Presentation at SES London 2012 for Kick Start track about creating a framework for digital measurement and analysis centered around microconversions and funnel segmentation. Additional points include common mistakes people make with Google Analytics.
Google Analytics Implementation and Analysis Strategies - SES London 2012
1. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Google Analytics Basics
Implementation & Analysis Strategies
@analyticsninja
2. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Analytics Ninja LLC
• Founded 2010, after managing PPC and Analytics in house for B2C and B2B
companies.
• Speaker at SphinnCon, SMX, and will be participating on the Web Analytics
round-table discussion later today.
• Company focus is an advanced implementations that are closely aligned
with client’s business goals, we lead to robust, actionable analysis.
• I love web analytics and would love to turn every internet marketer into an
analytics ninja.
@analyticsninja
3. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Implementation & Analysis
Implementation: Analysis:
• Data Collection – What • Measurement of inbound
are you tracking? marketing– SEO, PPC, Social
• Data Quality – is it • Actionable items – doing
accurate? something with the data
@twitterhandle
4. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
BEFORE Implementation
• What are your goals as • Write down your
company? questions
• How do those relate to • Brainstorm what data
the internet? would be useful
• How would you • If you can conceive a
measure that with GA? question, you can
probably track it and
answer it in GA.
http://www.analyticspros.com/blog/google- @analyticsninja
analytics/web-analytics-planning-model/
5. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
BEFORE Implementation
C/O
http://www.analyticspros.com/blog/google- @analyticsninja
analytics/web-analytics-planning-model/
6. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Implementation
• Most powerful implementations are with
features that are not “out-the-box” in GA.
Event Tracking and Custom Variables. i.e.
These require more advanced coding.
• Since this presentation is geared as in
introduction, focus is goal implementation and
analysis techniques that can be done, for the
most part, “out of the box.”
@analyticsninja
7. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
BEFORE Analysis
Know your A B C’s
Justin Cutroni Avinash Kaushik
• Acquisition
• Behavior
• Outcomes
http://cutroni.com/blog/2012/02/09/ http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-
pimping-out-google-analytics-for- marketing-and-measurement-model/
ecommerce-websites/
Acquisition Behavior Conversions
@analyticsninja
8. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Know what you’re looking at…
• Hits • Hits = Data sent to the GA servers.
Usually pageviews or events.
• Visits • Visits = A session. Ends after 30
minutes of inactivity or returning
to site via new source.
• Unique Visitors
• Unique Visitors = Persistent
Cookies in a Web Browser
• People • People = Difficult to truly measure.
@analyticsninja
9. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
21% – 39% of “Unique Visitors” are not unique**
**not a scientific study.
http://www.analytics-ninja.com/blog/2011/12/how-
unique-are-unique-visitors-in-google-analytics.html @analyticsninja
10. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Hits, Visits, Visitors…??? Who cares?
Real Case:
A client engaged a (fairly expensive) 3rd party
conversion rate optimization company. Client
wanted to know their baseline conversion rate
before testing variations of their product page
template. This is the report they got…..
@analyticsninja
11. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Hits, Visits, Visitors…??? Who cares?
@analyticsninja
12. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Hits, Visits, Visitors…??? Who cares?
@analyticsninja
13. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Hits, Visits, Visitors…??? Who cares?
@analyticsninja
14. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
The answer…
@analyticsninja
15. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Goals
• Goals are things you
want someone to do on
your website.
• Usually a sale, lead
generation form
submission, newsletter signup, or the like.
Helps answer question posed during planning stage,
“how do I measure impact on my business?”
@analyticsninja
16. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Goals
The simplest type of goal is a pageview.
This means that a visitor viewed a particular
page, most commonly the “thank you” page of
some sort of lead generation form or online
checkout.
This is known as a macro-conversion
@analyticsninja
17. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Funnels
Always try to set up a funnel –
the steps that a person commonly
goes through to complete the goal
(again, think online checkout).
Funnels currently only work with
pageviews.
@analyticsninja
18. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
How to set up a funnel
• 1st, Learn some Basic
RegEx (really)
• Choose URL Destination
• Goal URL is the url that
each step in the funnel is
leading up to.
• Don’t include the Goal URL
in your funnel steps
• Include a goal value in
most cases.
@analyticsninja
20. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Funnel
Visualization
Report
Exit is from furthest place
reached in the funnel
@analyticsninja
21. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Better than Funnel Visualization
@analyticsninja
22. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Also Better Than GA Funnel Visualization
@analyticsninja
23. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Funnel Segmentation
Horizontal Funnels
Allow us to compare funnel completion
across inbound channels
http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2010/06/04/segment-
goal-funnel-google-analytics/ @analyticsninja
24. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Micro Conversions / Other Goals
• Steps along the conversion path such as view
of category page, product page, add to cart.
• Engagement Metrics such as Page Depth or
Time on Site
• Touch points such as newsletter signups, free
site registrations, live chats, whitepaper
downloads, contact us page.
@analyticsninja
25. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Why engagement goals matter
Lower than Avg.
