Commune Media | Measurably Effective Digital Marketing™

Why web analytics goals are worth the time

Posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 10:23 PM by Simon Smith  |  Comments (0)

If you have or manage a website, this might sound familiar: someone (maybe you, maybe your developer) dropped in some analytics. Probably Google Analytics. And now, every so often, you look at the stats. And have no idea what all the numbers mean.

Well, here’s a secret. When we provide web analytics services, we know that one of the biggest wins is simply configuring goals and goal funnels. By doing this, you can evaluate metrics according to objectives, giving you insight rather than just information, such as which traffic sources and content are most valuable for your business. In fact, by assigning actual values to goals, you can even sort content according to its revenue value—guiding you to add, optimize and delete content according to its measurable worth (not just how “cool” that guy in the cubicle next door thinks it is). Something like this:

Setting goals in Google Analytics adds functionality such as dollar-index value that adds insight into your return on investment

Setting goals is fairly straightforward (and obvious) for people like us who spend more time with web analytics tools than with family members. But if your life’s more balanced, and you haven’t set them up, here’s a quick step-by-step guide:

1. Define the business objectives for your website. Sounds like a no-brainer. But you would be surprised how many people haven’t clarified the why for their website. Is your site supposed to generate leads? Reinforce existing relationships? Start with the end in mind.
2. Map a sales funnel to your objectives. What happens on the web at each step towards your objective? For example, if your objective is to get people to visit your contact page, how do you get them to your website? And how do you get them from their to your contact form?
3. Establish a conversion page or action. How do you know if someone completes your desired objective? For example, if you want to track contact form submissions through your website, you’ll want to set up a conversion page (or, if you want to get nifty, trigger virtual page views through JavaScript as on our contact form). With new features from Google Analytics, you can now also configure non-page conversions such as time on site.
4. Determine the value of your conversion. How much is your desired action worth? For example, if 10% of people who submit a request through your contact form become a customer, and the average sale is $500, each contact form submission is worth $50.
5. Input your sales funnel, conversion action and conversion value into your analytics tool. If you’re using Google Analytics, here’s help setting up your goals and funnels.

It sounds complicated, but often the hardest part is simply clarifying your objectives. Far too many people, when you ask, often respond with means rather than ends, such as “get more traffic.” Once you know your objectives, the rest is just following instructions. And if you’re really struggling, or have complicated goals and funnels, feel free to contact us for web analytics service. We’ll happily track that conversion and help you out.

Tags: goals, google analytics, web analytics