THE GOOGLE MARKETING WORKFLOW

Dave Olsen / david.olsen@mail.wvu.eduUniversity Relations - Digital ServicesMay 31, 2019

If you want to follow along…

• Do you have a Gmail account?

• Do you have Chrome?

• Do you have a Google Analytics account you can play with?

• Then log in.

My Goal

Analytics is often seen as a tool for reporting “vanity metrics.” Vanity metrics like: pageviews, users, and sessions. These metrics are largely useless in aggregate.

This workshop will help you tie analytics to goals. By tying analytics to goals we can take better action on insights we learn.

OverviewGoogle has three tools that, when combined, allows us to track and report activity related to our goals.

• Capture data with Tag Manager • Store data with Google Analytics • Report data with Data Studio

We’ll bring all three together in a cohesive workflow so you can make the most of your data.

We Need to Determine…

• What the goals for our business are.

• The strategies that help you achieve those goals.

• The tactics that advance the strategies.

• Measurements that help us validate tactics and prove we’re achieving our goals.

An example

GoalIncrease applications for program A by 5% YTY.

StrategyHighlight program A on social media.

TacticTweet about program A and highlight different aspects of the program to see which resonates.

What should we measure?SimplePage views using a segment.

Next LevelTracking individual tweets using campaign parameters.

Deep CutsRFIs and applications using direct and assisted conversions.

Determining What to Measure: Goals, Who, When and What

What

Who

Goals

When

SWOT Goals

Mindsets Personas

MessagingFunnel

Determining What to Measure: Goals, Who, When and What

SWOT Chart

Strengths Weaknesses

ThreatsOpportunities

Helpful to achieving our objectives Harmful to achieving our objectives

Exte

rnal

(env

ironm

ent)

Inte

rnal

(org

aniza

tion)

SWOT: Questions to Ask• Are you known for anything? What do you want to be known

for? How do you close the gap if not the same?

• What areas are you best resourced? Worst resourced?

• What critical feedback do you hear most often?

• Is there anything threatening to hold you back?

• In what ways do you feel you’re delivering to stockholders? In what ways are you falling short?

• Do you have a strong brand?

Source: VisionPoint Marketing

Goals: Questions to Ask• What are your president’s/board’s/dean’s/chair’s priorities?

• What measurable goals are established in your strategic plan?

• Based on SWOT, are there weaknesses that need to be addressed to achieve goals? Need goals to address these?

• Are there qualitative goals that be institutional priorities (brand perception, excitement, etc.)?

• What tone best characterize or best drives your institution’s pursuit of goals?

Source: VisionPoint Marketing

Matching Enrollment to Sales

Awareness and attract

Nurture

Convert

Convert

Nurture

Sales FunnelEnrollment Funnel vs.

The sales funnel provides another way of determining what to send and when (aka targeting).

Awareness and attract

January Junior

August Senior

January Senior

August Enrolled

Leads

Admitted Students

Awareness and Attract

Nurture

Convert

Convert

Nurture

Matching Enrollment to Sales

Defining a GoalFor each goal you should provide a note on how you’ll measure it. These goals will influence how you measure the success of your digital marketing efforts. Answer the why, what and how you’ll measure.

Because we know or think . We have a goal of .Which we will measure by .

Why are Goals Important?

Goals mean we can track web activity (aka conversions) that matter to our business.

That web activity can be used in other platforms like Google Ads to improve the performance of ads and focus ad spend dollars on good targets.

Keep Goals Simple

Don’t try to measure “all the things” at once. Prioritize your goals and what you track.

You can build up to more complex interactions if you find you have time.

An example

GoalIncrease applications for program A by 5% YTY.

StrategyHighlight program A on social media.

TacticTweet about program A and highlight different aspects of the program to see which resonates.

What should we measure?BasicPage views for program page.

Next LevelUse a segment to see how SM works. Track individual tweets using campaign parameters.

Deep CutsRFIs and applications using direct and assisted conversions.

Exercise Time

Develop a list of goals for your company. List high-level strategies, tactics and how you might measure them. We’ll share in 10 minutes.

