Brad Smith, assistant digital media manager, British Red Cross Digital impact conference www.charitycomms.org.uk/events

1. Using metrics to increase
website engagement
Brad Smith

2. An introduction

3. Brad Smith - @bradman
– Nearly 7 years at the Red Cross
– Assistant digital media manager
– Search engine optimisation/ pay per click
specialist
– Analytics expert
– Manage our mobile apps
– Bit of a geek

4. What I’ll cover
– Defining your metrics
– What we measure at the Red Cross
– How we improve conversions
– Top tips to take away

5. Preamble

6. Why metrics matter
– You can measure your success
– Tells you what’s working well
– Tells you what’s working badly and if to stop
– Helps you prioritise your workload
– Helps you contribute to the big picture
– Focusses your internal clients on what really
matters
– Helps you win friends and influence people

7. How we measure
at the British Red
Cross: Google
Analytics

8. Google Analytics
> Free statistics package
> Tells us what our users are doing on the
website, and where they’ve come from
> Tells you see the popularity of our web pages
> Informs us as to financial data (but not 100
per cent accurate)
> Throws up the odd surprise

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16. Ideas for use
> Get a yardstick of what users want
> Prioritise work on particular projects – find out
what needs promotion and what doesn’t
> Find out which of your pages are most
popular
> Measure the impact of your work!

17. Step one:
Define your
metrics

18. Step two:
Measure them!

19. Some ideas…

20. Website visits

21. Website visits
> Simple, but effective
> You’ll hopefully see an uplift over time
> Don’t forget to measure desktop vs mobile

23. Bounce rate

24. Bounce rate
> For any given page, indicates how many
people are bouncing straight off your page
> High number (> site average) could indicate
people less engaged
> Low number (< site average) could indicate
people more engaged

25. But look at bounce rate in
conjunction with other stats..
> Low bounce rate and high exit rate means
people are leaving your site at this point.
> High bounce rate + clear call to action may
mean the user has found what they’re looking
for.

26. Some examples…
Page Title Pageviews
Unique
Pagevie
ws
Avg.
Time on
Page
Entrance
s
Bounce
Rate % Exit
Test your first aid skills | First aid tips from the British Red Cross
#quizResults 1572 1257 82.45 1 100.00% 38.74%
Emotional support for someone who is distressed or upset teacher
briefing 948 885 250.20 840 92.62% 89.03%
Ride London 100 | British Red Cross 506 475 146.19 388 91.75% 79.05%
The social model of disability teacher briefing citizenship 726 646 282.91 612 89.87% 85.40%
As easy as alfa bravo charlie citzenship lesson resource nato phonetic
alphabet quick activity 596 538 137.90 438 88.13% 72.32%
Greater Manchester Marathon 2013 | British Red Cross 917 837 148.36 768 87.76% 79.72%
First aid and whisky - British Red Cross blog 707 609 71.84 609 86.70% 86.14%
Road safety activities based on the shared space approach to
Exhibition Road in London 560 521 224.15 504 86.11% 86.79%
Vomiting and diarrhoea | First aid tips from the British Red Cross 561 504 83.08 104 83.65% 28.88%
Sponsored silence | British Red Cross 534 465 91.13 431 82.13% 76.78%
Pupil, Citizen, Life-saver | Support the British Red Cross campaign |
Step 2 1555 1457 134.75 11 81.82% 74.73%

30. Exit rate

31. Exit rate
> Tells you the pages where people are leaving
your site most
> …but you need to review it in context.
> Are visitors at a natural exit point?
> If not, tell them what you want them to do!

32. Exit rate
Emotional support for someone who is distressed or upset teacher
briefing 948 885 250.20 840 92.62% 89.03%
Road safety activities based on the shared space approach to
Exhibition Road in London 560 521 224.15 504 86.11% 86.79%
First aid and whisky - British Red Cross blog 707 609 71.84 609 86.70% 86.14%
The social model of disability teacher briefing citizenship 726 646 282.91 612 89.87% 85.40%
Letters home from a First World War nurse - British Red Cross blog 651 539 270.04 537 79.52% 82.33%
Greater Manchester Marathon 2013 | British Red Cross 917 837 148.36 768 87.76% 79.72%
Ride London 100 | British Red Cross 506 475 146.19 388 91.75% 79.05%
Road safety worksheets | British Red Cross 712 597 854.26 586 25.94% 76.83%
Sponsored silence | British Red Cross 534 465 91.13 431 82.13% 76.78%
Earthquake and tsunami in Japan: lesson plan and teaching activities
for schools 784 668 273.10 602 77.91% 76.40%
Mobile phone recycling | British Red Cross 1448 1167 256.51 1096 57.12% 75.14%
Pupil, Citizen, Life-saver | Support the British Red Cross campaign |
Step 2 1555 1457 134.75 11 81.82% 74.73%
In figures: east Africa one year on | In figures 2811 2599 308.38 2126 21.50% 73.39%
RedRoom and Redmail | British Red Cross 16501 12969 332.09 10489 20.14% 72.36%

33. What you should do
> Put a call to action on the page if there’s not
one there – e.g. sign up for an alternative
event
> Alter the design/ make calls to action more
prominent
> A/B test alternative layouts for increased
conversions

34. Website speed

35. Why it matters
> Big search ranking factor
> Visitors don’t hang around – you have
seconds to impress them
> Slow sites don’t lead to conversions

