“Marketing without data is like driving with your eyes closed.,” – Dan Zarrella, Hubspot. We all have heard that phrase, but in today’s marketing world, it’s all about data and targeting the right audience. All marketers know that Google Analytics provides an enormous amount of data, but it’s also extremely easy to get lost in there for hours. Today’s marketer is wearing 20 different hats, and may not have time to sit and analyze all of the data. Sometimes you just need the most important metrics. Without measurement, marketing is a guessing game. The content you are creating can be tailored to niche audiences just by looking at your analytics. Your overall marketing strategy will improve by developing and adapting it per your analytics.
Important Google Analytics Metrics to Track
Sessions
Your website is the hub of your marketing strategy, no matter if you are an e-commerce site or a tourism organization (CVB / DMO), your goal is to attract visitors to your site. Sessions reveals the number of interactions a user to the site has while they are actively engaged with it. Take note, a visitor can leave your site, return, and still be in the same session. Now, if the user is on your site but inactive for 30 minutes, and then returns to being active, Google will record that as a new session.
Users
This metric shows that total number of users who registered at least one session during a given time period. This will inform you of how many users came to your site, no matter if they visited multiple times, and includes both new visitors and returning visitors to your site. This is another easy metric that you should be looking at when reviewing your websites analytics.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of users who viewed a single page. I tell people, when you see the bounce rate number on the Google Analytics Dashboard, do not be alarmed, it does not tell the whole story of what is happening on your site. What you really want to look at is the bounce rate that is associated with your referral traffic. If you have an ad agency, look at the bounce rate that is associated with the campaign that they are running. Same goes for if you have a separate digital agency, social, organic, etc. This will tell what advertising campaigns are targeting the right audience, what isn’t and help you decide where you should be spending your budget.
Devices / Mobile
Mobile, mobile, mobile! Obviously, you want your website to be responsive so it is easily viewed on mobile, tablet and desktop devices. Looking at these statistics you are able to determine how people are consuming your site / content. Depending on your business, what you should be noticing is that most of your site’s visitors are looking at it on their mobile devices. With that information, you want to make sure that any content that you publish is mobile friendly, making sure that all visitors have the optimal experience.
All Traffic Source
Looking at the source traffic (and referral traffic) is a great way to measure the content pieces that best resonated with others since they were willing to link to it, share it and people click on it from there. You can also learn which types of content pieces are attracting click-thrus from certain campaigns, so you can create similar pieces in the future to increase click-thrus and inbound links and raise your SEO. Speaking of SEO, in this area you will notice how many visitors come from organic search results. If your organic search is outperforming all other results, it means that your content is appearing in the search results and it is resonating with what people are searching for. Plus, it means your SEO on your site is working.
Landing Pages
A landing page is the page in which a visitor to your site has entered. The pages with the most traffic could represent the areas that are the most relevant to your consumers. You can build custom landing pages to help track the response to your marketing campaigns. What you may notice is that your home page is not the top rated landing page. In that case it is also to concentrate on interior pages so people can find what they are searching for. The team at TwoSix Digital have a great post about the best practices to make a landing page.
Site Content
Site content takes a look at all of the pages on your website and tracks the number views, average time on site, bounce rate, etc. This will give you a great overview of the most popular pages on your site and inform you of what consumers are looking for. By knowing this information, you can in turn beef up those pages with content to help them rank even higher in the organic search results and make marketing decisions based on what information people are coming to you for.
There are many different things that you should be analyzing when you look at your Google Analytics. This is just a start and the tip of the iceberg. The information that you gain from looking at your Google Analytics should help guide you in your overall marketing strategy, what content you should be publishing and what is resonating on social. To have a successful website and marketing plan, it is crucial that you are measuring your campaigns so you can learn from any mistakes and make the next campaign even better. What important metrics would you add? How have your adjusted your marketing plan after reviewing your analytics?
