University of Nebraska Think Tank: Google Analytics as your Digital Marketing Hub

GOOGLE ANALYTICS: YOUR DIGITAL
ANALYTICS & MARKETING HUB
Think Tank 2012

© 2012, Analytics Pros, Inc.

Follow Along!
Twitter
@analyticspros


About Me


Founder & CEO of


Founder & Chair of

We have a 50% Student Discount!
More at www.gaugecon.com
Next event: Boston, October 3 – 4


I Wrote a book about it…

Get a copy: http://goo.gl/nKwPI

What
We’ll Talk About Today


Topics for Today
• Setting the stage for maximizing marketing
efforts

• Two Essential Features of Google Analytics

• Four Analysis Tips

• “My Toolbox” – Beyond Google Analytics

Why
Does it matter?


Many Vendors to Choose From


Even More Reports…


But do they really help
us?


Which half of 50% is better?
“Half the money I spend on
advertising is wasted; the
trouble is I don't know which
half.”
-John Wanamaker


What Marketing Worked?


Can you tell which is better?


Why
Doesn’t this always happen?


Common Web Analytics Issues
• Data overload
• Analysis paralysis
• Trustworthy figures
• Information Dissemination
• Taking action


Business-Oriented Analytics
• Analytics is more than just
“hits”, pageviews, and visits – it’s about
customer insight and marketing optimization

• Analytics should connect the dots between
web activity, marketing effectiveness, and
bottom-line performance

• Analytics technologies are tools, they must be
used properly by the right people Income Statement


The Problem with Web Analytics
Action

Wisdom People

Knowledge

Information
Tools

Data


Action

Wisdom People

Knowledge

Information

Cost Center Tools

Data


Action

What Budget?
Wisdom People

Knowledge

Information

Cost Center Tools

Data


Google Analytics Opportunity
• The GA stack allows
more resources to
People $
be dedicated to
value-drivers
(people)

Total Cost
$
$ People

• Lower total cost of
ownership, greater Tool $ Tool

ROI Other Vendors GA


The Keys to
Success with
GA

The Two Keys to Success with GA
1. Proper Planning

2. Informed Implementation


Planning Tip
Ask Business Questions, NOT Metrics


Example
Metric Question
How many views to
Page X?


Example
Metric Question Business Question
How many views to Which promoter is a
Page X? better partner?


Caleb’s
Planning
Process

Business Goals

Data Analysis & Supporting
Answers Questions

Report
Data to Answer
Configuration &
Questions
Access

Required
Implementation to
get the Data

Implementing
GA
What to do, and NOT do…
learned the hard way!


Plain Vanilla… It’s Not for You

Image source: http://atencentgemjar.wordpress.com/

The GA Tag Comes in Many Flavors

Image source: http://valuestream2009.wordpress.com/

The Settings that Matter
• There are over 55 documented settings for the
tag


The Settings that Matter
• There are over 55 documented settings for the
tag

• Top settings to consider:
– Cookie Domain  setDomainName
– Cookie Hashing  setAllowHash
– Campaign Anchors  setAllowAnchor
– X-domain Linking  setAllowLinker


Signs of the Times


This is Bad…
• If your website is www.zenithvineyard.com


Data Quality Checking Tools
• Audit your site data for quality
– Internal referrals?
– Suspicious “direct” landing deep within your site?
– Odd exit pages with high rates?

• Use tools:
– www.AnalyticsHealthCheck.com
– www.analyticscheckup.com
– www.observepoint.com


Caleb’s Implementation Tips
• Plan your business requirements
• Implement the GA tag correctly for your
website(s)
– Consider domain names (sub-domains, 3rd party
domains)
– Place the tag on all pages
– Use the setAllowAnchor feature
• You may want to take a course, read a
book, or hire an expert to assist – don’t skip on
this!

Related Resources
• Books
– Performance Marketing with Google Analytics
(Whitmore, Tonkin, Cutroni): http://goo.gl/nKwPI
– Advanced Web Metrics (Clifton): http://goo.gl/8f9ui
– Google Analytics (Cutroni): http://goo.gl/yXq6j
– Web Analytics 2.0 (Kaushik): http://goo.gl/94Bhu
• Training
– Online GA Conversion University: http://goo.gl/gBVYg
– Google Seminars for Success: http://goo.gl/Cx87U
– GAUGE Google Analytics User Conference (next one is
in NYC Oct 17 - 18): http://goo.gl/nqDQI


Marketer
Essentials
2 Things that you MUST do with Google Analytics


Essential #1:
Goals
Without a goal, what’s the point?


