Getting prospective students to a website is one thing, but marketing strategies can't stop there. Learn how to use Google Analytics, a free but feature-rich tool, to understand and optimize the website experience. Topics to be covered include understanding basic web analytics metrics, understanding and using conversion goals and tips for measuring ROI.

1. Website Optimization
Using Google Analytics

2. About Vertical Nerve
• Help organizations connect with their audience online
• Help them convert that audience into customers
Web Design & Mobile Web Search Engine Web Analytics
Development Development Marketing Consulting

3. About Me
• Director, Analytics & Search Engine Marketing
• 10 Years of Search Engine Optimization /
Marketing Experience
• 8 Years of Web Analytics Experience
• Helped the following organizations:

4. About Me
• Also an Olympic
Weightlifter getting ready
to leave for London.
TOTAL LIE

5. Why Do We Need Analytics?
• Analytics helps you discover what works…
…and STOP doing what doesn’t.

6. Why Do We Need Analytics?
• Without Data,
the HiPPO Rules!
• What’s the HiPPO?
(Highest Paid Person’s Opinion)

7. About Google Analytics
• Free, enterprise level web analytics solution
• Installed on over 10M sites worldwide
• 60% of Top 100k sites online
• Over half the Fortune 500

8. How it Works
• Invisible page tag using JS & Cookies
• When those pages are viewed, the code runs
behind the scenes, sending data to Google’s
secure servers
• This data is processed and reported in Google
Analytics
• Note: Data is not shared without permission

9. What Does GA Track?
• It Tracks a Visitor’s:
– Approximate Location (city)
– Browser and System Specs (OS, language, etc)
– Referral Information (previous site and/or query)
• It Does Not Track:
– Email Addresses
– Specific Locations
– Any Personally Identifiable Information

10. WHEN IT COMES TO GOOGLE ANALYTICS,
HERE’S THE COMMON SCENARIO…

12. Common Scenario
• Most organizations “use” Google Analytics
– It’s installed on the website…that’s about it.
• Most organizations do not use Google Analytics
– No confidence in the data
– No conversion goals
– No marketing campaign tagging
– No visitor segments
– NO VALUE!!!

13. WHY?

16. “I don’t want to be a pirate web analyst!”

17. HERE’S THE GOOD NEWS…

18. The Good News
• Using Google Analytics doesn’t have to be
confusing or overwhelming
• Anybody can quickly learn some of the basics
and start making data-driven decisions

19. A FEW NICE AND EASY METRICS

20. Engagement Metrics
Avg. number of
Avg. time spent Percentage of in-
pages viewed per
on the website n-out visits
website visit

21. Conversion Metrics
Total number of % of visits
goal completions completing a goal

22. What’s a Conversion Goal?
• Every page has a purpose, and every site has
goals. Identify these and use them.
– Online Application
– Schedule a Visit
– Request Information
– Watch a Video
– Etc..

23. 1st Takeaway: Goals
• Google Analytics is virtually useless without
conversion goals, so identify and create some!
• Anything is better than nothing, so don’t be
shy

24. Example: UTSA
These are goals!

25. KEY QUESTIONS

26. Key Questions
• How Can Google Analytics Help me Recruit
More Students?
• How Can Google Analytics Help me Market
More Effectively?

27. WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION

28. Website Design & Changes
• What’s the biggest influence on most website
design decisions today?
• Why?
– No alternative.

29. Here’s an Idea!
• Identify website goals
• Optimize design, content,
images, buttons, etc.
towards the goals
• Let data be the guide
• Feed data to the HiPPO
(trends, charts, etc.)

30. Conversion Goals (cont.)
• For any given page on a site, be able to answer
these two questions:
– How effective is this page at getting visitors to my
goals?
– Is this page more or less effective than it used to
be?

31. Conversion Goals (cont.)
• For your website or section, be able to
answer:
– What % of all my visitors are completing a
conversion goal?
– Is my conversion rate increasing or decreasing?
– What traffic sources provide the best visitors?
(most likely to complete a goal)

32. A/B Split Testing
• Test & improve content pages with new
Content Experiments feature in GA
• Makes data-driven decisions
easy!

33. MARKETING ANALYTICS

34. GA for Marketing Analytics
• Prospective students come from many
channels
Blogs
YouTube Magazines
Search News
WEBSITE
Engines Sites

35. Analyzing Channels
• Which channels or campaigns are producing
the highest conversion rate?
Remember, conversion rate is the % of visits completing a website goal.
• Which channels or campaigns have the lowest
bounce rate, or highest engagement rates?

36. Analyzing Channels (cont.)
• In order to easily analyze traffic channels, they
must be tagged or grouped appropriately.
• Ever visit should have:
– Medium
– Source
• Some also have:
– Campaign
– Keyword
– Ad / Content

37. Example: Performance by Medium
Traffic Categories Engagement Metrics Conversion Metrics

38. Analyzing Campaigns
• Some traffic sources have campaigns
– Paid Search
– Display / Banner Advertising
– Social Media Advertising
– Email Marketing
• Use the Google Analytics campaign tagging
variables to track these cleanly inside of
Google Analytics

39. 2nd Takeaway: Tag Campaigns
• Ensure that, whenever possible, online
marketing campaigns are tagged appropriately
in Google Analytics

40. Marketing Analytics
• With key goals identified and marketing
campaigns tracking properly, answering these
questions is easy:
“Where should I spend my next marketing dollar?”
“Which campaigns are not producing ROI?”

41. 5 MORE VALUABLE BENEFITS OF GA

42. Track Mobile Success
• What % of a Site’s Traffic is from Mobile?
• How are those Visitors Performing?

43. Track Social Interactions
• See when visitors on your site tweet, share,
like, etc.
• See which social networks are driving traffic to
your site.

44. CRM Integrations
• Important for lead generation websites
• Campaign information all through the sales
process
Visit Lead Sale
Campaign ABC Campaign ABC Campaign ABC

45. Watch Real-time Response
• Data within 2 seconds!

46. Track Website Speed
• Studies have proven, slow sites = less money
• GA now automatically tracks your page load
times, so optimize your web experience

47. KEY TAKEAWAYS

48. Takeaways & Tips
• Identify & Configure Conversion Goal(s)
• Track all Marketing Campaigns using GA tags
• Care for Analytics Account (brush, floss, etc.)
• Utilize Scheduled Email Reports & Alerts
• Share Data within your Organization

49. And One More Thing…
• Please don’t let this happen…

50. Thank You!
• Leave a card to join our weekly Google
Analytics newsletter (free tips & new features)
• Visit our table outside and enter to win a free
Google Analytics Audit! ($1,500 value)
• Visit us online at www.verticalnerve.com

51. Q&A