CONFERENCE 2012March 7 - 10, 2012

GOOGLE ANALYTICS 201:THERE IS NO CURTAIN MARKETING MAGIC

Kimberly Hodel

Welcome to GA 201

Tear down the curtain

• …If you don’t tear down the curtain, you’ll get tangled up in it.

• First and foremost:• Know what you're looking for - always start with a

precise question• Know your tools• Don't be intimidated by the data• Learn how to manipulate reports to answer your

questions

…and most importantly?

USE GOOD JUDGEMENT!

201 Objectives

Good data is meaningless if you don’t know what to do with it.

• What data is important• How to put the data in context• How to segment the data• How to find actionable insights

What a great analyst should know

Other Tools:• Crazy Egg, Runa, etc• Content Management Systems• Customer Relationship Management Systems• Email Marketing Systems• Ad platforms• Social media platforms

Also from Google…

Ad Planner

• Free, lots of data

Webmaster Tools

• Free, and incredibly useful

AdWords

• Pay when someone clicks your ad

What are you trying to accomplish?

Always start with a question

Save time by knowing what you’re looking for

Avoid the overwhelming feeling

of searching for a “needle in a haystack”

Context, context, context!

Remember: Don’t be a fool.• Put the data in context of your site, your business,

even of the world.

• Understand trends – pay attention to the “when” and avoid personal bias whenever possible

• Find actionable insights - ask the “right” questions

You should already know…

How to navigate Google Analytics

Basic metrics & dimensions

What reports are available

Where the reports are located

Basic report manipulation

Annotations: Keeping it all in context

Where do I start?

How do we tell if something changes, or something new is happening?• “How do I define change?”

Sometimes, changes only happen in a small segment

of traffic

GA201

• Intelligence Reports & Custom Alerts

Intelligence Reports

Analytics Intelligence – Automatic Alerts

Use Custom Alerts

GA can notify you when something happens on your site

Configure the alert conditions to the specific metrics and dimensions you wish to monitor

GA201 – Advanced Segments

• Filters vs Segments• What’s the difference?

Advanced Segments

“The coolest tool in school”

Profile Filters vs. Segments

Permanently modifies your data as it flows in to a profile

Profile Filters vs Segments

Best Practice

Still allow all of the data

Create a

custom

report based

on the

aggregate

GA201 – Advanced Segments

• Creating Advanced Custom Segments

Advanced Custom Segments

Create a Custom Segment from any report.

Advanced Custom Segments

Specify your segment’s conditions

Advanced Custom Segments

Rules:

Pick any single metric, or up to four at a time

Chose from Default Segments and Custom

Segments

Remember that all reports you view will be

segmented until you turn off Advanced Segments

Advanced Custom Segments

Best Practices

• Advertising and Marketing

Best Practices: Advertising & Marketing

• What we'll be covering...• Attribution – what is it, why does it matter?

• Using Analytics to understand and improve the effectiveness of advertising and marketing:

• Search engine optimization• Combining your AdWords with your Analytics• Using campaign tracking to track from various sources

Attribution – What is it?

Last-click attribution

• The visitors most recent way of arrival (source) to the site is used to attribute – aka “credit” their visit

• You can define a visitors attribution by using the _utmz cookie

• Cookie deletion affects source information for the visitor

GA201 – Search Engine Optimization

• Branded Keywords• Keywords and landing pages• Linkbuilding

Search Engine Optimization

How can the reports in GA help?

Filter out Branded Keywords

Keywords and Landing Pages

Traffic from Linkbuilding

One of the best ways to increase your site's organic search performance is through Linkbuilding.

GA201 – Paid Advertising

• Combining your Analytics & AdWords• Are your ads getting the right attention?• Identifying non-profitable campaigns• AdWords Keywords

Paid Search Advertising

Get AdWords data in your

Analytics reports

Connect campaigns, ad groups, keywords with analytics metrics such as bounce rate

and time on site

Calculate ROI based on costs (from AdWords) and revenue (from

Analytics goals/Ecommerce)

Analytics + AdWords

Importing Cost Data in to Analytics

If you don’t link your accounts…

•You won't see cost data in the Clicks tab in the Google Analytics AdWords reports

•You won't see detailed campaign information

•All AdWords traffic will show as a medium of cpc and a source of Google, but no details on campaign

•You'll see all the visits, but you'll be losing a large amount of insightful info without applying the cost source data

Using the Advertising Reports

RPC: • “Revenue per click” is the revenue from goal

values and Ecommerce revenue, divided by the number of clicks

ROI and Margin:• The return on investment and margin are based on

the same revenue (goal value = Ecommerce revenue)

CTR and Bounce Rate

Segment to compare two metrics: CTR (click-through-rate) and Bounce Rate

Remember to use your tabs

AdWords Drilldown

AdgroupKeywords

Ad Content

Eliminate non-profitable campaigns

AdWords Keywords

Why These Metrics Matter

Quickly and easily identify how

Campaigns and Ad Groups are performing

Increase profitability by eliminating any

that are underperforming

See if any parts of the day are have higher per visit

values

Best Practices – Site Search

• Why tracking your internal searches matters

Best Practices: Site Search

Best Practices: Site Search

•If your site search is rarely used, visitors might be having problems finding it

•If converting visitors are often searching for a specific item, use that knowledge!

Keep in

mind:

Best Practices – Advanced Tracking

• Virtual Pageviews• Event Tracking

Virtual Pageviews and Event Tracking

Track “hidden” goals:

• Downloads• Links to external sites• Video/audio players• Flash & AJAX• Forms (where the page doesn't reload /user

remains on the page)

Virtual Pageviews and Event Tracking

GA by default only captures data when a page loads, but what about everything that happens

between one page load and the next?

Using JavaScript, you can tell GA to track “the actions in between”

Virtual Pageviews

• Know how they work:• Show in reports as “real” page views• Since they show like real page views, you can use

them for goals

• When should you use Virtual Pageviews?• PDFs and other informational downloads, since they're

just a “page” in a different format

Event Tracking

How are they different from Virtual Pageviews?

Don't count as page views, so don't show in content

reports

Configured as a Goal Type

Give you more granular information regarding the exact

actionable

Event Tracking

Best Practices – Ecommerce

• Conversions• Ecommerce Reports

Best Practices: Conversions

Use your goals wisely

What’s Important?

Conversions

Metrics of success

Negative Goals

Ecommerce Tracking

Ecommerce Tracking

What products are most popular?

...During what time periods?

What are more likely to be purchased in larger

quantities?

What categories get the most

attention?

Use the knowledge!

Context, context, context…

The most important things to remember

Remember…

Stick with trends, not absolute numbers

Fluctuations and fine print

Ask the right questions

Aggregate data vs. Actionable Insight

Use your judgment

• Keep in mind things like seasonality and promotional discounts

Never obsess over any one metric

• Use segments to make sure you get a better idea of the full story

You’ve got the whole world…