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Tips for Enhanced Ecommerce Reporting with Google Analytics

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Enhanced Ecommerce Reporting with Google Analytics

Good morning. My name is Daniel Laws, and I am the Principal Owner of DaBrian Marketing Group, an advertising agency in Reading, PA. I’ve been fielding a few questions around Enhanced Ecommerce reporting with Google Analytics. Today, what I want to talk about is exactly that, Enhanced Ecommerce reporting with Google Analytics. What I’m going to address today is what it is, and first and foremost, how is it different from the existing reporting that’s there. Also, how do you set it up? When you should set it up, where to set it up, as well as who needs to be involved in setting up those elements. Why you should care. What’s the value for your business for you to have those pieces set up.

With that being said, I’d like to kick this off with a little bit of information. Don’t mind me. I’m looking at dual screens here where I’ll drag a few things in, and obviously try to show you what I can. Obviously because of confidentiality with some of our clients and showing you their Google Analytics, can’t necessarily do that, but I’ll do my best to make it as informative, and give you the appropriate resources, and also load this information to our blog so that you might be able to get links directly to the assets. With that being said, I’m going to kick this off. Bear with me one moment while I share my screen. First and foremost, what I want to talk about is what is Enhanced reporting. With that being said, we’ve got Enhanced reporting. What you can see here is Enhanced reporting is going to give you more granular information than what you would get typically from Google Analytics as it pertains to shopping behavior, performance behavior, sales, product performance, sales performance. Those types of components will be more informative to you.

I’m looking for the screenshot here of something that’s actually going to be of value. What you can see here in this particular area is that it’s able to give you information as far as shopping activity, where the abandonments are happening simply from the shopping behavior components, as far as adding things to the cart, abandonment from cart, abandonment from checkout, those types of pieces. It can give you more information as well but at a high-level, I think one of the things that you’re going to be able to see … I know you’re going to be able to see is the shopping behavior, as well as a number of other items that will help you to make better business decisions around what sales items are working, perhaps identifying opportunities to fix the site, what have you.

How is this different from AdWords Shopping? From an AdWords Shopping perspective, you’re going to get high level information as far as clicks. You’re going to get information as far as Ecommerce revenue, conversion rate, those types of things, cost per click, to be a little bit specific. It’s going to give you some of those components if you’re running shopping. Obviously, this is a blank scenario. That’s why I used it in a test environment, so to speak. Obviously, it’s going to give you that type of information within the reporting, which is uniquely different than what you’re going to get from an overview of shopping behavior types of components. Now, what we’re looking at is shopping related information, revenue affiliates, campaigns, transactions. Those types of things are going to populate within the shopping. As you can see, it’s rather different than the other components.

The other piece of this is how do you set it up. I think one of the best resources that are out there are … Obviously you’re going to want to go to the Enhanced Ecommerce reporting section. Again, I’ll put this link towards the conclusion of the video. You’re going to want to get that information around Enhanced reporting. How you set it up can be complicated. I don’t want to say it’s very complicated, but it can be complicated in some scenarios. You want to make sure you have the most up to date analytics component there. What I mean by that is if you take a look, if you’re not on the most up to date Google Analytics version, if you’re not on analytics.js, you will run into issues and will need to migrate. Again, this is the information that’s there. You’ll need to migrate to that. You do have two options. You can migrate in an existing component or you can create a new property. In most cases people are going to want to have some of that historical data, be able to look at it in one fell swoop. The migration can become a little bit cumbersome in order to make that happen. Perhaps at a later date I’ll be able to shed some light on that for you as well.

You want to make sure that you have a measurement plan, first and foremost, before you go on this. Why are you doing what you need to do in order to capture this information? What metrics and KPIs? How are you going to troubleshoot and validate everything that’s there? Looking at some of those high-level components within the measurement plan … I’m not going to get into the details. If you haven’t done or looked at a measurement plan, I would recommend that you take a look at Google Analytics Academy, which gives you a high level overview of a measurement plan and how to break that down. Make sure that you have all those metrics, those elements, goals and objectives lined out prior to implementing the Enhanced Ecommerce reporting with Google Analytics.

When should you set this up? In most cases, people are already going to have some type of data already established, some campaigns, things that you’re already doing. I would say as quickly as humanly possible. The reason why I say that is it’s going to shed some light on a number of different areas, as I eluded to earlier, and perhaps help you to identify some low hanging fruit. With that being said, you want to do it now. If you can’t do it now, do you schedule regular updates for Google Analytics in order to roll out new capabilities? When you roll out those updated capabilities, I think that is when you’re going to want to take a look at updating the code and implementing the necessary components.

