6 techniques to customise Google Analytics to help you get better results from your website.

1. Using Google Analytics toimprove your business results Presented to The Internet Conference Nottingham, 14th May 2010 Dr Dave Chaffey, CEO, Smart Insights www.smartinsights.com Download via “Presentations”

2. Engaging web users is tough!

3. About Dave Chaffey Best practice Qualifications Books Strategy & Analytics Portal & Software: www.smartinsights.com/beta Search & Conversion consulting Strategy consulting

4. 4

7. 2. Segmenting with advanced segments

8. 3. Creating custom reports and dashboards

9. 4. Setting up marketing campaign tracking

10. 5. Modifying profile and filter setup

11. 6. Customisations with server modifications

12. 3 A very brief intro to AB and MVT

13. Please ask questions after each section…

14. No question too simple or too advanced!|5

15. Case study Euroffice 6 Encourage search dominant visitors SEO and brand intro OVP Encourage browse dominant visitors “Reasons to return” OVP Social proof

16. Euroffice social presence 7

17. Euroffice Email Examples

19. Areas of site to focus on?

21. Engage – Engage through relevant quality content mainly on your site, but also content syndicated to partner sites

22. Activate – Convert engagement into business value – generate leads and sales

23. Nurture – Build relationships throughout the customer lifecycle through online direct messaging (Email, Blogs, RSS Feeds and SMS messaging) and community content|10

25. Reach:

26. Engage

27. Activate

29. How do we compare? Benchmarks Source: http://www.marketing-online.co.uk/wiki/Ecommerce_Conversion_Rates_Statistics |13

30. Coremetrics summary dashboard example 14

31. Practical Tip – Identify most important page types by Content Drilldown volume, $Index (low or high), bounce and exit rates multiplied by page views Where do we start? What will give us the biggest uplift in…? Home page Landing pages Category pages Branding & utility pages Search Product pages Conversion goal pages Check out pages |15

32. Sound advice… |16

33. Source: Craig Sullivan independent survey 2009 |17

34. Practical Tip Review % age of visits by different landing page types (for first time and repeat visitors) Activity: Where do most prospects enter and leave your sites? What are bounce rates? How does this differ for segments. “Points of Resolution” Home page About Us Search page Category page Detailed product info Product page Sub-product page Pricing Security & Privacy Checkout / forms Tailored landing page | 18

35. Source: Craig Sullivan independent survey 2009 |19

36. Tracking session interactions Source: www.clicktale.com See also:http://www.marketing-online.co.uk/wiki/Website_Visitor_Behaviour_Analysis_Tools |20

37. Granular call tracking example Source:http://www.clickthrough-marketing.com/phone-call-tracking.php Alternatives: http://www.freshegg.com/call-track-id.htm, http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/call-metrics |21

38. Tip. Use Feedback tools“Why” not “What” 22 http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-software/website-feedback-tools-review/

39. Google Analytics will only show you ‘What’ not ‘Why’ – other tools can helpiPerceptionshttp://www.4qsurvey.com/ “Bad web site. Difficult to find item as no search box provided for short cut” “I can't find any prices on your website” “Would like to see where I can buy products from” . |23

40. 1 Google Analytics setup and customisation in 6 steps1. Working with reports 2. Segmenting with advanced segments3. Creating custom reports and dashboards 4. Setting up marketing campaign tracking5. Modifying profile and filter setup 6. Customisations with server modifications See: http://www.davechaffey.com/blog/web-analytics/customising-google-analytics-for-your-business/

41. Working with reports in a smarter way Customisation technique 1 | 25

42. Smarter reporting options Using the calendar / time period options for comparison Pivot tables Filter reports with simple filter based on page or keyword name or New: an Advanced Filter on any variable New: Setting annotations – beneath the top chart Intelligence Beta:Review standard alertsvia left menu | 26

43. Use your “Intelligence” 27 Tip: Use Custom Alerts in your system http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/web-analytics/google-analytics-web-analytics/my-experiences-of-using-the-google-analytics-intelligence-feature-to-review-seo-and-pay-per-click/

44. Example Pivot + Filter 28

45. Page analysis technique : Reverse and forward path analysis |29

46. How effective is your scent? 30 Example SCENT TRAILS NEW CUSTOMER? <CUSTOMER-CENTRIC SERVICE NAMES> WHERE / HOW TO BUY? WHY CHOOSE US?

47. Segmenting your audience by setting up advanced segments Customisation technique 2 | 31

48. Advanced segments – how it works |32

50. Natural

51. Paid and natural brand and non-brand

52. By number of keywords – 2,3,4

54. Returning visitor

55. Registered visitor

58. Product page

59. Checkout complete

61. Screen resolution

63. US

64. FIGS

65. ROW| 33 See http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/web-analytics/google-analytics-web-analytics/segmenting-google-analytics/ + By behaviour – search and browse

66. Advanced segmentation exampleSegmentation by Visitor Type Practical Tip Use Content Drilldown for understanding grouped content popularity But need DFA! URL Strategy |34

67. Advanced: Dimensionator for second page viewed 35 http://www.analyticspros.com/blog/googleanalytics/93-dimensionator-google-analytics-dimensions.html

68. Handy plugin for relative SEO changes Firefox plugin: http://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/enhanced-google-analytics-firefox-plugin/ |36

