7 Steps Google Analytics Guide

Using Google Analytics To Improve Online Marketing
Seven Steps to Success Guide

Author: Dr Dave Chaffey Published: June 2011
Using Google Analytics To Improve Online Marketing

Seven Steps to Success Guide
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking
Contents
03 Introduction 06 Step 1. Setup and customisation 35 Step 2. Campaign tracking 41 Step 3. Working with reports to find opportunities and problems 48 Step 4. Understanding your visitors 59 Step 5. Improving reach 68 Step 6. Improving journeys and site engagement 76 Step 7. Improving conversion to lead and sale
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.
Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Smart Insights (Marketing Intelligence) Limited. Please go to www.smartinsights.com to feedback or access our other guides.
Introduction
About this guide
Setup and customisation
Google Analytics is a fantastic tool from the moment you arrange to have the tracking code installed and you experience the thrill of your first reports appearing showing how real people are interacting with your online business. Most of this report will show you how to take advantage of the standard features and reports, but to get the maximum from Google Analytics, we recommend you also arrange for some additional setup and configuration. This will help the reports fit your business better, so that you can review performance and really drive results. There are actually so many customisation options that you really need a strategy of what to customise, particularly if there are several team members using the account.
Campaign Tracking
Why another guide on Google Analytics?

Well, because its different this isnt a simple guide on where to find the menus and reports. Instead, its a complete toolkit, a system for site owners and marketers who dont see themselves as analysts, but they have this nagging suspicion that they, and their organisation should get much more from their Google Analytics. As we talk to site owners and marketers we find that although most users love Google Analytics, there is a feeling that its not used enough and many of the insights in its reports are being wasted. We think this is because there is limited guidance within the system. To use it to the max you need to use it regularly so you know the right questions to ask and know where to find the answers. Were here to help you tap into the insight so you dont miss the opportunity by stepping you through the questions you should be asking and pointing you to where to find the relevant answer. This guide shows you how to get the most from Google Analytics out-of-the-box using the standard reports available in the latest update Unlike most guides, were not going to start with the setup, the config, the reports, metrics (although we cover those too :) ). Instead were going to start with what we think matters most to marketers how to use Google Analytics to help my business to perform better.
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
How is this guide structured?

Here are the highlights of each of the 7 Steps Step 1. Setup and customization - we start our guide with a section reviewing setup of a site since we find many companies fail to tailor it to their business. We also show you how to setup Google Analytics from scratch. Step 2. Campaign tracking understanding the effectiveness of your campaigns sending traffic to your site starts with tagging them right, here we show you how. Step 3. Working with report s to find opportunities and problems now we get down to the business of improving results showing you how to use the reports in a smarter way Step 4. Understanding visitor types marketing is all about understanding and meeting the needs of customers, so we show how you can understand your customer behaviours better
Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

The final steps of the guide look at how you can review your analytics in depth to market better Step 5. Improving reach expanding your audience and driving more visitors and customers to your site Step 6. Improving journeys and site engagement engaging visitors with content and getting them on the path to purchase Step 7. How can we improve conversion? We look at techniques to boost conversion for all types of site.
Increasing Visitor Value the key to improving business success with Google Analytics
r Q. Have we reviewed how we can create more business value? Before we get to the first step, wed like to introduce our approach to using Google Analytics. For us, you have to start with how youre using Google Analytics to improve results and for us this is all about value. You also have to be clear on your business goals and how you report performance. We have more advice in our 7 Steps to Goal-setting for digital marketing Guide. Strategy Recommendation 1 Ensure you can measure the business value created in your online marketing through Google Analytics Google Analytics has measures of value generated for all types of visitor, but you have to work hard to find them. When starting out with Google Analytics or any other web analytics tool, one of the very first questions you should ask is how does our website, our digital marketing generate value for our business? Your whole digital marketing strategy should be based on this, so its a great place to start defining or reassessing your approach. Show me the value! should also be the mantra when creating actionable summaries and dashboards within Google Analytics or your monthly reports. Value is THE measure that our senior colleagues who fund the investment in analytics and digital marketing activities can relate to. They want, need to see the return on this investment and page views and bounce rates just dont cut it... Ultimately what the CxOs and financial controllers care most about is profit generated by online activities. This is more readily available in some analytics systems if you can import cost data about each transaction, but most will enable you to show revenue if configured right.
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
Where to find the value in Google Analytics. Which measures?

In Google Analytics, its currently only possible to import cost data for Google Adwords, so the value across all of online marketing has to be shown in the form of revenue. But this is a big improvement on the the non-value related measures like visits, pageviews or conversion rate that are so often reported in dashboard summaries from analytics. Once youre reporting on value you can then start to find the value levers - which referring traffic sources, pages and conversion pathways are generating value and which arent so you can take action.

The 3 key value measures within Google Analytics The three main value measures in Google Analytics (aside from Adwords generated value which uses cost data) are: 1. $Index value. This show the influence of pages in generating value either through Ecommerce transactions or conversion goals with a value assigned. $Index value is available within the Top content reports. It shows you the influence of particular pages in generating value if they were part of the path to purchase on the site. So you will see that goal value pages or checkout pages always have the highest $Index value, but you can evaluate the relative influence of category or product pages within the journey too. Its calculated by summing Ecommerce Revenue + Total Goal Value divided by the number of Unique Pageviews for a given page in a visitor session as explained by this chart: 2. Per Visit Goal Value. If you have a value assigned to your conversion goals this shows you the Total Goal Value for your reports. Its reported within the Traffic Sources reports for Referring sites, Search Engines and Keywords, so its useful for comparing the value generated by other sites and your search campaigns. Its a little hidden since you have to select the Goal Set tabs within these reports. 3. Per Visit Value. You can see Per Visit Value measures within Traffic sources on the Ecommerce tab if you have Ecommerce tracking enabled. Because both of these are a little hidden, Id recommend surfacing them within custom reports which can also show variation in value generated across days or weeks - a handy application of custom reports. You can then compared actual value to target value if you have targets set.
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Step 1

r Q. Google Analytics customisation reviewed? You can certainly get a lot of value from reporting and analysis using the standard setup of Google Analytics and well show you how in this guide, but to really drive results for your business, youre much better off spending some time on customisation. Strategy Recommendation 2 Customise Google Analytics for your business Take time to review the customisation options so you can better understand user behaviour In this section, we will step you through different customisation options. You can use this guide for first time setup or reviewing an existing setup. We have a separate customisation audit template you can use to review customisation or you can work through the checkboxes in this section. Weve seen lots of companies where there hasnt been any customisation that can give problems of accuracy or mean that time is wasted, for example: Not setting up on-site search so you dont know how many are searching are for what. Not excluding ployees so these numbers skew reports (a particular issue for small companies with relatively few visitors) Not recording information about documents downloaded which can be important for business-to-business sites User interactions not recorded with interactive options like videos or application processed which dont involve a separate page being created Automatic alerts not setup so time wasted looking for significant changes With each passing month there are more customisation options available in Google Analytics, so I believe you really need a strategy of what to customise, particularly if there are several team members using the account. This section gives our recommendations on a customisation strategy based on consulting work I have done and typical usage of Google Analytics by attendees on training courses.
Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Finding problems and opportunities Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking
Understanding how Google Analytics can customise setup for different sites
Before we review the different customisation steps its useful to have an idea of how Google structures information. This diagram shows that its a tree-like structure:

1. Analytics account. This is most often used for a single business, even if it has multiple websites. If the business has different sites for different countries or a blog, then these are contained within the single account. It can be sometimes useful to setup different accounts for different country sites for a large business 2. Profile or web property. Profiles are specific to a site, e.g. a country site or part of a site such as a blog in a sub-folder typically. Users are given access at this level and different Google Analytics features are applied at this level, so its worth thinking through the options for different groups of users. Best Practice Tip 1 Consider features you want to setup for different groups of users at the profile level Users are assigned access to Google Analytics reports and features at a profile level, so its worth planning the common features they need like Advanced Segments and Custom Alerts. 3. Filter. Filters can be applied to include or exclude data to a single profile or multiple profiles as shown in the diagram above. The most common uses of filters are: to exclude employee site access from statistics to limit data reported to part of a site, such as a subfolder for a blog or product category to add information about the domain name to reports when the same tracking code is used across several sites which will make it difficult to distinguish between pages with common names on different profiles. Here is a summary of the most common ways you will use these features to customise Google Analytics: Scope Account Typically one company with one or more web properties Main customisations available Time zone
Improving reach Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
Data sharing Account id has common 8 digits X UAXXXXXXXX-Y plus each web property is unique because of additional id Y Goals, funnels, on-site search are setup at this level. User customisations like Advanced Segments, Annotations and Custom Alerts are applied at this level
Improving journeys and site engagement
Profile
Different report scope, typically for different company sites in Google Analytics. Each web property has one or more profiles.
Filter
Include or exclude certain types of traffic to one or more profile
Include information for single site or part of site. Exclude employees
So, thats our overview of the way Google reports information for different parts of the site. Now lets look at the different customisation or setup steps we recommend.
Step 1. Create New Account / Review account settings

r Q. Set or reviewed time zone and data sharing settings for the account? Account creation is relatively straightforward if you have a single site or a limited number of sites operating in a single country. But you should pause for thought at this point if you are using Google Adwords. In the unlikely situation that you are not using Google Analytics with Adwords its best to create your Google Analytics account through Google Adwords so that tracking is linked. To create an account, simply click the + New Account button from the Account Administration Screen which you access using the cog button top right. Strategy Recommendation 3 Ensure your Google Analytics account is linked to Google Adwords correctly If youre using Google Adwords, it makes sense to create your Analytics account within Google Adwords account administration to link tracking. Note that Google Analytics inherits time zone settings from Adwords, so make sure those are set to your time zone. This is how you add a new account:
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
As you complete the New Account Administration Screen make sure you use these options:
Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.
If you want to review an account that has already been setup, view the Account Settings to

change the Account Name and Data Sharing settings. The other main type of setting is set for each profile. 1. Account name and website URL. These are self-explanatory, use the relevant brand names for clarity. 2. Time zone. Its important to select your local time zone for meaningful tracking of response through the day. As noted above, if your account is linked to Google Adwords this time zone will be used. You can also change this for each web property within your account. 3. Data sharing settings. We recommend that you select both of these options. Although it may suggest all data is shared, your site wont enable others to directly compare to your site its anonymous, meaning that the data is shared with other similar types of site within the sector. Best Practice Tip 2 Set up anonymous data sharing for benchmarking If you enable data sharing with Google and others, this will enable you to compare information with other sites using the benchmarking option. 1
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities
Step 2. Add tracking code to pages

r Q. Tracking code added (including domains and sub-domains if appropriate)? Google Analytics prompts you with the relevant tracking code to add to pages after you have created a new account. If youre using a content management or blogging system, its usually straightforward to include the identical tracking code in all page templates used on the site. However, its important to note at this point, that there are two versions of the Google Analytics tracking code. The current form of tracking, which is asynchronous tracking code was introduced in 2010 and is the default for sites which are newly tagged. If youre not using this, you should upgrade your site to this for page download speed improvements as recommended in the Google site migration guide. Strategy Recommendation 4 Consider updating your site to asynchronous tracking code Async tracking, as its known, makes it quicker for pages to download so you should plan to migrate to this if you havent as have many sites which were tagged before 2010. It may make sense to do this when there is a major refresh to your site. You can check the code you are using, by Viewings the Source and searching for trackPageview. The Async tracking codes start with _gaq.Push (); as shown in this example snippet of tracking code:
Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

1 Where to place the tracking code Before Asynchronous tracking was introduced, Google advised entering tracking code at the foot of the page. Now it is recommend that you include it at the top of page. Best Practice Tip 3 Insert tracking code at the top of the web page If youre using Asynchronous tracking, then this tracking code should be before the end of the </head> section of code. You can also review your recommended tracking code on the Advanced tab of the Account Name settings page:
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.
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Special case 1 for tracking code: If your site contains multiple domains or subdomains You can see from the screen and examples above, that if you have a single domain site then this is straightforward since there is a simple version of the tracking code. If you have multiple domains or subdomains, then this is a special case and then additional lines are added to the tracking code:
Strategy Recommendation 5 You need a special version of tracking code if you use subdomains or multiple top-level domains Check that if you have different sites that the correct versions of the tracking code are used. If you have multiple top-level domains that you want to share data for, its important to change the hyperlinks between sites and also add a filter to identify the separate domains for the case when file names are the same. For one domain with multiple subdomains, this line is added to the code: _gaq.push([_setDomainName, none]); and for multiple top-level domains (and subdomains): _gaq.push([_setDomainName, none]); _gaq.push([_setAllowLinker, true]); In this second case, you also have to changes links between sites and create a filter to show domain names - this is particularly important where pages such as the home page have the same name otherwise they will all be grouped together. NB. This is explained in subtle link given with Additional Steps1 - be sure to check your web developers have read this. Special case 2 for tracking code: Ecommerce tracking The reports summarising E-commerce transactions and revenue within Google Analytics require inclusion of additional tracking code on the checkout completion page specifying order and product information. Since this is a major step, but not relevant to all types of site we describe this in a separate step Step 9.
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach
Special case 3 for tracking code: custom variables

