Setting Goals on Google Analytics to Achieve Business Conversions
In March 2010, I had the opportunity to attend the Google Analytics Master Class in Singapore (GAMC), in its second run in this city state, and it was an eye-opening, enriching experience for me. The event, organized and sponsored entirely by Google, was aimed at educating new and existing Google Analytics users on how they can better use their web analytics data to drive value for their businesses.
Google Analytics (GA) is undeniably a very powerful tool for businesses, and best of all, it is provided at no cost for both the individual and the commercial user. So what does Google get out of this? Your data, of course, and (your purchase of) AdWords, at the very least.
Throughout the 4-hour session at GAMC, we heard from local and international web analytics professionals, as well as the Google Analytics team, who shared local and international case studies in various industries like travel, fashion, retail, technology and telecommunications. The session was divided into 15-20 minutes sections in which speakers shared about specific features of Google Analytics and other Google products that support it, and how these helped their businesses or their clients’ businesses. Among the topics covered were: GA Goals and Funnels, AdWords, GA Site Search, Google Web Optimizer, GA Advanced Segmentation, Custom Reporting, and Mobile Analytics.
For me, the most useful session was the keynote address by Beth Liebert, Product Manager of Google Analytics, who provided a very good overview of GA, and who successfully convinced all in the room of how powerful Google Analytics is as a tool, with real examples from Google’s own websites. She also had it nailed when she said: “When you’re trying to make a case for something, there’s nothing quite as persuasive as using data to get there.”
She cautioned, however, that when one starts using Analytics, there may be a whole load of information that may seem overwhelming at first. But to begin right, start setting goals. While it may make sense to all marketers that setting goals is the first task that should be tackled in any business project, many don’t know that they can set goals in their Google Analytics accounts to achieve their business objectives.
Suddenly, web traffic is not just about the number of hits on your business website, but also about how you can convert this traffic into business for you and your company. This is not just for e-commerce websites which end up with customers buying something from your website, however. You can also set goals like: number of visits with uploads (for content sharing campaigns, for example, where you ask visitors to upload a picture or write a short note), number of visits which end up in the visitor making a donation to a non-profit organization, or the number of feed subscribers to a corporate blog.
The numbers shared were depressing at the onset – only 2% of all web traffic, on average, are business conversions on e-commerce websites. So who are the other 98%? Figure out who they are, and what they are doing on your website, and make these your secondary goals to drive your primary business conversions.
A lot of you must wonder: After you get the data, what do you do with it? Well, you can compare it to past data, you can compare it against your competitors in the same industry using the Google Analytics benchmarking tool which anonymously shares data of all companies in a particular industry if they have opted to share these data, or you can even compare it to all the websites in the world who are using Google Analytics to measure their web traffic. That way, you can figure out where the problem is, and how you can fix the problem. Then take action and make change in your websites.
Beth Liebert ended by asking the audience to take these insights we learn and liberate them by sharing them with people who don’t want to look at the mountain of data that have been generated, and give these data-phobes exactly what they are looking for. Only then, can one invite change into the organization.
From here, I realized that measuring web traffic is a daunting task for those who don’t sell anything (non e-commerce websites) because you can’t simply say that you have X amount of visits to your site, and out of that Y% end up buying something from your website.
For companies like ours that don’t sell merchandise, perhaps it means that we will have to measure goals in terms of the target audience for each page on our website. For example, how many people are visiting our media centre which holds all the press releases for our clients, how many of them re-post these press releases and link them back to our website, how many visits do we get on our portfolio page (possibly potential client, or potential recruit), the number of non-bounced visits who spend a certain amount of time at our blog, reading entries that we have posted. Once we have defined these parameters for measurement, the picture will be clearer on what changes we need made, in order to make our online activities work in our favour.
The rest of the afternoon was definitely enlightening, albeit overwhelming, with different speakers sharing tips on how to make Google Analytics best work for each and every one of us. But perhaps the most important thing has already been shared in this entry, and that’s where everyone should start: Setting goals.
If you’re still unsure of how to move forward, check out these resources:
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