Google Analytics – Marketer View – CPC vs Organic Conversion

This report compares the value of two groups of website visitors. Which convert better, visitors arriving via paid referrals or those arriving through organic search? In order to use this report a goal must be set up and a website set up as an ecommerce website. See my post on setting up goals in Google Analytics.

The report displays visits, pageviews/visit, conversions per visit, and revenue/visit for each every CPC or Organic source. It is odd that this report does not seem to include “direct” visitors. Other reports about sources do this, but this one does not. Using the Compare Date Range function, two sets of data can be compared to each other.

Next to each source is a plus sign. Clicking on the plus sign reveals the stats for the top ten keywords searched within each source. This can help determine which keywords are the best converters. This information can also be found in the Overall Keyword Conversion report.

This report helps make the following decisions:

-if organic conversion is better than CPC conversion then work needs to done on the CPC side. If the CPC has been optimized as best as it can, then maybe it needs to be scrapped.
-if CPC conversion is better than organic conversion, how much better? Can it be improved?

Setting Up a Goal within Google Analytics

What is a goal?

I wrote this in an earlier post:

Google Analytics lets users set goals. A “goal” is a certain webpage within a website that a webmaster is hoping users eventually reach. For product based websites, webmasters hope users reach a thank you/checkout complete/registration confirmation page. Once a user has reached this page, the webmaster knows that a transaction has been completed. This transaction(s) is typically the “goal” for the website.

Analytics lets users create up to 4 goals per website. However, if the goal is some form of monetary transaction, then the website needs to be set up as an Ecommerce website. On the main page of Analytics, it displays the list of website profiles. The third column on this list is Settings. Click the Edit link for the desired website. The top section of information is labeled “Main Website Profile Information”. Click the Edit link for this section. Click the “Yes” radio button next to E-Commerce Website. Click the “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the page.

Next, set up a goal. The first thing that needs to be determined is the URL of the goal page. Typically, for an ecommerce site, this would be the URL of the receipt page. It may vary though per user/website. The section below profile information is labeled Conversion Goals and Funnels. Click the EDIT link for G1. Enter the URL in the GOAL URL box. Enter a name for the Goal (Transactions Complete, Newsletter Signups, etc). Click the Active Goal radio button to Yes. At this point, the basic setup of the goal is complete and the changes can be saved.

Analytics lets webmasters setup a funnel. A funnel is the series of webpages a user may take on their way to the final goal page. Webmasters can enter the URL’s of the pages a user may take enroute to completing a transaction. How is this helpful? Webmasters can then determine how many visitors enter the “funnel” versus how many complete the funnel, i.e. reach the goal. Using a funnel tracks where users may “drop-out” of the transaction. This information can be used to answer the following questions: Where are users dropping out? Is the checkout process TOO difficult? Is the checkout process too long and the user changed their mind about their purchase?

The power of Analytics is truly found in this kind of ecommerce tracking.

Google Analytics – Marketer View – CPC Program Analysis

The CPC Program Analysis report analyzes any and all Cost Per Click (CPC) programs that are connected to Analytics. For most, this will be Adwords. However, other CPC programs can be connected to Analytics. If no CPC program is associated with Analytics than this report will not how any data.

This report shows similar data as on an Adwords report. # of impressions of the ad, # of clicks on the ad, cost of the ad, Click Thru Rate (CTR) of the ad, and Cost per Click of the ad. The report adds a few other columns: Transactions, Revenue, Revenue per Click and Return on Investment.

For these four columns to display any data, the website needs to set as an E-Commerce website. To do this, enter Profile Settings and set E-Commerce Website to Yes. How do you know if a website can be considered an E-Commerce website? Given assumptions in the setting up ecommerce tracking within GA, an E-Commerce website is any website which sells a product for which a receipt is given. If a website meets this definition then set it as an Ecommerce website. Other items need to be set up as well in order for GA to do a complete tracking of Ecommerce activities. Various code needs to be placed on the receipt page, etc. For a more complete explanation of setting up E-Commerce tracking within GA, see GA’s help page.

Once all that is set, the CPC Analyis report will be of incredible value. Essentially it tracks how much is spent on certain keywords/ads to bring users to a site and whether those keywords/ads were effective in leading customers to a product purchase. Of course, ROI needs to be in the positive for marketing efforts to be considered effective.

If a website is not an Ecommerce website, then this report merely acts as a slightly better formatted report for Adwords.

Why Three Views within Google Analytics

Within Google Analytics there are three views: Executive, Marketer, and Webmaster. There are duplicate reports within each view. Why is this? Is this necessary?

Analytics allows an administrator to set up various combinations of profiles and users. For example, my main profile is an administrator profile that allows my user name access to all views and all reports. I could set up a new profile based on the same website, but change the settings on that profile to display only the Webmaster View. Thus, theoretically, I could keep various employees (if I had any) away from data they do not need to see.