Custom variables are an advanced techniques which are used to store information about the type of visitors. We cover them in Step 10.
Step 3. Create profiles

r Q. Profiles reviewed? A Google Analytics profile will typically be used to produce reports limited to an individual site, subdomain or subfolder. To create new profiles you have to click on name of web property, here Account Name
1 https://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=175538&hl=en_ US&utm_id=ad
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Since there is a risk of making errors within data it is good practice to have a master profile to which no filters are applied. Best Practice Tip 4 Define common approaches for data integrity within each profile Each profile should have a master profile which has no filters applied, a test profile and a reporting profile. For users who are assigned a profile to review marketing activity there are these common assets that can be shared between multiple users at Profile level: Best Practice Tip 1 Best Practice Tip 2 Best Practice Tip 3 Advanced segments Annotations Custom alerts
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities
There is also a fourth type of asset, which is a Custom report, but these arent viewable within the Profile setup you have to select the custom report tab. Use of these assets should be reviewed in profile setup.
Understanding your visitors
Once a profile is created, there are additional optional setup stages including: Setting up on-site search Turning on Ecommerce tracking We will look at these as separate steps since we want to highlight the importance of creating filters to apply to the profile first, so that we are only collecting the data we need.
Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
Step 4 Create and apply filters

r Q. Filters reviewed? A Google Analytics filter is applied to modify data from one or more profiles so that it shows a subset of data within the profile. This can be created as an include or exclude filter. See Google Analytics Help on Filters. The most common uses of filters are: to exclude employee site access from statistics to limit data reported to part of a site, such as a subfolder for a blog or product category to add information about the domain name to reports when the same tracking code is used across several sites which will make it difficult to distinguish between pages with common names on different profiles.
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Excluding employees r Q. We have taken steps to exclude employees? This configuration is relatively simple if you have a single office IP address. You dont want visitors from a company skewing the results, so these should be excluded unless you want to artificially boost your visitor numbers and have difficultly understanding visitor behaviour. Single IP address Select Filter Manager Select exclude all traffic from IP address as follows: 1
2. Range of IPs A filter can also be created to exclude a range of IP addresses for company employees and contractors working in different offices. Use the IP address tool and instructions here2. 3. Exclude by cookie
Improving reach
Alternatively, if staff have a range of IP addressses or dynamic IP addresses when working out of the office, then setting a custom variable on a page used by staff only (e.g. Intranet home page or login page) can be used to update a cookie to filter staff out. Both strategies are explained below:
Google Analytics Help Excluding internal traffic / Employees
Step 5 Setup Goals and funnels

r Q. Goals and funnels setup to track business contribution? Well look at Google Analytics setup separately for transactional Ecommerce sites and other types of sites which dont dont have a checkout or application process. This is a detailed section since its so important to get this right. Goal-tracking for Ecommerce sites If youre running an Ecommerce site selling online, then the tracking in Google Analytics of sales transaction is almost always setup by the Ecommerce provider, although there are 2 http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55572
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often teething problems with accuracy or managing international sites.
If you need to know about Ecommerce tracking this is the relevant GA help page or feel free to ask questions online. For an Ecommerce site, your main goal is simple, its a sale registered through the checkout completion page. But thats the end of the funnel process, so you also need goals for other points in the funnel, for example: Browse products Search products Add to basket Start checkout Individual checkout steps These are sometimes known as micro-conversion steps. What is it? Micro-conversion An intermediate step on the path to purchase. Through improving micro-conversion rates we increase overall conversion rates. This graphic presented by retailer Koodos shows steps at different steps in the funnel nicely:
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach
This shows how this looks in Google Analytics:
Goal-tracking for non-Ecommerce sites

For non Ecommerce sites its more difficult to think of different goal types. As a result we often see that, theyre often not setup. But in the example belows will see that goals can and should be set for all types of site, including non-Ecommerce sites. Strategy Recommendation 6 Goals should be setup for all site types Visits to page types which indicate a visitor has engaged with your site (or brand) and progressed along the path to purchase should be setup for all types of site.
Q. What is a goal in Google Analytics?

A goal is a record of a page you specify being viewed which shows that a visitor has engaged with your website showing interest in your products and services.
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Google Analytics originally included just 5 goals per profile, but currently 20 are available and they can be grouped. Since you can group goals in Google Analytics, we recommend you group your goals in a logical way. This example shows one suggestion for a grouping. Best Practice Tip 5 Group your Google Analytics goals Logical grouping of goals will help when you review them. 1
Q. Why do I need to setup goals in Google Analytics?

I find that often, goals arent set in Google Analytics since they do require some configuration. So it will need some time to set them up. How do you justify this? For us, setting up goals in Google Analytics is indispensable for any business looking to get the most from their digital marketing since you can: Go beyond measuring visits to events happening on the site that show that customers have engaged with your business Track the value the site is generating for your business from these events See which traffic sources youve invested marketing in give rise to these goals Review which content types and customer journeys on the site are helping achieve the goals
Q. Which types of goals can we use?

Different goal types to consider which are shown in the example above are prompted by these questions: Q. Do we have goals for Email communications r Q. Contact Us thank you page goal? r Q. Lead-generation thank you page goal?
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Q. Do we have site engagement goals r Q. Time on site engagement goals? r Q. Pages viewed engagement goals? These are a special class of Google Analytics goal where you can set hurdle rates for engagement. 1 Best Practice Tip 6 Set hurdle rates for engagement Hurdle rates are the proportion of customers or prospects that fall within a particular level of activity. For example, the percentage of members of an e-mail list that click on the e-mail within a 90-day period, or the number of customers that have made a second purchase.
Q. Do we have top of funnel product engagement goals? If you can encourage site visitors to view product-related pages theyre closer to buying, so you should assess the success of the site in getting visitors to these types of goals r Q. Product search page viewed? r Q. Category page viewed? r Q. Product page viewed?
Understanding your visitors Finding problems and opportunities
How easy it is to set these up will depend upon the URL structure used as part of the sites specification. As an example, if product pages include /product_id or products they will be relatively easy to identify within a goal
Q. Social engagement or participation goals Encouraging participation helps social proof of new visits. Goals in this category to set or track include: r Blog comments r Product comments, reviews and ratings r Favouriting or sharing of pages through social bookmarking r Linking through to social presence like Facebook, Twitter or Linked In
Improving journeys and site engagement Improving reach
Q. Do we have checkout process goals? The need for goals for checkout may be obvious but are often not setup since Ecommerce sales can be tracked without goals being setup. But goals are essential to create a purchase funnel. r Q. Add to basket goal? r Q. Start checkout goal? r Q. Intermediate steps as part of checkout process, e.g. credit card payment? r Q. Checkout complete goal?
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Best Practice Tip 7 Use Virtual Page Views to record Add to Basket Goals or social engagement Oftentimes, and following best practice, sites are designed such that adding a product to a basket dynamically updates a basket showing the product added. Since no new page view is produced these cant be tracked as a goal. You may think that Google Analytics Eventtracking could be used for tracking these Add-to-baskets and youd be right, but events can be tracked as goals.
Q. Have we included offline events?

r Offline events included?
Campaign Tracking
Up to this point, we have reviewed online events. But dont forget value events such as sales generated by phone numbers. You should aim to track these through using unique phone numbers, perhaps for different parts of the site. Best Practice Tip 8 Track offline sales Remember to take into account telephone sales influenced by the website when assessing a sites contribution to a business. Q. Have we assigned value to our goals? r Value assigned to goals? Once you have worked out which are the best goals for you, the next step is to assign a monetary value to them. As well see in the next section, if you set a value youll then be able to report the value your site is generating to your colleagues, even if its a non-commercial site! Youll also be able to compare how good your different traffic sources or pages are at generating value so you can boost the good value sources and fix the poor ones. Setting the precise value is difficult, but its not that important for comparing relative value. The best way to set a value is to work back from a business event which you can put a value on. For example, if youre looking to set a value for Add to Basket, you know that the average order value is $100 and that if conversion from Add to Basket to Sale is 10%, then you would set the Add to Basket conversion goal at $10. Similarly, if youre setting a value event for a lead such as a brochure or PDF download and you know the value of each lead on average is $100, then set this at that level. If youre not sure what value to set, as with an enewsletter signup, then we recommend setting it to a nominal value of $1 if you want to include that in a value calculation, but you may not in this case since you cant really attribute it to business value. Customisation instructions assigning value to your conversion goals To assign value to conversion goals you should again go to Analytics Settings and then assign the value? Relevant Google Analytics Help page: GA Help page
Worked example of goal setup for a Google Analytics page

Lets bring all these ideas together with an example. Lets take the example of a brochure download, here you simply specify the thank you page address, give the goal a name and your goal is set up. Many will do this, but often not set a value against it based on the conversion of brochure
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downloaders to sale and average order value. How to setup goals the right way Weve seen many cases when goals arent setup the right way, although the form is quite straightforward. Here are the three steps for goal setup we recommend and our tips of the common traps to avoid. 1
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach
First Step. Enter Goal information. R Goal name. Straightforward, but be as explicit as possible to make it obvious to others what it refers to, so dont make it too short. R Active Goal. Again straightforward, set to On for goal information to be collected R Goal Position. Choose from one of 4 sets as shown in the example at the start of this topic. It helps to plan goals and group them logically as the example above shows. I have often seen that goals grow organically if this doesnt occur. R Goal Type. This will usually be the default of the URL destination like the thank you page after the page has been downloaded Second Step. Goal details. This is where it starts getting tricky and where mistakes are commonly made, so think this through carefully.
Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.
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Here are some of the fields to pay particular attention to on the goal setup form.
Match Type. This tells Google Analytics to record a goal for a condition when the page viewed by the site visitor matches your goal URL. Several options are available here to give you flexibility to match a single URL which is most common for a thank you page after a form submission or a range of pages such as product pages. Generally, you are best to avoid the Exact match option since this could exclude pages, for example with additional tracking parameters in the URL query string to a landing page. Instead, use a head match which will include the first part of a URL and page name, but if there are other parameters such as ?campaign_id=email then the page will still be included. Remember that, confusingly the match type also effects what the URLs for the third step of the goal funnel, so check what you chose works here also. Goal URL. For a thank you page this will simply be the web address of the landing page. If you want to include several pages within a head match, it could be the first part of the URL, for example, http://domain.com/category-pages. Including a trailing slash page/ can exclude URLs without a trailing slash, so its best not to include this to capture all goals. Case Sensitive. Generally it is best to avoid the case sensitive option since this may exclude some pages. Goal Value. This is often not set, but as we have explained, its best to apply it for major goals such as leads from brochure downloads since it will five you an idea of the differences in value generated through different traffic sources (through the Goal Value per Visit metric) and different page types (through the $Index value metric). Ideally, you should base the value on a known calculation of conversion rate from lead to sale with an average order value. Even if this isnt possible, setting a lead goal to an arbitrary value of 10 can be useful to understand value. Setting the precise value is difficult, but its not that important for comparing relative value. The best way to set a value is to work back from a business event which you can put a value on. For example, if youre looking to set a value for Add to Basket, you know that the average order value is $100 and that
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if conversion from Add to Basket to Sale is 10%, then you would set the Add to Basket conversion goal at $10. Similarly, if youre setting a value event for a lead such as a brochure or PDF download and you know the value of each lead on average is $100, then set this at that level. If youre not sure what value to set, as with an enewsletter signup, then we recommend setting it to a nominal value of $1 if you want to include that in a value calculation, but you may not in this case since you cant really attribute it to business value. Third Step. Goal funnel Here you enter a series of up to 10 URLs to explain the number of a steps in a conversion process such as check out. If you have more than 10 steps you may as well give up and go home, but it does happen... In a brochure download, contact us or enewsletter signup page, this is relatively straightforward. You need to specify a single URL which is the signup form page, so simply specify this URL. The only complexity is the Required Step check box. This is usually left unchecked, but you can use it if you only want to show visitors that included this point in the funnel. It is most commonly used to make the first step in the funnel mandatory. But confusingly checking Required Step doesnt affect the number of goals recorded, only the funnel visualisation. Mistakes to watch out for As a summary of the common errors we have made, here are common mistakes to avoid: Gotchas 1. The match type also applies to the funnel, so take care if using exact match. Gotchas 2. Not actually referencing for URL correctly, so start with /<page> Gotchas 3. Including a trailing slash / can exclude URLs without a trailing slash, so its best not to include this to capture all goals. Gotchas 4. Missing/wrongly assigning goal value. You know were keen on assigning values to key goals. Gotchas 5. Required step may exclude some behaviour e.g. entry deeper into funnel and cause confusion in the funnel visualisation.
Step 6 Setup tracking for interactions and goals that dont involve a page view using Event tracking, Event Goals and Virtual Page Views
r Q. Options reviewed for monitoring interactions and goals that dont involve a page view? We have shown how goals are used to record outcomes where an action is completed such as completing a brochure download form or checkout which involves a page being viewed.
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While this works fine for these types of interaction, there are many different types of interaction a user may have on a site when they engage with a site where there isnt a page served to tell us about the interaction. Strategy Recommendation 7 Review tracking of additional interactions of a user with a site that dont involve page views To truly understand user behaviour and the effectiveness of your communications on the site you have to record other significant user interactions. Check that you are using event tracking or virtual page views to do this. For example, we may have goals involving: A stage in an application process for which there is no corresponding page since the content on an existing page is refreshed An item is added to the shopping basket Video or rich media interactions PDF downloads or emails from mailto: links on pages Outbound or external links. In fact, there are many more types of interaction its useful to measure: here is a checklist:
Finding problems and opportunities Campaign Tracking
Checklist tracking interactions and goals that dont involve a page view
Here we list 17 different interactions which you should consider measuring, they cover different types from blog to retail sites. Interaction with rich media r 1. Video plays and duration. The original example in Google. A subtle benefit of creating events is that when you trigger an event within code the visit is no longer counted as a bounce, which is appropriate since the user has engaged. For example, a video on a landing page with traffic on Adwords its important to know if someone engages with the ad. r 2. A carousel with different panels as often used on home pages. With event tracking, you now know which options are popular since you can fire an event when theyre viewed or the panel is clicked upon. Interaction with navigation r 3. Identifying engagement with different navigation elements linking to the same page. For example, if you have a link to a page in the top nav and an editorial hyperlink within copy to the same page, you cant isolate which is gaining you the most clicks through a In-page Analytics overlay or navigation summary (although you could append tracking to the query string this isnt a great idea since then you cant review top content page views so readily. r 4. Tabbed navigation options. When a landing page has a tabbed widget event-tracking has to be used to see who is clicking on which tab. Response to call-to-action r 5. Buttons and links vs banners. For example, in our right sidebar we have a link to Econsultancy in different formats and through Event tracking I know that the MPU format gets 70%+ of the links, so thats what I should optimise.
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Social sharing and user-generated content r 6. Share button for page. The different networks an item is shared through a widget like AddThis.com can be recorded. r 7. Join a social network button. Our example at the start of the article. r 8. Product or article star reviews or ratings. Register an event when these are clicked and add the product name or SKU to the event label. r 9. Comments on a blog. Simple! r 10. Document downloads. If you are offering Word or Powerpoint documents for download for example. r 11. PDF downloads An important one for professional B2B sites offering many PDF downloads. Again you can write the item downloaded as a label for the event. r 12. Mail To Links Not so important for most, Ive grouped this here since often included in scripts to make it easier to track PDFs. Usually an additional script is required for tracking downloads and outbound links. This was originally implemented through generating additional or virtual page views, but care has to be taken that these dont contribute to the overall event title. Here are two of the best established options for recording these events3 Ecommerce processes Last, but not least, we have: r 13. Add-to-basket Crucial for retail sites of course, this can now be analysed as an Event goal, so session Add-to-Basket conversion can be recorded more readily in the new version. r 14. Steps in a checkout when page addresses arent updated since the same pages is updated dynamically. As in the example above where there was an application quote with pages with the same address. r 15. Login button This is particularly useful when linking to a domain tracked separately since this would be recorded as a bounce even though someone has engaged. r 16. Form field abandonment You can trigger an event when a user interacts with each new field showing our far they have progressed through the form. r 17. Form-field error messages These can be written to an Event with a label. Options for tracking non-page outcomes 1 Event tracking r Q. Have we reviewed options for event tracking? Within Google Analytics, Events apply to interactions with content made by visitors, so if they are setup, they are found within the Content reports section of Google Analytics. What is it? Event tracking A method of tracking user interactions when they click on links or buttons within Google Analytics.
3 http://gaaddons.com/ and http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/auto-tracking-filedownloads-outbound-links/