Goal Process Example


A “typical” Goal
Typical GA Goal


Goals in GA
• What is a “goal” in Google Analytics?
– Pre-calculated metric
– Can be any page or set of pages, event, or
threshold of time spent of pages viewed


Different Types of Goals in GA


Goal Essentials

Is there a better way to
do goals?


Goal Essentials
Goals with a
Framework


Goal Examples: Simple Framework


Goal Essentials
• Benefits of a Goal Framework include
– You’re no longer blind to what happens before the
“conversion”
– See “funnel” view for Traffic Source reports
– Use the “score” to weight total visit engagement
across all goals


Goal Essentials
• Caleb’s Goal Framework for Success:
– Set LOTS of goals – if it matters, make it a goal
– Some goals are “engagement” focused, others are
“transactional” in nature
– Use the “score” feature within Google Analytics to
“Weight” each goal


Goal Framework Worksheet

Download from: http://goo.gl/Ivcxm

Related Resources on Goals
• Caleb’s goal planning worksheet:
http://goo.gl/Ivcxm

• Great blog post by Avinash Kaushik:
http://goo.gl/gpLD4


Essential #2:
Segmentation
Going beneath the surface of your data


GA is one BIG relational Database
• Over 85 dimensions and 230 metrics in GA
• That’s 19,550 1x1 combinations
• But… you can segment by up to 7 dimensions
and 10 metrics at a time


6 Ways to Segment in GA
1. Standard report drilldowns
2. Report secondary & pivot dimensions
3. Custom Reports & Dashboards
4. Advanced Segments
5. 3rd party tools
6. Data Export API tools


Standard Report, No Drilldown

What’s the cause?


Standard Report w/Drilldown

Organic & Referral Spiked


Drilldowns can get CRAZY!


Add the dimension of Time…


Secondary Dimension Segmentation
Shows Visits, Bounce Rates for each
Keyword – but how do landing pages
impact this?


Pivot Segmentation


Pivot Segmentation

Oregon Bounce
rate is 32.45%


Pivot Segmentation

Organic Oregon
Bounce rate is
26.22%


Pivot Segmentation

CPC Oregon
Bounce rate is
37.88%


Pivot Segmentation

Arizona Organic
Bounce rate is
just 19.33%


Analytics
in
Action
4 Easy Analysis Tasks You Should Do


Tip #1
Segmented Geographic Analysis


Segmentation Tip #1: Geography



Default graphic
weighted by Visits



Change color
weighting to use
another metric


Geo Segment Example
• Question:
– What regions have higher conversion propensity
outside the home region for Paid Search efforts?
• Report:
– Geo map report with Per Visit Goal Value in focus
– Comparison view of Per Visit Goal Value metric
– Advanced Segment for Paid Search traffic applied


Geo Segment Example


Geo Segment Example

Adv. Seg applied


Geo Segment Example

Adv. Seg applied

Oregon Excluded


Geo Segment Example
Map focus set to
Per Visit Value

Adv. Seg applied

Oregon Excluded


Geo Segment Example
Map focus set to
Per Visit Value

Adv. Seg applied

Oregon Excluded

View set to
Comparison


Additional Geo Segmentation Tips
• Get creative with geo segments:
– Segment by latitude/longitude using Data Export
API, i.e. Conversion rate for coat purchases above
the 45th parallel

– Segment by sales territory

– Count of Visits (segment: )


Tip #2
Traffic Source Identification


Traffic Source Segmentation
• Screenshot showing traffic source data
mediums report with +/- view


Segment Traffic Sources Against…
• Goals

• Transactions

• Landing pages

• Campaigns by
Geography

• Everything!

Just to be clear…
• Google Analytics can track any kind of
marketing – not just Google AdWords
– Email marketing
– Microsoft AdCenter paid search
– Display ads run anywhere
– Social Media traffic
– Even offline campaigns


Tracking Your Marketing
• What to know:
– Email will show up as “direct” unless it is specifically
tagged
– Banners & links will show up as “referring” not
“banner”
– Offline campaigns can be tracked using vanity URL’s
and tracking codes
– Paid search must be tagged, otherwise it gets mixed in
with organic search


GA’s Oder of Operations
1. Check of Campaign Tags
(utm_etc…)

2. Look for Referrer
– Search Engine =
organic/search
engine/keyword
– Referring Site = referring
domain / page

3. Lump into “direct/none”

Medium – Source – Campaign
Medium: How they came
Direct

Referral

Organic Search

Paid Search

Add your own?
• Email
• Banner
• RSS
•? © 2012, Analytics Pros, Inc.

