Measuring Social Media with Google Analytics

Graeme Benstead-Hume

@mrgraeme

Introduction

We will be looking at 3 different ways to segment our Social Media traffic:

•Social Campaign Tagging•Advanced Segments•Profile Filters

and looking at the best metrics to measure and compare against our other traffic channels.

Campaign Tagging

Campaign tagging gives us an easy way to track how well a single campaign is performing

What is Campaign Tagging?Campaign tagging allows us to add a small piece of tracking code to our URLs.

This code allows Google Analytics to tell when someone clicks a link even if it is not on our website.

Why Tag your Campaigns?  

• Measure specific campaign performance

• Compare Campaign Performance

• Group campaigns together

URL Builder

Campaigns Report

Campaign Tagging Tips

• Segment your traffic by campaign

• Identify the best time to participate in certain channels

• Find out which pages your campaign traffic favors

Advanced Segments

Advanced segments allow you to view & compare reports for

traffic from social channels.

What is an Advanced Segment?

Google Analytics allows us to segment our traffic by many different dimensions and metrics.

Using this tool we can segment our visitors by who is referred to us via Social Media.

How to create an Advanced Segment

Building an Advanced Segment

facebook.com|twitter.com|linkedin|del\.icio\.us|delicious\.com|technorati|digg.com|hootsuite|stumbleupon|netvibes|bloglines|faves.com|aim.com|friendfeed|blinklist|fark|furl|newsgator|prweb|msplinks|myspace|bit.ly|tr.im|cli.gs|zi.ma|poprl|tinyurl|ow\.ly|reddit

Segmented Report

The benefits Advanced Segments

• Compare engagement metrics against other traffic sources

• Segment traffic by engagement goals, traffic source, campaign, keywords etc.

• Measure social traffic share

• Acts Retroactively

Limitations of Advanced Segments

• Harder to track user behavior across content

• Unable to segment the Funnel Visualisation report

• Trickier to share across user logins

Advanced Segments Tips and Tricks• Compare goals and ecommerce conversion

rates against other traffic

• View visitor loyalty reports to measure the quality of social traffic

• Focus on the social channels which drive the most traffic

• Identify potential advertising opportunities by geography

Traffic FilterFilter in your social traffic before it even reaches your reports

What is a filter

A Filter changes how Google Analytics gathers its data before it is even processed.

This allows us to specify exactly what and how we see our reports.

Traffic Filter Warning

Applying a filter to a Google Analytics Profile will remove ALL filtered traffic with no way of retrieving it afterwards.

Always create a new profile for filters.

Creating a new ProfileNavigate to the Analytics Settings screen where you should see your existing profiles.

Creating a new FilterOnce you have created the new profile return to the Analytics Settings screen and find the edit button by the new profile:

Scroll down to the filters box and click the add new filter link.

Referring Traffic Filter

Social Media Medium Filter

Full Referral Path Filter

Traffic Filter Benefits

• Works on a page view level

• Works in funnel view

• Easy to share across accounts

• Opens up 20 new goals

• Cannot compare against other traffic sources

• Doesn’t work retroactively

Traffic Filter Disadvantages

Engagement Metrics

Metrics to watch and measure the quality & engagement of your traffic.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate is a great indicator of the quality of your traffic.

Do some campaigns and refers have lower bounce rates?

Avg. Time on SiteHigher average times on site can indicate a more engaged user base. Which pages are your visitors spending their time on?

Visitor LoyaltyUsing the visitor loyalty report we can identify whether visitors are likely to return to your site.

If not you should try to provide more reasons for your social traffic to return.

Goal & Ecommerce Conversions

Social Media is as much about engagement as the bottom line.

Compare the conversion rate of each of your traffic channels

Spikes in traffic

Spikes in social media traffic can help you identify which campaigns & activity are performing most effectively.

The new social plugin for Google Analytics allows us to measure & segment ‘Socially Engaged’ traffic.

Google Analytics’ push into engagement

Already works for onpage Google+ buttons!

For other channels we can start to use an alternative to event tracking:

_gaq.push(['_trackSocial', 'facebook', 'like', document.location.href]);

Instead of

_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'facebook', 'like', document.location.href]);

Social Plugin overview

Google Analytics Social Plugin

Search for: google social plugin

Thank you!

@mrgraeme

Resources available at sitevisibility.co.uk/blog