What is Google Analytics?
Purpose:
Ever wonder how a company knows how to optimize its website to find the right customers to grow its business? Without some type of analytics tool, the company would just be guessing. Google Analytics is at the top of customer focused big data analytics with more than 80% of websites utilizing its tracking and analysis tools (Gallaugher, 2014). Google Analytics allows companies to better understand who is visiting their website, what visitors are looking at, when visitors are on the site and for how long, where visitors are from, how visitors are using the website, sales and advertising success, and mobile use within apps (Gallaugher, 2014). The point is to uncover hidden patterns and correlations as they relate to market trends, customer preferences, purchasing decisions, and any other information a company would find useful to grow revenue (Google Analytics, 2011). All this big data is gathered and reported through Google Analytics so design improvements can be made to websites to capture more potential customers. The best part…it can be done for free!
Features:
Features of Google Analytics (GA) include: assisting businesses in their website's weakness identification; evaluation of resource strengths and risks; measure new versus returning users; view exactly where traffic exits; and synchronization with outside applications to create data visuals.
Google Analytics can be used as a key tool for online marketer's by boosting their SEO (search engine optimization) and CRO (conversion rate optimization) control of hidden pages (Ash, 2015). Hidden pages are typically outside of the homepage and cause the viewer's cursor to move. The danger of hidden pages is the potential of single-page sessions without further interaction, known as bounce rate. Businesses need to pay attention to high traffic pages with high bounce rates because these pages are obtaining viewers that then exit the site, hence these pages are weak (Image 1).
Other features that can be regularly utilized in GA are landing and exit pages. The landing pages tool locates the exact pages that are leading viewers to a website. It is key that landing pages are evenly disbursed (Rampton, 2015). Landing pages that are held within a small number of websites pose risks because a single change in keyword or dependent referral source can quickly and significantly decrease views. On the other end of the spectrum, GA features tools that show the page where a viewer decided to exit. Knowledge of where viewers exit is arguably one of the first pieces of information marketers would want to know so that they may then correct this. John Rampton (2015), a contributor for Forbes Magazine, wrote that although high rates of exit could be a sign of a problem, business should try to stay calm as exit rates can be natural. An example of this nature would be a purchase confirmation page. Rampton (2015) continues to note that although the New vs. Returning user feature may not be the most glamorous of GA, it is highly important. GA uses cookies to track each individual view of the site and can recognize if a user is new or returning for period of 2 years. Rampton(2015) notes that if the majority views are returning users there may be traffic sourcing issues. Majority views that are composed of new users may indicate a problem of site usability or content depth.
Features of GA are not isolated solely to sites but can be extended to applications as well. Nico Miceli (2015) wrote on how he is developing Slackalytics (in Beta testing) which applies Google Analytics to the Slack messaging application used by his team. Utilizing GA's core features allows Miceli to analyze even the smallest details of how his team communicates through Slack. Data provided can range from the frequency of emoji's used to the frequency of client calls (see Image 2) (Miceli, 2015). These features in collaboration with the creative mind of a marketer can lead to countless opportunities for businesses to improve their online marketing capabilities.
Benefits:
One of the unique challenges of improving your digital performance through web pages is how to record, process, and track data for a website. The primary benefits of Google Analytics are the system's ability to track, rate, and discover how individual users utilize a website. Additionally, the program offers information on how a user accesses a site, whether they are domestic or international clients (Vallaeys, 2014). Recent research indicates that prospective customers prefer to visit the website for most stores before they make a major purchase( Gallagher, 2014) Therefore, this feature is a draw for media marketers because measuring how a client uses data in different sections of the site they find interesting will raise subscriptions to a webpage that can convert fans to permanent customers.
GA, is also a powerful tool that can be combined with other programs to help create unique website content. Many online content managers couple GA with Google Adwords to develop content. Adwords specialist Frederick Vallaeys notes that the combination allows online marketers to determine how many visitors you've converted into long term followers or customers (Vallaeys, 2014). Through consistent analysis of GA, an online content director can develop a set of tricks such as posts, message boards, or ads, to encourage more customer interaction.
Google Analytics and IVK:
Believe it or not, GA is a powerful and useful tool for companies that are looking for a more cost-effective way to run the business. In The Adventures of an IT Leader, IVK is currently at the stage where each department needs to focus on its spending and if it brings any value to the company. In the context of IVK, Ruben stated the company has been spending more on IT and struggles to meet new demands for IT services (Austin, 2009). Barton has learned that IT costs is about 8% of sales and there is no budget for IT department because IT services are billed from other user departments (Austin, 2009). Consequently, IT has been seen to be the “cost” unit within the company. If IVK were to implement GA, IT value could be easily demonstrated to the marketing department, or even to the company as the whole. As stated previously, GA is free of cost. Also, real-time reports can help IVK to see how well the marketing campaigns are performing. In order to measure the effectiveness of marketing, a set of new metrics should be used to focus on real-time customers’ behaviors instead of the physical activities of the products (Edelmand & Heller, 2015). The real-time reports can help IVK to understand their customers better, which could assist the company to become more profitable or gain market share. GA could not only solve the problems the IVK IT department is current facing by adding a new service capacity with no cost, but also save some marketing spending and stabilize its profit margin.
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URLs:
Click on the link to watch a video to understand what Google Analytics is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opwrGPKcfYw
Click on this link to sign-up for Google Analytics for free!
Click on this link to understand the benefits of Google Adwords and Analytics
References:
Ash, T. (2015, September 14). Using the hidden google analytics feature to find pages you need to fix. Business 2 Community. Retrieved from http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/using-the-hidden-google-analytics-feature-to-find-pages-you-need-to-fix-01325832
Austin, R.D., Nolan, R.L., & O’Donnell, S. (2009). The Adventures of an IT leader. Boston: Harvard Business Press.
Edelman, D., & Heller, J. (2015, July). How digital marketing operations can transform business. McKinsey & Company. Retrieved from http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/how_digital_marketing_operations_can_transform_business
Gallaugher, J. (2014). Information systems: A manger's guide to harnessing technology (2.0). Washington, DC: Flat World Knowledge.
Google analytics: The what, the why, the how. (2011, July 19). AdWords. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opwrGPKcfYw
Miceli, N. (2015, September 8). Using google analytics to understand real-time messaging behavior. Google Analytics Blog. Retrieved from http://analytics.blogspot.com/2015/09/using-google-analytics-to-understand.html
Rampton, John. (2015, August 24). The 10 most important things you should pay attention to in analytics. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/08/24/the-10-most-important-things-you-should-pay-attention-to-in-analyti
Vallaeys, F. (2014, July 28) Use google analytics to improve AdWords performance. Google Partners. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITGr_IsuqT4
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