Measuring the Success of Online Marketing

Measuring the Success of Online Marketing

Scott Thomas AboutTheInn.com

Overview

Basic Google Analytics features and what we can do with them

Examine sources of website visitors

Set up Goals

Set up E-Commerce tracking

Set up a simple B&B Directory segment

Analyze results

Basic Terminology

Visits number of sessions on your website - interactions

Pages/Visit average pages per visit

Avg Time on Site average length of time people stayed on your site

% New Visits how many visits were from people visiting for the first time

Bounce Rate percentage of visitors who left after viewing only one page

What can we do with these Basic Metrics?

Look at trends over past few months

Compare this month to last month

Compare this month with the same month last year (especially for seasonal properties)

Overview Pie Chart

Search TrafficGoogle, Bing, Yahoo, Ask, etc. (includes paid search ads)

Referring SitesOther websites sending traffic to you (directories, local Chamber, etc.)

Overview Pie Chart

Direct TrafficBookmarks, typed URL, other sources GA can't allocate

CampaignsPaid, email, direct marketing, QR codes, etc.

What do we do with these areas?

SearchSee which search engines send traffic

Look at trends over time, vs. previous year, etc.

Look at paid vs. organic

What keywords/key phrases are sending visitors?

1. Traffic > Search > Organic 2. Traffic > Search > Paid Search3. Compare - with last month- with same month last year- trend over 12 months4. Keywords- top referring keywords- (not provided)

Search who sends traffic?

Search trend over time

Search paid vs organic


DirectMany of these users know you well enough to bookmark you or type in your URL

See if you can determine what they are looking at (and why)

What countries/States/cities do these visitors come from?What pages do they view?What is their conversion rate?

Direct landing pages

You can also use the Pages -> Navigation Summary to see where these visitors spend their time


ReferralsHow are paid directories and other paid listings doingOver time

Compared to previous year, month

Are there any sources sending traffic that you don't recognize? Why are they sending traffic to you?

NB Referrals do not include Campaign source traffic

NB referrals from your booking engine are not real referrals!

Current month vs last month

Trend over time (year?)

This year vs last year

Tip: to find out how an unexpected site has linked to you, in Google enter site:siteurl.com yourdomain.com (without the quotes)

Referrals How are they doing?

Compared to All Visits

Also check Goals and Ecommerce







Referrals How are they doing?

Over time

Don't forget Goals and Ecommerce reports








CampaignsHow do you set up a campaign? mysite.com/page.htm?utm_source=campaign

Or mysite.com/?utm_source=campaign

Are your campaigns sending visitors?

How do they do over time?

Be aware that making a regular referrer a campaign source removes them from the Referrals report. We will solve this problem with a B&B Directories Advanced Segment.

Using the information

How do visitors use your site?Is your home page where most people enter the site?

What percentage enter on the home page?

What keywords are used to find your site?

Check keywords vs. bounce rateWhy are people finding you and leaving?

What % of visitors enter on the home page?

What pages do the rest of them use?

What keywords are visitors using to find you?

- Are they the keywords you are targeting?

- What keywords are bringing visitors who bounce? Why?

Using the information

What pages are bringing in bounces?Check landing pages vs. bounce rate

You don't control the entry point

Fix those that stink

Entry points and keywords

Content -> Site Content -> Landing Pages

Sources -> Search -> Organic

Kewords and Bounce Rates

To use a weighted search, sort by Bounce Rate by clicking that column, then select Weighted from the Sort Type pulldown.

Landing Pages and Bounces

Making Sense of the Data

What is the objective of your website?

How can we use the data to see how we're doing?

Setting up Goals

Help: http://goo.gl/wxILD

Specify goal URL (the Thank You page)

Funnel (optional): Include each page that is needed to complete the goal

Don't make the pages Required Steps (unless they really are)

Data collection usually takes 24 hours

Setting up Ecommerce

Help: http://goo.gl/12aY2

Settings->Profiles->Profile Settings

Add code to shopping cart, receipt or Thank You pagesSome online booking engines will do this for you, others require you to do it yourself.

Create a B&B Directories Advanced Segment

Create B&B Directories Segment and compare to All Traffic

Create a B&B Directories Advanced Segment

Compare stats for the segment to All Traffic, or to similar segments (for example, B&B directories compared to review sites)

Notice things that are different from one member of the segment to the another

View Goals for segment members and compare

View Ecommerce and compare

Create B&B Directories Segment and compare to All Traffic

Wrap-Up

Compare results over previous month/year

Find landing pages with high bounce rates

Find keywords with high bounce rates

Create segments for marketing channels

Create goals and set up ecommerce

Thank you!

Scott Thomas

[email protected]

Technology

Measuring the Success of Online Marketing