Why use a Google Workflow?

Why use a Google Workflow?

• Connected, customizable and free.

• Easy to track and report goal conversions across multiple channels.

• It’s a foundation for future efforts. Can expand tracking and reporting to Google Ads and Search Console.

Tag Manager is free tool that consolidates your website tags with a single snippet of code and lets you manage everything from a web interface.

Getting to know: Tag Manager

Getting to know: Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered that tracks and reports website traffic.

Getting to know: Data Studio

Data Studio helps you transform your raw data into the metrics and dimensions needed to create easy-to-understand and share reports and dashboards — no code or queries required.

Summing them upTag Manager Makes it easy to track “all the things.”

Google Analytics Where “all the things” are stored.

Data Studio How we share our insights based on “all the things” with others.

Diving into Tag Manager

Advantages of using TM• Add one tag and manage others via web. You can then add tags

whenever you want without editing HTML (e.g. Facebook Pixel).

• Pre-built configurations. You can use a boilerplate set-up from Bounteous to track things like file downloads, clicks on telephone numbers and how long people watch videos.

• Compatibility. TM has a number of pre-built tags that work with other products like Hotjar, Crazyegg and LinkedIn.

• Preview mode. See if your changes to TM will work before deploying them on your production site.

• Conversion tracking. Events and selectors allow for granular conversion tracking.

Exercise TimeAre you going to follow along? Make sure you have the following:

1. Download Bounteous “GA Complete Pack for GTM” at bit.ly/2Ki4ctZ

2. Find your property tracking ID in Google Analytics.

Exercise Time

Goal of ExerciseSet-up Tag Manager with Google Analytics and some extra goodies.

Exercise Time1. Set-up an account.

2. Create a new container.

3. Import the Bounteous boilerplate.

4. Update the GA tracking ID variable.

5. Publish v1 of our Tag Manager code.

6. Find the code to add to our site.

Migrating from GA to TM• Swap GA for TM. Don’t want to run at same time.

• Swapping and/or installation dependent on your CMS.

• Check out real-time traffic in GA to make sure analytics are still being captured.

• Check-out events to see if new events are being captured.

• Don’t do it on a Friday afternoon!

Tag Manager BasicsTagsTags are segments of code provided by analytics, marketing, and support vendors to help you integrate their products into your websites or mobile apps. Invariably HTML code like <script> or <img> tags.

TriggersTags fire based on events, such as when a form is submitted or when a video is played. Triggers are used to listen for these events, and they govern when a tag is fired or blocked.

Variables To a computer programmer, a variable is a symbol in code that can be used to represent a value that will change.

Tag Manager Basics

Tag

Trigger

Variable

Tag Manager BasicsTip: Tags can also be tracking things like form submissions or clicks on specific links.

Tag Manager BasicsTip: Tracking links works best with a selector. Give links IDs to make it easier to build triggers.

Selector

More TM ExamplesOther things you can do:

• Track what's submitted in a form submission.

• Watch for form abandonment.

• Add Google Ads conversions and Google Ads remarketing tags.

• Load JavaScript only on certain pages. For example, selectively load a chat solution only on certain pages.

What are your examples?

Take 10 minutes to go through your site and think of triggers that might help you track goals using conversions. We’ll share.

Exercise Time

Goal of ExerciseAdd Facebook Pixel to your site using Tag Manager. Also, add conversion tracking.

Exercise Time

1. Add a Facebook Pixel tag.

2. Create a Facebook conversion tracking tag.

Questions?

Are there any questions about Tag Manager and how to use it?

Diving into Google Analytics

Google Analytics Basics• Account

• Properties

• Views

• Reports

• Metrics and Dimensions

• Segments

Basics: Filtered ViewsFiltered views are good when you routinely do research with certain segments. All data is “filtered” to match your criteria. Important: Data is lost when using filters.