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When you use events, its worth being aware of these implications: When an event is recorded a visit will not be recorded as a bounce. Take the example of a visitor hitting a landing page and then playing a video tracked as an Event. Without Event tracking this would be tracked as a bounce, but its not with Event tracking which is right since the user has engaged with the site. Its useful for Adwords if youre sending visitors to a landing page where a video is played. Another useful application is when a visitor clicks a log-in button that takes them to another company site which is tracked independently. In the previous version of Google, Events couldnt be recorded as Goals since no page specification was possible. In the new version this is possible as described in the next section on Event Goals. There is still the limitation that Events cant be used as funnel stages though. In this case youre still best using virtual page views which are described in the following section. The Google documentation shows that Event Tracking can be specified with different parameters to the _trackEvent() method values of which then appear in the Analytics Reports interface under content. Here is an example, where on Smart Insights we used Events to track the relatively popularity and growth of shares to social networks through the buttons at the bottom of this panel. Best Practice Tip 4 Categories (required) Here, the top level grouping of events Social Media related to social media interactions with the site Best Practice Tip 5 Best Practice Tip 6 Actions (required) Here External link Event labels (optional) The type of link clicked, in this case Twitter
Best Practice Tip 7 Values (optional) Not used in this case, but could be used to record the value of an item added to a shopping basket for example
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Using this approach enabled us to see which is popular through Google Analytics heres how theyre shown in the new (in 2011) Google Analytics:
Clicking on the category of social media then shows the breakdown of different events.
Understanding your visitors Improving reach
To create an Event that will be recorded in Google Analytics, is relatively straightforward. It involves taking the hyperlink reference and adding a Javascript onClick function which has a specific order of parameters as shown above, i.e. Categories (required) Actions (required) Event labels (optional) Values (optional) In our example, we are just using the first 3 parameters: <a href=http://www.twitter.com/smartinsights title=Follow us on Twitter onClick=_gaq.push([_trackEvent, Social media, External link, Twitter]); >Follow us on Twitter</a> Adding the event to the HTML code of a site can sometimes be made within a Content Management system if it is a simple link within the body copy of an article, but if its part of code on the server it may need an IT request to make it. This is a further example from Google help:
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<a href=# onClick=pageTracker._trackEvent(Videos, Play, Baby\s First Birthday);>Play</a> In this case, the reports for Events would display Videos as the Category, Play as the Action, and Babys First Birthday as the Label. You can read more on the technical implementation in the Google Documentation4. Options for tracking non-page outcomes 2 Event goals r Q. Have we reviewed event goals? Event goals are a new feature introduced into Google Analytics in the 2011 interface revision which enable events to be recorded as Goals; a previous limitation. This is helpful in situations such as recording PDF downloads or Shopping Cart Adds as a goal you want to report on both common situations. Be aware though, that you still cant use events as part of a funnel, in that case you will still have to use our third option of Virtual Page Views.
Finding problems and opportunities Campaign Tracking
What is it? Event goals Event goals are a specific class of goals where an Event which doesnt generate a page view on a site, such as a PDF download are assigned to a Goal with a value if required. To record an event you have already setup as a goal is straightforward. As the screengrab below shows, Google has added a fourth goal type Event to its goals creation form. When you select Event, it gives you the opportunity to enter the group or specific you want to be recorded as a goal The method of setting up Event Goals is very flexible in that you can specify an individual goal with a label or a group of goals indicated by an Action or Category. Thats what we have done here by selecting a category of social media this includes all visits to different social media sites from our sites, so grouping them together.
You can also attach a value associated which the goal. For example, you may want to assign a PDF download a nominal value of 1 so that you can then see which media and pages are contributing as assists to generate this value. Options for tracking non-page outcomes 3 Virtual page views r Q. Have we reviewed options for virtual page views? 4 http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/eventTrackerGuide.html - top
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We have seen that Event tracking has some limitations which make it difficult to visualise funnels. For this reason many still prefer to use Virtual Page Views (VPVs). What is it? Virtual page views A page view is simulated within Google Analytics for an interaction with the site that doesnt naturally create a page view. To create Virtual Page Views (VPVs) requires a similar approach to creating an Event. They can be created by calling the Google Analytics _trackPageview function which is part of the code snippet on every page when a page is loaded.
Campaign Tracking
Using our example from Event tracking, we can track a click on our link to Twitter using: <a href=http://www.twitter.com/smartinsights title=Follow us on Twitter onClick=_gaq.push([_trackPageView, /Social_media/External link/Twitter]); >Follow us on Twitter</a> When a site visitor clicks on these links, this will create a new page view using this folder structure. One limitation, or rather feature of virtual page views you need to be aware of is that these will inflate your page view figures. In this example this is misleading since a page isnt being viewed rather a link is being clicked. However, when a visitor downloads a file like a PDF you may consider that the PDF download is equivalent to a page view. Best Practice Tip 8 If you use Virtual Page Views be aware of the impact on increasing page views to the site You may choose to remove additional page views using a filter in conjunction with different profiles if you feel they are misleading If this is a concern then you will have to create a separate profile with a filter to applied to include these.
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach
Step 7 Setup users and personalised reporting features

Setting up user access r Q. User access setup? Once you have the core tracking features of your profile setup you should then setup access for different types of employees and agencies. There are two types of users: Users and Administrators. We recommend assigning all users to User level only unless they have been trained in managing profiles, filters, goals and funnels as described in earlier steps. The reason we recommend this is that is possible to delete all data or corrupt data collected if filters and profiles are not used correctly. In a smaller business though, where a single business owner, webmaster or marketer is managing the site then you will want to have full Administrator access, but take care with accessing the reports. You invite new users to use the system using the Users tab of the Profiles page as shown below:
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1 Setting up shared customised reporting assets r Q. Options for shared reporting for Google analytics users setup? Users can share different ways of customising reports for their organisations. This can help novice users take advantage of some of the more powerful features of Google Analytics which can be setup by power users. Strategy Recommendation 8 Give access to shared reporting assets for users To help get value from Google Analytics provide arrange for shared reporting techniques for different users.
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities
These shared reporting techniques include: Best Practice Tip 9 Advanced segments Best Practice Tip 10 Custom alerts (part of Google Analytics Intelligence) Best Practice Tip 11 Annotations These are accessed through the generically named Assets feature in Google Analytics:
Another shared reporting feature isnt listed here, but is shareable in a similar way. This is Custom reports. Well now look at these four options in turn: 1. Shared reporting option 1: Advanced Segments r Q. Advanced segments setup? Advanced Segments give a powerful way of identifying the behaviour and business contribution of different types of visitors from different sources. They are created for used on a single profile or can also be shared with other profiles when saved. We cover how these can be used in depth on Step 4 on Understanding Visitors and Step 5 Improving Reach. 2. Shared reporting option 2: Annotations r Q. Annotations setup? Annotations are feature introduced in 20105 overlaid on the graph on each report. For instance, you can show new campaigns, new content or new publicity and relate it to changes in traffic or conversion. 5 http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/01/annotations-now-available-in-all.html
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What is it? Annotations Annotations are ideal for overlaying a reminder of the start of new marketing activities to jog your memory or to share with colleagues.
The method of selecting annotations are subtle you have to be aware that the pull-down arrow at the base of the trend line can be clicked on to reveal the box for adding a new annotation:
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
So the steps to create an annotation are simply: Pull down the annotation editing box using the arrow at the base of the chart. Enter the date and comment Set to shared for other users in the profile, or Private just for you. To review annotations, simply click on them or pulldown the annotation bar. 3. Shared reporting option 3: Custom alerts (Google Analytics Intelligence) r Q. Custom alerts setup? Google Analytics Intelligence is a useful new feature introduced in the October 2009 Google Analytics update which looked helpful to combat the information overload from web analytics through alerts intended to provide automatic alerts of significant changes in the data patterns of your site metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly and monthly periods. What is it? Custom Analytics Intelligence The Intelligence feature of Google Analytics currently gives you automated or custom alerts of changes in visitors from different sources like an individual country, search engine or another site. While the automated intelligence alerts are useful, a lot of spurious reports can be generated, for example for a single city or country, unless you reduce the sensitivity which is worth experimenting with. Instead its best to setup some custom alerts and then you can be emailed when there is a problem.
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Strategy Recommendation 9 Setup Google Custom Alerts to save time and identify problems Create custom alerts to email you or colleagues about major problems or opportunities indicated by week-on-week or day-on-day changes
Examples of useful custom alerts are: All Traffic, Visits increase or decease of more than 10% week-on-week Natural Search overall or strategic keyword increase or decrease by more than 5% daily Paid Search increase or decrease by more than 5% daily. For example, Goal conversion rate decreases by 5% daily All traffic visits will be subject to daily spikes, for example when a newsletter is sent, so it makes sense to do a week on week comparison. You setup Custom alerts for each profile from the Assets tab. This example shows the most useful type of alert when you have a problem such as with traffic or conversion, you need to see when the value decreases by an amount compared to the same day over the previous week.
Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
4. Shared reporting option 4: Custom reports r Q. Custom reports setup? Custom reports enable you to produce different reports from the standard reports to customise them to your business. Strategy Recommendation 10 Create relevant custom reports for your business Custom reports are one of the best ways to make Google Analytics more actionable by applying reports to the way your business works. Here is an example of a simple custom report. Its purpose is to show engagement in different countries and then enables drilldown to see different further information about each:
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This report is created using this Edit form:
Features available in custom reports are:
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1. Tabs. Reports have separate tabs in which you can have separate reports with different information grouped for different people. 2. Metric Groups. Within each tab you can have additional reports or if you prefer groups of measures (New in the May 2011 version of Google Analytics) 3. Segments. The green-colour coded segments describe how you break down the data. In this example were breaking it down by Country Google Analytics is relatively limited in reports with this type of breakdown. 4. Drilldown through Explorer tables. Unlike many other reports in Google Analytics, in Explorer tables you can click on a row and then finding out more information through considering a different segment. In this case, we drill down by Keyword to find keywords used in each country. Alternatively you can use standard Flat Tables. 5. Filters. You can apply a filter, for example to just look at data for a visitor segment, for example first time visitors, individual countries, etc (May 2011 version of Google Analytics). The choice is similar to that which you have for Advanced Segments. 6. Sharing custom reports. They can be shared amongst other profiles by using the Sharing button at the bottom of the edit page. 7. Migrating previous reports. You have to migrate existing reports to the new (May 2011 version of Google Analytics) Types of custom reports
Often, the biggest challenge with custom reporting is thinking through the right type of report. Here are some reports to consider which arent readily available in the main reports of Google Analytics: 1. Time reporting. Use a dimension of week/month to compare performance over time more easily 2. Value reporting. Report the value of different contributors: Keywords Landing pages Product categories Countries
3. Role-based reporting. Setup different tabs for different types of people or marketing activity This post by Google Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik may also inspire further ideas for custom reports6.
Step 8 Setup on site search (if relevant)

r Q. On-site search setup? 6 http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2010/02/leverage-custom-web-analytics-reports-insights. html
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On-site search is relevant to most sites. On site search reports on searches performed in the search box on your site. This is not setup as often as would be expected in my experience, But it is usually easy you simply specify the search parameter which is a text string used to tell the search engine what the query term is. For example, my sites use the Google custom search engine which like Google.com uses the search parameter q. Once you have on-site search setup you will be able to access the report from the Content Menu. 1
We have more information on how to use this in our Site Design 7 Steps Guide and in Step 7 of this guide.
Step 9 Setup on Ecommerce setup (if relevant)

