Google Analytics (GA) is a service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about a website’s traffic and traffic sources and measures conversions and sales. GA can track visitors from all sources, including search engines, social networks, direct visits, and referring sites. GA offers an incredible amount of insight into your website’s visitor activity. In fact, many people who use GA don’t fully utilize all the functionality within it. Here are a few ways you can use GA to grow sales and increase return on investment (ROI).
Utilize Customer Segments
One way you can use GA to be more effective is to utilize customer segments. This will help you gain better insights on the different segments for better marketing while helping you save more money and increase your overall ROI. For example, maybe you want to see the percentage at which mobile vs. non-mobile visitors convert between the hours of 9am and 5pm. Or, maybe you want to see how organic search visitors compare to paid search visitors. It is easier to compare and contrast different groups when you can see them side-by-side.
Pay Attention to Your Mobile Users
iPhones and iPads and Droids….Oh my! As technology has continued to advance, the days of visitors strictly coming to a website via their desktop are long gone. More and more visitors today are coming from some sort of mobile device. Do you have a significant portion of visitors coming from a mobile device? If so, are they using smartphones or tablets? Do they convert as well as non-mobile users? These are just some of the questions you will be able to answer by utilizing GA. Something as simple as just adding a mobile theme can be helpful, but proactively and regularly addressing problem areas can incrementally improve conversion rates over time.
Set-Up Event Tracking
Event tracking allows you to see all kinds of interesting moments that do not end up at a thank you or confirmation page with its own URL. For example, if you know that people who download a white paper are three times more likely to convert, you can adjust your promotions and more prominently feature your white papers on your site. Understanding what information prospects are seeking & clicking will significantly help you when it comes to optimizing the user experience.
Create and Use Custom Reports
By taking advantage of custom reporting you have the ability to create, save, and edit to get a specific view of your data. Jumping back and forth between several reports to see data that you might think would be visible within a single report can be frustrating and stressful. GA’s custom reporting can help you to alleviate some of that stress. Creating custom reports is quick and easy, and it will help you save time and money while making it easier to share with decision makers.
Determine the Source of Traffic
Determining from where and why people are coming to your site in the first place is invaluable information. Referrals may be one of the ways people are getting to your site. You could be surprised at the amount of traffic you are getting from a few websites. Search could be another way you are receiving traffic. If Search drives a significant portion of your data, keyword reports are an invaluable source of data. Campaigns are yet another way people could be arriving at your site. If you’ve been properly tagging your outbound emails, paid search efforts, etc., they will show up here. This will give you a quick place to compare all campaigns against each other. It is extremely important to identify the sources & mediums that are sending the most relevant traffic. In other words, know which prospects are converting the most.