69. |37 Advanced segmentation 2:Tracking social media Source (Step 10) : http://www.davechaffey.com/blog/web-analytics/configuring-google-analytics-guide/ See also: www.davechaffey.com/online-reputation-management-tools

70. Creating dashboards and custom reports within Google Analytics Customisation technique 3 | 38

71. How do you use the dashboard?? | 39

72. Custom reports beta (can overlay segmentation) |40

73. Some ideas for using custom reports 1. Time reporting. Use a dimension of week/month to compare performance over time more easily 2. Value reporting. Repeat 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 41 http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2010/02/leverage-custom-web-analytics-reports-insights.html

74. Bubble ormotion charts |42 NB shows animated performance by day

75. Setting up marketing campaign tracking Customisation technique 4 | 43

76. Campaign tracking Adwords will be tracked automatically provided you have specified within Adwords All other referring campaign traffic sources need parameters adding where practical Example: http://econsultancy.com/reports/search-engine-optimization-seo-best-practice-guide? utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=generic

77. Tip: Use a URL builder or spreadsheet Another example: http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=8909 &utm_campaign=CCXAQ081009A &utm_source=Monthly_xArts_Email &utm_medium=Internal_Email &utm_content=CCXAQ081009A_Bunker_image [or A_Bunker_intro] Activity: Try the Google URL builder http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578

78. New May 2010 Google Adwords Beta 46

79. Modifying profile setup within “Google Analytics Settings” Customisation technique 5

81. Setup multiple conversion goals

82. Attach notional value to each

83. Can then assess $Index value by referrer and content

84. Ecommerce sites have specific product value attached so generally best not to add value to non-sales goal|48 Consider additional goals – social bookmarking, commenting, catalogue requests, etc See Ran Nir: http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2009/03/10-must-track-google-analytics-goals.html See also http://www.viget.com/engage/how-to-track-internal-links-in-google-analytics/

85. New – 20 goals in GA so group them! |49

87. Example: Email sign-up, Landing page, checkout

89. Tracking on-site search | 52 Coremetrics UK Retail benchmarks Tip. find the search query parameter from the URL of a search results page

90. Q. What to look for in site search reports? |53

91. Filters and profiles – use for site structure Process: Create Advanced segment to test filter. Create filter. Apply to a test profile (only used for testing purposes – can check in minutes). Create final profile and apply filter. Grant access to this profile To avoid a problem of 0 traffic there should be a master profile which NEVER has any filters applied. Further reading: http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/2009/12/09/how-to-choose-between-advanced-segments-versus-profile-filters-in-google-analytics/ http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/?hl=en http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/accounts_profiles/index.html http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/filters/index.html http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/concepts/gaConceptsAccounts.html

92. Excluding staff access to data Single IP address Select Filter Manager Select “exclude all traffic from IP address” Use regular expression, e.g. 17616811 2. Range of IPs Ssimilar – use IP address tool at address below 3. Exclude by cookie Has to be based on login page to intranet or similar. Sets variable identifying employee in cookie Exclude visitors with cookie from main profile. See Step 2: http://www.smartinsights.com/web-analytics/configuring-google-analytics-guide/

93. Customisations that require server modifications Customisation technique 6

94. Ecommerce tracking | 57 And _trackTrans See http://www.davechaffey.com/blog/web-analytics/customising-google-analytics-for-your-business

96. Downloading documents (PDFs)

97. Clicking outbound links

98. Playing video clips

99. Best script to apply :http://blog.immeria.net/2009/01/google-analytics-script-to-track.html Can also use Virtual Page Views but need to exclude False Page Views with additional profile – see http://www.viget.com/engage/how-to-track-internal-links-in-google-analytics/

100. Engagement essential configuration:Event tracking Source: Google announces final rollout of Event tracking June 2009: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/06/event-tracking-now-available-in-all.html |59

102. Now _setCustomVar

103. With up to 20 variables

104. Possible applications:

105. Different subscribers - bronze, silver, gold

106. Customers vs non-customersRead more: http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingCustomVariables.html 60

107. 5 AB and multivariate testing Introducing the Google Web Optimizer Tool

109. Google Website Optimizer case study Source: Moneyspyder blog (with permission):http://blog.moneyspyder.co.uk/2009/06/enhanced-google-website-optimiser.htmlx

110. Combining event tracking with GWO Each variation / recipe in GWO is tracked as a separate event and can then be used to view more granular info – e.g. influence on AOV Source: Moneyspyder blog (with permission):http://blog.moneyspyder.co.uk/2009/06/enhanced-google-website-optimiser.htmlx

111. Don’t give too much choice?! Six different jams. 40% of the customers stopped to taste. 30% of those bought. Twenty-four different jams. 60% of the customers stopped to taste. But only 3% bought! http://sivers.org/jam

112. Autoglass case study Source: Craig Sullivan talking at EconsultancyMasterclass: http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/digital-marketing-strategy/online-marketing-masterclass-liveblogging

113. TV Comparison TV - Off TV - On +2.4% +6.4% -1.3% +14.8%

114. Another example +5.3%

115. Let’s Connect! Questions & discussion welcome uk.linkedin.com/in/davechaffey www.facebook.com/davechaffey www.twitter.com/DaveChaffey Blog www.smartinsights.com/blog Feeds www.feedburner.com/smartinsights Email Newsletter www.smartinsights.com