…on Google Analytics

I spent one lunchtime last week watching an internal webinar on Google Analytics.

I’m familiar with Analytics but definitely not an expert.

My lack of thorough understanding on this application stems from the fact that analysis (not being my strong suit), tends also to be a low priority task for most Marketing Managers. This is mostly due to being time poor, and adopting new processes during busy times is difficult.

But I know now that Google Analytics holds great potential!

Here are my key learnings;

1. Bounce Rate: refers to the rate at which one person enters your site, views one page only and leaves. If your % is <>

2. Within the ‘Visitors’ tab on your dashboard, there is a function called ‘New v. Returning’, to determine who spends more time on the website. The global analytics/webinar trainer has pre-set a series of ‘Goals’ – which highlight the % of visitors who click on a download on the site (whether it is a PDF download, a registration form, or additional content). You would expect that for a LSE event or one with a lot of content, the % of additional content is higher.

3. Direct traffic – the visitors who type the name of the event directly into the address bar on their browser.

4. Referring traffic – websites that refer people to your own website. Central to determining which external partnerships are working and which referring websites drive the most traffic. One way you can qualify the ‘stickiness’ of your referring traffic is to view the ‘Bounce Rate’ of the visitors from that source (as mentioned above, the lower, the better). Similarly you can click on the ‘goals’ tab to view the click thrus to the pre-determined downloads.

5. Content section – tells you which pages within the website are performing the best

6. I noticed a fair bit of traffic is directed through to the websites if your speakers/sponsors promote the event on their LinkedIn or ZoomInfo profiles. Worth asking them for the free plug!

Interestingly, I can now confirm that the time I spend monotonously updating diary listing sites, sharing information and news on LinkedIn, and doing press releases, does actually drive traffic to the website.

For one of our events which I spent quite a bit of time on LinkedIn, discussing shopping trends etc, has driven 25 people through to the website, of which 20% downloaded some additional content (podcast or whitepaper). That’s good news!

How do you integrate the learnings of Google Analytics to your business?