I’ve been wanting to write this blog for a couple of weeks now but a series of events just kept me away from this until now. The new Google Analytics has been ‘live’ for more than 2 weeks now and for those who have not noticed it, it follows a different philosophy from the past – where quality matters more than quantity. Here’s why I say that.
Imagine if you have 10,000 web visitors per month and you have probably 10 inquiries per month. Some of the digital marketers might brag about the amount of traffic they are getting but the truth is, what matters is the inquiries, or Conversions, which in this case, works out to just 0.1%. And chances are, most marketers do not know where the source of traffic they are getting that results in their conversions.
Fast forward to today and the new Google Analytics exactly helps to address that: Quality matters more than quantity and we will help you to measure what really matters to your website. The new A-B-C of Google Analytics is Acquisition, Behavior, Conversion. I sum it up using the following graphic which I shared with my team during an internal sharing session:
So as a Digital Marketer, what you need to know (before your bosses do and ask you) and also ask yourself are the following:
- What is the purpose of my website? Is it for lead generation, branding, awareness or engagement with existing or new customers?
- How can that purpose be translated into measurable GOALS? For example, lead generation can be defined by the number of inquiries measured by the source to track the effectiveness of your campaigns. Engagement could be defined by time on site as a GOAL for your website. Though leadership could be defined by the number of embedded PDF downloads of your latest whitepapers, which can be tracked as an Event in Google Analytics.
- How much is the GOAL worth to me and my organization? You can tag a value to the GOAL, which is an existing feature in Google Analytics.
- Which campaigns contributes most to my goals? Campaign tracking has been in Google Analytics for years but the importance of Campaign tracking has now been amplified by the new Google Analytics, as now, I can measure whether Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Newsletter etc. best contributes to the GOALS that I have defined. (If you have not tried the URL builder or is unaware of this tool, now is the time to start adopting it)
So gone are the days where Digital Marketers can bluff their bosses that hey, I have generated 10,000 unique visitors to the website. At the end of the day, if the traffic does not result in the Conversion to the GOAL that you have defined, 10,000 visitors is as good as ZERO.
So start tagging your campaigns today and measure your goals before your bosses ask you to.
Need help to create campaign goals in your GA account? Contact us and we’ll be glad to help.