r Q. Ecommerce tracking setup (if relevant)? Although this is a crucial step for transactional sites, many sites wont include this, so its an optional step. Two main actions are necessary to track an Ecommerce site: 1. Tell Google to enable Ecommerce reports. This is achieved through profile settings for each profile:
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2. Add special Ecommerce tracking code to the transaction completion page. This tells Google Analytics when the order was placed and the items that were ordered and their value so that the transaction information can be included in the Ecommerce reports of Google Analytics.
If you are coding this or inserting manually (e.g. for event tracking), in addition to the standard tracking code, the order details _addTrans() and line item _addItem() Javascript func-
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tions need to be included on the page as in this example from Google7
If you are managing an international Ecommerce site then there is a limitation to be aware of if using profiles to report transactions for an individual country. You cant use filters for transactions as you can for pages. So instead, you have to filter with affiliation or Order ID by writing a unique identifier for each country to that field. Alternatively you can choose to create a separate Google Analytics account for each country and then create an aggregate rolled-up account using a separate web property id. You also need to consider how currency will be treated in Google Analytics since the information is only recorded as a number, not in a particular denomination. If you want to report in a single currency, then you will need to convert to this currency before writing the value to the page. If this issue is important to you, we recommend review of these 3 options by Google. You can see that each method has its own limitations8.
Step 10 Setup custom variables

r Q. Custom variables setup?
Custom variables apply to Visitors, so they are found within the Visitor reports section if they have been implemented. In our experience they are rarely used since they need careful consideration to see how to best use them and need to be implemented on the server requiring input. That said, custom variables are powerful since they enable us to learn more about visitor characteristics. For example, how does customer behaviour differ from non-customer. What are the demographics of different users? Care must be taken not to store information about individuals, since this is against Googles terms of service for privacy purposes.
7 http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/asyncMigrationExamples.html 8 http://conversionroom.blogspot.com/2010/03/google-analytics-reporting-for_10.html
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Strategy Recommendation 11 Use custom variables to find out more about customers Custom variables enable you to distinguish between customers with different characteristics rather than treating all visitors as anonymous. Options for setting these variables include: Customer vs non-customer Different customer segments or demographic profile variables like male or female or membership levels for a membership site. Segmenting visitors according to landing page. Recording referral source attribution. Categorising different content types Custom variables were originally specified through a call to a function called _setVar, but are set through _setCustomVar. This post gives the relevant function specification from Google.9
Campaign Tracking
They are most often used for defining specific segments based on the profile detail identified through a form or consuming particular content. This post from US analytics specialist E-Nor gives great detail on how a retailer can review different customer types.10
9 http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingCustomVariables.html 10 http://www.e-nor.com/blog/index.php/web-analytics/google-analytics-gift-to-humanitymultiple-custom-variables/
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Step 2
Campaign tracking
r Q. Marketing campaign setup reviewed? Today there is an incredible range of different media that can be bought online and offline. From traditional TV and print ads to Google Adwords ads and video ads there is no shortage of choice. Ideally, to check the return on investment in your promotional efforts, these need to be reviewed for effectiveness. Although digital media have been called the most measurable ever extra effort is still required to setup campaign tracking. Defining a standard set of online marketing source codes is essential to determining the value of different referral sources such as ad campaigns or email campaigns. Strategy Recommendation 12 Set standard marketing source codes for use in reporting Through using standard marketing source codes you can get a much better idea of where to focus your marketing campaign spend. What does Google track by default? When you select the Traffic Sources overview, you get a good idea of what Google Analytics can tell you about traffic sources. 2
out the type of marketing which is sending or referring visits to your site:
The four main traffic sources reported at this level in Google Analytics are: Search traffic This groups both natural and paid search (Adwords) Referral traffic This is traffic from other sites which have direct links to your site Direct traffic Direct traffic results from URL type ins, bookmarks or when email marketing isnt tracked. Campaigns Campaigns include Adwords when linked to the Google Account and any other campaigns like affiliates, display ads and email campaigns when these have had marketing campaign tags attached. Google Analytics gives you good search campaign tracking by default. Most companies using
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Adwords will track it through its automated integration enabled from Google AdWords. This reports on paid search and your natural search is tracked also by default and you will see these when you select incoming sources. Both of these forms of search marketing can be reviewed through advanced segments. You can get more detailed tracking information on campaign source in Google Analytics by adding additional marketing source codes. Heres how.
Using Google Analytics marketing source codes

r Q. Marketing source codes used in Google Analytics? To track other (non-search) campaigns requires you to use a standard notation which needs to be defined and then added to all links involving media placements or campaigns.
Campaign Tracking
Google Analytics uses 5 standard dimensions for a campaign which need to be incorporated into the query string of the URL for each ad placement as this example shows: http://www.domain.com/landing_page.php?utm_campaign=spring-sale&utm_ medium=banner&utm_source=handbag.com The campaigns report in Google Analytics will then enable you to compare media. The table explains each of these 5 dimensions which refers to this example: Variable utm_campaign Recommended utm_medium Required What is the distribution method that is used to get our message out to our clients? Who are you partnering with to push your message. A publisher such as handbag.com, or for paid search, Google, Bing, etc The version of the ad (used for A/B testing) or in AdWords. You can identify two versions of the same ad using this variable. This is not always used and is NOT included in the above example. The search term purchased (if the link refers to keywords). This is not always used and is NOT included in the above example. Explanation The name of the marketing campaign, e.g. Spring Campaign. Media channel (i.e. email, banner, CPC, etc).
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
utm_source Required utm_content Optional utm_term Optional
To understand the way this works, we recommend you use the Google URL Builder11 that can help with creating these links. Best Practice Tip 12 Use the Google URL builder and spreadsheets to create campaign source codes Use the URL builder to setup campaign tracking on one-off campaigns. For more regular activity, use a spreadsheet to automatically create the URL strings. For other types of vendor tools used to create and manage campaigns, the marketing source codes can be added automatically if you enable this option. This is worth researching when 11 http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578&cbid =t375m2oo67as&src=cb&lev=topic
37 Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing
you get new systems or ask your existing providers of support for: Afiliate marketing Display advertising Email marketing Social media marketing To summarise this section, this is our summary of how campaign tracking codes can be used these are only suggestions campaign, content and term are flexible with how they can be used. Digital media channel Medium Source (Site name) Search engine name Search engine name Campaign Content Term
Campaign Tracking Setup and customisation
(Media channel) Natural search Organic (label within segments) Paid search cpc
(Campaign name) Not used Not used
Adwords campaign name
Ad version
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate mar- Affiliate keting network, aggregator or voucher site Display adver- Display ad- Ad network tising vertising or publisher name Email Marketing Email marketing Email type, e.g. Enewsletter, Triggered, Social media marketing Offline campaigns r Q. Offline campaigns tracked? Campaign Social media Social network name
Referring site
Offer
Search term used by user User search or Search term triggering ad Product
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
Campaign name
Campaign name
Ad placement or testing version Location of link in email or offer if testing Offer?
Ad identifier
Subject Line
Campaign name
Name of message
To track offline campaign effectiveness ideally requires use of a specific campaign URL within offline communications like Print or TV ads. Some will argue that this isnt worthwhile since so few use the URL. But we would argue that its still worthwhile since: You get a good idea of the relative effectiveness of campaigns It stops offline media being grouped within the Direct category There are several choices with which URL to use, here are the advantages and disadvantages:
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1. The standard home page address. Example: http://www.domain.com This is a common approach by advertisers since its the simplest. The main disadvantage from a measurement point-of-view is that there is no way to directly track this. Although you can review an increase in direct traffic arriving at this URL through a segmented landing page report. From a marketing point-of-view this also has the disadvantage that their is no value indicated in the URL to encourage the clickthrough So for a major campaign its best to avoid this, but many marketers argue that its their preferred method since it gets the primary URL in the prospects mind and so few remember and type the URL anyway. I would argue that it will be less effective since the design of most home pages will make it difficult for the users to find the offer, so conversion rate will drop. Campaign landing pages are more effective. 2. Static campaign specific URL. Example: http://www.domain.com/<campaign-name> The use of a campaign URL (CURL) is a common approach, where a promotional URLs or so-called vanity URL is used in offline Print ad, Direct Mail and TV campaigns to make it easy for the customers to fulfil the offer. Best Practice Tip 13 Encourage use of vanity URLs through a specific offer Use a value offer within the campaign URL to encourage type-in and make it memorable. For example, freememory for a computer retailer. Example: http://www.domain.com/<value-offered> 3. Redirecting campaign specific folder URL with Google Analytics tracking codes Example: http://www.domain.com/<campaign-name> In this case, the URL is the same as the previous two examples, but the server setup is different. A 301 redirect should be created by the server administrator so that the visitor is automatically redirected to the landing page. The trick here to tracking is that when the redirect happens, the same campaign tracking codes format should be used as for other sources as explained in this post on online campaign tracking. As with digital campaign tracking, offline campaign tracking should use standard codes for medium, source and campaign name. The table explains each of the 5 dimensions referring to an offline campaign example: Variable utm_campaign Recommended utm_medium Required Explanation The name of the marketing campaign, e.g. Spring Campaign. For an offline campaign this should be print, TV or direct mail
Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l. Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
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utm_source Required utm_content Optional utm_term Optional
Who are you partnering with to push your message. It will typically generic, such as magazine, unless you have a specific code for each publisher such as Forbes. Not usually used in offline campaigns, but could be used for offer code. Again not usually used in offline campaigns, but could be used for offer code.
This example of the server code for a print ad is taken from Brian Cliftons whitepaper and book listed below which I recommend for delving into the details. <VirtualHost> RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} .* RewriteRule .* http://www.mysite.com/?utm_source=magazine&utm_medium=print& utm_campaign=March%20print%20ad [R=301,QSA] </VirtualHost> Other sources to find out more about offline campaign tracking. 1. Brian Cliftons whitepaper on Tracking Offline marketing with Google Analytics is an adaptation of Chapter 11 from his book - AdvancedWeb Metrics with Google Analytics, second edition by Brian Clifton (Wiley 2010). Offline or multichannel tracking was also explained well by Avinash in his 2008 post: Multichannel Analytics: Tracking Online Impact Of Offline Campaigns. The core technique is to use a 301 redirect which appends a campaign code. He describes the example of http://www.dell.com/tv which redirects and appends a (non Google Analytics) tracking code referencing TV: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/tv?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&keycode=6Vc 94&DGVCode=TV&dgc=TV&cid=11510&lid=985367 4. Redirecting campaign-specific domain name The approach here is similar to the third approach, but this time a completely new campaign URL is used. For example, some time ago, insurer Aviva used the URL http://www.quotemehappy.com for its campaign that redirected to a landing page on the main site. We recommend a redirection since if a new separate domain is used, it can take the search engines a long-time to include in the index meaning that searchers look for the campaign name will be forced to use the paid search ad since there isnt a natural listing. However, if the campaign page is within an existing site it should naturally be at the top of the natural listings. Defining a standard set of online marketing source codes is essential to determining the value of different referral sources such as ad campaigns or email campaigns. The campaigns report in Google Analytics will then enable you to compare media.
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Step 3
Working with reports to find opportunities and problems

r Q. Methods of reviewing reports improved? This is a short step since Google Analytics is easy to use in comparison to many Analytics tools. Google also has an excellent animated tutorial on using the interface you can view. In this step well cover: A. Overview of reporting and working with data tables B. Selecting and comparing different time periods C. Using reporting Views including Pivots D. Using Filters or Searches to narrow results E. Using custom reports
A. Overview of reporting
Reports are where all the analysis action happens in Google Analytics. Its worth getting to know them well since there are a lot of short-cuts to save time and find opportunities where you should focus your efforts. A fair few changes were made to the reports in new 2011 version of Google Analytics, so we thought it would be helpful to summarise them in the context of what you scan on screen:
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Many of the features you will know, or they are self-explanatory, but there may be some you do not know about. We find 2, 8, 10, 12 and 18 arent used so much because you have to seek them out. Here is our summary of how to use the different report elements highlighting tips to get the most from each. Feature 1 Purpose Tips
Date selector Select fixed periods of weeks or months or custom periods. Explorer report: Select report types Report variation in dimension by site usage or commercial performance (goals or Ecommerce).
We have more information below on how to use this for time period comparison below. This is a good short cut to see which dimensions are. NB. New. For some reports: Pages, Landing pages there is an additional choice of report type that is useful for analysis of an individual page (Navigation Summary and Entrance Paths).
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Feature 3 Summary measures
Purpose
Tips
7 8
9 10
11
12
13 14 15
16
17 18
These are the headline figures Watch the % variations between periods for this report. when you have comparison selected. Also compare to site averages when an individual page or referrer is selected. Trendline Performance of the primary You can compare the primary measure measure for the table. to another using the Compare metric option 6. Graph mode Apart from the standard Line Motion charts work best for interpretachart, this also offers the Mo- tion over a longer period of week or * New tion chart or X-Y format. month. Compare Select from the list to compare Often useful to compare volume against metric to another measure engagement, in this case to bounce rate. Graph By Used for selecting Day, Week Week and month are best for evaluating or Month long-term trends. Annotations Add annotations as personal Examples might be campaign start date reminders or to share with col- or changes to AdWords accounts. leagues Viewing The primary dimension can be For example can change to medium in changed. this example. Secondary This inserts an additional col- For us, the pivot table arguably gives a dimension umn for you to break down the better visualisation for this. primary dimension further. Search Filters the results to those Think of this as a filter. Can be useful to matching criteria. find opportunities for example, highest volume pages with the highest bounce rate. View Changes from the standard We think the Pivot table is the most table view to graphical or pivot useful alternative view. Comparisons views. and pie-charts can be useful though. Page selector Scroll through the pages Best to increase Show rows 19 when reviewing Pages or Keywords. Measures The measures reported in the Click on the column heading to order by table. this measure. Select Plot Tick the boxes for these to be Useful for isolating problems pages or Rows. compared as line graphs using referrers. 18. New. Primary diDrilldown to get data with When reviewing Content clicking used mension same measures on this meas- to give details on this page, now you ure only have to select Navigation Summary from the Explorer area: 2. Measures in Measures listed in order of the Change column selection by clicking on table column selected. the column heading 14. Plot Rows. Plots the rows selected in 15. Useful for isolating problems pages or referrers. New
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Feature 19 20 Show Rows. Report page display number
Purpose Number of rows to display in table. Select the page.
Tips Best to use 50 or 100 for analysis of pages or keywords. Go to available, but we suspect this isnt used much.
Different types of reports If youre migrating from the Google Analytics old reports to the new reports we recommend using the Report Finder12.
B. Selecting different time periods