37. Conversion rate

38. Small gains make a big
difference
> Increasing a conversion rate of 2 per cent by
just 0.1 per cent could mean £100,000s
> Use A/B testing to measure what works for
you and optimise accordingly

40. A/B testing ideas
> Call to action on left of page vs right
> Single page form vs multiple page form
> Red button vs black button
> One version of copy vs another
> One image or another

41. A/B testing examples

42. A/B testing examples

44. ClickTale
> Professional usability tool
> Tracks mouse moves, mouse clicks and more
> Can also tell you what fields are causing
users to drop out of forms

47. Internal search

48. Do you know what your users
are searching for on your site?
> If not, it’s dead simple to set up in Google
Analytics
> High results page view per search figure, that
could mean users aren’t finding what they’re
looking for
> If users use search from a landing page a lot,
they’re not finding what they’re looking for

49. Page views per search
> Indicates how many search results pages
users are viewing to find the result they’re
looking for
> Look at your most searched for items, and
check whether they’re showing up in the
search results or not.

50. Search depth
> Tells you how many pages users looked at
after searching
> Consider in conjunction with other metrics.

51. Look at what users want!
> If they’re struggling to find something, write
some content and link to it prominently.
> Tell your marketing teams what users are
searching for digital marketing campaign
purposes

52. Some examples…
Search Term
Total
Unique
Searches Results Pageviews / Search % Search Exits
% Search
Refineme
nts
Time
after
Search
Search
Depth
poster 7 3.71 42.86% 11.54% 307.29 3.14
donation 6 3.33 16.67% 20.00% 896.00 9.83
poppies 11 3.09 0.00% 5.88% 635.00 5.45
olympics 11 3.00 27.27% 9.09% 350.18 4.73
policies 10 2.80 50.00% 14.29% 161.40 0.60
news 5 2.80 20.00% 14.29% 338.00 9.00
seizure 7 2.71 14.29% 26.32% 164.14 3.00
war 16 2.44 18.75% 10.26% 319.44 4.13
e-learning 10 2.40 0.00% 37.50% 195.10 4.00
nose bleeds 5 2.40 20.00% 25.00% 171.80 3.20

53. What people search for on our
website
Search Term
Total
Unique
Searches Results Pageviews / Search % Search Exits
% Search
Refineme
nts
Time
after
Search
Search
Depth
redmail 1342 1.19 76.23% 3.69% 195.52 0.58
redroom 893 1.27 2.58% 8.31% 196.86 1.92
jobs 515 1.25 5.05% 9.81% 169.81 3.55
red room 398 1.14 2.51% 7.93% 153.98 1.94
red mail 201 1.18 89.55% 3.80% 121.59 0.23
wheelchair hire 195 1.35 5.13% 4.94% 229.65 6.57
wheelchair 170 1.24 8.24% 9.52% 261.78 6.38
google 152 1.28 90.79% 2.06% 201.35 0.57
first aid 120 1.28 7.50% 19.48% 427.73 7.03

54. Document downloads

55. Document downloads
> Sometimes, you just want people to download
something
> Use event tracking in Google Analytics to
measure downloads
> May require some intervention from your
technical teams

56. Be aware:
What matters to
us, might not
matter to you

57. So..
Define your
metrics!

58. When to measure

59. When to measure
> I look daily
> We have funnels set up to act as a good
guide – but I prefer getting stuck into the
detail
> Use custom alerts to monitor for change (but
don’t rely on them!)

60. When to measure
> Report on your KPIs monthly
> Share your successes
> Learn from your mistakes

61. Example custom alerts
> CPC spend increases compared to previous
day
> Bounce rate increases/decreases by more
than x per cent compared to previous day
> Referrals from your top referring site drop by
more than x per cent

62. Using dashboards
> Good for an overview
> Beneficial to business unit owners who may
have a specific interest
> Allows you to keep an eye on the metrics that
are important to you

64. Using funnels
> Again, good for an overview
> Not 100 per cent accurate, so don’t rely on
them
> I use ecommerce conversion rate for
individual conversion paths and use financial
reports for accurate figures

65. Apart from
metrics..

66. Know what your users
want

67. Know what your users want
> Use Google AdWords keyword selector tool
> Use Google Trends to see what your potential
audience want

68. Google Adwords keyword
selector tool
> Uses Google’s database
> Tells you language your users are using
> Should influence what you write, rather than
you writing what you think your audience
wants

69. Set row count = 50000 to get more data
out of Google Analytics

70. Google Trends
> Shows interest for keywords over time
> Helps you identify seasonality
> Tells you can get ahead of the crowd.
> E.g… when does Christmas start?

72. Social proof
> Look at popularity on social media to find out
what people like
> Product reviews and ratings sell more
products
> Submit ratings as search rich snippet data for
more traffic benefits

76. Tips to take away

77. Top tips
> Be more social
> Use conversion code tracking from marketing
providers (e.g. AdWords)
> Brush up on your web writing skills
> Make your site responsive
> Limit your calls to action to ones that are
relevant and effective on that page

78. Top tips
> Define your metrics
> Look at them daily, assess them monthly
> Report your successes – and failures
> Learn from your mistakes
> Annotate big events in Analytics for the
benefit of other internal users

79. Set row count = 50000 to get more data
out of Google Analytics

80. Thanks for
listening.
Any questions?