Site analytics, at its core, measures the impact of a website on its users. However, the mountain of data provided can cause fear and frustration. One must first understand the basics. 
 

Website analytics are full of useful information, but it can be a lot … and, I mean A LOT. This information overload makes it hard for people to know where to start and what information matters the most. It can also create fear and frustration when using analytics tools. That’s why I’ve put together five tips that make using analytics easier and more rewarding.

1. Start with KPIs 

Defining your site’s KPIs (key performance indicators) is the first step. It quickly simplifies and narrows down the information you need to pull from the analytics. Here are a few commonly used site KPIs: 

  • Increase traffic to site via SEO (search engine optimization)
  • Increase time on site (engagement)
  • Get users interacting with a specific section of the site – it could be an educational game, video views, interactive calculators, etc.

It’s important to note that analytics tools can’t measure everything. For example, analytics tools are not designed to:  

  • Change brand perception
  • Educate consumers on new products
  • Build brand affinity
  • Increase data capture for CRM (customer relationship management) tool use 

These KPIs require other measurement tools, such as pre- and post-site launch surveys or social media listening tools to identify changes in consumers’ brand perception. Data capture requires reports from a CRM tool. 

2. Total Site Traffic and Pageviews Aren’t Important 

It’s very common for teammates, bosses and clients to ask about site traffic and pageviews. This creates the perception that the value of this information is more important than your site’s true KPIs. It’s not … not at all. Think about it this way:

  • Is it more important that a consumer views as many pages as possible versus getting the consumer to spend more time on the site engaged and immersed in a few site pages?
  • Does the site’s total traffic matter if the consumer is leaving the site quickly?

If you’re asked for traffic and pageviews, it’s important to educate and remind people of the site’s KPIs and what the real success story is with the site. The more you do it, the less people will ask the question.

I do, however, think it’s worth having the total traffic and pageviews numbers in your back pocket. You can use it to segue into the information that matters.

3. Digital Media Campaigns Require Additional Tracking 

It’s common for companies to spend big dollars on digital media buys such as banners, emails and pre-roll without tracking the clickthroughs to their sites. What ends up happening is that you can’t tell what analytics came from organic site visits or the media buy. Here are some ways to avoid making this mistake:

Media Buys:

The majority of media buyers or ad services provide tracking URLs that are used to identify the specific campaigns and track the clickthroughs to the site. Some track interactions throughout the site. The media buyer or ad service will provide a report from the tracking URL, so it’s easy to know how much traffic came from the media buy.

Some ad service tracking URLs and reporting will integrate into your analytics tool, so it’s easy to differentiate between organic site visits and media buys.

Other ad service tools require comparing and analyzing their reports to the site analytics to determine impact. It’s a little more work, but still helpful.

CRM or Email Deployment Tools:  

Email campaigns are distributed through CRM or email deployment tools. It could be a simple tool such as MailChimp or a complex one such as Eloqua. These tools create tracking URLs and reports similar to media buys. Some tools can integrate into your analytics tool, as well.

Create Your Own Tracking URLs:

You can create your own tracking URLs if you don’t have media buy or CRM tools to help track digital campaigns. Google Analytics, for example, allows you to create event IDs that can be used to create tracking URLs and provide reports.

4. Reports Not Analytics 

Analytics, at its core, is a tremendous amount of numbers displayed via charts and graphs. It looks impressive, but in the end it’s just numbers. It’s up to you to interpret those numbers to know if you’re meeting your site’s KPIs. That’s where creating reports that summarize, provide insights and actionable steps come into play. I recommend creating reports that:

Compare the numbers against your KPIs and provide easy-to-understand results.  

 “The consumer engagement increased by three minutes on the product’s page once we added the interactive game.”

“Our organic site traffic increased by 5% once we made the SEO updates to the site.”

Develop insights that help optimize the site.

 “Consumers are more interested in playing games than reading multiple site pages.”

“Consumer engagement has dropped since we stopped adding original content to the blog.”

Create actionable improvements. 

 “We plan to develop more games on the site over the next six months to further improve consumer engagement.”

“We plan to increase the number of blog posts per month to six, starting next month.” 

I also recommend keeping the reports less about the numbers and more about the story that the numbers are telling you. You might be a numbers person, but you probably are alone. It’s worth taking the extra effort to distill the reports into something anyone can understand. It gets easier once you find a report format that works for best you.

5. Drill Deeper Later    

You can drill deeper into the analytics once you get comfortable using it. There’s a lot of useful information that can help your reports become more in-depth. Just do it at your own pace. 

 

To learn more about site analytics, please contact Peter at peterd@theswitch.us.