Developing a strategy for use of Google Analytics

Google Analytics strategy

What it is and why you need one

[email protected] of Edinburgh Website Programme

www.ed.ac.uk/website-programme @usabilityed

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.ed.ac.uk/website-programme

https://twitter.com/usabilityed


“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts

- for support rather than

for illumination.”

Andrew LangScottish poet

1844 - 1912

• Why I’m here today• What is Google Analytics?• What Google Analytics can tell us• What shouldn’t I do?• OK, what should I do?• Identifying your audiences• Why bother with all this?

Website analytics

• The measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data

• For purposes of understanding and optimising web usage

How Google Analytics works

• A hidden snippet of code that is added to all webpages

• This code collects visitor information and sends it back to Google servers for processing– Requires JavaScript and cookies

• Polopoly-generated pages include this automatically. – Everyone else needs to make sure it’s included.

What Google Analytics collects

• Information about a visit to our website, including:– Whether the visitor has been to the site before– When the visit occurred – The referring site or campaign – What the visitor did during their visit– Where they are and the technology they used

• All data is aggregated and anonymised

What Google Analytics doesn’t record

• Document downloads

• Clicks on links to destinations not tracked by our code

• Interactions with in-page content – For example an embedded YouTube video

There are ways around this…

We collect tons of data

• In 2011 the University Website had:– Unique Visitors: 4,061,338– Pageviews: 73,827,700

• That’s a big pot of data– You need to be able to break this pot down

• Doing this effectively needs a strategy

Segmentation

• Few – if anyone - should be interested in taking all this data at once.

• You will only be interested in a slice based on your visitors

• This is where segmentation comes in…


Google Analytics can tell us

• Things like…– Top content– Top search terms– Visits– Unique visitors– Time on site– Pages per visit– Bounce rate

• My question today:

–“So what?”

Hopefully I’ll answer this too…

Google Analytics doesn’t tell us how to build a better business

It’s just numbers…


“We want more visitors”

• Does this = success? Probably not…– Do you really want fewer unnecessary enquiries?– Or maybe more “valuable” enquiries?

• Beware of measuring something just because it’s easy to do

“We want to see how effective our advertising has been”

• But what are visitors doing on arrival?– Think quality not quantity

• A referrer is a great way to identify a particular type of user– Compare their behaviour to others who didn’t visit

via the advertising campaign

“We want people to watch our video”

• Or maybe download our brochure…

• No – you want quality applications– You want to gauge how watching the video is

affecting user behaviour, compared to those that aren’t

– Are they reading more content? Staying longer on site? Doing the things you want them to do?

“We want our users to…”

• But who are your users? (we really mean target audience)

– Certainly not everyone who arrives at your site• Potentially only a small proportion

– How can we use Analytics to identify them?• Good site and content structure is essential

Beware of redesign based on Google Analytics alone

• Google Analytics can tell you what, but not why– Jumping to conclusions is

easy and dangerous

• Analytics + User Research =Greater than the sum of their parts

• How many blind men are there round your elephant?


What constitutes a successful visit?

• Identify what you want visitors to do:– Spent x minutes on site– Visited pages A, B and C– Downloaded brochure x– Completed my enquiry form– Spent x minutes reading how to apply info– Rated or shared my content

• Or possibly a combination of some of these?

Put a value on your content creation & management

• Is video content worth the investment?

• Is it worth our while generating x news articles per month?

• If we cut y pages from our website, would it affect our ‘performance’?

Identify things that warrant further investigation

• Back to the elephant– Usability testing– Surveys– Click analysis– etc


Set up your website to identify audiences

• If you bundle a range on content on a page, you can’t identify what the visitor was there for

• In the absence of video and download numbers, structure your site accordingly– If you want to compare prospective students who

watched our video to those who didn’t…

Some potential audiences

• Within or outside the University network• From a particular geographic location• With browsers set to not-English• Using mobile devices• Having visited a particular page– Especially form ‘thank you’ pages

• Having spent x minutes on the site• Having viewed at least y pages

Or more likely – a combination of these…

For example…

• What can we learn about people in China who have demonstrated a strong interest in programme x?

• How does their behaviour differ from similar people based in Europe?


Why do all this?

• Justify the effort put into your website– Make a case for more resource?

• Measure the value added by bringing extra data into your calculations– X visitors = Y bums on seats = £Z,000

Thank you

Questions?

[email protected] of Edinburgh Website Programme

www.ed.ac.uk/website-programme @usabilityed

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.ed.ac.uk/website-programme



Developing a strategy for use of Google Analytics

Education