A 1 hour workshop by Dave Chaffey for ECMOD 2010 London covering basic to advanced customisation of Google Analytics for Ecommerce sites

1. Using Google Analyticsto improve Ecommerce results Dr Dave Chaffey, CEO Smart Insights October 6th 2010ECMOD, London Download presentation from: SmartInsights.com

2. Enhancing key pages have resulted in increases in conversion rate of 20%, 63% and 115%. Source:

3. Getting the most from GA What do you use? Funnel analysis Custom segments Custom reports Custom variables

4. Workshop structure

5. About Dave Chaffey Strategy &analytics Search & conversion Strategyconsulting Books Qualifications Best practice

6. Working with reports in a smarter way Customisation technique 1

8. Source: Craig Sullivan independent survey 2009

9. Source: Craig Sullivan independent survey 2009

10. Content drilldown shows relativepage type efficiency Practical tip Review % age of visits by different landing page types (for first time and repeat visitors)

11. The 3 key value measures in GA: 1. Index value (Top content reports)Shows the influence of pages in generating value either through Ecommerce transactions or conversion goals with a value assigned. 2. Per Visit Goal Value (Traffic Sources reports for Referring sites, Search Engines and Keywords – Goal tab) Based on value assigned to your conversion goals this shows you the Total Goal Value for your reports. 3. Per Visit Value (Ecommerce Revenue per visit) You can see Per Visit Value measures within Traffic sources on the Ecommerce tab if you have Ecommerce tracking enabled. http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/2010/05/11/how-much-value-is-your-website-generating/ http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=86205

12. Sound advice… BUT NEED TO THINK BEYOND THE FUNNEL Source: Presented at Emetrics by Dr. Martin Armstrong, CTO & COO of koodos.com

13. Smarter reporting options Filter reports with simple filter based on page or keyword name New: an Advanced Filter on variables or weighted sort Use Pivot tables New: Setting annotations – beneath the top chart Intelligence Beta:Review standard alertsvia left menu

14. Example Pivot + Filter Practical tip Use New Weighted Sortto gain a similar effect

15. Use GA’s “Intelligence” Tip: Use Custom Alerts in your system Read post on setting up Intelligence

16. Segmenting your audience by setting up advanced segments Customisation technique 2

17. Segmenting Traffic value Key referring segments: Search Paid vs Natural Branded vs non-branded Email marketing Affiliates Social media Don’t forget: New vs returning/customer non-customer First and last referrer. Use attribution scripts: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Analytics/thread?tid=0e672a6afb56558c&hl=en

18. Segmenting search visits

20. Natural

21. Paid and natural brand and non-brand

22. By number of keywords – 2,3,4

24. Returning visitor

25. Registered visitor

28. Product page

29. Checkout complete

31. Screen resolution

33. US

34. FIGS

35. ROW+ By behaviour – search and browse

36. Some ideas for using custom reports 1. Time reporting. Use a dimension of week/month to compare performance over time more easily 2. Value reporting. Repeat the value of different contributors: Keywords Landing pages Product categories Countries 3. Role-based reporting.Setup different tabs for different types of people or marketing activity http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2010/02/leverage-custom-web-analytics-reports-insights.html

37. ‘How to’ example of a custom segment Notes: 1. Chose a Dimension of ‘Keyword’ and ‘matches exactly’ , ‘contains’ or RegEx for your brand names 2. No metrics are required. 3. Test the segment first, but you will need to enter a name for the segment to do this. 4. For brand name variants use “Matches regular expressions” and separate by a pipe symbol ‘|’. 5. Note that segments are specific to a profile initially – you may want to share them.

38. Gap analysis to maximise search value Should show: Potential performance from keyphrase estimators Your actual performance (position, clicks, conversion, sales, value): Paid – absolute and relative Natural – absolute and relative Integrate sourceswith scripts or Excel VLOOKUP()function http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/search-engine-marketing/google-analytics-seo/

39. Creating dashboards and custom reports within Google Analytics Customisation technique 3 | 23

40. How do you use the dashboard??

41. Drilling Down with Custom reports + segmentation

42. Some ideas for using custom reports 1. Time reporting. Use a dimension of week/month to compare performance over time more easily 2. Value reporting. Repeat the value of different contributors: Keywords Landing pages Product categories Countries 3. Role-based reporting.Setup different tabs for different types of people or marketing activity http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2010/02/leverage-custom-web-analytics-reports-insights.html