For the beginner, lone developer, etc this is not a necessary feature. So the duplicate reports within each View is a small annoyance. I think it would be better, if Analytics did things a little different. Instead of predefined report views, they could offer customized views. Each report would be a separate entity. Admins could create their own view and assign reports, role and security as they see fit. Is all that necessary? I am sure the user community will let Google know.

Google Analytics – Executive View – Content Summary

The goal of the content summary page is to review whether the website’s content has been effective in retaining readers.

For a given time period, this report shows the top 5 entrances (which pages did visitors hit first or landing/arriving pages), top 5 exits (which pages where the last visited), and the top 5 content (which pages were the most visited).

The report is meant to compare one date range against another. So to get the most out of this report one needs at least two months of data. Set the current month to report on, and the past month for comparison purposes. Once the comparison has been set up, the report will show percentage change from the current month to the previous. The percentage reflects a change over the previous date range. A green arrow indicates a positive change, while the red indicates a negative change.

Key Stats

For entrances, the key stat is bounce rate. Bounce rate indicates what percentage of people ENTERED at this page and then left the site all together. Ideally, webmasters want visitors to continue visiting their site no matter which page they arrive on. A low bounce rate means visitors moved on to another page on the site from this page. A high bounce rate means visitors arrived at this page but were not compelled to continue visiting/browsing the site. One should aim to lower the bounce rate for those top 5 entrances. If these indeed are the top 5 landing pages for your site, they should be optimized to hold visitors and enable them to continue to visit. This is one stat where it is ok to see a red arrow. It is desirable for it to decline!

Exit rate is similar to bounce rate. Bounce rate reflects an immediate arrive/leave scenario. All readers leave a site, even if they take their time and meander and visit a lot of pages. The Exit rate reflects which pages where the last one visited in a visitor’s visit.

Under Top 5 Content two items are important. First, simply noting the top 5 visited pages can lead a Webmaster to make certain decisions. How can this content be improved? Is there a way to monetize this content since it is the most visited? etc. Avg time is also important. Are people taking time to read this page? They definitely are reading it if the time is over 2 mins. If it is at 1:30 then they are scanning/skimming it. 1 minute and under, they are simply glancing at it or maybe finding it irrelevant. Pages will a low average time need to be improved, unless of course that page is a short read!

Google Analytics – Executive Overview – Marketing Summary

Google Analytics – Executive Overview – Marketing Summary

The Marketing Summary report is a quick and easy Top Five report. It displays the Top 5 Sources, the Top 5 Keywords and the Top 5 Campaigns.

Top 5 Sources represent the top 5 referrals (who sent traffic to your website).

Top 5 Keywords represents those keyword phrases which users entered into a search engine to find your website.

Top 5 Campaigns displays which campaigns produce the most traffic. A campaign is define either as organic (search engine traffic), referral (a link to your site from some other source), direct (URL typed into browser), or there is an actual name of an Adwords Campaign. A fifth type of exists: not set. If this pops up on the report, there are links out there pointing to your site that have some sort of campaign variable in them that Analytics can’t identify. Using services like Yahoo Search Marketing and the like would produce a “not set” category within Analytics. Consult Analytics Help for information on letting Analytics identify non-Google based campaigns.

Each of these three sections shows the number of visits and the number of conversions for the given time frame. Additionally, two different time frames can be set in order to do comparisons. If these time frames are set, a little red or green arrow will display next to each number. These arrows indicate whether the visitor/conversion rate has increased or decreased compared to the previous time frame.

I appreciate the work Analytics has done to display items easily and simply. However, what if I want to see more than the top 5? Analytics does not seem to display ALL the data in a lot of its reports. It often lumps items into an “other” category. There is no visibility into what makes up that “other” category. Plus there doesn’t exist a complete keyword list. I want to see ALL the keywords that where used to find my site and which search engine was used to perform that search. Buried in the list of reports is a semi-complete Referring Source report and a Campaign Conversion report. However, these do not provide what I would consider full and complete visibilty.

The important stats to watch on this report are the increase/descrease red and green arrows. Ideally, comparing month to previous month, these arrows should always display green. However, take into consideration the seasonality of a website. Retail websites will see a decidedly sharp decrease moving from December to January. This is to be expected.

The Marketer View Marketing Summary report is the same as this one.

UPDATE:
Be sure to read three problems with Google Analytics.

Google Analytics – Executive View – Conversion Summary

Google Analytics lets users set goals. A “goal” is a certain webpage within a website that a webmaster is hoping users eventually reach. For product based websites, webmasters hope users reach a thank you/checkout complete/registration confirmation page. Once a user has reached this page, the webmaster knows that a transaction has been completed. This transaction is typically the “goal” for the website.

The Conversion Summary report tracks how successful a website has been in converting users. Conversion means moving users along the process to actually complete the goal.

So in short, the Conversion Summary tracks the number of total Visits and how many of those visits converted (ie. reached the goal). The report displays a conversion rate: conversions divided by visits. What is a good conversion rate? It is website dependent. The key for any website is to improve on their own conversion rate. It doesn’t matter what Joe’s Doughnuts conversion rate may happen to be. What matters is whether your website can improve its own rate over the short and long term.

