Using metrics to increase

website engagement

Brad Smith

An introduction

Brad Smith - @bradman

– Nearly 7 years at the Red Cross

– Assistant digital media manager

– Search engine optimisation/ pay per click

specialist

– Analytics expert

– Manage our mobile apps

– Bit of a geek

What I’ll cover

– Defining your metrics

– What we measure at the Red Cross

– How we improve conversions

– Top tips to take away

Preamble

Why metrics matter

– You can measure your success

– Tells you what’s working well

– Tells you what’s working badly and if to stop

– Helps you prioritise your workload

– Helps you contribute to the big picture

– Focusses your internal clients on what really

matters

– Helps you win friends and influence people

How we measure

at the British Red

Cross: Google

Analytics

Google Analytics

> Free statistics package

> Tells us what our users are doing on the

website, and where they’ve come from

> Tells you see the popularity of our web pages

> Informs us as to financial data (but not 100

per cent accurate)

> Throws up the odd surprise

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Ideas for use

> Get a yardstick of what users want

> Prioritise work on particular projects – find out

what needs promotion and what doesn’t

> Find out which of your pages are most

popular

> Measure the impact of your work!

Step one:

Define your

metrics

Step two:

Measure them!

Some ideas…

Website visits

Website visits

> Simple, but effective

> You’ll hopefully see an uplift over time

> Don’t forget to measure desktop vs mobile

Bounce rate

Bounce rate

> For any given page, indicates how many

people are bouncing straight off your page

> High number (> site average) could indicate

people less engaged

> Low number (< site average) could indicate

people more engaged

But look at bounce rate in

conjunction with other stats.. > Low bounce rate and high exit rate means

people are leaving your site at this point.

> High bounce rate + clear call to action may

mean the user has found what they’re looking

for.

Some examples…

Page Title Pageviews

Unique

Pagevie

ws

Avg.

Time on

Page Entrance

s Bounce

Rate % Exit

Test your first aid skills | First aid tips from the British Red Cross

#quizResults 1572 1257 82.45 1 100.00% 38.74%

Emotional support for someone who is distressed or upset teacher

briefing 948 885 250.20 840 92.62% 89.03%

Ride London 100 | British Red Cross 506 475 146.19 388 91.75% 79.05%

The social model of disability teacher briefing citizenship 726 646 282.91 612 89.87% 85.40%

As easy as alfa bravo charlie citzenship lesson resource nato phonetic alphabet quick activity 596 538 137.90 438 88.13% 72.32%

Greater Manchester Marathon 2013 | British Red Cross 917 837 148.36 768 87.76% 79.72%

First aid and whisky - British Red Cross blog 707 609 71.84 609 86.70% 86.14%

Road safety activities based on the shared space approach to

Exhibition Road in London 560 521 224.15 504 86.11% 86.79%

Vomiting and diarrhoea | First aid tips from the British Red Cross 561 504 83.08 104 83.65% 28.88%

Sponsored silence | British Red Cross 534 465 91.13 431 82.13% 76.78%

Pupil, Citizen, Life-saver | Support the British Red Cross campaign |

Step 2 1555 1457 134.75 11 81.82% 74.73%

Exit rate

Exit rate

> Tells you the pages where people are leaving

your site most

> …but you need to review it in context.

> Are visitors at a natural exit point?

> If not, tell them what you want them to do!

Exit rate

Emotional support for someone who is distressed or upset teacher

briefing 948 885 250.20 840 92.62% 89.03%

Road safety activities based on the shared space approach to

Exhibition Road in London 560 521 224.15 504 86.11% 86.79%

First aid and whisky - British Red Cross blog 707 609 71.84 609 86.70% 86.14%

The social model of disability teacher briefing citizenship 726 646 282.91 612 89.87% 85.40%

Letters home from a First World War nurse - British Red Cross blog 651 539 270.04 537 79.52% 82.33%

Greater Manchester Marathon 2013 | British Red Cross 917 837 148.36 768 87.76% 79.72%

Ride London 100 | British Red Cross 506 475 146.19 388 91.75% 79.05%

Road safety worksheets | British Red Cross 712 597 854.26 586 25.94% 76.83%

Sponsored silence | British Red Cross 534 465 91.13 431 82.13% 76.78%

Earthquake and tsunami in Japan: lesson plan and teaching activities

for schools 784 668 273.10 602 77.91% 76.40%

Mobile phone recycling | British Red Cross 1448 1167 256.51 1096 57.12% 75.14%

Pupil, Citizen, Life-saver | Support the British Red Cross campaign |

Step 2 1555 1457 134.75 11 81.82% 74.73%

In figures: east Africa one year on | In figures 2811 2599 308.38 2126 21.50% 73.39%