• No internal traffic

• Mobile traffic-only

• Specific sections of a site traffic-only

• Search engine traffic-only

• Completely unfiltered view

Standardize DataFilters can be used to standardize data so it’s easier to work with. Some example of filters to standardize content:

• Lowercase campaign names

• Lowercase campaign sources

• Lowercase campaign medium

• Lowercase campaign content

• Prepend hostname to request URI**

Exercise Time

Goal of ExerciseReview account, property and views. Learn how to modify a view so captured data is cleaner and clearer.

Exercise Time

1. Open your GA profile. If you don’t have one go to bit.ly/2Mhgg0U

2. Review the admin section.

3. Create an unfiltered view.

4. Create a test view.

5. Add a filter to the test view.

Basics: Reports

Audience: who came to our site?

• From where geographically?

• Have they been here before?

• How often do they come back?

• What devices do they use?

Source: Analytics Tune-up presentation

Basics: ReportsAcquisition: how did they get here?

• What channels are driving the most traffic?

• Which sites are sending traffic to our site?

• Which campaigns are driving the most traffic?

Source: Analytics Tune-up presentation

Basics: Reports

Behavior: what did they look at?

• Which pages?

• Where did they enter and leave?

• What did they search for?

• What actions did they take?

Source: Analytics Tune-up presentation

Basics: Reports

Conversions: were they successful?

• Did they complete our goals?

• Did they complete a transaction?

• If not, where did they drop out?

Source: Analytics Tune-up presentation

Basics: Dimensions vs Metrics

DimensionsThe "what": traffic source, city, pages. An attribute of your data.

MetricsThe "how many"/"how long": sessions, bounce rate, time on page. Quantitative measurements.

Basics: Dimensions vs MetricsIn this example, the dimension is “Page” (red) and the metric is “unique pageviews” (orange).

The Curse of MetricsMetrics are very much business/goal dependent. There is no magic bullet in Google Analytics. You, a human, need to read the tea leaves.

Sessions, users and pages tend to be worthless in aggregate. They are vanity metrics that might impress higher-ups but aren't terribly useful for achieving most goals.

Ideally, look for goal conversions and growth across mediums (e.g. search or email).

The Curse of MetricsTo improve your site you need to look at engagement metrics like the following:

• Time on site

• Bounce rate

• Page depth

• Goal completions and conversion rates

• Qualitative data from outside GA

Important: Be critical of what you find. A high bounce rate isn’t necessarily bad.

Tangent: Web Visitor Recordings

One interesting way to collect qualitative data is via web visitor recordings.

Basics: SegmentsSegmentsAllow you to compare how subsets of traffic are doing against one another.

Review: Google Analytics Basics

• Account

• Properties

• Views

• Reports

• Metrics and Dimensions

• Segments

Google Analytics Next Level

• Google Analytics Solution Gallery

• Events

• Goals and conversions

Next Level: Solutions GalleryAnalytics gallery has pre-built solutions that you can use. Dashboards, segments and more.

Important: It only works in Chrome for me. YMMV.

Exercise Time

Goal of ExerciseInstall a community solution from the Solutions Gallery. Review how segments and reports work.

Exercise Time1. Go to bit.ly/2JIAi2v. Should be “Occam’s Razor

Awesomeness.”

2. Click import in top left.

3. Add solution to the test view we created earlier.

4. Add a segment and analyze the data.

5. Go to customization section and review a report.

Next Level: Events

Events are user interactions with content that can be measured independently from a web page or a screen load. Downloads, link clicks, form submissions, and video plays are all examples of actions you might want to analyze as Events.

Next Level: Events

Next Level: EventsEvents are comprised of: a category, an action, a label and an optional value. Example: Save a form field as an event.

Category: major searchAction: submitLabel: what someone searches for

Next Level: Events

Event label

Event category

Next Level: Events

Event labels are search terms

Next Level: ConversionsConversions are a completed activity that is important to the success of your business. Conversions, for me, are almost the be-all end-all of Google Analytics.

Conversions can be one of four types:

• Destination (e.g. RFI thank you page)

• Duration on the site

• Pages/screens per session

• Event

Next Level: ConversionsTip: Give your conversions values. If you have data on what activities lead to a purchase you can use that to determine a value.

