- Introduction:
Google Analytics tells marketers and business leaders how people found their website, how
they maneuvered it, and how it can be improved. I have learned that, by
default, Google Analytics does not just outright tell you which visitors are
contributing to one’s overall business or blog. You have to tell it exactly
what to track. Traffic parameters within Google Analytics provide an overview
of the various sources that send traffic to a particular web site. Goals,
funnels, and filters, are extremely useful in helping business leaders to make
the most out of their website. This data allows them access to see exactly
where the visitors are coming from and what content they are most interested
in.
- Google
Goals:
Business
leaders want more information from Google Analytics than
just the amount of traffic or views to their website (Spreadbury, 2011). This
data can actually be useless if there are no goals established within GA, then
there is no measurable way to see the site's conversion rates. Goals are a very
useful function within GA, in that they are a great way to measure the business
objectives for a website. The fact that goals have to correspond to a
measurable action performed by one's website's visitors, would seem to help
business leaders to streamline their focus on the most important aspects of the
business and not worry about smaller things that may not matter as much
(Google, 2009). These goals let the business leaders see how well their website
is living up to their business objectives. They can also help to identify areas
within the website that may need to be improved upon and determine if they are
targeting the correct market group.
Once
goals are established, business leaders can use this information to make
smarter marketing decisions as well. Upon securing this information, marketers
no longer have to guess about what online marketing activity is worth their
time and money (Lockard, 2012). I would say that goal setting tends to be
paramount for any business. Without knowing where the business stands now,
there is no way of knowing when the business has reached the desired point of
success. Google Analytics’ traffic parameters can help monitor and track these
goals, while guiding business leaders in their entire strategy as well.
- Google
Funnels:
A
funnel is the path that will be followed by website users to achieve the
conversion of a goal. "Funnel" is a fitting term in that it explains
behavior like: "In each step a percentage of users leave the site so at
the end of the funnel there will be less users than there were at the
beginning" (C., 2012). In regards of e-commerce sites, the fact that users
buy the product that is being sold on the website could be a goal. Then, a path
or redirection can be created to address customers from the website of the
product to a paid process that ends with a fixed goal like a "thank
you" page. It allows administrators the ability to check the true
percentage of customers that actually arrive at the end process. Funnels are
also important in that they allow every step in the process to be dissected in
order to establish how many people enter in the sales process, how many
complete it, and at what point they left the path. From this information, it
becomes easier for administrators to see what pages have caused problems. For
instance, if there is a large percentage of people that leave the page where
the payment is collected, and currently, the only payment option is through
Paypal, then business leaders can interpret this as they are being too restrictive
with this aspect and it may be more beneficial to add other payment
alternatives, like accepting other major credit cards in addition to Paypal
(C., 2012).
In
turn, the information provided from funnels is extremely important for both
business strategies and for contents studies of the website. Business leaders
are able to measure what is correct in their website and they can be alerted to
what is wrong, while also having the clues to correct it (C, 2012). Funnels can
offer actionable information to these individuals in that they will become more
aware of which users on their website are surfers and which are potential
prospects. They will want to ultimately make both groups customers in the long
run and the funnels can help in achieving this goal. They help to answer the
"why" of a website. I think it is safe to say that funnels can
determine the overall success of one's site and they can be utilized on each of
the major pages to track all activity.
- Google
Filters:
Filters
are useful within Google Analytics in that they help users manage what type of
data is shown in the Google Analytics report. If administrators do not utilize
these filters then they may not be getting a relevant and accurate measurement
of their numbers. It may be somewhat overwhelming for business leaders to delve
into plethora of data to find the specific information that they or a possible
stakeholder is looking for (Insightr,
2010). Filters keep the data clean and organized so it will be easier understand
site visitors and analyze website statistics.
Actively using GA filters can do a little more than to
help one organize and structure his/her data. Creatively managing their usage
can lessen the task of analyzing the data, and makes getting value out of the
investment in tracking and the decision making process substantially simpler.
The filters within Google Analytics can range from fairly easy to complex, when
implemented, depending on what users want to do with their data. One particular
filter that is one of the easiest to install, but also one of the most powerful,
is the lowercase filter. All this filter does is take the dimension and turns
all data lowercase (Insightr, 2010). Because GA default tagging is very literal, it takes the entire URL
and passes the string into the content reports. Several of a company’s visitors
may actually have a browser that modifies URLs, or type in a URL that uses
mixed case or an internal anchor tag that might link to .com/Content.html or
similar (Insightr, 2010).
Installing the lowercase filter will result in possible double counting of
content and in the content reports the pages will show up as separate pages (Insightr,
2010). This particular filter will
de-duplicate these types of pages and any other instance where page names could
get double counted in Google Analytics so that administrators can effectively carry out their
content analysis.
Through these three traffic parameters, one can
determine which sites are providing the best converting traffic and business
leaders can then decide if they want to increase or scale back their investment
with these companies.
References:
C, M. (2012, 26
Janurary). Google Analytics funnels definition. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from
http://www.onbile.com/info/google-analytics-funnels-definition/.
Google. (2009, 19
May). How to Setup Goals in Google Analytics. . Retrieved July 1, 2012,
from
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-setup-goals-in-google-analytics.html.
Insightr. (2010, 03
September). Two Google Analytics filters
that will fix problems with double
counting of pagenames. Retrieved July
2, 2012, fromhttp://insightr.com/blog/2009/9/3/two-google-analytics-filters-that-will-fix-problems-with-dou.html#ixzz1zTA8jyoy .
Lockard, L. (2012). How to Set Up Google Analytics
Goals & Conversion Tracking. Retrieved
July 2, 2012, from http://www.lizlockard.com/how-to-set-up-google-analytics-goals-conversion-tracking/.
Spreadbury, P.
(2011, 08 April). IMPORTANCE OF GOALS – GOOGLE ANALYTICS.
Retrieved
July 1, 2012, from http://www.justsearchseo.co.uk/analytics-2/importance-of-goals-%E2%80%93-google-analytics.html.
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