Getting The Most Out of Google Analytics

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You can’t manage what you can’t measure, and this session on Google Analytics opens up the world of data about your website. Understand how Google Analytics works, as well as what you can learn from it and how to interpret the data and put it to use to build actionable plans that deliver results to your bottom line.

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Getting the Most Out of Google AnalyticsGoogle Analytics

Sanger & Eby31 August 2011

About Sanger & Eby

• Strategic design & technology firm focused on specialized business communications

• Services Include:

– Strategic planning and research

– Social media strategy and execution

– User experience planning

– Print and interactive design

– Interactive and multi-channel marketing

– Content development– Content development

– Search marketing (SEO & SEM)

– Website development, custom business and web applications

– Mobile applications & sites

• 700+ Sites designed and developed in 15 years

• Clients include:

– Macy’s

– Fifth Third Bank

– Luxottica

– AT&T

– Turner Construction

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Why Do You Need Analytics?

“Half of my advertising doesn’t work. I just “Half of my advertising doesn’t work. I just

don’t know which half.”

--John Wanamaker

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Why Do You Need Analytics?

• Identify and capture opportunities

• Increase conversions

• Enhance credibility (identify and correct problems)

• Increase user satisfaction

• Measure success

• Understand your return on investment (ROI)

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What is Google Analytics?

• Powerful web analytics tool

• Provides in-depth visitor and traffic statistics

• Hosted on Google’s servers

• Flexible and easy to use

• Fantastic high-level charts and graphs

• Very easy installation

• Free

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What You Can Do with Google Analytics

Create more effective sites.Create more effective sites.

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Google Analytics Capabilities

• Track a wide variety of metrics

• Make informed site design and content decisions

– What’s working and what’s not

– Where visitors leave the site

– Most popular content

– How to organize calls to action

• Measure keyword performance• Measure keyword performance

• Understand traffic sources and where to focus efforts

– Link building

– Advertising

– SEO

– Blogs and product review sites

• Increase return on investment (ROI) on marketing campaigns

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Answers Key Site Questions

• How are visitors finding my site?

– What keywords are most effective?

– What sites are referring traffic?

• What pages are most popular?

• Where do people leave my site?

• Where are my visitors located?• Where are my visitors located?

• What is my site’s ROI?

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Benefits

• Fast, slick, beautiful presentation of statistics

– Charting with drill-downs

• You have control over which pages or files get analyzed

• Accurate view of human traffic (ignores search engine spiders)

• Integrates tightly with Google Adwords /Adsense

– AdWords: Pay per click search marketing on Google

– AdSense: Google pays to display sponsored ads on your site

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Features and Functions

• Many different reports:

– Visitor Counts

– Page by Page Counts

– Map Overlay

– Traffic Sources (Direct Visits, Google, Other Sites)

– Goal/Conversion/Funnel Tracking– Goal/Conversion/Funnel Tracking

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Google Analytics Limitations

• Free service limited to sites with less than 5 million page views

per month

• Users with JavaScript & cookies turned off are not tracked

– Tracking is client-side using JavaScript and cookies

– 2% of users have JavaScript disabled as of Dec 2010

(source: Yahoo!)(source: Yahoo!)

• Search engine spiders are not counted towards totals

• No automatic tracking of document or image downloads

• Does not track document (PDF, DOC, etc) or image (JPG)

downloads

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Dashboard: High Level Overview

Date Range can be

adjusted on all reports

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Visitors Overview

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Content Overview

Shows which pages

are most popular

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Map Overlay (World)

Click a country

to drill-down

for more details

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for more details

Map Overlay (USA)

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Map Overlay (Ohio)

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Traffic Sources

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Mobile Devices

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Goals and Conversion Tracking

• Calculate ROI, Average Score or other metrics

• Great for e-commerce sites

• Can track all steps along a path to a desired goal

• Lets you know exactly where visitors drop off

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For More Information

• Refer to Google’s Help Documents:

– www.conversionuniversity.com

– www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/

• See Apple’s App Store for “Analytics”

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Want to know more?

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Jay Larbes

Senior Director, Technology

Sanger & Eby

jlarbes@sangereby.com

www.sangereby.com

Twitter.com/sangereby

Kat Jenkins

Vice President, Strategic Planning

Sanger & Eby

kjenkins@sangereby.com

www.sangereby.com

Twitter.com/sangereby

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