Slides from our talk at Manchester WordPress User Group in September 2015;
Using google analytics to track your digital marketing results accurately 16-09-2015 – mwug from Contrado Digital
Additional Notes
In addition to the slides, additional comments & resources mentioned;
- Use UTM Tracking Parameters on everything
- Google has a UTM URL Builder which can be found here, https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en, but we prefer ours here, https://www.contradodigital.com/resources/social-media-tracking-tool/
- Use Event Tracking on everything that someone does on the website that isn’t a page view. This will provide awesome insights into how your website visitors are behaving. Things like social media links, clicking to download, using Yoast SEO Plugin to track outbound links once the setup is configured correctly. Likewise for any mailto: and tel: links to track when customers are using click-to-email and click-to-call technologies.
- Set up goal tracking for everything!
- Set up Goal Funnels, particularly if you are an ecommerce website
- Set up Site Search within the Google Analytics settings, for WordPress the default query string parameter is ‘s’ for search URLs. Try here, http://search.contrado.digital/utm for an example.
- The tracking pixel technology which can be used on all normal emails is Sidekick from Hubspot, really cool technology.
- Use the Network report at Audience > Technology > Network to see which companies have been looking at your website. Most importantly, seeing which companies are looking at your website along with a quick Google search for “{Company Name} Contact Details” means you never have to pay for some of the extortionate service that are available offering this data at a premium
- If your website still isn’t responsive, then compare the conversion rates for mobile visitors with non-mobile visitors. Imagine a world when mobile customers are converting at the same level as desktop visitors and you can calculate the value it brings to have your website responsive and mobile friendly.
- Track offline activities using smart redirects such as contradodigital.com/offer1 which 301 redirects to a UTM’d URL such as www.contradodigital.com/?utm_source=something&utm_medium=something-else&utm_campaign=something-else. Allowing you to track the return on your investment from a print based campaign all the way through to website traffic and ultimately sales or enquiries. All of this data will show within the Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns report within Google Analytics
- Google Analytics uses Last Click Attribution by default. Understand the full conversion funnel and user journey with Assisted Conversions.
- Use Intelligence Events to set up alerts for when significant events happen within your Google Analytics data. This can help to identify problems on your website before they become an enormous issue.
- Use Real Time Data to see what is happening on your website right now. This is seriously cool for data geeks like myself.
- Use Advanced Segments to filter your Google Analytics data while you are browsing the different reports.
- Always have a Raw Data profile and Filtered Data profile within your Google Analytics setup for accurate reporting.
- Use Filtered Profiles if you want to permanently filter out the data from your Google Analytics reports. Use Advanced Segments if you only want to filter the data temporarily.
- When you are using Google AdWords, make sure you link your Google AdWords & Google Analytics accounts together to avoid your paid search traffic appearing as organic search traffic within Google Analytics.
- Referral spam is an enormous problem in Google Analytics at the minute so use these handy filters to remove future referral spam for good, https://www.contradodigital.com/resources/block-referrer-spam-google-analytics/. Generally speaking, any .htaccess or plugin based solution to referral spam doesn’t work that good as most Google Analytics spam is currently sent directly to Google Analytics and the bots never even visit your website.
- Use Virtual Page View tracking if using AJAX or redirect the user to a thank you page after they have submitted a form so you can track the full conversion funnel within the Funnel Visualisation report. This is possible within Contact Form 7 or Gravity Forms plugins for WordPress.
- Handy plugin for debugging your Google Analytics setup is Google Analytics Debugger for Google Chrome which can be found here, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-analytics-debugger/jnkmfdileelhofjcijamephohjechhna?hl=en
- Mailchimp can cause a few problems within your Google Analytics data if you don’t set this up right. Keep an eye on this and configure the settings to suit your needs.
- When two links on a page point to the same location, use Enhanced Link Attribution to separate out which link users are clicking on. To do this, view the Property Settings within the Administration area and turn on Enhanced Link Attribution. Once this is turned on, when you view your In-Page Analytics report, you will be able to see which links people are clicking on.
With thanks to Andreas Andrews for making such meticulous notes of my ramblings J
Any questions, leave a comment or drop me an email.
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Michael Cropper
Founder & Managing Director at Contrado Digital Ltd
Michael has been running Contrado Digital for over 10 years and has over 15 years experience working across the full range of disciplines including IT, Tech, Software Development, Digital Marketing, Analytics, SaaS, Startups, Organisational and Systems Thinking, DevOps, Project Management, Multi-Cloud, Digital and Technology Innovation and always with a business and commercial focus.
He has a wealth of experience working with national and multi-national brands in a wide range of industries, across a wide range of specialisms, helping them achieve awesome results. Digital transformation, performance and collaboration are at the heart of everything Michael does.