Web analytics experts have seen it all: the good use of data, the bad use of data, and the complete disregard of data. In this post, we’ve interviewed several experts to get their advice.
What really matters with website analytics? What’s important? How can you prioritise what actions you take and what you should track?
These web analytics experts have the answers so, listen up.
For website analytics that lets you build smart marketing campaigns based on real user behaviour in your site, check out GoSquared.
Set up tracking ASAP.
“Get it done early! People often don’t get it set up straight away, and they don’t always set up goal tracking at the start either. Unfortunately, when that happens, there is a lot of lost data that you can’t get back. Setting up analytics and goal tracking is one of the first things that should be done on your website.” – Dan Lacey, SEO Consultant
Use web analytics to inform automated emails to your hottest leads.
“We set up a Marketing Automation campaign to trigger a ‘social proof’ email a few minutes after they had visited our pricing page. This is one of the most successful automated campaigns we’ve ever set up. No hard-selling, just an email sharing the recent awards that we had won for being easiest to install, having highest user adoption and the best customer support. We saw open rates of 75% for that email campaign, compared to approximately open rates of 40% for campaigns not as data-driven.” – Russell Vaughan, Sales Engineer at GoSquared
Learn how to trigger personalised messaging with real website behaviour with GoSquared
Employ ratios to determine the likelihood of turning viewers into customers.
“Communicate metrics effectively because good metrics are most effective when represented as ratios, not solid numbers. For example, looking at the traffic and sales figures over a month could be confusing, as there may not be any linear pattern when looking at these separately. However, when we do a ratio, the data is more precise: for every 1000 viewers, the client gains 10 customers.” – Vinay Amin, CEO of Eu Natural
Set things up right and test that it’s tracking.
“When you’re setting up your website analytics, make sure to exclude your IP address, and anyone else’s who’s working on the website. Then test tracking in real-time. That way, you’ll see if the tracking is correctly set up, and the traffic sources are reported.” – Hardeep Matharoo, Head of Digital Marketing at Best Response Media
Track funnel steps and the customer journey.
“Website analytics is much more than just a couple of metrics like page views and the number of leads that you get. So, you should set up your website analytics in a way so you can track your customers’ entire journey. Set goals for each stage of your funnel and then evaluate those goals against the actual data. Wherever you find a gap between the two, you should analyse what went wrong or what can be improved, and based on that, create an action plan.” – Baidhurya Mani, Blogger and Agency Owner of Sell Courses Online
Fix high bounce rates on content.
“We’re an educational content site, so we aim to attract readers organically by providing in-depth articles, reviews, and how-to guides. If we clearly understand the type of content people want to read, then we create more of it. When an article ranks well for views but has a high bounce rate, we figure out why that is. Is there a clear path for a reader to follow? Are the calls-to-action or suggested reading at the bottom of the article aligned to the purpose of the post, and to what the reader wants to see next? The answers to these questions help us to adjust our tactics and so keep visitors on our site.” – Alex Azoury, Blogger and CEO of Homegrounds
Track revenue not views.
“Assign a monetary value to goals, instead of views. Apply a monetary value to a specific page. For example, if a blog post with a million views is the primary source for your financial gain, add $1000 per 10,000 views if that’s what you expect. Knowing how much money is spent on that page can determine which marketing tactics you’ll use to achieve these goals. It can also help you avoid losing money on leads that go nowhere.” – Darshan Somashekar, Founder of Drop.io acquired by Facebook, current CEO of Solitaired
Figure out what matters to you.
“My top piece of advice for setting up your web analytics is to evaluate your top business and website goals and choose your metrics based on them. Moreover, stay away from vanity metrics like the number of organic visitors and follower counts, because they’re one of the biggest obstacles for growth. Instead, choose the metrics you follow based on how closely they are related to achieving your business goals.” – Jane Kovalkova, Chief Marketing Officer at Chanty
For website analytics that lets you build smart marketing campaigns based on real user behaviour in your site, check out GoSquared.