Ecommerce Rate
Higher than Avg.
User Engagement
@analyticsninja
26. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
How to set up Page Depth & Time on Site Goals
@analyticsninja
27. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
How to choose Page Depth & Time on Site Goals
28. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
How to choose Page Depth & Time on Site Goals
@analyticsninja
29. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Segmentation
@analyticsninja
33. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Goal & Funnels – Review
• Category Pages
• Product Pages
• Page Depth greater than X
• Time on Site greater than X
• Each checkout step (for ecommerce)
• Other touch points (contact us forms,
newsletter signups, live chat, downloads).
@analyticsninja
34. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Segmentation Basics – Review
• Segment by each of bullet points on previous slide
• Browser (identify browser compatibility issues)
• Screen Resolution (not all of your prospects have
that beautiful 27” screen you have).
@analyticsninja
35. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Additional “Must Have” Segments
• Bounced visits • Social Media
• Site Search • No Site Search & 4+ pages
• Branded Keywords • Non Branded Keywords
• Mobile devices • Non-Mobile
• New Visitors • Returning Visitors
Example:
Screen Resolution issues may matter a lot less to your
returning visitors than to your new visitors
@analyticsninja
36. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Challenge - Pan Session Analysis
@analyticsninja
37. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Pan Session Analysis
@analyticsninja
38. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Pan Session Analysis
@analyticsninja
39. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Use Multi Channel Funnels
@analyticsninja
40. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Use Multi Channel Funnels
@analyticsninja
41. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Put them together
@analyticsninja
53. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Segment = Last Touch Branded
@analyticsninja
54. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
A Note about Direct Traffic
• Direct Traffic in Multi Channel Funnels is
treated differently than in standard reports.
(thanks @adrianvender)
• In standard reports, the last campaign touch
will remain the source of traffic for 6 months
(by default)
• In Multi Channel Funnels, any “direct visit” will
be counted as direct.
@analyticsninja
59. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
A bounce is a visit with a single hit
@analyticsninja
60. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
A bounce is a visit with a single hit
@analyticsninja
61. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Bounce Rate – Implementation Problem
@twitterhandle
62. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Use Intelligence Events / Alerts
• Quickly identify problems • Programmers can make mistakes that impact analytics
http://cutroni.com/blog/2012/01/04/save-
your-ass-with-google-analytics-data-alerts/
@ analyticsninja
63. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
“Bounce Rate means I came, I puked, I left”
-Avinash Kaushik
• This is true most of the time.
• With the exception of content sites and blogs,
bounce rate should be the first place you go to
identify problems with your landing pages.
• Problems = relevancy issues (examine keywords
driving traffic)
• Problems = design issues (is your site scaring
people away?)
@ analyticsninja
64. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
“Bounce Rate means I came, I puked, I left”
-Avinash Kaushik
@ analyticsninja
66. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Track Scrolling Behavior
• Thomas Baekdal (w/ Eivind Savio making it GA friendly).
http://www.savio.no/includes/script/page-scroll-reader.js
• Eduardo Cereto
https://github.com/eduardocereto/GA-Code-
Samples/tree/master/src
(also has great code for tracking embedded Youtube video plays)
@ analyticsninja
67. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Why do I have a high bounce rate
but a low exit rate?
• All bounces are exits
• Not all exits are bounces
@ analyticsninja
68. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Bounce Rate is about LANDING PAGES.
@ analyticsninja
69. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Summary & Takeaways
• Read (and do) Caleb • Create micro-
Whitmore’s Web conversion goals as well
Analytics Planning as goals for each macro-
Process conversion funnel step
• ABC’s – Acquisition, (horizontal funnels).
Behavior, Conversions • SEGMENT by page
• If your data looks depth, time on site,
wrong, it probably is web browser type,
(don’t apply visit metrics to pages) screen resolution,
• Create at least one goal branded vs. non-
with a funnel (macro- branded keywords.
conversion)
@ analyticsninja
70. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Summary & Takeaways
• Use Frequency and • A super low (or super
Recency Reports for Pan high) bounce rate
Session Analysis means something is
• Use Multi Channel probably broken.
Funnels to provide • Analyze bounce rate in
deeper insight into user context – make sure
behavior as it relates to you’re looking at # of
conversions. entrances.
• Self-Referrals are • Bounce rate is about
indicative of an landing pages.
implementation
problem.
@ analyticsninja
71. London | 20–24 Feb, 2012 | #seslondon
Contact Info
Yehoshua Coren
ninja@analytics-ninja.com
Twitter: @analyticsninja
www.analytics-ninja.com
@ analyticsninja
Hinweis der Redaktion
Implementation and Analysis complement each other. Good implementations lead to good analysis. Otherwise, GIGO.What does it mean? T-shirt available at http://shirtsays.com/funny-shirts/what-does-it-mean-shirt
Dimensions are the attributes of your visitors and the visits they create.Metrics are the actual data collected.http://cutroni.com/blog/2011/03/28/understanding-google-analytics-custom-reports/