprove your business results

Presented to The Internet ConferenceNottingham, 14th May 2010

Dr Dave Chaffey, CEO, Smart Insightswww.smartinsights.com

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Engaging web users is tough!

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About Dave Chaffey

Strategy &AnalyticsPortal & Software:www.smartinsights.com/beta

Search &Conversionconsulting

Strategyconsulting

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Agenda

• Mini case study• 1 Conversion optimisation strategy and planning

► The REAN framework. The “Cult of Analytics”► Conversion optimisation strategy

• 2 Google Analytics setup and customisation in 6 steps► 1. Working with reports ► 2. Segmenting with advanced segments► 3. Creating custom reports and dashboards ► 4. Setting up marketing campaign tracking► 5. Modifying profile and filter setup ► 6. Customisations with server modifications

► 3 A very brief intro to AB and MVT

► Please ask questions after each section…► No question too simple or too advanced!

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Case study Euroffice

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SEO and brand intro

OVP

OVP

Encourage searchdominant visitors

Encourage browsedominant visitors

“Reasons to return”

Social proof

Euroffice social presence

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Euroffice Email Examples

1 Conversion (goal)optimization strategy

Producing a plan defining:• Business goals and KPIs to improve?

•Areas of site to focus on?• Sequence of tests?

What are we trying to achieve?Introducing the REAN framework – application – goals and dashboards

► Reach – Reach prospects and customers via search engines and brand communications on publisher, social network and other partner sites

► Engage – Engage through relevant quality content mainly on your site, but also content syndicated to partner sites

► Activate – Convert engagement into business value – generate leads and sales

► Nurture – Build relationships throughout the customer lifecycle through online direct messaging (Email, Blogs, RSS Feeds and SMS messaging) and community content

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REAN Questions► What would go on the REAN dashboard for you?

► Reach:► ► ► ►

► Engage► ► ► ►

► Activate► ► ► ►

► Nurture► ► ► ►

Examples of measures within REAN framework

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How do we compare? Benchmarks

Source: http://www.marketing-online.co.uk/wiki/Ecommerce_Conversion_Rates_Statistics | 13

Coremetrics summary dashboard example

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Where do we start? What will give us the biggest uplift in…?

Home page Landing pages

Category pages

SearchProduct pages

Conversion goal pages Check out pages

Branding & utility pages

Practical Tip – Identify most important page types by Content Drilldown volume, $Index (low or high), bounce

and exit rates multiplied by page views

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SOUND ADVICE…

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Source: Craig Sullivan independent survey 2009 | 17

Activity: Where do most prospects enter and leave your sites? What are bounce rates? How does this differ for segments.

Home page

Search page

Category page

Product page

Sub-product page

Checkout / forms

Tailored landing page

Security & Privacy

About Us“Points of Resolution”

Pricing

Detailed product info

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Practical Tip Review % age of visits by

different landing page types (for first time and repeat visitors)

Source: Craig Sullivan independent survey 2009| 19

Tracking session interactions

Source: www.clicktale.comSee also: http://www.marketing-online.co.uk/wiki/Website_Visitor_Behaviour_Analysis_Tools

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Granular call tracking example

Source: http://www.clickthrough-marketing.com/phone-call-tracking.phpAlternatives: http://www.freshegg.com/call-track-id.htm,http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/call-metrics | 21

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Tip. Use Feedback tools“Why” not “What”

http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-software/website-feedback-tools-review/

Google Analytics will only show you ‘What’ not ‘Why’ – other tools can helpiPerceptions http://www.4qsurvey.com/

“Bad web site. Difficult to find item as no search box provided for short cut”

“I can't find any prices on your website” “Would like to see where I can buy products from” .

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1 Google Analytics setup and customisation in 6 steps

1. Working with reports 2. Segmenting with advanced segments3. Creating custom reports and dashboards 4. Setting up marketing campaign tracking5. Modifying profile and filter setup 6. Customisations with server modifications

See: http://www.davechaffey.com/blog/web-analytics/customising-google-analytics-for-your-business/

Working with reports in a smarter way

Customisation technique 1

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Smarter reporting options1. Using the calendar / time period options for comparison2. Pivot tables3. Filter reports with simple filter based on page or keyword name or New: an

Advanced Filter on any variable4. New: Setting annotations – beneath the top chart

5. Intelligence Beta:Review standard alertsvia left menu

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Use your “Intelligence”

http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/web-analytics/google-analytics-web-analytics/my-experiences-of-using-the-google-analytics-intelligence-feature-to-review-seo-and-pay-per-click/

Tip: Use Custom Alerts in your system

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Example Pivot + Filter

Page analysis technique : Reverse and forward path analysis

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How effective is your scent?