The reason why I say that is that it goes back to what you’re going to want to enable first and foremost, the tracking capabilities in itself and turn on Enhanced reporting. One of the prerequisites for this, as you can see here, is to turn on that particular element. That is inside the Admin Console. Due to confidentiality, obviously, I won’t show you that right now. If you want to go to that particular area, you go into Google Analytics. You go to Admin, and then you navigate to the view area of Ecommerce Settings, enable that particular piece, and that should be able to help you with some of those elements. Obviously you want to save, and then you want to implement the appropriate tags. That’s where it goes back to the Google developer components of what needs to be there and establishing that plug-in. It’s a great resource for that type of information as far as impression data, product data, and action data, as far as what needs to be required within updating that code.

Perhaps the other option for when you should set this up is when you roll out new products, new site features, whatever it might be, is incorporating that into that roll out if you can’t get it out now. You’ve heard me talk a little bit about the code, and updating the code, and what do you need, and those types of things. The other piece of this is who needs to be involved. To some degree you’re going to need somebody with some programming skills, familiarity with Google Analytics code, so a web analyst or someone who can obviously read through some of the material and the reference materials within the guides, and assist with those elements. In general, that’s going to be a programmer, somebody with familiarity with JavaScript, HTML, CSS if necessary. That’s generally not often required. It’s usually JavaScript, HTML code, PHP, those types of things, depending upon what your site is built on.

Where does this information go? Obviously, what you need is a site, as I eluded to before, you need to enable this inside your Google Analytics as I showed you before. You’re also going to want to have access and administrative access to Google Analytics when you bring the necessary parties involved. You may opt to implement this from a Tag Manager perspective. For the purposes of right now, I would say test it, get it up in the test environment. If you have the appropriate Google Analytics configuration, you’ll generally have an unfiltered view, a master view, and in the test view, I would say get those elements up and running first and foremost. If you’re going to use Tag Manager, make sure that you’re utilizing something within a test environment with Tag Manager to populate that information. When I say Tag Manager, I’m referring to Google Tag Manager specifically.

Why should you care? Number one, it integrates with your Ecommerce site, which is uniquely different from the shopping campaigns. The shopping campaigns and AdWords are very specific to you utilizing shopping campaigns via Google Analytics, no more no less. With the Enhanced Ecommerce Shopping, will allow you to gauge opt in opt … Not necessarily opt-in but abandonment rate, check out issues, sales performance issues, as it pertains to your Ecommerce site without running a campaign in its entirety, or without the necessity to have to run a campaign, if that makes sense. With that being said, it gives you an opportunity to improve revenues, increase revenues, identify broken processes that are impacting conversion rates. Why are people abandoning the shopping process? Why are people not putting items in the cart? At the same time, identifying ways to improve the average order value and the efficiency of your marketing. Where does the efficiency of your marketing come in? Comes very much so into play with internal promotions, and order coupons, and being able to get that information within Enhanced Ecommerce reporting with Google Analytics.

One of the other pieces of this, as I eluded to, is obviously the checkout, the shopping behavior, the checkout behavior analysis, their performance, product performance, sales performance. There’s also the internal promotions, order, and coupons just to name a few others that are going to provide you with information on what is working, what products are moving, what sales are performing well, do you modify things, and being able to collect that information based upon the measurement plan that I had mentioned earlier, and looking at those core metrics and being very focused on the goals and objectives to be able to pull out those insights and to do something about it.

With that being said, what’s the value to your business? The Bottom line is this information is going to help you to increase sales and revenue. It’s going to help you to improve marketing efficiency. It’s going to help you to prioritize items that are going to impact growth. One of the things that we often see is you have business owners that are running their business themselves and are handling their Ecommerce site, or working with a vendor directly, or they’ve got a marketing manager that is all encompassing. You’ve got a huge organization where not all of the pieces are connected. Where do you prioritize what’s going to have the maximum impact on the business?

