Google Analytics: understanding the data correctly

Google Analytics: understanding the data correctly

Webinar, June 27, 2013

Promodo at a Glance

Speaker

Helen RuchkoMarketing Assistant at Promodo

Webinar main points

Introduction to Google Analytics:

How to set up goals in Google AnalyticsHow to use Google Analytics ecommerce trackingGoogle Analytics principal metrics (visits/page

views, sources of traffic)Webmaster tools integration

Webinar main points

Top 8 Google Analytics custom reports:

Not ProvidedBranded vs. non-branded trafficVisits with transactionsMost profitable sources of trafficFunnel visualizations, drop-offsBounce rate, it’s correct interpretationMobile traffic404 errors

Introduction to Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a powerful tool which shows you what is working on your website and what is not. It helps you optimize your marketing efforts and maximize the revenue.

Why do we need Google Analytics?

Adjust Google Analytics to your business goals.

How to make the most of Google Analytics data?

A goal is a critical event for your business which occurs on the website during the visit and helps you generate income

What are goals in Google Analytics?

How to set up goals in Google Analytics

URL destination goalTime on site goalPages per visit goalAn event goal

4 types of goals:

Google Analytics will keep track of URLs you specified. Each time a user goes to such URL the conversion is triggered

URL destination goal examples:o thank you pageo confirmation page o checkout pageo about us page

URL destination goal

URL destination goal for Promodo website

Setting up the goal

URL destination goal for Promodo website

Match type

• Regular expressions give the most flexibility, but they are rather for advanced Google Analytics users.

• Read Google’s regular expressions guide to learn how to make the use of them.

http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1034324

Google Analytics will keep an eye on visit duration. If the visitor stays on website above or below time you specified, a conversion is reported.

Time on site goal

Time on site goal

Time on site goal is ideal for customer support websites which want the user finds the answer as fast as possible – “less than” time on site goal

orlarge content websites which target is the

maximum user engagement - “more than” time on site goal

Pages per visit goal

Pages per visit goal tracks the number of pages the visitor views per one visit. When the number of viewed pages reaches then threshold you specified the conversions triggers

Pages per visit goal suits the best rich content websites which objective for the user to view as many content as possible

An event goal

Google Analytics reports the conversion when a certain event occurs during the visit

Event goal examples:o ebook downloado free trial account creationo software download, etc

An event goal for Promodo website

An event goal

To track this kind of goal, previously you need to set up at least one event

Check out The Google Analytics Event Tracking Guide to know how to do this exactly

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/eventTrackerGuide

http://metrica.yandex.com/

Where to look for goal completion information?

Where to look for goal completion information?

How to use Google Analytics ecommerce tracking

Why ecommerce tracking is worth to set up?

• Ecommerce tracking allows you to track your business outcome

• With ecommerce tracking enabled you can associate the revenue with a certain traffic source and answer the question: “Who gets the credit?”

Setting up ecommerce tracking

Step 1:

Enable ecommerce tracking




Step 2:

Embed Google Analytics tracking code to receipt page which contains transaction details and a receipt of the purchase


_gaq.push(['_addTrans', '1234', // transaction ID - required 'Womens Apparel', // affiliation or store name '28.28', // total - required '1.29', // tax '15.00', // shipping 'San Jose', // city 'California', // state or province 'USA' // country]);_gaq.push(['_addItem', '1234', // transaction ID - necessary to associate item with transaction 'DD44', // SKU/code - required 'T-Shirt', // product name 'Olive Medium', // category or variation '11.99', // unit price - required '1' // quantity - required]);_gaq.push(['_trackTrans']);

Code example

Transaction Details:Transaction ID: a23nm45ys23Total: $175.00Tax: $0.00Shipping: $25.00Items Purchased in the transaction:12345: one, Black 17″ Rollerbag, $100.00, SKU = RB17, Category = Luggage45678: one, Black 15″ Rollerbag, $75.00, SKU = RB15, Category = Luggage

example provided via http://cutroni.com

http://cutroni.com/

What kind of information will you get?

What if your website is non-ecommerce, but you would like to track sales?

• Make little tweaks in Google Analytics code - set up the constant value in the required fields and track only the purchase amount

Google Analytics principal metrics

Visits

• Visits are used to measure traffic volume• Businesses are interested in receiving as high

number of target visits to the website as possible

Visits

Measuring number of visits helps:

• understand how successful your online marketing campaign is

• compare traffic volume of different periods of time• find out whether your business is seasonal• detect the most popular days of the week when

you receive the highest traffic volume

Visits

Traffic volume to the website

Pageviews

• Pageview is an instance of a page being loaded by a browser.

• The Pageviews metric is the total number of pages viewed (repeated views of a single page are also counted)

Pageviews

The Pageview metric is important for two main reasons:

o a pageview indicates the fact that Google Analytics tracking code has been executed on a web page

o it is used to measure website content effectiveness and user engagement

Pageviews

Traffic sources

It is important to analyze different traffic sources in terms of number of visits they drive and conversions they generate

Traffic sources

By looking at different traffic channels you can:o find the best performing traffic sources o understand what is working in your

marketing campaign and what is not

All traffic

Traffic sources

Search Refferals Direct

Traffic overview

Direct traffic

represents visitors who clicked on a bookmark to arrive at your site, or who typed the URL directly into their browser

Direct traffic report

How to attribute goals conversion and sales to a certain traffic source?