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WHY CHOOSE US?

WHERE / HOW TO BUY?

NEW CUSTOMER?

<CUSTOMER-CENTRIC SERVICE NAMES>

Example SCENT TRAILS

Segmenting your audience by setting up advanced segments

Customisation technique 2

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Advanced segments – how it works

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Advanced segments – some options• 1. Segmentation by Referrer / Traffic source:• Paid• Natural• Paid and natural brand and non-brand• By number of keywords – 2,3,4• Social media • 2. Segmentation by Visitor Type• New visitor• Returning visitor• Registered visitor• Customer

• 3. Segmentation by Engagement• 5 pages,• <3 pages

• 4. Segmentation by Content Viewed • Key landing page• Product page• Checkout complete• Folders for large organisation

• 5. Segmentation by Landing Page Type

• 6. Segmentation by Event:• Conversion goal types and E-commerce

• 7. Segmentation by Platform (less important)

• Browser• Screen resolution• Mobile platforms

• 8. Segmentation by Location Geography

• Main markets• UK• US• FIGS• ROW

| 33+ By behaviour – search and browse

See http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/web-analytics/google-analytics-web-analytics/segmenting-google-analytics/

Advanced segmentation exampleSegmentation by Visitor Type

Practical Tip Use Content Drilldown for understanding grouped content

popularityBut need DFA! URL Strategy| 34

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Advanced: Dimensionator for second page viewed

http://www.analyticspros.com/blog/googleanalytics/93-dimensionator-google-analytics-dimensions.html

Handy plugin for relative SEO changes

Firefox plugin:http://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/enhanced-google-analytics-firefox-plugin/

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Advanced segmentation 2:Tracking social media

Source (Step 10) : http://www.davechaffey.com/blog/web-analytics/configuring-google-analytics-guide/

See also: www.davechaffey.com/online-reputation-management-tools

Creating dashboards and custom reports within Google Analytics

Customisation technique 3

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How do you use the dashboard??

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Custom reports beta (can overlay segmentation)

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Some ideas for using custom reports• 1. Time reporting.

Use a dimension of week/month to compare performance over time more easily

• 2. Value reporting. Repeat the value of different contributors:

– Keywords– Landing pages– Product categories– Countries

• 3. Role-based reporting.Setup different tabs for different types of people or marketing activity

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2010/02/leverage-custom-web-analytics-reports-insights.html

Bubble ormotion charts

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NB shows animated performance by day

Setting up marketing campaign tracking

Customisation technique 4

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Campaign tracking • Adwords will be tracked automatically

provided you have specified within Adwords• All other referring campaign traffic sources

need parameters adding where practical• Example: http://econsultancy.com/reports/search-engine-optimization-seo-be

st-practice-guide?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=generic Variable Meaning - http://www.epikone.com/blog/

utm_campaign The name of the marketing campaign, e.g. Spring Campaign.

utm_medium Media channel (i.e. email, banner, CPC, etc). What is the ‘distribution method’ that is used to get our message out to our clients?

utm_source Who are you partnering with to push your message. A publisher, or for paid search Google, Yahoo, Live Search,

utm_content The version of the ad (used for A/B testing). You can identify two versions of the same ad using this variable.

utm_term The search term purchased (if you’re buying keywords). This is not always used and is NOT included in the above example.

Tip: Use a URL builder or spreadsheet• Another example:• http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=8909• &utm_campaign=CCXAQ081009A• &utm_source=Monthly_xArts_Email• &utm_medium=Internal_Email• &utm_content=CCXAQ081009A_Bunker_image [or A_Bunker_intro]

• Activity: • Try the Google URL builder•

http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578

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New May 2010 Google Adwords Beta

Modifying profile setup within “Google Analytics Settings”

Customisation technique 5

Setting up conversion goals

► Remember to►Setup multiple conversion goals►Attach notional value to each►Can then assess $Index value by referrer and content

► Ecommerce sites have specific product value attached so generally best not to add value to non-sales goal

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Consider additional goals – social bookmarking, commenting, catalogue requests, etcSee Ran Nir: http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2009/03/10-must-track-google-analytics-goals.html See also http://www.viget.com/engage/how-to-track-internal-links-in-google-analytics/

New – 20 goals in GA so group them!

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Conversion funnels► These can be setup for each conversion goal► Example: Email sign-up, Landing page, checkout► Consider higher level funnels – or use conversion goals for these

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Show me the money!

http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/2010/05/11/how-much-value-is-your-website-generating/

• The 3 key value measures in GA:– 1. Index value (Top content reports)

Shows the influence of pages in generating value either through Ecommerce transactions or conversion goals with a value assigned.