43. UsingRACEforDigitalMarketing Optimisation http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-marketing-planning-template

44. RACE dashboard for Eretail

45. Setting up marketing campaign tracking Customisation technique 4

46. Campaign tracking Adwords will be tracked automatically provided you have specified within Adwords All other referring campaign traffic sources need parameters adding where practical Example: http://econsultancy.com/reports/search-engine-optimization-seo-best-practice-guide?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=generic

47. Tip: Use a URL builder or spreadsheet Another example – Email marketing Many Email service providers have this as a feature – just need to enable http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=8909 &utm_campaign=CCXAQ081009A &utm_source=Monthly_xArts_Email &utm_medium=Internal_Email &utm_content=CCXAQ081009A_Bunker_image [or A_Bunker_intro] Try the Google URL builderhttp://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578

48. Advanced segmentation for social media See also: www.davechaffey.com/online-reputation-management-tools Source (Step 10) : http://www.davechaffey.com/blog/web-analytics/configuring-google-analytics-guide/

49. New May 2010 Google AdwordsBeta and Search Funnels

50. Modifying profile setup within “Google Analytics Settings” Customisation technique 5 Goals and funnels

51. “How does our conversion compare?” Source: http://www.marketing-online.co.uk/wiki/Ecommerce_Conversion_Rates_Statistics

52. Filters and profiles:Use site URL structure for countries, product categories, etc. Process: Create Advanced segment to test filter. Create filter. Apply to a test profile (only used for testing purposes – can check in minutes). Create final profile and apply filter. Grant access to this profile To avoid a problem of errors there should be a master profile which NEVER has any filters applied. Further reading: http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/2009/12/09/how-to-choose-between-advanced-segments-versus-profile-filters-in-google-analytics/ http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/?hl=en http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/accounts_profiles/index.html http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/filters/index.html http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/concepts/gaConceptsAccounts.html http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingSite.html

53. Filter example

54. You need to know basics of Regular Expressions before working on profiles Why are RegEx needed? Range of situations… The main RegEx you need… A. Pipe “|” matches alternatives pages “Or”:^/(car-insurance|van-insurance|)/ B. Caret “^” matches head – everything from start of string C. “?” Last character optional - Chaff?e?y D. “$” Don’t’ match if any characters after this e.g. ^/$ E. “ Escape (ignore) the next character /folderpid=123 Test with… Adv. Segments, Filters, Test Profiles Guide: http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2010/05/20/regular-expressions-ebook-relic-valuable-tool Regex tester: http://www.analyticsexperts.com/resources/google-analytics-regex-filter-tester http://www.regular-expressions.info/javascriptexample.html

55. New – 20 goals in GA so group them!

57. Setup multiple conversion goals

58. Attach notional value to each

59. Can then assess $Index value by referrer and content

60. Ecommerce sites have specific product value attached so generally best not to add value to non-sales goalConsider additional goals – social bookmarking, commenting, catalogue requests, etc See Ran Nir: http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2009/03/10-must-track-google-analytics-goals.html See also http://www.viget.com/engage/how-to-track-internal-links-in-google-analytics/

62. Example: Email sign-up, Landing page, checkout

64. Segment your funnels! Source: http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2010/06/04/segment-goal-funnel-google-analytics

65. Tracking on-site search Coremetrics UK Retail benchmarks Tip find the search query parameter from the URL of a search results page

66. Case study: Next.co.uk Aim: Evaluate business case for improving onsite search merchandising Methodology: For example search use Google Website Optimizer to AB Test current search results page for “Boys socks” against a static “ideal” example Results: The new results page caused a reduction in search exit rate of 19%. If this reduction was replicated across all onsite searches, it would result in a 4.1% increase in online revenue.