• Add ecommerce and goals column to the report

Direct traffic report with goals

Direct traffic report with ecommerce

Referral traffic

includes any web sources that link to your website and send traffic there.

Examples:o websites with banner adso links from blogso affiliate program links, etc.

Referral traffic

By measuring referral traffic you can figure out: o what websites send the most traffic to youo at what landing pages users the most

frequently arriveo how users interact with the page content and

whether it meets their needs

Referrals report

See what pages exactly send traffic to your website

Search Engine traffic

represents visitors who click on a search results link in any search engine - Google, for example

Search engine traffic

Paid Organic

Search Engine traffic analysis helps:

o find out from what search engines you get most of the visits

o what keywords send you the most traffico compare seo and ad campaigns

effectiveness

Search Engine traffic overview

Organic traffic overview (by keywords)

Paid traffic overview (by campaign)

Webmaster Tools integration


Webmaster tools integration makes it possible:

o to see Webmaster Tools data in Google Analytics reports

o to access Google Analytics reports directly from Webmaster Tools pages


Results

Top 8 Google Analytics

custom reports

Why are custom reports very useful for your business?

• Custom report is a shortcut which helps you get more actionable insight in less time

• Custom reports adjust Google Analytics data specifically to your business goals

Report #1Not provided

An issue with not provided segment

• If the user searching on Google is signed in to any of Google service, their search is conducted in a secure context, and thus the keywords with which user arrives at your website are not available.

Not provided custom report detects landing pages at which users from not provided segment arrive

Benefits:

• you can get a clearer picture of user intent• suggest the keywords which could have been used

to arrive at the certain page

Setting up the Not provided report

Setting up the Not provided report

Not provided report in action

Not provided report

• For more details about the Not provided report read Econsultancy’s post How to steal some 'not provided' data back from Google

http://econsultancy.com/ua/blog/8342-how-to-steal-some-not-provided-data-back-from-google

Report #2Branded vs. non-branded

traffic

Branded vs. non-branded trafficBranded vs. non-branded traffic report enables you to exclude branded keywords from the list of keywords

Benefits:

• you can see what unbranded keywords people use to find your product or service online

• you can get more accurate data to analyze the effectiveness of your online marketing campaign

How to set up branded vs. non-branded traffic report

Branded + non-branded traffic report

Non-branded traffic report

Report #3Visit with transactions

Visits with transaction report shows data for visits during which goal conversion or purchase happened

Benefits:

• you can find out what kind of visits (region, language, browser, screen resolution) convert the most on our website

• you can get an idea of users behavior pattern to see what improvements should be done to the website to make such visits convert again

How to apply visits with transactions report

Analyzing visits with transactions report

Analyzing visits with transactions report

Report #4Most profitable sources of

traffic

The most profitable sources of traffic report shows which traffic sources generate the most revenue for your business

Benefits:

• helps you understand what traffic resources give the highest ROI and what sources are worth to invest more in

How to set up the most profitable traffic sources report

The most profitable traffic sources report

Report #5Funnel visualization,

drop-offs

Funnel is a sequence of steps you expect the user to take on the way to conversion.

Funnel visualization help see the conversion path and steps on which users abandon the conversion process

Benefits:

• helps you eliminate bottlenecks from the conversion process and increase conversion rate

Funnel visualization



Report #6Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visits that go only one page before exiting a site

• Bounce rate is used to measure user engagement, evaluate how much the website content is relevant to the users needs

• Generally, a high bounce rate is considered to be a negative sign. Visitor might leave the website because of poor design, usability issues, or if they don’t find the information they need

Bounce rate is a key metric of many Google Analytics reports

How to detect underperforming pages with bounce rate metric

How to detect underperforming pages with bounce rate metric

Because of the way Google Analytics calculates bounce rate, there is a certain group of website for which a high bounce rate is normal. For example, blogs.

How Google Analytics calculates bounce rate

If after viewing one page user doesn’t proceed to another page, Google Analytics considers it a bounce

Report #7Mobile traffic

Mobile traffic report displays the data about users accessing your website from mobile devices

Benefits:

• you can get a clear picture of users visiting your website from mobile (screen resolution, operating system, browser, etc.)

• you can increase mobile traffic conversion rate by detecting and eliminating problems mobile users may experience on your site

Mobile traffic report

Mobile traffic report

Analyzing mobile traffic

Report #8404 errors

404 errors report singles out the data about 404 traffic

Benefits:

• allows to see how frequently users run into non-existent pages

• makes it possible to identify the sources of bad links and fix them in order to improve user experience and decrease bounces from website

Setting up 404 errors report

Go to the website and check in the code 404 error page title




More reporting solutions from Google

Google’s Solution Gallery

http://www.google.com/analytics/learn/solutions-gallery.html

Free SEO and CRO auditWe would like to invite all you to take a free 10-15 minutes personalised webinar for a quick audit of your website and marketing campaigns by Google certified experts.

- Quick usability audit of the existing site;- Quick SEO audit and review of existing analytics;- Audit of PPC campaigns;- Technical audit;- Best practices of conversion rate optimization.

http://lp.promodo.com/guides/free-site-audit/

Promodo.com/blog

Twitter.com/promodo_en

Facebook.com/promodo

Please follow

http://promodo.com/blog

http://twitter.com/promodo_en

Thank you for your attention!

Feel free to contact me

Elena RuchkoMarketing Assistant at Promodo

e-mail: [email protected]: ruchko_lena

mailto:[email protected]