The most basic customisation you can do is to change the way default reports are displayed. For example, changing or comparing time periods or variables or the number of results displayed. Most readers will be doing this already because the system is intuitive and you have to use it for basic analysis. Changing time units. By default the time units are daily, but many managers want to see trends across weeks or months. To change these simply select the Graph By option on the right of the screen. 3
Using the calendar / time period options The calendar time period options are easy to use:
You can select the current month by clicking on the month above all the dates. Showing yearto-date takes a while though. You should also take care with todays date Best Practice Tip 14 Know how to show todays date
12 http://www.google.com/analytics/report-finder.html
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Unlike other systems, Google Analytics isnt a real-time system that displays information about current users straightaway. Instead there is a lag of several (around 3 hours), so for this reason Google doesnt show todays date. To display this you have to click on it within the time-selection widget.
If you need real-time analytics we recommend Chartbeat (www.chartbeat.com). Comparing time periods Comparing time periods is a breeze just select the Compare to past box and select the time period. But its always worth checking that each time period starts on the same day. Here its a Monday.
Campaign Tracking
C. Using reporting Views including Pivots

Finding problems and opportunities
We have separated Views as one of the main reporting features to learn about since weve found that many just go with the default data table view. But theres hidden gold in the different views and especially Pivots. You select Views using the option on the Right Side of the interface:
Lets have a quick look at each view and what it works best for: 1. Data. The default view, used for comparing different metrics in different columns 2. Percentage. Creates a pie chart for the primary measure. Tends only to be useful for referrers. 3. Performance. Presents a bar chart for the primary dimension. Also of limited value. 4. Comparison. After 1 and 6 this is the most useful of the data view options we think. 5. Term Cloud. Mainly of value for Keywords under Search. 6. Pivot. We this this is the most useful of the Data View Tool. A Secondary dimension is selected using the Pivot By Box. Best Practice Tip 15 Learn how to use Google Analytics Views and especially the Pivot view The Pivot view enables you to compare performance of different dimensions through breaking them down further.
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In this example we are pivoting by a secondary dimension of Country/Territory to better see the sources of traffic for the top keywords.
D. Using Filters or Searches to narrow results When working with reports, the Search option which is number 11 in the graphic at the start of this section is useful for zooming in on problem pages which are your opportunities. Best Practice Tip 16 Use Filters or Searches to identify opportunities The Search option enables you just to show the results for similar pages or keywords and then isolate the most important or those with scope for improvement. If such filters are used to select pages or referrers which are performing poorly since they have a high bounce rate or low value, then this can be combined with popularity to find the biggest opportunities. This example shows how The drop down box is used to select Pages containing the term dimension, effectively filtering on this. The blue box is used to filter on a value in this case the most popular pages.
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E. Using custom reports

The other type of report we wanted to flag up in this section are the customised reports you set up for your business. We describe these in the first Step under 4. Shared reporting option 4: Custom reports.
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Step 4
Understanding your site visitors

r Q. Behaviour and conversion of different visitor types reviewed? The best marketers put effort into understanding their customers behaviours, so at first glance, Google Analytics can be frustrating for marketing since there isnt an obvious report about customers. The closest we can get is visitors who seem anonymous and undifferentiated. Where is the information about our different segments you ask? In fact, Google Analytics provides great information on customer segments, but it requires a different way of looking at segments and you need to know where to look. The place to look is the Advanced Segments menu option in the top left of the reporting area. What is it? Advanced segments Different types of site visitors can be isolated to compare in their volume and quality to others. You can select from standard segments or define custom segments Common standard advanced segments you will use are: Visitor type new or returning Visitor source direct, paid or non-paid search Platform mobile platform This example shows how the standard or default segments can be presented to show paid and non-paid search traffic by ticking the Paid Search and Non-paid search traffic boxes. 4
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
Putting advanced segments to work

r Q. Opportunities of Advanced Segments reviewed? As with traditional customer segments, in Google Analytics, segments group visitors who share common characteristics. There are lots of characteristics of visitors that are collected by default by Google Analytics, from details about their browsers and screen sizes to the sites that they come from and the types of pages they view. The best way to think about most of these segments is as behavioural segments rather than demographic segments, although as well see, we can access demographic segments too. But the difficulty is knowing which segments are most relevant. If youre new to segments, this is the way we suggest you think about your segments.
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Well also show where to find information about these segments from the standard left sidebar navigation without accessing advanced segments. 1. Segmentation by Referrer / Traffic source (offsite customer behaviour) r Q. Behaviour and conversion by traffic source reviewed? For example, if you have campaign tracking setup, you can see how these visitor types differ in their journeys through the site and the value they generate: Email campaigns and enewsletters Social media sites (a custom segment of all social media sites or an individual site like Facebook) Affiliates
Display Direct traffic Search engine marketing Within Google Analytics the different types of referrer are known as the Medium and different sites are known as the Source. You can find these from the Traffic Sources menu.
By default the Source/Medium are shown together. Choose Medium to see more clarity through selecting Medium.
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Since search is such a major potential contributor for most sites, its laso important to break this down further using these segments: Paid search (standard segment Paid Search Traffic) Natural (standard segment Non-paid Search Traffic) or I sometimes setup a segment for Google SEO traffic since thats what matters most Paid and natural brand and non-brand keyphrases (Requires custom segment including or excluding keywords which contain variants of the brand). Its important to isolate brand searches since its the non-brand searches that are hardest to attract and most important to incremental business. Well show how to Setting up custom advanced segments shortly. Significant high volume phrases or terms including a significant keyword 4
2. Segmentation by Visitor Type (visitor with brand) r Q. Behaviour and conversion by visitor relationship? For example, common visitor types to segment are: New visitor vs returning visitor Non-registered vs registered visitor (requires use of custom variables) Non-customer vs customer (requires use of custom variables) Technology platform used, e.g. iPhone, Safari browser (see below) Through the main menu you can access New and Returning visitors from the Visitors, Behaviour tab:
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3. Segmentation by Location / Geography (Visitor characteristic) r Q. Behaviour and conversion by visitor location reviewed? A company will want to see how its performance varies in its main markets such as: UK US FIGS ROW Creating a custom report is often a better way to show this breakdown using the dimension Country/Territory. However, under the Visitors main menu there is also this option to get this visualisation of visitors by country: 4
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4. Segmentation by Content Viewed (on-site customer behaviour) r Q. Behaviour and conversion by content viewed reviewed? Visitors who have seen a particular page type may be more likely to buy, or you can understand related pages they view: Key landing page Product page Checkout complete Folders for large organisation 5. Segmentation by Landing Page Type (combination of off-site and on-site customer behaviour) r Q. Behaviour and conversion by landing page type reviewed? If you segment by landing page type, you can review forward paths from this point understanding the most popular type of content reviewed and how many visitors convert. You could argue this form of segmentation is pointless since the navigation summary could be used to find similar insights.
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Different types of landing pages you could use for this approach are: Adwords landing pages The home page Category pages Other significant entry pages Best Practice Tip 17 Review categories of content through a common string You can review behaviour across a page type such as all category pages, all pages within a category or all product pages by specifying a range of pages which contain the relevant string. 6. Segmentation by action taken conversion goals and E-commerce. (on-site customer behaviour) r Q. Behaviour and conversion by action taken reviewed? This is similar to segmentation by content viewed in that it highlights specific behaviours.
Finding problems and opportunities Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking
Segmentation by conversion types Segmentation by quantity purchased, i.e. > 1 7. Segmentation by value r Q. Behaviour and conversion by visitor value reviewed? This is a more classic segmentation technique used by email and direct marketers, but everyone will be able to see the benefit of identifying the source and customer journeys of your most valuable customers. Youll only be able to do this if you have setup Google Analytics to track value (see steps X and Y) for conversion goals and E-commerce. You will then create a custom segment showing visits where the value is above a certain value. 8. Segmentation by demographics r Q. Behaviour and conversion by demographics reviewed? Another segmentation approach marketers will be familiar with, but Ive left it to near the end since its tricky to setup. It requires you to use custom variables to record customers who have provided information about their characteristics such as: Age, Sex, Gender for business-to-consumer Business size, sector or person role type for business-to-user Youll only be able to do this if you have setup Google Analytics setting custom variables in the Google cookie when a visitor takes and action such as completing a form with profile information or similar to segment type 6, browsing a category, performing a search or buying a product. See Step 1 Setup custom variables. Note that you cant add the email address or any unique customer identifier which is personally identifiable information into this cookie otherwise you are breaking Google Analytics terms of service. If you dont want to do this, and you shouldnt, your only option is to use another analytics systems...
9. Segmentation by Engagement
r Q. Behaviour and conversion by engagement with site reviewed?
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For example, different levels of customer engagement with the site include: 5 pages <3 pages 10 seconds < 10 seconds This allows you to filter out more or less advanced segments. These can be setup as custom segments or using goals in the new (Oct 2009) Engagement segments and then created as a custom segments.
10. Segmentation by Technology platform (visitor device characteristics)

r Q. Behaviour and conversion by technology platform reviewed? Browser type and version Screen resolution Mobile platforms (for example iPhone, Blackberry and Android models) are available. Questions to ask: Are you supporting the observed users of browsers and screen resolutions (for example, it was common for sites not to support Firefox well, but today it may be Safari or Chrome. Are the number of mobile users significant? You can also review technology segments through the Visitors, Technology tab, for example, Mobile as shown here: 4
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When planning visits site upgrades its also important to know which Technology to support. Choose the Technology, Browser & OS menu option and then a secondary dimension of Browser version.
Similarly, its useful to review Screen resolution to know which to target: 4
You can see that, typically despite larger format screens, you still only have around 800 pixels to target. Using segments to improve results r Q. Structured use of segments to improve acquisition, conversion and retention?
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So there you have it; there certainly isnt a shortage of options to segment. The most important ones will vary by your business, but weve put them in rough order of importance and ease of setup. The short answer is that you to try to find more of the high value visitors that contribute to your goals by converting and find ways to persuade the lower value visitors to convert or dont invest in them. Once visitor or customer grouping are identified, we can ask the important questions about customers, i.e. Traffic building. How do we find more prospects like these? Tactics to review include, attracting more visitors searching for similar things or through advertising or partnering on similar sites. Conversion. How can we persuade more prospects to act like these? Tactics to review include presenting relevant messages and offers to similar customers to encourage them to convert. Nurturing. How can we persuade visitors who dont convert first time to act like these. This might include tactics like email marketing or retargeting.
Setting up custom advanced segments

r Q. Custom segments reviewed? Well, custom segments in any of the 10 areas above can be used, but for us, some of the most important are related to search marketing, so well illustrate how to setup custom advanced segments through these. Creating other GA custom segments to help with search r Q. Custom segments reviewed? To understand the interaction of paid and natural brand phrases, we recommend setting up 4 custom advanced segments. I advise setting them up and labelling them as follows: Natural search visits including brand. Natural search visits NOT including brand. Paid search visits including brand name(s). Paid search visits NOT including brand name(s). It just takes a few seconds to set each one up. Ill show you how for an advanced segment for natural search visits containing the brand name. Ill use my brand name from my site since I cant use client data to illustrate this... Step 1. Select Create a new advanced segment from the Advanced segments box top right or click on the Advanced Segment menu option in the left sidebar and chose + New custom segment 4
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Step 2. First, select the green box Keyword as the dimension to segment on. Easy. Next filter by entering the brand name by choosing contains <brand name>. Also, easy.
In many cases, you will want to include some variants of the brand. You do this using the pipe symbol and selecting regular expression rather than contains. For example, Starbucks|Star Bucks, although contains bucks would be easier... Best Practice Tip 18 Use regular expressions to include brand name alternatives Regular expressions are selected for custom advanced segments are selected using Match Regexp
Step 3 Next segment by natural search choosing a segment dimension as and : Add AND statement as shown in the screengrab above. This will match organic. Paid is cpc. Step 4 Choose a name for your segment and press the Preview segment option to make sure you have it right first. Step 5 Finally you can apply your advanced segments to the report by selecting the segments you want from the Advanced Segments box on the top left as shown in the first screengrab. This example shows a high level view of the breakdown of search traffic.
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You can also use these segments within keyword reports to easily separate out brand and non brand keywords. For high volume phrases it can be worth setting up a contains high volume keyword so that you can analyse that in depth. Once you have set up the 4 segments, review these reports taking note of the balance between the different types of phrase. Ive added some of the things to watch for... A. Keywords report. The obvious place to start youll see the proportion of each type of search. You should report % non-brand routinely, especially for SEO to see the amount of incremental traffic youre attracting. Of course youll want to compare bounce rates to see how the different segments are performing depending on routeing of visitors to the right page and the content quality/persuasion of that page. B. Landing page reports. Similarly this will show where there are problems with visitor routeing or engagement giving rise to high bounce rates. C. Top content report or better content drilldown. Content drilldown effectively aggregates across similar types of pages if you have a logical directory structure, so review how the percentage brand/non-brand split varies for different product categories, youll often see some performing better than others. D. Goals report. If you want to know more about visitor quality beyond the initial bounce, check the Goals tab to see whether the different types of search keyword are delivering goals and value. If you, or your clients are mainly interested in specific search engine, i.e. Google and a specific market like the UK, then you can add further selects to limit the search terms to these. Another approach I use is to segment on high volume/big money keywords. For example, if youre a retailer and you have too main product categories, clothing and shoes, you could setup an advanced segment for each, again one for each of natural and paid search is best. You can also do a long-tail effectiveness review for example an exact match of jeans against contains jeans the latter, which is like a phrase match in Adwords should give a lot more search terms. You can review the proportion to the ratio available from the Google Keyword Tool if youre really into the details. 4
Custom variables
r Q. Use of custom-variables reviewed? Custom variables are another important technique for reviewing different customer segments, these were introduced in the customisation Step 1: Step 10 Setup custom variables.
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Step 5
Improving reach to drive quality traffic