RedRoom and Redmail | British Red Cross 16501 12969 332.09 10489 20.14% 72.36%

What you should do

> Put a call to action on the page if there’s not

one there – e.g. sign up for an alternative

event

> Alter the design/ make calls to action more

prominent

> A/B test alternative layouts for increased

conversions

Website speed

Why it matters

> Big search ranking factor

> Visitors don’t hang around – you have

seconds to impress them

> Slow sites don’t lead to conversions

Conversion rate

Small gains make a big

difference > Increasing a conversion rate of 2 per cent by

just 0.1 per cent could mean £100,000s

> Use A/B testing to measure what works for

you and optimise accordingly

A/B testing ideas

> Call to action on left of page vs right

> Single page form vs multiple page form

> Red button vs black button

> One version of copy vs another

> One image or another

A/B testing examples

A/B testing examples

ClickTale

> Professional usability tool

> Tracks mouse moves, mouse clicks and more

> Can also tell you what fields are causing

users to drop out of forms

Internal search

Do you know what your users

are searching for on your site? > If not, it’s dead simple to set up in Google

Analytics

> High results page view per search figure, that

could mean users aren’t finding what they’re

looking for

> If users use search from a landing page a lot,

they’re not finding what they’re looking for

Page views per search

> Indicates how many search results pages

users are viewing to find the result they’re

looking for

> Look at your most searched for items, and

check whether they’re showing up in the

search results or not.

Search depth

> Tells you how many pages users looked at

after searching

> Consider in conjunction with other metrics.

Look at what users want!

> If they’re struggling to find something, write

some content and link to it prominently.

> Tell your marketing teams what users are

searching for digital marketing campaign

purposes

Some examples…

Search Term

Total

Unique

Searches Results Pageviews / Search % Search Exits

% Search

Refineme

nts

Time

after

Search Search

Depth

poster 7 3.71 42.86% 11.54% 307.29 3.14

donation 6 3.33 16.67% 20.00% 896.00 9.83

poppies 11 3.09 0.00% 5.88% 635.00 5.45

olympics 11 3.00 27.27% 9.09% 350.18 4.73

policies 10 2.80 50.00% 14.29% 161.40 0.60

news 5 2.80 20.00% 14.29% 338.00 9.00

seizure 7 2.71 14.29% 26.32% 164.14 3.00

war 16 2.44 18.75% 10.26% 319.44 4.13

e-learning 10 2.40 0.00% 37.50% 195.10 4.00

nose bleeds 5 2.40 20.00% 25.00% 171.80 3.20

What people search for on our

website

Search Term

Total

Unique

Searches Results Pageviews / Search % Search Exits

% Search

Refineme

nts

Time

after

Search Search

Depth

redmail 1342 1.19 76.23% 3.69% 195.52 0.58

redroom 893 1.27 2.58% 8.31% 196.86 1.92

jobs 515 1.25 5.05% 9.81% 169.81 3.55

red room 398 1.14 2.51% 7.93% 153.98 1.94

red mail 201 1.18 89.55% 3.80% 121.59 0.23

wheelchair hire 195 1.35 5.13% 4.94% 229.65 6.57

wheelchair 170 1.24 8.24% 9.52% 261.78 6.38

google 152 1.28 90.79% 2.06% 201.35 0.57

first aid 120 1.28 7.50% 19.48% 427.73 7.03

Document downloads

Document downloads

> Sometimes, you just want people to download

something

> Use event tracking in Google Analytics to

measure downloads

> May require some intervention from your

technical teams

Be aware:

What matters to

us, might not

matter to you

So..

Define your

metrics!

When to measure

When to measure

> I look daily

> We have funnels set up to act as a good

guide – but I prefer getting stuck into the

detail

> Use custom alerts to monitor for change (but

don’t rely on them!)

When to measure

> Report on your KPIs monthly

> Share your successes

> Learn from your mistakes

Example custom alerts

> CPC spend increases compared to previous

day

> Bounce rate increases/decreases by more

than x per cent compared to previous day

> Referrals from your top referring site drop by

more than x per cent

Using dashboards

> Good for an overview

> Beneficial to business unit owners who may

have a specific interest

> Allows you to keep an eye on the metrics that

are important to you

Using funnels

> Again, good for an overview

> Not 100 per cent accurate, so don’t rely on

them

> I use ecommerce conversion rate for

individual conversion paths and use financial

reports for accurate figures

Apart from

metrics..

Know what your users

want

Know what your users want

> Use Google AdWords keyword selector tool

> Use Google Trends to see what your potential

audience want

Google Adwords keyword

selector tool > Uses Google’s database

> Tells you language your users are using

> Should influence what you write, rather than

you writing what you think your audience

wants

Set row count = 50000 to get more data

out of Google Analytics

Google Trends

> Shows interest for keywords over time

> Helps you identify seasonality

> Tells you can get ahead of the crowd.

> E.g… when does Christmas start?

Social proof

> Look at popularity on social media to find out

what people like

> Product reviews and ratings sell more

products

> Submit ratings as search rich snippet data for

more traffic benefits

Tips to take away

Top tips

> Be more social

> Use conversion code tracking from marketing

providers (e.g. AdWords)

> Brush up on your web writing skills

> Make your site responsive

> Limit your calls to action to ones that are

relevant and effective on that page

Top tips

> Define your metrics

> Look at them daily, assess them monthly

> Report your successes – and failures

> Learn from your mistakes

> Annotate big events in Analytics for the

benefit of other internal users

Set row count = 50000 to get more data

out of Google Analytics

Thanks for

listening.

Any questions?