By implementing the Enhanced Ecommerce reporting with Google Analytics, it gives you the opportunity to prioritize that information more specifically, look at those low hanging fruits that can impact revenue and growth, and to make sure that you can allocate time with things that are going to have the maximum impact, as opposed to trying to tackle everything. In most cases, there’s a lot to tackle from an Ecommerce perspective. We’re talking about SEO. We’re talking about advertising, paid search, banner ads, shopping campaigns, remarketing, a number of different things from an Ecommerce perspective, and retail perspective is everything from inventory ads.

Where do you prioritize your time? I think by enabling Enhanced reporting, it gives you a little bit more visibility into that. It gives you better metrics and allows you to justify advertising spent. Listen to me again, allows you to justify advertising spent. Many times we’re spending money on SEO. We’re spending money on pay per click. We’re spending money on email campaigns. We’re able to see what’s generating revenues, what items are being bogged down. You can slice and dice that data by segment, by marketing tactics so to speak, whether it’s the source medium. From a Google Analytics perspective, allow you to slice and dice that information and look at that shopping information very specifically.

With that being said, what I’ll do is I’ll load some of these resources to our blog when the video is live, point you in a right direction. Perhaps at a later date, we can get a little bit more granular on implementation of the code. Maybe we’ll get our buddy, our resident programmer webmaster here, Brett, to actually walk through some of those components for you. With that being said, thank you very much. Hope it was useful. Please let us know if we can add anything else of value. Thank you very much.

Resources:

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6014841?

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/3455481?https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/upgrade/

The Right Way to Get Your Videos Shared More

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This week, DMG is proud to feature a guest blog post from Michelle Downs, Director of Content & Community at 12 Stars Media. 12 Stars is an Indianapolis-based video production company focusing on producing video that allows companies to build closer connections with their target audience.

Looking to get your videos shared more? Of course you are. But in order to get your videos shared, you’ll need to have a purpose for them as well as know what your audience wants from your videos. How many times have you just shared your video once and then expected it to go viral? Or created a video without your audience in mind? In order to get your videos shared you need to first have a purpose for them.

Have a purpose for sharing

Before you even tweet out your video, make sure you have a purpose for it. What do you want your video to accomplish? Do you want someone to sign up for your next event? Plan your purpose out and make it clear when you share your video. By having a purpose for your video before you share it, you’ll know exactly what you want and how you want to present it, which is much better than just throwing it out there.

The best way to make sure your video gets shared more is for it to have a distinct purpose.

Know your audience

If you know what your audience wants, then it will be much easier to get them to share your videos. For example: on Facebook we share a lot of behind the scenes videos, because our audience on Facebook already knows us and loves to see things with our team members in it, unlike Twitter where most of our audience loves to hear the latest tips for shooting and editing their videos. It’s important to monitor your channels and find out what your audience wants on each of them because odds are, your audience won’t be the same on each social site.

Share it often

Don’t be afraid to share your video a lot. If you want your video to get out there then you can’t just post it on YouTube and expect it to take off. Share it on your social sites where the video is relevant to that particular audience. And don’t be afraid to share it multiple times in one day on Twitter or a couple of times a month on Facebook. This is especially helpful if you happen to have clients who live in different time zones because you’re more likely to reach them by sharing your video at different times throughout the day.

Change up the way you share

It’s also a good idea to change up the way you present your video when you share it. Don’t just share it with the title of the video. Add some more info to it or your take on the video or how this video will help your audience with something. Ask a question. Present a challenge. You’re more likely to reach a wider audience by mixing up the way you share the video and by sharing it multiple times, and when you reach a wider audience, you’re more likely to get more shares.

There are many different tactics to use when sharing a new video production.
By knowing your audience, having a purpose for your video, and understanding each social channel, you’ll be able to expand your reach with each video you share and provide content that your clients and potential clients are looking for.

How to Fail at Video Marketing

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So, You Want to Start Making Videos

As a marketing medium, video is great. Really great. Think about it—in less than 90 seconds, it’s possible to captivate your audience, bring them to the brink of tears, or even turn them into your next customers. As a marketer, browsing your favorite brands on YouTube can quickly make you feel like your own marketing mix is missing something.

Whether you’re working toward brand differentiation:

Highlighting your latest product or service:

Or better yet, showing your commitment to helping others:

How can your team possibly manage to produce video content like this? Today, that dream becomes a reality. We’re not going to show you what you should be doing, but precisely the pitfalls to avoid. Let’s get started.

1. You Don’t Have a Plan

It’s really easy to rush into video thinking that all the pieces will simply fall into their proper places. Production timelines? Animation requirements? Let’s table those, we’ve got editing software suites and fancy cameras to buy!