67. Customisations that require server modifications Customisation technique 6

68. Ecommerce tracking See http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/asyncMigrationExamples.html

69. Consider using new Async tracking… Google Analytics Asynchronous tracking was announced Dec 2009, live May 2010, it enables you to add tracking code within <head> potentially increasing page views and bounce rate Instructions/background: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/05/its-now-easy-to-set-up-new-sites-with.html http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/asyncTracking.html

70. Tracking user actions that don’t have pages associated… Examples: A . Tracking calls-to-action – clicks on links and buttons B. Steps in a funnel process which don’t have separate pages e.g. Forward, Back, Next, Save Options: 1. Event-tracking – easier – has it’s own separate reports best for links, but NB CAN’T SETUP GOALS 2. Virtual page views – can track goals and can create URLs for RegExp processing, but NB WILL INFLATE PAGE VIEWS Also: http://cutroni.com/blog/2010/03/30/tracking-internal-campaigns-with-google-analytics

71. A/B testingshoweed the products with customer generated reviews and fitting advice had a 6.2-14.2% increase in conversion rate. http://thejohnfmoore.com/2010/02/12/espares-a-uk-company-that-is-delivering-value-with-social-media

73. Downloading documents (PDFs)

74. Clicking outbound links

75. Playing video clips

76. Add to basket

77. Best script to apply :http://blog.immeria.net/2009/01/google-analytics-script-to-track.html Async tracking example: _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); ... <a onclick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'category', 'action', 'opt_label', opt_value]);">click me</a> Traditional ga.js tracking example: varpageTracker = _gat._getTracker('UA-XXXXX-X'); pageTracker._trackPageview(); ... <a onclick="pageTracker._trackEvent('category', 'action', 'opt_label', opt_value);">click me</a> http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/06/event-tracking-now-available-in-all.html

79. Virtual Page Views Can also use Virtual Page Views, e.g. for funnel steps but need to exclude False Page Views with additional filter? Async tracking <a onclick="javascript: _gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/motor/step1-complete/']);" href="http://www.someurl.com/process-form">Continue to Step 2</a> Traditional ga.js tracking <a onclick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview ('/motor/step1-complete/');" href="http://www.someurl.com/process-form">Continue to Step 2</a> See http://www.viget.com/engage/how-to-track-internal-links-in-google-analytics/

80. Segmenting pages/product by performance Page or product popularity (views) or page view variance (compared to average) Conversion rate Or conversion rate variance (add to basket) compared to average

82. Cross-domain tracking http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55503 http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/domains_subdomains/index.html

83. Custom variables in Google Analytics Original called _setVarJavascript function on page that uniquely identifies these visitors. Sets cookie for 2 year period. Now _setCustomVar With up to 20 variables Possible applications: Different subscribers - bronze, silver, gold Customers vs non-customers Read more: http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingCustomVariables.html E-retail example: http://www.e-nor.com/blog/index.php/web-analytics/google-analytics-gift-to-humanity-multiple-custom-variables/

84. E-retail example: http://www.e-nor.com/blog/index.php/web-analytics/google-analytics-gift-to-humanity-multiple-custom-variables/

85. Google Website Optimizer:7 key test types AB Test (ABC Test)Compare 2 or more page versions Multivariate testCompare different versions of page elements Split-path testCompare 2 or more linear paths Multipath multivariate testMulti-elements, multipages Do Anything TestMeasure multiple conversion goals Linger testMeasure engagement with page Click testMeasure clicks on advertiser links or to an external checkout Read more: http://www.grokdotcom.com/2007/11/02/google-website-optimizer-7-powerful-tests/

86. Google Website Optimizer case study Source: Moneyspyder blog (with permission):http://blog.moneyspyder.co.uk/2009/06/enhanced-google-website-optimiser.html

87. Combining event tracking with GWO Each variation / recipe in GWO is tracked as a separate event and can then be used to view more granular info – e.g. influence on AOV Source: Moneyspyder blog (with permission):http://blog.moneyspyder.co.uk/2009/06/enhanced-google-website-optimiser.html

88. Use Feedback tools for…“Why” not “What” http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-software/website-feedback-tools-review/

89. What do customers value? Think?Analytics will only show you ‘What’ not ‘Why’ – other tools can helpiPerceptionshttp://www.4qsurvey.com/ “Bad web site. Difficult to find item as no search box provided for short cut” “I can't find any prices on your website” “Would like to see where I can buy products from” .

90. Voice of the customer

91. Gaining site and business innovation ideas through Uservoice

92. Always be TestingYour toolkit

94. Let’s Connect! Questions & discussion welcome uk.linkedin.com/in/davechaffey www.facebook.com/davechaffey www.twitter.com/DaveChaffey Blog www.smartinsights.com/blog Feeds www.feedburner.com/smartinsights Email Newsletter www.smartinsights.com