As
Google’s dominance in the media world continues to grow, new areas of their
portfolio have become more and more central to businesses and consumers alike.
One such example is Google Analytics, the wildly-popular free analytics
software used by large firms and small businesses across the globe for a
variety of different reasons. Because the basic concepts of analytics involves
analyzing and studying data, one of the areas that has become most central to
the success of Google Analytics has been its ability to slice and dice the
data. Three of the tools that most-easily allow marketers to do this are the
Goals, Funnels and Filters tools. These three areas might be grouped together
under the header of analytics tools, but each provides the user with a very
different set of information and data. Furthermore, each can be applied in a
very unique way to help businesses maximize their efficiencies and work on
their inefficiencies.
Companies
have long set goals for themselves and their investors. The concept of setting
your sights on a target and pursuing it is not foreign to any business. In the
context of website traffic, the concept of creating goals for traffic is
incredibly important and can have a tremendous impact on the bottom line of a
company. Examples of the importance of tracking goals might include wanting to
get people to sign up for your catalog or even request a sales call. All of
these goals are set-up and executed with the intention of trying to get
consumers to complete an actionable item. Many point to this one action as one
of the most valuable areas of the software. “One of the best features in Google
Analytics is the ability to set up goals and [analyze] the goal funnel [to]
understand how to improve the user experience and website offer” (Nir, 2009). This
concept of setting up goals works for large sites looking to study traffic, as
well as for a small personal blogger looking to understand his or her traffic.
In
the case of the Scitylana Analytics blog, setting goals certainly won’t be
commerce and transaction related because of the nature of the content—but that
doesn’t mean goals can’t be set. In this
instance, one such goal might be based around the interaction and length of
time on the site. For example, Scitylana set up a goal set that executes
successfully if a consumer spends 5 or more seconds on the site. While that
number might seem arbitrary, a desire to figure out if consumers are truly
spending time on the site or leaving is important to really understand the
traffic. To take this example to the commerce world, imagine if there was a
concern about consumers watching a 10-second splash video of the company at the
beginning of loading the page. By creating this five second goal set, the
marketer can study this data. In addition to the goal set of visit duration,
there is also the concept of URL destinations as goals. While many companies
use these unique URLs as goals to represent portions of a transaction, there is
also room for this type of tool on a blog. On the Scitylana blog, one of the
goals is to try and get other blogs to link to Scitylana for SEO purposes.
Therefore, Scitylana created a blogroll that shows other blogs that are
available. By setting these URL destinations as goals, the Scitylana marketers
are able to determine which blogs on the blogroll are their most important and
popular links. From this data, one could imagine how impactful this process
would be in a commerce setting as businesses look to promote unique campaigns,
products and offerings.
The
sales funnel is another area within Google Analytics that has completely
altered the way marketers can interact with consumer data. The most classic
example of the successful sales funnel is the checkout process on a commerce-based
website. In this particular case, the marketer is able to visualize the steps
taken by the consumer on their way to a sales conversion. If step one requires
filling out personal information, step two involves shipping and step three
involves credit card information, it is quite easy to see where so-called
“drop-off” is occurring as consumers navigate the sales process. Through this
technology, businesses can manage and make adjustments to their efforts to try
and enhance the experience for the consumer. If drop-off within the consumer
funnel continues to happen on a subtotal page, one can infer that the consumer
isn’t happy with the size of their purchase and the price. One workaround in
this instance would be to offer a percentage off the total sale on purchases
over a certain amount. This is just one example of optimizing the process via a
consumer funnel and how Google’s technology helps marketers execute this
reality.
The
ability to segment data is central to the concept of filters—one of the main
benefits to Google Analytics. Through this technology, marketers are able to
decipher information about the types of consumers that are visiting the site
and run reports on the content. From excluding certain IP addresses, to
including specific subdirectories, Google Analytics filters are useful for
understanding the patterns of consumers who meet (or don’t meet) certain
qualifications. One area of filtering that is incredibly valuable to marketers
is regional and location-based filters. There are numerous examples of
information and data that is useless to marketers and the filters created in
this scenario help to make this data easier to interpret. “Say if you’re a
community college then maybe you only care about local traffic. Maybe you
are targeting a specific country where you have a sizable audience? Or
maybe you just know that International traffic is meaningless to you and you
just want to filter it out all together? (James, 2008). By employing filters in
this capacity, it becomes clear the value and significance of this data. This
point is only underscored more when a marketer is paying for the traffic in a
Google AdWords scenario and can filter out underperforming traffic.
While
Google Analytics and these three particular optimization techniques are
incredibly valuable, it is important to note that there are alternatives to
this product. From in-house analytics tools to some of Google’s competitors,
other options do exist in this space. The simplicity of the Google software has
certainly made it the industry standard, but businesses have found a way to
exist without Google’s approach being employed. That being said, Google’s
technology platform has made the job of a marketer easier by using tools like
goals, funnels and filters to help optimize the consumer experience.
References
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