– 2. Per Visit Goal Value (Traffic Sources reports for Referring sites, Search Engines and Keywords – Goal tab) Based on value assigned to your conversion goals this shows you the Total Goal Value for your reports.

– 3. Per Visit Value (Ecommerce Revenue per visit) You can see Per Visit Value measures within Traffic sources on the Ecommerce tab if you have Ecommerce tracking enabled.

http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=86205

Tracking on-site search

| 52 Tip. find the search query parameter from the URL of a search results page

Coremetrics UK Retail benchmarks

Q. What to look for in site search reports?

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Filters and profiles – use for site structure

• To avoid a problem of 0 traffic there should be a master profile which NEVER has any filters applied.

• Process:1. Create Advanced segment

to test filter.2. Create filter.3. Apply to a test profile (only

used for testing purposes – can check in minutes).

4. Create final profile and apply filter.

5. Grant access to this profileFurther reading:http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/2009/12/09/how-to-choose-between-advanced-segments-versus-profile-filters-in-google-analytics/http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/?hl=enhttp://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/accounts_profiles/index.html http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/filters/index.html http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/concepts/gaConceptsAccounts.html

Excluding staff access to data1. Single IP address

• Select Filter Manager

• Select “exclude all traffic• from IP address”

• Use regular expression, e.g. • 176\.168\.1\.1

• 2. Range of IPs• Ssimilar – use IP address

tool at address below

• 3. Exclude by cookie

• Has to be based on login page to intranet or similar.

• Sets variable identifying employee in cookie

• Exclude visitors with cookie from main profile.

See Step 2: http://www.smartinsights.com/web-analytics/configuring-google-analytics-guide/

Customisations that require server modifications

Customisation technique 6

Ecommerce tracking

| 57 See http://www.davechaffey.com/blog/web-analytics/customising-google-analytics-for-your-business

And _trackTrans

Using event tracking in GA ► Use event tracking for finding how popular different activities are:• Downloading documents (PDFs)• Clicking outbound links• Playing video clips

► Best script to apply :http://blog.immeria.net/2009/01/google-analytics-script-to-track.html

• Can also use Virtual Page Views but need to exclude False Page Views with additional profile – see http://www.viget.com/engage/how-to-track-internal-links-in-google-analytics/

Engagement essential configuration:Event tracking

Source: Google announces final rollout of Event tracking June 2009:http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/06/event-tracking-now-available-in-all.html

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Custom variables in Google Analytics►Original called _setVar Javascript function on

page that uniquely identifies these visitors. Sets cookie for 2 year period.

►Now _setCustomVar ►With up to 20 variables►Possible applications:

►Different subscribers - bronze, silver, gold►Customers vs non-customers

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Read more: http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingCustomVariables.html

5 AB and multivariate testing

Introducing the Google Web Optimizer Tool

Google Website Optimizer:7 key test types

• 1. AB Test (ABC Test)• Compare 2

or more page versions• 2 Multivariate test• Compare different versions of

page elements• 3 Split-path test• Compare 2 or more linear paths• 4 Multipath multivariate test• Multi-elements, multipages

–

•5 Do Anything Test• Measure multiple conversion goals•6 Linger test• Measure engagement with page•7 Click•Measure clicks on advertiser links or to an external checkout

Read more: http://www.grokdotcom.com/2007/11/02/google-website-optimizer-7-powerful-tests/

Google Website Optimizer case study

Source: Moneyspyder blog (with permission):http://blog.moneyspyder.co.uk/2009/06/enhanced-google-website-optimiser.html x

Combining event tracking with GWO

•Each variation / recipe in GWO is tracked as a separate event and can then be used to view more granular info – e.g. influence on AOV

Source: Moneyspyder blog (with permission):http://blog.moneyspyder.co.uk/2009/06/enhanced-google-website-optimiser.html x

Don’t give too much choice?!

•Six different jams. 40% of the customers stopped to taste. 30% of those bought.

•Twenty-four different jams. 60% of the customers stopped to taste. But only 3% bought! http://sivers.org/jam

Autoglass case study

Source: Craig Sullivan talking at Econsultancy Masterclass:http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/digital-marketing-strategy/online-marketing-masterclass-liveblogging

TV Comparison

+2.4%

TV - Off

+6.4%

TV - On

-1.3% +14.8%

Another example

+5.3%

Let’s Connect! Questions & discussion welcome

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