Workshop for VisitWiltshire

1. Google Analytics
Workshop for VisitWiltshire
21st November 2013
Dr Philip Alford
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/philipalford/
https://twitter.com/philipalford
palford@bournemouth.ac.uk

2. About me …
• Senior Lecturer at Bournemouth University School
of Tourism
• Project lead on Digital Destinations project
• Board member of VisitWiltshire
• Chair of VisitWiltshire Online Marketing Group
• Web design, social media, email marketing with
www.MapleCommunication.co.uk /
www.TourismusTraining.at

3. Measurement is key
‘Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything
that counts can be counted”

4. Customer Engagement
Customer engagement:
“Repeated interactions that strengthen the emotional,
psychological or physical investment a customer has in a brand”
Customer engagement strategy:
“A strategy to encourage interaction and participation of
consumers with a brand through developing content and
experiences with the aim of meeting commercial objectives. It is
closely related to the development of content marketing and
social media strategy.”

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An Engagement Framework
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6. Developing the strategy
Situation: where are we now?
Objectives: where do we want
to be?
Strategy: how do we get there?
Tactics: how exactly do we get
there?
Action: what is our plan?
Control: did we get there?

7. Situation analysis
• Customer Insight: Identify distinct customer segments and
why they buy from you
• Product Insight: What is your unique offer and is it clearly
communicated online? Think about this in terms of specific
customers rather than in general
• Internal Resources: for example customer database that isn’t
being used effectively
• Identify issues, weaknesses, challenges, opportunities which
could inform objective-setting
• Competitor analysis – points of differentiation?
• Your digital marketing analytics should inform this stage

9. Introductory video
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpgY7BQ4
HRA&feature=endscreen

10. Six recommended reports
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/tips-for-web-analytics-success-for-small-businesses/

11. Top Key Phrases from Search Engines
Search is the game baby, and even more so for
our SMB friends who have very small ad budgets
and have to leverage the power of search
engines. Do this to infer intent of your
customers, do this to know if you are getting the
traffic you think you deserve. If you are not take
action.

12. Top Referring URL’s
Taking the above recommendation to the next level.
Many SMB’s create partnerships with other SMB’s or
associations etc. As you look at the referring URL’s do
you see any that are interesting and surprising? Do you
have some relationships with them? If not should you?
Then, my favorite, segment out those referring url’s
that are sending you traffic that meets your goal
criteria (a order, a lead, a particular page view etc)

13. Site Content Popularity
Websites are small and websites are big. Do you know
what content is being consumed the most by your
visitors? It is probably less than 20%, it is important to
know which 20%. In my experience we are always
surprised by what content is being consumed by our
customers, specially if you segment out content
consumed by those who meet your site goals. Start
with most popular pages viewed on the site, go from
there.

14. % of Visitors Who Visit the Home Page
This recommendation is more a reaction to the fact
that 90% of website owners are way to enamoured by
the home page and perfecting it. In reality around half
or less of the site traffic sees the home page. Do you
know what this number is for you? Knowing this will
mean you can assign resources optimally, focus on
other pages, if you have “golden content / promotions”
you won’t just show it on the home page.

15. Click Density / Site Overlay
In-Page Analytics
It takes a lot to interpret the Click Density report but there is
nothing simpler for a SMB owner to start with. Web Analytics
comes to life, they can “see” the clicks and relate to visitors in a
new and more profound way. Click Density’s real power comes
when you look at segmented click density, where do purchasers
click vs everyone else. Actionable insights. For a SMB owner, if
you see “interesting” click density behavior do simple
experiments with layout, content, navigation to optimize.

16. Site Bounce Rate
I define this as visitors who stay on the site for less than
10 seconds (or one page only, though for reasons I’ll
blog about some day I prefer the 10 seconds). Specially
for a SMB owner who has precious few resources to
spare each visitor is valuable and it is hyper critical to
know what this number is (and then segment by
campaigns, referring urls, top paged on site with high
bounce rate etc to know who is sending you valuable
traffic).

17. Google Analytics Basics: Essential
Stats

18. The Marketing Objectives Checklist
Navigate your way to an effective objectives-led marketing mindset
Identify the biggest growth opportunities for your business...
with new customers:
with existing customers:
speak to more
people
get more
people to try
reach more
people
get people to
buy more often
get people to
buy more
increase
prices
Seek activities
to drive
awareness
Seek
activities to
drive trial
Seek options
to increase
distribution
Seek activities
to drive
frequency
Seek activities
to fuel weight
of purchase
Seek ways to
add product
value
NB: segmentation simplified for the purposes of the checklist
Understand who you need to talk to...
those unaware
of the brand
Output:
those aware
but not yet
buying
those buying
but not very
often
those buying
but not very
loyal
those buying
regularly
those who only
buy your brand
Our core objective is to get ........... customers who are ................... to ...........................
i.e. Our core objective is to get new customers who are unaware to be aware of our brand

19. What does VW measure?
Audience
• website unique visitors - year on year comparison (audience overview)
• domestic and overseas (geo)
• % new visitors (behaviour)
• number of pages viewed (behaviour – engagement) – page depth
• dwell time (behaviour – engagement) – visit duration
Acquisition
• top referring sites (acquisition overview)
• top search terms (keywords – organic)
Behaviour
• top pages viewed (site content – all pages)
• social network referral traffic
• landing pages (site content – landing pages)
• exit pages (site content – exit pages)

20. In-page analytics

21. Set targets for KPIs
• Open rate and CTR (what percentage?) – base
against past performance (time period), industry
average, or what would expect (informed
guesswork)? You need a start point
• Engagement with web content: number of visits,
pages viewed, bounce rate, conversions (goalsetting)
• Engagement with FB: number of posts, Likes, shares,
traffic to website from FB