Source: Who we work with
to make that happen

Direct Source
• (none)

Referral Source
• site names

Search Engine
• Yahoo!, Google, etc.


Campaign:
Marketing activity
“Spring 2011”
cuts across everything


Source: Who we work with
Campaign:
Medium: How they came to make that happen
Marketing activity
“Spring 2011”
cuts across everything


So How Do You Do It: Campaign Links
• YOU control the link.
• You tack some labels onto the end of the link.
• When a visitor clicks the link and arrives at
your site, Google Analytics records those
labels.
• There’s nothing to set up or configure in
Google Analytics, you just make the link.


Campaign Links: How They Work
• In web addresses, the parts after a question park are
called “query parameters”. Sometimes your webserver
does something special with them.
www.example.com/page?id=1234

• If your webserver doesn’t recognize the query
parameter, it ignores it. These addresses both go to the
same page:

www.example.com/page
www.example.com/page?myname=johnsmith


Campaign Links: How They Work
• So even better than making up labels, we can use
some labels that Google Analytics recognizes:

www.example.com/page?utm_medium=email
&utm_source=newsletter
&utm_campaign=spring-2010

• These represent the medium, source, and
campaign.
• You don’t have to build these URLs by hand.

Campaign Tracking Variables
Report URL Cookie
Source utm_source utmcsr
Where the visitor came from. Ex: Google, Yahoo, MSN
Campaign utm_campaign utmccn
Name of your campaign. Ex: Summer_Sale, EarlyPromo
Medium utm_medium utmcmd
Marketing method. Ex: CPC, Banner, Email
Keyword utm_term utmctr
Keyword that was searched for, both paid and unpaid. Ex: shirts,
water+bottles
Ad Content utm_content utmcct
Descriptive word(s) used to identify different versions of an ad that you
are trying to compare (A/B testing). Ex: blue_text, red_text

Campaign Examples
Campaign Medium Source
spring-2011 email newsletter
spring-2011 email special-offer
spring-2011 banner example.com
careers banner example.com
careers partner affilitatesite.com
careers cpc yahoo.com

ACTIVITY

• List a few campaign – source – medium combinations for your
marketing campaigns.


A Better URL Builder
• Excel-based

• Automate
the process

• Ensure
consistency

Get it here: http://goo.gl/qpzDF

Tip #3
User Experience Analysis


User Experience Discovery Segments
• Does technology impact user experience?

• YES!!
– Safari bounce rate considerably higher, why?


Safari User Experience Analysis
• Drilldown to Safari users


Internet Explorer Analysis
• Bounce Rates for IE versions vary wildly

• IE 9.0 users really have a hard time


Other Technology Analysis
• Analyze goal and experience factors
– Conversion rates
– Time on Site
– Pages/Visit

• Analyze other technical factors:
– Screen Resolution


Screen Resolution Example

Example report using Next Analytics for Excel plugin: http://goo.gl/fAkTm


Tip #4
Where’s the Front Door?


Entrance Point Analysis
• Your website’s “front
door” is probably NOT
the main point of
entrance


Where Do People Enter?


Just 18% enter on
the homepage!



That’s a lot of
“other” doors!


Entrance Point Questions to Ask
• How porous is your site?
– Most traffic comes/goes from non-portal pages?
– Portal pages make up the majority entrance/exit
points?

• What is the impact on key metrics?


Entrance Point Impact on Key Metrics
• Custom Report showing landing page key
metrics


Bonus Tip!
There’s MORE!


Bonus Tip: Resources for More Data
• It’s all about the APPS! See
http://www.google.com/analytics/apps/

• Great tools:
– Mashable Metrics (integrates GA with Tableau)
– NextAnalytics for Excel
– Excellent Analytics for Excel
– GeckoBoards.com for scorecards


Beyond GA
My Toolbox


Google
Analytics


not


Optimizely

http://www.optimizely.com/

Last Words…


Last Words
1. Plan ahead

2. Ensure data quality

3. Set goals

4. Track campaigns

5. Segment, segment, segment!


Thanks


Twitter @analyticspros


University of Nebraska Think Tank: Google Analytics as your Digital Marketing Hub

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