Exercise Time

Goal of ExerciseSet-up a goal to track conversions based on your work earlier in the workshop.

Exercise Time

1. Open your GA profile. If you don’t have one go to bit.ly/2Mhgg0U

2. Open your test view.

3. Select “Goals.”

4. Set-up a new goal.

Next Level: Multi-ChannelThe Multi-Channel Funnels reports show how your marketing channels (i.e., sources of traffic to your website) work together to create conversions.

The Multi-Channel Funnels reports are generated from conversion paths, the sequences of interactions (i.e., clicks/referrals from channels) that led up to each conversion and transaction.

Next Level: Multi-Channel

Next Level: Multi-Channel

The Top Conversion Paths report shows all of the unique conversion paths (i.e., sequences of channel interactions) that led to conversions, as well as the number of conversions from each path, and the value of those conversions.

Next Level: Multi-Channel

Tip: Standardize your use of campaign parameters (e.g. ?utm…) with all links featured on social, email and digital ads.

url?utm_source=acceptance&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fr-400-2008

• Campaign builder: bit.ly/2QuO6hs

• Create a Google Campaign URL: bit.ly/2WsqUpr

Deep Cuts

• Tracking pages with 404 errors

• Custom alerts

• Annotations

• Benchmarking

Exercise Time

Goal of ExerciseSet-up a custom report that shows the paths that are returning 404 errors. Create custom alerts to be notified of when traffic increases (or decreases). Add annotations to document changes.

Exercise Time1. Open your GA profile. If you don’t have one go to

bit.ly/2Mhgg0U .

2. Select Behavior > Site Content > All Pages.

3. Switch to the “Page Title” view. Search for common 404 page title.

4. Create a custom report from result.

5. Open your test view.

6. Create a custom alert and annotation.

Questions?

Are there any questions about Google Analytics and how to use it?

Diving into Data Studio

Data Studio Basics

Each of these can be filtered independently.

• Report

• Page

• Chart

Exercise Time

Goal of ExerciseLearn how sources work by linking your Google Analytics account to a demo spreadsheet.

Exercise Time1. Open Data Studio by going to datastudio.google.com.

2. Select the “ACME Marketing” sample

3. Click “Use Template”

4. Choose to add a “New Data Source” if you want to link to GA. Otherwise choose a sample.

5. Select “Google Analytics” from connector listing.

6. Choose the appropriate account, property and view combination.

7. Explore!

Sourcing Data

You can add multiple data sources to a report and they can be outside the Google product listing. Including Facebook, Bing, and Hubspot.

This makes Data Studio more powerful than dashboards in Google Analytics.

Exercise Time

Goal of ExerciseModify what is showing in the overall report by adding a filter and using a segment.

Exercise Time

1. Choose File > Report Settings.

2. Create a filter.

3. Select a segment.

Exercise Time

Goal of ExerciseModify an existing chart and table. Add your own table of data.

Exercise Time1. Select the map chart.

2. Change the dimension to “Region.”

3. Select the table chart.

4. Change the dimension to “Region.”

5. Add a chart and choose a table.

6. Drag it where you want.

7. Change the dimension to “Keyword.”

Exercise Time

Goal of ExerciseFilter a chart and modify its title and how it looks.

Exercise Time

1. Select the “Bounce rate” chart. Duplicate it.

2. Update the Scorecard Filter.

3. Change the Metric and rename it.

4. Update the style of the chart.

Don’t Skip This Step!

Important: The first step is to write out and sketch what you want to report on. Save yourself agony and work.

The reports you sketch should be tied to your goals and measurements.

Need inspiration?

Check out the Data Studio gallery to get ideas and to copy reports as a starting point.

datastudio.google.com/gallery

Questions?

Are there any questions about Data Studio and how to use it?

Reviewing the Google Workflow

THANK YOU / QUESTIONS?

Dave Olsen / david.olsen@mail.wvu.eduUniversity Relations - Digital ServicesMay 31, 2019