Trust us when we say, video is like any other marketing tactic. It requires proper planning, tactful execution, and measurement components to be truly successful. Because video can incorporate so much of your company (your brand identity, your value proposition, your website or other linked assets, etc.), there’s no reason a strategy shouldn’t be priority numero uno.

To begin, start with some goals and objectives that you hope to achieve using video, whether you’re looking for greater brand awareness from a younger demographic or increased social media engagement and sharing. Then, take those goals and decide the best ways to measure them accurately and consistently. Will you define “brand awareness” by the number of viewers that watch your video all the way through, or the users that respond to your call to action asking them to subscribe for more info?

These, my friend, are the elements and processes to include in your video marketing measurement plan and strategy.

2. You’re Stuck Thinking Inside the Box

Conceptually, video is a perfect way to highlight key areas of your brand, but also venture into uncharted waters. What many businesses find, though, is that they limit themselves in the creative process. Take note of this very important idea—it’s better to create one video that tries something new than create three that bore your viewers for the sake of playing it safe. In the digital space, it always pays to test, experiment, learn, and improve upon your tactics.

And so long as you’ve got clear measurements of success, you’ll be able to gauge which elements work, which were less effective, and where additional opportunities lie for the next go around. Here’s a quick example:

Let’s say you’ve spearheaded a production that gives your viewers an “inside look” at how your product is built, from the factory to the end user. Once complete, you notice that some measurements are off the charts, like viewer retention and social media shares, but others are lower than you’d like—such as referral traffic and user comments. Your next video can improve upon the last one by asking users to share their story or offering some incentive for leaving their comment.

The point is, there’s no reason you shouldn’t change up your process based on available data.

3. You Film Too Much (or Not Enough)

Now, to the content itself. Here you have to make a very important choice, and that’s precisely the type of footage or style(s) of video that consistently represents your brand and its message. Per-production project briefs are a great idea here, as they allow you to decide exactly what to shoot and what is unnecessary based upon the video’s overall goal. Some other important items to cover in a video project brief include:

  • The audience segment(s) you hope to target
  • The key takeaway(s) or value to a viewer
  • Other required assets (music, text, images, etc.)
  • Transitions and/or fades
  • Start/end screen text (i.e. your call to action)

With this information in hand, you can ensure your entire team can remain on the same page regarding the general vision for each production. As you start shooting, the brief will guide the process, meaning you don’t waste precious time on location or shooting sequences that might not make it into the finalized piece (even if it seemed like a good idea at the time).

On the flip side, there’s the problem of shooting a single piece of footage for an entire production and calling it quits. Unless the video falls into the category of a “recorded webinar” or “presentation,” aim to include at least 3-5 other assets throughout. As an example, if the focus of the video is an interview with a highly-acclaimed chef opening a new restaurant, additional BRoll can include clips of dishes being prepared or photos of the restaurant’s construction. BRoll refers to any secondary content that lends additional meaning to a primary sequence.

4. Your Reach Exceeds Your Grasp

I know, I know. We just talked about not succumbing to creative limitations, but this holds true as well. Jumping into video marketing without assessing what is and isn’t possible is the start of a slippery slope. One that leads to your team spending precious time and effort trying to meet your overzealous expectations. If you’ve got a crew of two in charge of all video production, from planning, to editing, to promotion, you may find that quarterly videos are more feasible than monthly.

One way to combat a lack of resources but keep the creative juices flowing is to explore “microcontent” video platforms, such as Vine or Instagram. Of course, keeping this process adaptable, focused, and brand-consistent is still vital. As an example, your local law firm probably shouldn’t be posting #TBT pics or selfies. Remember that even though these productions are often smaller and more spontaneous, it’s still an entire brand you’re representing. Save the LOL pics for when you’re off the clock.

Are you ready to take the plunge into video? Grab your water-wings and share your experience in the comments!

Highlights from “Calculating Creative” Presentation

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What if we told you your creative resources were hindering your marketing success?

What if the answers you were looking for came from free platforms and tools?

What if we could help you improve your business’s entire creative process?

Well, we can. And it’ll take less than 15 minutes. Learn how data is the key to better creative decisions and more targeted campaigns in a talk given by our President and CEO, Danny Laws, for the American Advertising Federation – Greater Lehigh Valley.

For more information or access to the “director’s cut,” give us a call or drop us a line!