As
can be determined from this blog, analytics are quite important to a
brand's success in today's competitive marketplace when eCommerce is
concerned. As television commercials and radio spots had their rating
systems to determine the success of a particular ad for a brand, so
too does analytics provide that information online.
We
have gone into the important of analytics; why it should matter to
your company, the value in search engine optimization, and some of
the options that are available out now. In today's post, we will dive
a little more into some of the actual functions that a service like
Google Analytics can provide a brand's website.
According
to Google's
support site, two of their analytics program's greatest
functions—goals & funnels—are described as “a
versatile way to measure how well your site or app fulfills your
target objectives.”
It
seems like a simple concept, one that any brand would consider when
setting up its analytics but it is one that is often overlooked.
Many
companies understand what the value is that analytics holds, but they
do not put in place tangible objectives to show them if the
information the analytics shows them is of value or not.
It
is unbelievably easy to set up, say, Google Analytics on a website
but merely pouring over the data that is collected, serves what
purpose without knowing why you wanted that data to begin with?
Goals
“You
can set up individual Goals to track discrete actions, like
transactions with a minimum purchase amount or the amount of time
spent on a screen.”
“Each
time a user completes a Goal, a conversion
is
logged in your Google Analytics account.”
These
are two aspects of GA goals mentioned on the Google site and while
they happen to be broad, they do delve into the gist behind the goals
aspect of Google Analytics.
The
service has individual goals that the user can set up like Visit
Duration, URL Destination, pages or screen views per visit, or an
interaction event. These goals can be applied to a website or a
mobile application.
The
value in setting up goals is, as mentioned before, to give a tangible
objective to a campaign to better determine if the website is
providing the value that the brand believes it should.
An
example may be the best way to showcase Google Goals.
I
have had the fortune of acquiring a new job recently which has me
re-doing the online marketing for a workplace safety equipment and
education company. Multiple pages of the website are dedicated to
instructional videos. Each one clocks in at least eight minutes in
length.
One
of the goals that I will be setting up through the analytics for
these video pages is the Visit Duration goal. First step will be
getting with my new employer and figuring out what viewing time they
deem as successful, but I would be willing to venture these videos
are not being watched, let alone the viewer staying on the page, for
eight minutes.
This
goal would allow my employer to see if they are spending their time
and efforts in the most efficient way, continuing to tweak and update
these videos and making them an integral part of their web site
visiting experience.
Funnels
“A
Funnel lets you specify a path you expect traffic to take to reach a
Goal. Combing Goals and Funnels helps you analyze how well your site
or app directs people towards your target.”
That
is via Google. The funnels portion of GA is the how to the goal's
where and what. Funnels allow you to track and analyze your various
delivery methods for your brand message.
The
funnels will allow the analytics to inform you how features you
implement on your website (with a goal in mind!) are actually driving
consumers to that goal.
The value in this is huge.
To
use my new job as another example, let us explore what funnels can do
for their website.
Part
of my job will be re-vamping their catalog online into a
fully-functioning eCommerce location through their website. By
applying monetary and sales figures goals to each of their product
lines, and then applying funnel analytics to the specific catalog
pages, I will easily be able to decipher if the catalog is increasing
and benefiting sales in any new ways.
“A
Funnel
lets
you specify a path you expect traffic to take to reach a Destination
Goal.
When you specify steps in a Funnel, Analytics can the track where
visitors enter and exit the path on the way towards your Goal, giving
you valuable insight about your site. You may see, for example, a
page in a Funnel from which a lot of traffic exits before completing
the Goal - indicating a problem with that page.
If
you see a lot of traffic skipping steps, you discover that site
navigation or a certain path to conversion is too long or contains
extraneous steps.”
Now,
funnels can only be applied if there is a destination goal value
selected but I believe this is a great feature as it will force those
involved with the website and the analytics to get in the habit of
setting goals and tracking legitimate progress from one campaign to
another.
What
it does, is it stops a brand from simply going, “oh, 8,000 unique
page visits this month. Our website is doing great.”
Quickly,
the red flag, should be, “great when compared against what? That
last month had 2,000 unique visits? The goal for this month was 6,500
unique visits?”
It
prevents a reliance on the data alone, and forces the analyzer's hand
to actually work through the data and get to the bottom of what it
all means.
In
a post later this week, we will dive into one or two other features
that GA offers us as marketers, and where those features' value lies
in our marketplaces (Filters, and others). The world of analytics can
be daunting at first, even for the most seasoned marketing vets.
There is A LOT of information out there.
While
the case could be made that all of that is vital to any web site, the
truth is, certain aspects and valuations are going to be far more
valuable to that specific time period or campaign or objective.
Knowing what those are, going into the campaign, could make all the
difference in the world.
Efficiency
and value drive today's digital marketplace.
(A
visual relationship between Funnels and Goals available in your GA
Account)
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