r Q. Opportunities for reaching more audience reviewed? When you think about success in driving traffic or improving reach, you have to look beyond pure numbers of visitors. You have to balance number of visits, quantity, against quality and cost. Lets look at each. Remember that just using Google Analytics to review overall numbers for traffic volume, quality, content and cost doesnt really help identify problems and opportunities. To do this we have to break down traffic into the different referrers like search marketing, social media and email marketing as we explained in Step 4 on advanced segments.
Reviewing overall traffic volume

r Q. Overall level of traffic benchmarked?
Finding problems and opportunities
We review traffic numbers using visits (each session on a site) or visitors (individual visitors who may make several visits in the reporting time period. Questions to ask about traffic volume are all related to whether you are making the most of the opportunity to attract visitors given the scale of your brand and the size of the marketplace you operate in. To answer this question is a benchmarking activity which cant really be completed within your analytics system alone. We recommend these 3 questions you should ask: Q1. Are the number of visitors we attract consistent with our brand strength? To answer this question, you need to turn to benchmarking services and compare number of visitors to your site with what you would expect given your knowledge of total sales of a competitor online or offline. For free tools to benchmark site size, we recommend, in general order of accuracy: Google or Doubleclick Adplanner (www.google.com/adplanner) Google Trends for Websites (www.google.com/trends) Compete (www.compete.com) Alexa (www.alexa.com) Note that these tools work best for larger companies receiving high-levels of traffic (compared to smaller sites, where there is often insufficient data). We have a more detailed review of these tools on our site. An extra level of sophistication is to use Google Trends or Google Insights for search to compare the relative number of brand searches against competitors with actual site visitors. Where the ratio differs, for example, if a competitor has more visits than you based on what you would expect from the number of brand searches, then this may mean they are more successful in SEO or social media for example. Benchmarking is more difficult with companies that have competitors which offer a different range of products and services, so its best to apply to your direct competitors. 5
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Q2. Are our visitor numbers consistent with customer demand indicated by search behaviour? To answer this question, you need to complete a search demand gap analysis. The stages of a gap analysis are: 1. Identify all target keyphrases for your company. 2. Use a keyword research tool to assess total customer demand for each (we recommend using the Google Keyword tool with output reported as exact match. 3. Compare actual number of searches you receive compared to customer demand. A more sophisticated analysis compares searches from paid and natural sources as explained in depth in our 7 Step Guides to SEO and Adwords. Q3. Are the number of visits consistent with seasonality? A search demand analysis is most accurate at a point in time since customer demand for products and services varies through time. For example, holiday searches are always highest around the turn of the year. Customer demand may increase for new products. For example, the volume of searches for ebooks and ebook readers has increased in recent years. To review performance against seasonal demand, tools you can use include: Google Trends Google Insights for Search (includes rising terms which may highlight demand for new products or services Review quality for different referring traffic r Q. Quality of different referrers reviewed? Although its great to measure traffic volume, its reviewing the traffic quality which really indicates the success of your traffic-building. Reviewing your traffi quality answers questions like: Do the visitors engage with your content, i.e. do they stay on your site Do visitors convert to the outcomes you are looking for. To answer these questions Assessing engagement. To assess initial engagement with the site there are three main measures you can use. These are: Bounce rate Average duration of site visit Pages per visit You can find out these value for the whole site or for individual pages and traffic sources. How do we compare? What does a good bounce rate or a good duration look like? Naturally you want to know how you compare, but thats a difficult question to answer since engagement measures vary a lot between types of sites and for different visitors within the site. Reviewing your bounce rates If visitors are customers and know your site and brand, theyre likely visit it for a particular reason your site bounce rate will be very low, maybe as low as 10%.
Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l. Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
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But if visitor doesnt know your brand and they are coming through from a search engine to a page that doesnt engage them, it maybe as high as 90%. We advise setting your own thresholds for bounce rate. For example: Positive: Less than 40% Neutral: 40 to 60% Negative: More than 60% Remember that a high bounce rate or low duration isnt necessarily negative depending on customer intent. Pages which commonly have high bounce/low duration are: Customer service pages where visitors are seeking an answer to a question. If they find it on the first page they land on, their visit will be complete. Blogs or news pages where a visitor is interested in a single piece of news and advice and are less likely to browse other pages on the site Contact us pages or other pages where a single piece of information is needed To compare bounce rates, you can use the benchmarking facility in Google Analytics compared to similar-sized sites within your sector. We also have more detail on benchmarking engagement with your site13. Reviewing visit duration Best Practice Tip 19 Chosing a suitable target visit duration To decide on a threshold for visit duration, review the bar graph of site duration within the Visitor Loyalty, Length of Visit report. Oftentimes you will you will see that a majority of sessions are less than 10 seconds. So this if often used as a measure of engagement or reviewing quality traffic. Reviewing pages per visit This measure doesnt give you a page level visit unless accessed as part of a custom report. Page per visits is reported at the visit level so is available for the entire site or broken down by different traffic sources. Segmenting traffic quality A review of traffic quality becomes much more actionable when you break down bounce rates or conversion rates for different : Traffic sources including both sites and individual ads or links Keywords New vs returning visitors Landing pages Conversion paths where multiple pages or from processes like add-to-basket, checkout or form completion lead to conversion. The efficiency of each of these conversion contributors will affect conversions since each contributor affects part of the customer journey: Conversion rate = Traffic quality (including keywords) +Landing page quality + conversion path Recommendation: Review segmented bounce rates to identify inefficiencies in conversion. 13 http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/conversion-optimisation/benchmark-engagement/
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What you need to identify, so you can focus your attention on improving them are: 1. Lower efficiency conversion contributors you control such as traffic source, keyword or landing page. By low efficiency we mean these are under-performing compared to other similar elements in terms of bounce or conversion rates they are not engaging visitors as well as others of their type. They can be individual contributors such as an individual page or keyphrase or part of a wider group similar pages or keyphrases. 2. Higher volume conversion contributors which are relatively important by volume so its worth focusing your attention here. 3. Higher value conversion contributors which will potentially bigger improvements in terms of revenue or profitability. Here are two methods which combine 1 and 2 above to help you identify the conversion contributors which require the most attention or have the biggest potential! 1. Using Advanced Filters to identify optimisation targets Use an Advanced filter in Google analytics reports for traffic sources, keyword and landing pages to identify conversion contributors which are under-performing compared to other contributors. 2. Calculate a conversion opportunity index to identify optimisation targets Identify conversion contributors which offer the most value in making improvements. One method of calculating a conversion opportunity index is to simply multiply bounce rate by volume which gives higher values equating to bigger opportunities. This isnt a meaningful number or index. A better measure is arguably obtained by subtracting conversion or bounce rate from the average and where positive, multiplying by volume. This shows you the value you would receive if this element was of average efficiency.
Reviewing traffic mix

r Q. Which marketing activities drive visitors to us? As we saw in Step 2, when you select the Traffic Sources overview, you get a good idea of what Google Analytics can tell you about the type of marketing which is sending or referring visits to your site:
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As weve seen earlier, there are four main traffic sources reported at this level in Google Analytics are: Search traffic This groups both natural and paid search (Adwords) Referral traffic This is traffic from other sites which have direct links to your site Direct traffic Direct traffic results from URL type ins, bookmarks or when email marketing isnt tracked. Campaigns Campaigns include Adwords when linked to the Google Account and any other campaigns like affiliates, display ads and email campaigns when these have hadRemember that, as we saw in Step 2, if you dont use campaign tracking youre direct or referring sites may be overstated and campaigns understated. Best Practice Tip 20 Minimise Direct traffic Use campaign tracking to ensure affiliate marketing, display advertising, social media and email marketing are included as campaign referrers.
Q. Is our traffic mix effective?

You should look for a balanced traffic mix like that on the Left here. A balanced mix is preferable since: Youre more likely to be maximising different sources. For example, A is getting more referral traffic Less dependent on one source it is risky if too many of your eggs are in one basket as in B.
Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
Q. How much value do different visitor types generate?

While it is difficult to get an idea of the cost effectiveness of different visitor types in Google Analytics we do get a good idea on the value generated. As mentioned at the start of the guide, value per visit is the most effective KPI for measuring effectiveness. Strategy Recommendation 13 Review Revenue per Visit or Goal Value per Visit Diving value generated by number of visits helps us see how effective different referrers and keywords are.
Q. How can we improve search marketing performance?

Through their experience, search marketing specialists know intuitively the questions to ask
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to review and improve the contribution of search marketing to an organisation. But what if youre a business owner or marketer where search marketing is only a (small) part of what you do? Which questions should you be asking and where do look in your web analytics to find the answers? Our compilation of top-level questions is intended to give you a framework of questions to ask yourself or colleagues or agencies who are managing search engine marketing. For each questions we also give you some pointers for where you can look to in your web analytics to find the answers. As always, we illustrate this with Google Analytics, the most popular analytics tool. This is a high-level review, so it looks at search overall, without drilling down into much detail about paid and natural search. Weve designed the questions so they work both for a first time audit and a more regular weekly or monthly review to keep tabs on your performance. Onto the questions: Q1. Search contribution to visits and goals. How much value is search marketing contributing overall to our organisation?
Finding problems and opportunities Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking
By value, we mean the revenue generated through leads and sales or alternatively savings created through online service or document downloads. KPIs: Volume: n, % Visits, Goals or Ecommerce Transactions referred by search Value: , $ Value referred by search Efficiency: Index of 100 Search volume or value divided by all visit volume or value. An index is used to compare performance of search and other channels. If its higher than 100 then this is referring more value Where to find out in Google Analytics? The best place to find out the volumes and value is in the [Traffic Sources, Search] report where its broken down by type of organic and natural. You can see the trend through time and should setup alerts using Google Analytics Intelligence to see changes in contribution from SEO where algorithms or competitor actions can change. Q2. Paid and natural mix. Does the proportion of paid and natural search fit with our search marketing strategy? If your strategy is to invest in both you should check whether the value youre generating from each of paid and natural is consistent with your investment. For example, if paid search accounts for 70% of your referrers, but you are investing a fair amount in SEO, then it may be that your SEO effectiveness needs reviewing KPIs: Volume: n, % Visits, Goals or Ecommerce Transactions referred by search broken down by paid and natural search Value: , $, % Value referred by each type of search Efficiency: Index of 100 Search volume or value divided by all visit volume or value. An index is used to compare performance of search and other channels. If its higher than 100 then this is referring more value. Where to find out in Google Analytics? You can see the paid vs natural search marketing mix several ways in [Traffic Sources,
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Search] report where its broken down by type of search engine. Techniques: 1. Select Paid or Non Paid hyperlinks above the table. The problem is, this doesnt give you the two side-by-side. There are a couple of alternatives to help. 2. Apply an Advanced Segment for paid and natural search from the Advanced Segments selector, Top Left. This shows you a breakdown in each row of the report although annoyingly, it doesnt give you a percentage of each. For us, this is the best option since it allow you to see trends in the chart at the top and display Visits, Revenue or Transactions, so you can see the revenue. 3. Apply the pivot table option for the keywords report (select the grid icon and then chose medium) to show a separate column for paid and natural). If you chose the Ecommerce tab (if relevant) you can see visits, transactions or revenue, but again you cant see percentages. You also cant readily compare the segments on a graph.
Q3. Branded and non-branded mix. Are we attracting sufficient branded and non-branded search visits? Anyone who has ever reviewed the keywords attracting visitors to a site will have seen that brand search terms usually dominate, often accounting for more than 50% of search related visits for well-known brands. KPIs: Volume: n, % Visits, Goals or Ecommerce Transactions referred by search broken down by branded and non-branded search Value: , $, % Value referred by each type of search Efficiency: Index of 100 Search volume or value divided by all visit volume or value. An index is used to compare performance of search and other channels. If its higher than 100 then this is referring more value. Where to find out in Google Analytics? So its important to isolate non-brand search visits. We looked at how to setup Advanced Custom Segments for this purpose in the section on Step 3 on creating other GA custom segments to help with search.
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Q4. Target keyphrases. Do we have defined, up-to-date target keyphrases for your audience? It may seem obvious that you should have a target list of keyphrases if youre looking to boost your visits and sales from search marketing and indeed many companies do have a list. We have more detail on keyphrase analysis in our Seven Steps to SEO Success guide. But what we find is that although this list is usually managed well for paid search marketing through Adwords reporting, it doesnt tend to cover natural search, or the integration between paid and natural search so well. Q5. Gap analysis. Which keyphrases are underperforming against potential volumes A search demand gap analysis is an essential part of a search engine marketing audit to check how well your search engine optimisation and/or pay-per-click marketing is working for your company. The stages of a gap analysis are: 1. Identify all target keyphrases for your company. 2. Use a keyword research tool to assess total customer demand for each (we recommend using the Google Keyword tool with output reported as exact match. 3. Compare actual number of searches you receive compared to customer demand.
It will show you the commercial opportunity available from search engine marketing and compare your current performance against this opportunity, so showing sales growth potential. Its often completed as part of a quarterly or annual review, but due to seasonal fluctuations in search volumes and changes in Googles ranking approaches and competitor activity it should also be completed more regularly; we suggest monthly. Heres an example of a gap analysis. As, you can see its based around the main strategic high volume generic for a particular market, in this case related to LCD TVs. Benefits of a gap analysis
A gap analysis will show you where you are underperforming for particular keyphrases or products and you can then set goals and then brief an agency or colleagues to take actions to improve performance in these areas. What should you measure for a search gap analysis? As for the review of the performance of all traffic sources, the main measures you need to look at are traffic volume, quality and cost: Traffic volume measured through the number of actual visits from paid and natural search. Actual visits are then compared with potential visits Traffic quality measured by bounce rate, lower if the quality is good. Also measured by conversion rate to lead or sale, higher is better. Traffic value The value generated through sales or leads can be compared against the cost of search marketing. The revenue per visit can be calculated for each keyphrase and for pay per click can be compared to visitor acquisition costs amount bid. We have a template to help you perform a gap analysis in Google Analytics.
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Acting on a gap analysis Each keyphrase should be reviewed for volume, quality and value as follows: Volume. If the volume of visits from search is relatively low compared to the number of searches shown by a relatively low share of search % then ways of boosting the performance of the phrase should be reviewed. If natural visits are relatively low compared to paid visits for a keyphrase and particularly if there are a high volumes of clicks or conversions for that phrase then this suggests that keyphrase performance for this phrase should be improved. If both paid and natural visits are high, then there may be an opportunity to reduce paid performance. Quality. If a phrase has a relatively high bounce rate and/or a relatively low conversion rate, then this also suggests an opportunity for improvement, particularly if the volume is relatively high. This may indicate a problem with landing page routing the visitor arrives on a page with a the wrong type of product information or a poor call-to-action. Value. Poor value may also indicate a problem with the experience on the site, or it may simply be a relatively low value product. Value generated for a keyword should be compared to the cost for pay per click. The 7 Steps to SEO guide has additional guidance for getting more out of your SEO including: Country mix. Do country source reflect proportion of market interest? Conversion effectiveness. How does bounce rate and conversion vary by keyphrase? Long tail coverage. What is our visibility for long-tail keyphrases? Search attribution. How many visitors are first-time visitors against returning visitors? How many multiple visits are there before conversion?
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Step 6