Segment your analytics to get better insights.
“One of the less commonly used web analytics insights is related to audience segmentation. If you strategically segment your audience, you’ll get a lot of insights about your audience’s behaviour and preferences which you wouldn’t be able to identify by looking at the aggregate data. This is important because segmentation helps you understand your customers better and so, you can personalise your marketing and get better results.” – Baidhurya Mani, Blogger and Agency Owner of Sell Courses Online
Get into the secondary dimensions.
“Although using the secondary dimensions on Google Analytics is simple, most of the business owners I talk to don’t know how to use it properly or even know that this resource exists. The secondary dimensions allow deepening the analysis in the primary dimensions. When selecting a particular primary property (for example, the ‘/ blog’ page), it is possible to use the secondary dimensions, which open up several possibilities for analysis. For example, you can segment by page, location, device, or source. When we analyse an SEO campaign, we use the secondary dimensions to have a more accurate overview of the website performance for organic traffic.” – Gabriela Damanceno, Digital Marketing Specialist at Media Shark
Make time for historical data.
“When reviewing reports, you always want to compare them to historical data. Specifically, you want to see positive changes over time in important areas.” – Oliver Andrews, owner of OA Design Services
Check website analytics data at the same time every day.
“Check the data consistently. Set up a regular time of day that works best for you to check-in and see what the latest data is saying. If you check in ad-hoc, then you won’t have time to react when you need to.” – Dan Lacey, SEO Consultant
Get behavioural data too.
“Numbers alone won’t do. Use website analytics data in conjunction with a behaviour analysis tool (heatmaps, session recordings, etc). Don’t waste your time checking the data on a daily basis. Use that time to create and promote new content. Set aside a day to make an in-depth analysis, based on the combined analytics and behaviour data. Then, make changes to increase the website conversion rate.” – Luka Maras, Chief Marketing Officer of FlipKod
Discover the last customer action that led to a conversion.
“Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels is an under utilised tool. Multi-Channel Funnels are conversions in which ecommerce transactions are credited to the last campaign, search, or ad that referred the user converted. This information is helpful to work out which campaign SEO or PPC campaign is leading to action whether that step is a conversation, sign up or a transaction.” – Hardeep Matharoo, Head of Digital Marketing at Best Response Media
Understand how search queries affect behaviour.
“Know what users searched for and where on the website did they land after their search. For example, as an ecommerce store, we can get a sense of that by looking at the traffic to product landing pages through Google Webmaster tools. You have to make a distinction between brand and non-brand searches via Webmaster tools. Set up a report for queries for landing pages in Google Data Studio and check the relation of clicks form queries and organic traffic for a landing page in Google Analytics. So you combine data from what people search for organically, which pages did they land on and then did they like or not what they saw on the page. Look at the behaviour metrics and quality metrics on that landing page. If you can know what people searched for then you can try to serve them content that would relate to their search.” – Filip Silobod, Ecommerce Strategist for Liwu Jewellery
Begin with an objective.
“When it comes to website analytics, everything you do has to depend on the objective of the business. Otherwise, it can most certainly get overwhelming. Personally, I love the components of “goals” under Google Analytics so that it makes the numbers hit a specific goal, and you can measure your numbers more clearly. Ask yourself how your website traffic will meet your tangible needs. Understand how you can quantify or benchmark those metrics.” – Larissa Castelluber, President at Design Moves
Optimise your top-performing content.
“Always optimise your top-performing content to increase revenue even further. You can do this by looking at the “page value” column in Google Analytics (Behavior>Site Content>All Pages). For this to work, you have to set up goal conversions with values first before you see numbers here. Once you know your top performers, you can a/b test updates.” – Ariel Lim, Digital Marketing Consultant
For website analytics that lets you build smart marketing campaigns based on real user behaviour in your site, check out GoSquared.
