He sees you when you’re sleeping, He knows when you’re awake

A lovely little Christmas ditty, okay, so it can be construed as a little creepy, a bit stalkerish but the festive sentiment is there. Good ‘ole Santa Claus is always watching and he knows if you have been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake! A certain Mr G Oogle is always watching and although he may not know when you are awake or asleep he certainly knows when you are visiting websites..

We live in a time when every minute of our online activity is recorded, from which websites we visit, which browser we use, how often we shop, our likes dislikes and everything in between is etched out there in the ether somewhere, leaving a digital footprint, much like reindeer footprints in the snow. 

It still amazes me how many small businesses don’t utilise this information to their advantage – we can learn so much about our customers’ activity by exploring their behaviour online and most potential customers are really kind and like to leave a little trail for us to follow. 

Let’s take a look at the top 5 tips for using your Google analytics data to win more business.

Page drill down, bot filtering, goals, device type, time of day, annotations, remove your ip address, customise dashboards, segments 

1.Annotations – have you ever looked at your Google Analytics and thought “I wonder what that big spike of traffic is on such a such date?” Creating annotations can really bring your analytics to life. An annotation is created on a particular date and can help you understand the success of campaigns, Tweets, blog posts, adverts, emails, events like “Black Friday” etc etc. So how do you create an annotation? 

• Step 1 – Log into Google Analytics.
• Step 2 – Choose audience, overview.
• Step 3 – Click the small + sign “create new annotation.”
• Step 4 – Select the date on the left hand side of the screen.
• Step 5 – Select private or public and then type your written note.
• Your note can contain upto 160 characters and should describe the event attached to a particular date. You now have a written record on the analytics account to review against key activity.

2. Goals – Goals allow you to track specific user interactions on your website. These interactions can be form submissions, leads, purchases, time spent on a page, a particular page reached, videos watched and more. Tracking goals are an essential part of understanding your users behaviour online and helps you define, plan and improve on a customer journey and increase your conversion optimisation.

• Step 1 – Log into Google Analytics.
• Step 2 – Bottom left hand side of screen, goto “admin”.
• Step 3 – Right hand side of the screen under “view” select “goals.”
• Step 4 – Click on the + sign and “create new goal.”
• Step 5 – Give your goal a name, ID and choose the type of goal.
• Step 6 – Verify the goal to make sure it is working.

You now have a great way to measure interactions on your website. Are users getting to the key information you want them to get to? Are enquiry forms being completed? Goals are an essential part of understanding conversion and behaviour online.

3. Segments – Segments are a great secret weapon at understanding your audience and developing content, customer journeys and conversions that appeal to different types of audience. In simple terms a “segment” is a subset of your audience that matches a pre-defined set of data. You could create a segment on customers who reach a certain page, achieve a “goal”, purchase, add to basket without checking out, come from a certain marketing channel or from a geographic location. You can then use “segments” to create marketing audiences or to tailor messages.

• Step 1 – Log into Google Analytics.
• Step 2 – Bottom left hand side of screen, goto “admin”.
• Step 3 – Right hand side of the screen under “view” select “segments.”
• Step 4 – Click on the + sign and “create new segment.”
• Step 5 – Give your segment a name and select the criteria.

Hey presto, you now have a method of understanding the different types of audience behaviour on your website. You could create a segment that details all the mobile users based in Kent who bought a product based on a special offer……

4. Devices – A much overlooked aspect of using Google Analytics is understanding what devices users are using to view your website. You can split by desktop, mobile and tablet  – all very useful when working out your audience and their preferences. It might also help to understand how to build your audience too – for example, you Tweet a special offer out to drive awareness – most people will be accessing Twitter by a mobile and therefore slipping straight from Twitter to your website – is the mobile experience good enough?

• Step 1 – Log into Google Analytics.
• Step 2 – Left hand side of the screen into “audience.”
• Step 3 – Select “mobile” and then “overview.”
• Step 4 – You can even drill down by device if you want to – maybe for planning an app?

5. Date Comparisons – The longer you run your Google Analytics , the more useful it becomes. Looking at historical data is crucial to understanding if your performance is improving. The beauty is as long as you are running Google Analytics  – you can run comparisons on previous years  – an absolute game changer when it comes to planning, budgeting and performance. 

• Step 1 – Log into Google Analytics.
• Step 2 – Left hand side of the screen into “audience, overview.”
• Step 3 – Right hand side of the screen, select “date range.”
• Step 4 – Choose the tick box if you want to run a data comparison.

So there we have it , our top 5 tips for getting more out of your Google Analytics account. Making time to analyse your analytics is an absolute must if you want to improve your digital marketing and crank the handle to make your website a lead generation machine. We have only just scratched the surface – have a Great Christmas and a Happy New Year and come and talk to us in 2022 about improving your digital marketing.

Featured image courtesy Santa Claus using computer – depositphotos.com