r Q. Opportunities to improve customer journeys improved? In this step, Ill take you through an approach you can use to review your current site effectiveness, using Google Analytics and so get better results. This approach is based on 9 questions to review customer journeys:
Q1. Which page types are most important for entries into our site?
r Q. Were clear where visitors enter our site and ensure we deliver the right messages and engagement devices to visitors? As we saw in Step 3, on understanding customer journeys, its useful to start your understanding of customer behaviour with where visitors enter the site. Although there tends to be a big focus on improving the home page, this may not necessarily be where visitors enter the site.
Q2. What percentage of visits start on the home page? r Q.We know how important our home page is compared to other page types and make
adjustments accordingly
The percentage of home page visits is a diagnostic measure for knowing how to improve a site. Its not a KPI since it wont change much through time. In some cases, as for a blog it can be lower than 20%. Its best to check it for different types of visitors.
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Best Practice Tip 21 Review % of entries for the home page and other page types by visitor type to see which pages you need to improve Visitor types you can review this for are new against returning visitors and visitors from search engines who type a specific phrase. You may know that the home page is most important, but your colleagues may not and think that conversion optimisation starts here. A simple measure to help them question this is the % of visits that begin on the home page. So if the home page isnt so important, which pages are?
Q3. Which entry page types are most popular? r Q. We know the most important page entry types for different types of traffic The landing page report will show you this, but across all journeys we need to review a different type of report... Q4. Which page types are most popular? r Q. We know the most important types of pages across all journeys So how do you know which are the most important entry page types across journeys? Step forward the much neglected Content drill-down option. If you dont know this report, its really helpful since it aggregates your visits across different types of page provided your site is nicely arranged in a hierarchical structure. Most are.
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Best Practice Tip 22 Use Google Analytics Content Drilldown to find the most popular page types across the site The content drilldown enables you to see which pages types are most popular when grouped together. The Top Content report doesnt show you this. Heres an example of the content drilldown report. This shows that the Emarketing Glossary is an important category of page on my site even though I cant see this from the Top Content report since each of the pages individually is insignificant.
I often find when reviewing Ecommerce sites that this report shows the importance of product or category pages!
For further insight, if you want to see behaviour relative to landing page, create a Google Analytics pivot table pivoting by landing page. This will show you the combination of the most important landing pages and content. Pivoting by Visitor Type (new vs returning visitors) can also give you an idea of which are most important for the all important first time visitor. Finally, its also worth repeating this analysis for some of your top traffic sources or referrers using an Advanced Segment report. I would recommend looking at New visitors only, Adwords visitors or non-brand search visitors if youre investing a lot in search marketing.
Q5. Which page types have the biggest opportunity for improvement? r Q. We know which page types are under-performing? Next, you need to complete a gap analysis for page performance reviewing the potential of
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pages against what each page type of site section is delivering now.
Strategy Recommendation 14 Create models of the value of conversion optimisation Through creating a model of improvement you can then make the business case for investment in optimisation and prioritise optimisation activities on the areas that will potentially get you the biggest benefits. There are different ways of tackling this. But, essentially were looking to ask these additional question: R Which pages are most popular, but o Have below average engagement when they act as landing pages You want to find the combination of the popular pages which visitors encounter most often in their customer journey against those which arent effective so they cause visitors to abandon the site: Popularity is best measured using Unique Page Views since these are opportunities for unique visitors to convert. Abandonment is best assessed through bounce or exit rate. Of course youre never going to have a 0% bounce or exit rate, so its best to compare these to the site average to calculate the potential sales improvement. You can multiply 100- Bounce rate against unique page views or use the new weighted sort in Google Analytics. Through completing a basic quantitative analysis you can define a % improvement in reducing bounce or exit rate and so show how many additional visitors you may be able to convert. Q6. What is going to be the ROI of improving page types? r Q. We know the ROI we will achieve from improving pages? Often, the site owner likely wont be so interested in bounce rates, rather they will want to know how sales will increase. Good measures to assess here which look at the commercial values of visitors: 1. $ Index value (which shows how different content types are contributing value available in the Content Drilldown report. 2. Per Visit Goal Value (for non-Ecommerce sites which have value assigned to leads) 3. Per Visit Value (for Ecommerce sites) Ive explained how to use these value measures and how theyre calculated in more detail on Brian Cliftons Advanced Web Metrics site. Using a reverse path analysis for a goal page using the individual page Navigation Summary in Google Analytics is another method to determine which pages influence sales the most. Q7. Are you testing different page alternatives? r Q. We have evaluated the relevance of AB and multivariate testing? Once you have used the techniques we have described above to identify the pages with the biggest potential improvements we recommend you invest in a structured improvement o Have above average exit rates for the type of page.
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programme if your site is big enough to warrant it. Since some of the tools are free, the main cost is learning about the tools, so it could even be worthwhile for smaller sites.
Strategy Recommendation 15 Invest time in structure experiments to improve pages AB and multivariate testing enables you to test improvements to site layout, messaging and offers in a structured way rather than based on gut feel and ad-hoc testing. What is it? AB testing AB testing refers to testing two (or more) different versions of a page which contain different page elements such as a heading, images or button against a control which is the original page. Best Practice Tip 23 Use the right tools for managing page optimisation experiments Tools like GWO enable you to modify existing pages through Javascript while others such as ion Interactive and Unbounce manage the creation of landing pages also. www.whichmvt.com provides a great summary. Here is an example of the benefits of this form of testing where landing page conversion rates improved by 86 percent and acquisition costs were almost halved. In this case it was found that the addition of additional bullet points on the right of the screen increased conversion.
Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
Source: PRWD: http://blog.prwd.co.uk/usability/case-study-conversion-rate-improved-by86pc-with-google-website-optimiser Q8. Are you testing different page elements? r Q. We have reviewed the relevance of multivariate testing? Multivariate testing is more sophisticated than AB testing since all the different pages can be assessed simultaneously. Individual contributions to conversion increase can be assessed unlike with AB testing where the source of improvements arent known. What is it? Multivariate testing Multivariate testing enables simultaneous testing pages for all combinations and variations of page elements that are being tested. This enables selection of the most effective combination of design elements to achieve the desired goal. To start with multivariate or AB testing, its often best to use a relatively simple page like a 6
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landing page or a forms page rather than a home page, although thats certainly possible. Best Practice Tip 24 Start testing with pages used by a relatively small audience Through testing initially with pages which arent seen by most visitors you can learn before rolling out testing to higher-volume pages like the home page or product pages.
Simplifying Google Analytics to improve your site Google Analytics gives you hundreds of potential reports with incredibly detailed information, for example about which smartphone screen resolutions are most popular. But to optimise performance we need to sit back and take a higher level view of information about visitors. If we simplify the reports available to understand and improve visitor interaction with a site we actually have just 4 reports which answer just 4 questions. These are: 1. Where do visitors come from? 2. Which pages did visitors land on? 3. Which paths did they take through the site? 4. Which pages did they exit on? What we dont see from these 4 reports is anything about the actions visitors take. So there is a fifth question which is... 5. What action did they take on site (if any)? If you run an Ecommerce site, the actions you will care most about are did the visitor add a product to the basket or did the visitor buy? If you dont run an Ecommerce site, then you may have other goals such as downloading a whitepaper or signing up for an enewsletter. There are reports to help here also, these are the Ecommerce and conversion goals, but you will need to configure Google Analytics to get this information.
Q9. Has site search been reviewed

r Site search reviewed?
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What to look for in site search reports? Users love to search on site in the same way they love to Google! All sites will have users whose preferred mode of finding products or information is the on-site search engine and its your job to make it easy for them. Google Analytics has a great set of reports to allow you tell whether you are making it easy for them.
Here well focus on the main reports to check out that can help you improve the search experience. 1. % visits with search. Although users love to search, the proportion of visits with search will vary a lot depending on what the site offers. For an Ecommerce site, published benchmarks from Coremetrics show us that around 30% of visits include a search. So if you have fewer searchers, this may indicate the search box isnt prominent or visitors prefer to browse. This measure isnt going to vary much over time, but its one to watch after a site redesign. 2. % Search exits. This is the main measure which suggests an unsatisfactory search experience where people search and cant find what theyre looking for. If this exceeds 30% this should be a concern and you should segment by this variable using an Advanced segment to see the results returned which prompted an exit due to lack of relevant products, or if shown in the results unsatisfactory delivery or pricing information. 3. % Search refinements. This may again indicate an unsatisfactory search experience. While its natural for searchers to start with a more generic search to see whats available, if too many are refining, it suggests unsatisfactory results are returned. In our experience if % search refinements exceeds 30 to 40% then this may exceed a problem. 4. Search terms and categories. Most marketers will want to start here to see what customers are demanding when searching for products or information. The results often arent that illuminating, showing a diversity of keyphrases, but two things to watch for are: Common searches which you may want to feature within the primary or secondary navigation or as links within the editorial if its a popular topic or product. Common searches which dont return results or products, so suggesting an unmet need. You may want to offer products or information which are currently unavailable in this case. 5. Relationship between search and content. Google offers the option to find where visitors started their search which may indicate poor navigation options on a page, or that visi-
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tors have arrived on a site on an unwanted page. You can also check whether relevant pages were found. 6. Goals and Ecommerce. Finally, and most importantly, we can check whether searches generated business value by using the Goals and Ecommerce tab. A common finding from this analysis is that: Searchers are more likely to convert Value generated will be higher than for other visitors If you think why this is, its simply because search visitors are more engaged on average and they have greater intent. The search results pages often make it easy to select and buy products from this point. This finding again shows the value of encouraging search.
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Step 7
How can we improve conversion?

r Q. Opportunities to improve conversion rate reviewed? In the previous step, we looked at ideas to improve conversion through improving customer journeys through a site. In this step, we hope to give ideas to help you improve conversion towards the bottom of the funnel through optimising category and product pages, basket, checkout and forms. As in the previous step, we present the ideas as a series of questions you can quickly review.
Q. Product or service category pages optimised?

r Q. Category page templates optimised? Most sites have category or product pages, although they may be described differently, for example as services. Many of the features of these pages are similar since we are deep within the site, but where they differ, we will look at the category and product pages separately. When running through these recommendations we will work down the page from top to bottom: Q. Does your lead-in copy engage? Avoid a drab Welcome to our section category Instead, its best to engage through the copy and reference your target keyword within the text as in these examples. Every girl knows just how important her handbag is. A plain T-shirt is an invaluable companion Whatever your television watching needs and habits, youll find the best equipment for the job at SHOP.COM UK. See what you can save on great toys for baby with our range of toys from birth to preschool Q. Does your lead-in copy enhance your brand? In Flicks & Clicks copywriter Mel Hanson advises An often over-looked use of category overviews is to help reinforce your brand. For example: When you buy from the Worlds No 1 Citrus fruit store, youre guaranteed that every segment is deliciously juicy. Q. Do you put the emphasis on the benefits? It can be easy to focus on the product features rather than benefits. Use copywriting to blend the features and benefits. Q. Do you link to related categories or products? Linking to related items will support the user and SEO, particularly if they are contained within body text. Q. Does our page work for SEO? Ensure your product pages follow the guidelines detailed in our Seven Steps for SEO guide. Depending on your E-commerce platform you may not be able to edit these, but its worth7
Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing 76

while making these changes if possible: r Title tags include category or product name and variants if they can be edited r Category or product name is included with an <h1> tag r Sub-category or product names included within <h2>
r Links to related categories or products use effective anchor text. Here are some examples of using anchor text effectively: Cross-sell. Our plain-t shirts complement this jacket perfectly Up-sell. This is part of our great-value range. We also offer designer t-shirts. Recommendations. You may also like our winter coats.
Campaign Tracking
Q. Product or service pages optimised?

Product or service page templates optimised? We like this product page advice to focus on the 3Ps of a product page Picture, Price and Putton. They recommend clear images since these will attract attention first and that Things that are shown together belong together. So visitors will look for the price and the button in the near vicinity of the image. Put it too far away and theres a risk they wont see it, or at the least will have to search for it actively, instead of just finding it effortlessly. We like the mnemonic, but it does over simplify, maybe the page heading is important for visitors arriving from search and this also affects search marketing! Likewise a detailed product description and great copywriting can help improve the product page. Best Practice Tip 25 Use relevant page heading(s) and intro text These are essential for search marketing and to reassure visitors they are in the right place Q. Page headline and intro copy relevant r Q. Page intro and headline text optimised for search?
Make sure your page heading has these characteristics: r Headline relevant for product or category r Synonyms added to headline or intro copy for search r Main heading defined as heading style 1 <h1> for relevance in SEO and Adwords quality score <1> r Additional headings on the page <h2>, <h3> target synonyms or secondary keyphrases Amazon gets the <h1> right in this example, but doesnt use subsequent headings, which are similar across all pages. This isnt a major factor. 7

Still, we prefer how Comet.co.uk use an <h2> with this neat product Q&A feature
Q. Make delivery and service messages clear r Service delivery messages clear Make sure the deal you offer is always clear. Try to remove fear, uncertainty and doubt! Brian Eisenberg calls these Point of Action (POA) assurances. Here the point-of-action is add-tobasket. These are even more important within the checkout processes.

