Higher education websites face a difficult challenge that websites in many other industries do not have to endure: Catering to a handful of audiences with one website.

1. GOOGLE ANALYTICS FOR
HIGHER ED
By. Gus Kroustalis

2. AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION
 Higher education websites face a difficult challenge that websites in
many other industries do not have to endure.
 The Challenge: Catering to a handful of audiences with one website.

4. TYPICAL LIST OF TARGET AUDIENCES
 Prospective Students
● The most critical audience for higher education
websites, especially considering the impact of
digital marketing for admissions
 Current Students
● Current students access the website to research
new courses and look for upcoming events
 Faculty/Staff
● Marketers do not want to isolate this group.
Identifying Faculty/Staff can help with future
content navigation and design projects.
 Alumni
● When donations are sought, it is important to
know the website interactions by this audience
 Parents
● Some higher education websites have a section
of content tailored to parents of prospective
students, incoming students or both
 Community
● This is individuals involved with the college who
do not fit any of the previous audiences. This
would include visitors seeking more
information.

5. GOOGLE ANALYTICS REPORTING

6. GOOGLE ANALYTICS REPORTING
 Imagine how much more impactful Google Analytics would be if the
data can be segmented based on these audiences.
 Analysis of audience activity could lead to improvements in content
display, website navigation and call to action optimization
 Which all this can lead to increased overall website engagement for the
end user

7. IDENTIFYING YOUR AUDIENCE

8. IDENTIFYING YOUR AUDIENCE
 The best way to define each
audience is by noting what
actions can be associated with
each audience
 Example:
● A prospective student: any user who
downloads an admissions
application form.
● A prospective student: any user who
schedules a tour on campus.
● An alum: any user who submits a
donation via the form in the alumni
section.

9. NOTICE …….
 There should be more than one action used to identify any give
audience.
 Avoid actions that can be performed often by multiple audiences.
 Example:
● Logging into the school’s email provider – this action can be performed by students,
faculty and staff.

10. CONFIGURE AUDIENCES AS CUSTOM DIMENSIONS
 Under the property settings in
the Account Admin for Google’s
Universal Analytics is a link for
Custom Definitions.
 When you click Custom Definitions,
you will then need to click Custom
Dimensions.

11. CONFIGURE AUDIENCES AS CUSTOM DIMENSIONS
 Add a new custom dimension for
each audience that you are building.
Name the custom dimension as you
plan to name the audience, and set
the scope as User.
 That configuration will apply the
audience identification for a user
across multiple sessions.

12. CONFIGURE AUDIENCES AS CUSTOM DIMENSIONS
 Once you save the new dimension, Google Analytics will provide you with a
snippet of JavaScript.
 The dimension value should be replaced with the name of the audience, and the
snippet should be added to all user actions in the website’s HTML.

13. WHAT IF OUR WEBSITE USES GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

14. GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?
 Rather than hard-coding snippets of custom dimension JavaScript, some digital
marketers prefer Google Tag Manager.
 Google has some content that points Tag Manager users in the right direction,
such as this: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6164990?hl=en.

15. TEST AND VALIDATE
 Make sure the website loads properly in a test environment after the custom
dimension code has been added.
 Also, use a test reporting view in Google Analytics to make sure that the custom
dimensions are loading in the reports.
● All you need to do is add a secondary dimension, typing an audience name to find the
custom dimension in the list.
● You can also create custom reports, adding these custom dimensions as a primary
dimension.

16. TEST AND VALIDATE

17. TEST AND VALIDATE
 Once the custom dimension
tracking goes live, decide on an
amount of time to allow new data to
populate in the reporting view.
 Upon analyzing your new data, you
will be able to determine if the
actions you have tagged on the
website are representative of that
audience.
 You may see audience totals much
higher or lower than expected,
compared to overall traffic or to
other audiences.
 Take that opportunity to adjust the
actions tagged for those audiences
in question.