What about content based sites where there is no product involved?

Such sites can track a number of items. First, a site can track newsletter signups. Second, a blog can track if people add/read their RSS feed.

I am still playing around with this latter idea and will report back at another time. One potential problem is distinguishing between people who add the feed versus people who are accessing the feed.

Google Analytics – Executive View – Overview

The Executive View is the simplest of the three views. It displays four reports. The purpose of this view is to provide users with a high level overview of website usage.

All reports throughout Analtyics are controlled by the Date Range widget. By default, the Date Range is the last seven days. I find it helpful to look at stats by month. This makes it easy to do month to month comparisons.

Executive Overview

The Executive Overview Report displays four graphics, one in each quadrant of the main page.

The Visits and Pageviews graphic shows a line chart of website traffic. Vistitors are displayed in blue, pageviews in orange. This will probably be the most used graphic in the whole suite because it displays the essential information everyone wants to know: how much traffic. There is one thing that is very confusing about this chart. Visitors and Pageviews are NOT shown on the same scale. This came to my attention when I saw that pageviews for a particular day looked less then the amount of visitors. How could that be!?! Looking at the chart, on the left, under Visits, it displays a number. For example the number 500 might be displayed. On the right, under Pageviews it displays another number, say 1000. Each category is charted according to the scale indicated by that number. Thus a point in the middle of the graph would be around 250 if it is a Visitor dot, and around 500 if it is a Pageview dot. Personally, I prefer the way Statcounter presents this information, but I believe Analytics uses the dual scale in order to conserve space.

The key statistic to watch in this graph is pageview/vistitor ratio. This ratio is truly unique to a website. The key is to improve this ratio each month.

Visits by New and Returning is displayed as a pie chart. The bulk of visitors will be new. However, it is important to see what percentage of visitors do return to a site. This is particularly important over long date ranges.

Geo Map Overlay displays a map of the world, with a dots representing concentrations of your site visitors. Very easy and cool way to see countries and cities of origin.

Visit by Source shows a pie chart with each slice representing a source. This graph answers the question, how did my visitors find my website? Or to put it another way, this chart displays top referrals. Was it Google, Msn or Yahoo?

The Executive Overview will be the most used since it displays the most basic statistics.

The Marketer View Marketer Overview and the Webmaster View Webmaster Overview shows the exact same four graphs.

Google Analytics Review Part 1

In the Spring 2005, Google bought the web analytics giant Urchin. In November 2005, Google revealed its repacked version of Urchin: Google Analytics. The biggest news about Google’s new offering is its price. It’s free. The power of Urchin for free? It sounds ludicrous, but it is true. Many have been speculating how Google will be exploiting this for their own good. What will they do will all this data, etc.? Pundits will ponder whether Google is becoming the next evil empire second only to Microsoft.

However, with such a huge free offering, it is very worthwhile to discuss it on Recommended Web Tools. Especially for the small business that has been hesitant to put out the money for a good statistics program, Google Analytics may be just the solution for them.

I have been using Google Analytics since the middle of November. While a few weeks of stats are not enough to discuss the complete capabilities of the software, it is enough to do a basic review and introduce readers to the basic capabilities.

Signing up is a simple process: name, email, website URL, etc. However, due to popularity, Google has experienced some delays in getting websites fully registered. Signing up requires a piece of JavaScript placed within the head section of web pages. This is similar to all other web based statistics programs. Once that code is placed, Google will have to verify that it can see that code. Though their site says this will take 1-2 hours, it may take up to a day. Once Google recognizes a website, it begins to collect data. Again, while their site states it may take 12 hours to gather the initial data, it took several days (4 or 5) before I started to see any reporting. Google has been in the process of correcting this problem.

There are three reporting views within Google Analytics: Executive, Marketer and Webmaster. Each view has its own sets of reports. Other reports are accessible under the Marketing Optimization and Content Optimization categories. The views are offered as an easy way to access basic reports.

The parameters for ALL reports are the date range. This is set by a calendar widget. The widget allows a user to set a daily date range or a month date range. Users can also set an hourly view, which displays the data by hour within a particular daily date range. The default setting is the daily date range.

There is a lot to be said about Google Analytics. I will discuss the Executive, Marketer, Webmaster views and Marketing Optimization and Content Optimization categories within separate posts. In brief here are several reasons why a new webmaster should consider using Google Analytics:

- the breadth and power of Urchin
- for most webmasters, virtually unlimited hits/pageviews/visitors logged – this translates into more quality reporting
- integration with Adwords – ability to do ROI on investment reporting etc.
- while the power may be overwhelming at first, the basic reports offer an opportunity to learn
- FREE. No other free web statistics program will provide this kind of power.

I will leave the decision whether Google is becoming the second evil empire up to the individual reader. Uncomfortable with Google? Then Google Analytics is not for you. Though remember, many adept people are watching Google. Comfortable with Google? Then there is not a reason to at least TRY Google Analytics. Stay tuned for more.

UPDATE:
Be sure to read three problems with Google Analytics.