This isnt a small tip, its so essential the key elements of the marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Physical Evidence, People and Process) should be constantly reviewed with plans to improve them compared to competitors. Strategy Recommendation 16 Developing a compelling total shopping experience offer. Ensure you harness all parts of the marketing mix to improve page performance. Include: r Pricing? r Availability? r Delivery charges? r Reserve and collect option for multichannel retailers? r Returns policy? r Guarantees (if relevant)? Comet do this well also, with clearly identified blocks on delivery and a great clear pricematch promise:
Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l. Campaign Tracking
7 Q. Is our product information of sufficient quality? r Product copy and detail appropriate? Too little copy may be a problem since we cant connect with the visitor if we just have 3 to 4 bullets. To encourage them to buy, key products need more copy and this can help with SEO

also. Q. Are our product visualisations of sufficient quality? r Product imagery and review images clear? Its also worth thinking about how images support search are they effective if theyre on a separate image server? Q. Social proof used to encourage purchase? r Social proof (product reviews, ratings, recommendations and testimonials) used? Yes, social proof used to be called testimonials, but its an essential way to remind us that purchasers often trust what other customers say about a site more than us So improving your social proof is an essential activity. Strategy Recommendation 17 Review and improve the quality of your social proof and assess its effectiveness in increasing conversion Review the range of options available to engage customers in the page through interacting with the page and feeding back on it. Both Amazon and Comet do this well as shown in the previous examples. Amazon virtually invented it. Review the following for relevance: r Customer product reviews r Customer testimonials r Independent product reviews r Recommendations from staff r Social sharing, especially through Facebook and Twitter r Star ratings
Improving reach Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities Understanding your visitors
r Q&A about the product see the comment example above Q. Are calls-to-action clear? r Calls-to-action effective? This is an obvious one, but you do still see buttons which dont work the best for the site owner because of their placement, size, format or text. Youll notice that Amazon use the classic green buttons and these have become a de facto standard since green often works best green for go! Make sure that you check these for the buy or find out more buttons: r Buttons sufficiently prominent size large tends to perform better r Buttons contrast sufficiently colour this depends on the site, often white on green for go performs r Buttons have the right type of call-to-action copy r Buttons are available both above and below the fold 7
Q. Improving error pages

r Sources or errors reviewed and error pages improved?

Its inevitable that users will experience errors on your site, especially where content isnt found because the URL is wrong as happens when a link is wrongly entered into the content management system on your site or a linking site. Often these arent given enough attention, but for transactional sites its crucial to get on top of these. Steps to think about are: Setup a custom error page if you dont have one. Improve the messaging on error pages to apologise and to help users on their journeys through links to support or through a search box. This article has excellent advice14. Best Practice Tip 26 Fix error pages Review the type and volume of errors to improve the customer experience and boost conversion.
Q. What is the relative performance of categories and products?

r Relative performance of different categories and products reviewed? To determine which categories or pages are important we should look at their relative performance. This is crucial for retailers since it will show issues with pricing and merchandising, but for all companies with products, understanding the relative performance is insightful enabling changes in pages to be made. Strategy Recommendation 18 Review relative performance between products and categories Identify categories and pages that can be improved relative to the average. A basic way of doing this is looking at the % of sales or revenue generated for each category and products within. To give context, the relative performance can be more usefully assessed against offline sales or general marketplace category popularity if known. A more advanced method is to review engagement by product type. Engagement can be measured through time on page or interaction with product descriptions or reviews. But what ultimately counts is add-to-basket conversion. Best Practice Tip 27 Review relative add-to-basket conversion for products and categories You can identify underperforming products well through reviewing variance in add-to-basket conversion. This graphic shows the type of visualization you should try to build up. We are most interested in the High potential type products.
14 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/05/18/optimizing-error-pages-creating-opportunities-out-of-mistakes

This graph shared by Logan Tod (www.logantod.com) shows how this principle can be applied in practice.
A different way to approach optimisation of category pages is suggested by Dan CroxenJohn of Applied Web Analytics (www.appliedwebanalytics.com). He says: Once youve discovered these high-converting categories, the next step is to find out why theyre being overlooked by potential customers. Often the reasons are very easy to fix. Common problems, for example, are that the category is: buried deep in your navigation placed below the fold only recently been added to your website As soon as you identify your high-converting categories you can develop promotions to start to drive your website visitors into these overlooked areas of the site. Usually this is easy and inexpensive, as it doesnt require any extra code, just a few changes using your CMS or 7

some stronger call to action. r Q. Are forms-based processes like checkout, applications and form completion optimised? This step is all about increasing efficiency of the final bottleneck on the path to purchase and lead. Well start with checkout optimisation which is most relevant for retail and other transactional sites, and then go onto forms completion best practice which is relevant for the majority of sites.
Q. Have we optimised our online sales process?

r Q. Is our sales process optimised? For Ecommerce sites offering online sales, increasing funnel efficiency through the checkout is often the first place to look to improve conversion. Small changes within the funnel process can deliver instant enhancements to conversion and profitability. Strategy Recommendation 19 Start your conversion enhancement with the checkout If you havent run previous conversion optimisation projects, the checkout is often the best place to identify quick wins. In our coverage here, we make recommendations on sales conversion optimisation from the point a product is added to the cart or basket. Amazon is our example since this will give you an example youre familiar with and has been optimised by Amazon over the years. If you dont follow this approach, you may well reduce conversion this is the one area of site design in particular where being different isnt a good idea! Best Practice Tip 28 Use consistency in design with standard checkout conventions Use consistent symbols and processes within checkout Q. Does the shopping basket or cart make purchase straightforward? r Q. Simplified shopping basket approach? The most important aspect of shopping basket practice is arguably clearly showing items purchased without leaving the current page, so encouraging additional purchase while making checkout options clear. Best Practice Tip 29 Ensure shopping basket updates dynamically Shopping basket updates with purchase and cost Amazon shows the updating of the shopping cart approach well: 7

The requirements for add to shopping basket or cart are ideally: r Q. Add to shopping basket button prominent above and below the fold on every page? r Q. Add to shopping basket updates dynamically without user leaving current page? r Q. Product added to shopping basket clear on every page (e.g. in right sidebar)? r Q. Add to basket doesnt require registration? r Q. Analytics tracks add-to-basket events? Dont forget to check add-to-basket events - this can be difficult without special coding since usually a new page isnt created, so instead a different approach has to be used. In Google Analytics we recommend event tracking or creation of a virtual page a virtual page view in Google. Best Practice Tip 30 Remember to track Add-to-basket events in analytics Using your analytics to track add-to-basket events can help evaluate overall conversion, but also variation in product add-to-basket conversion that is important to review product-level merchandising. Q. Are the steps in checkout clear and minimized? r Q. Steps in checkout clear and minimized? Once a customer checks out we have to reduce the friction to make this as easy as possible. Best Practice Tip 31 Minimise checkout steps and make them clear Ensure the number of steps is minimized and you make each step clear through a standard checkout thermometer. Q. Is registration/log-in clear? r Q. New vs existing customer options clear? 7

This is the start of the check-in process, so its best to make it simple to minimize attrition here. Best Practice Tip 32 Use a classic 2 option sign-in The two options are for new and existing customers The Amazon approach works well
Another common approach is to use two separate boxes for new and existing customers:
Q. Form completion simplified? r Q. Have we simplified form completion? We have a separate section on form completion later in this section. Providing a simple layout and making the meaning of form fields clear is the main aim here. Best Practice Tip 33 Reduce bale out from forms Test layout, labels and help for form fields to minimize attrition This example shows that simple works best. There is no complex rollover help against question marks here, simply clear instructions next to each field where it is required. 7

Q. Are we reassuring customers through the checkout process? r Q. Are we using trust marks to streamline the process? Its particularly important for less well-known brands to reassure the customer that their purchase is guaranteed and their privacy is assured. Best Practice Tip 34 Use trust marks to reassure purchasers Use independent icons, testimonials and verification schemes to reassure purchasers their details will be safe. These are the options to consider: r 1. Trust symbols www.truste.org r 2. McAfee Secure www.scanalert.com r 3. BBBOnline Reliability programme www.bbbonline.org r 4. Verisign trusted www.verisign.com r 5. Internet Shopping is Safe Accredited Retailer? www.imrg.org/isis (UK)
Understanding your visitors Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement
Q. Are we recommending other products in the checkout? r Q. Could recommendations work for us in the checkout? Its generally recognised now that checkout is NOT the best place to cross-sell and especially up-sell. This is a better achieved through dynamic recommendations on the products page youll be familiar with this from Amazon. Best Practice Tip 35 Avoid cross-sell in the checkout Its generally better to try to cross-sell within the product pages. 7

Q. Delivery options and charges clear and flexible? r Q. Make the delivery options clear and flexible to meet customer needs? Visitors in checkout dont like nasty surprises. There are a clear set of choices here:
Q. Is payment straightforward? r Q. Are the right payment options available and are they clearly arranged? The payment options are usually dependent on your payment gateway provider. Q. Do we encourage purchasers to opt-in to email marketing programmes or social networks? r Q. Email opt-in or social network sign-on maximised? Email is still effective in helping develop relationships with online customers, so make sure you make the most of the checkout process to encourage customers to opt-in. Strategy Recommendation 20 Ensure email opt-in and social sharing maximised on registration Review the wording and permission options to ensure customers can opt-in to the email programmes Q. Does order confirmation trigger an email welcome programme? r Q. Do we have an effective email welcome programme? Many sites just use a simple welcome auto-response service email on confirmation. What is it? Email welcome programme A series of emails to introduce new customers to a brand leading to satisfaction research and additional sales promotions Strategy Recommendation 21 Refine your email welcome programme Review the range and quality of welcome emails to meet your goals for new customer service quality and relationship development
Are our forms optimised?

r Q. Are our lead generation forms optimised? Forms are important on almost all sites since they involve a customer or prospect enquiry which can be start of a relationship with a new customer or an existing customer.

Q. Is each field clear to maximise conversion? r Q. Field labelling reviewed for clarity Whole books have been written on form optimisation. Small changes can make a big difference across many sessions. We summarise the recommendations from these studies on eBay and other sites15.
r Q1 Do we have a single column form layout? (Date and name fields can be on the same line) r Q2 Are related items grouped using headers? r Q3 Have we used left-aligned text which is generally clearer? r Q4 Have we minimised optional fields, or made clear which fields are mandatory? r Q5 Is context sensitive help used for fields where required? r Q6 Are form field validation messages clear? 7
15 http://www.cxpartners.co.uk/thoughts/web_forms_design_guidelines_an_eyetracking_ study.htm http://www.slideshare.net/psykoreactor/best-practices-for-form-design

Q. Field-level analysis of form completion reviewed? r Q. Individual field barriers reviewed? Once you are following the best practices weve covered, to improve conversion further its best to check at an individual field level which fields are causing you and your users a problem. We recommend Clicktale for this analysis. Another approach is to use an unmoderated user testing tool like WhatUsersDo or UserTesting. These can be used for feedback on challenges of using field completion. You can also use Google Analytics through Event tracking or creating Virtual Page Views.
Best Practice Tip 36 Use analytics and specialist tools to review form field completion Review the drop-out rate of individual fields to try to optimise performance and move, relabel or remove fields to improve effectiveness Q. Forms tested through AB or multivariate testing? r Q. Form layout tested? We have seen how you can track completion of individual form fields, but what if the overall layout, design or messaging in the form isnt working for you? To test the bigger picture, AB testing is a good approach. Multivariate testing is less likely to help on sites where the number of visitors completing a form isnt high enough for statistical significance. Best Practice Tip 37 Use AB testing to improve form conversion Test alternative form layouts, messaging or creative with AB Testing. This is a good example of the benefits you can get with AB testing of forms, here PRWD used the Google Website Optimizer to review 3 different form layouts16. The winning recipe shown here required more content rather than imagery to encourage visitors to complete the form:
16 http://blog.prwd.co.uk/usability/case-study-conversion-rate-improved-by-86pc-with-google-website-optimiser



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Using Google Analytics To Improve Online Marketing

Seven Steps to Success Guide

Using Google Analytics To Improve Online Marketing

Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Why another guide on Google Analytics?

How is this guide structured?

Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Setup and customisation

Where to find the value in Google Analytics. Which measures?

Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Setup and customisation

Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Improving journeys and site engagement

Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Include or exclude certain types of traffic to one or more profile

Include information for single site or part of site. Exclude employees

Step 1. Create New Account / Review account settings

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities

Step 2. Add tracking code to pages

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Setup and customisation

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Special case 3 for tracking code: custom variables

Improving journeys and site engagement

Step 3. Create profiles

Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Setup and customisation

Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities

Understanding your visitors

Improving reach Improving journeys and site engagement

Step 4 Create and apply filters

Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Improving journeys and site engagement

Step 5 Setup Goals and funnels

Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

often teething problems with accuracy or managing international sites.

Setup and customisation

This shows how this looks in Google Analytics:

Improving journeys and site engagement

Goal-tracking for non-Ecommerce sites

Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Q. What is a goal in Google Analytics?

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Q. Why do I need to setup goals in Google Analytics?

Q. Which types of goals can we use?

Improving conversion to lead and sale.,/l.

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Setup and customisation

Q. Have we included offline events?

Worked example of goal setup for a Google Analytics page

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Setup and customisation Campaign Tracking Finding problems and opportunities

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

Setup and customisation

Seven Steps to Using Google Analytics to Improve Online Marketing

3 http://gaaddons.com/ and http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/auto-tracking-filedownloads-outbound-links/