Google Analytics is a must-have tool to get the data needed to optimize your content marketing strategy, but many pros may not know where to begin or how to get the most value from the platform.
#ContentChat regular Tod Cordill (@TodCordill), principal at Moderno Strategies, is an expert on the topic, and he took the hot seat to share how you can improve your content marketing attribution with Google Analytics goals and dashboards.
In true Tod fashion, let’s start with a joke:
Q. Why was the SEO expert late for work?
A. Too much traffic#contentchat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
Q1: What are the benefits of setting up a Google Analytics dashboard? And what should I include in it?
Google Analytics gives you the data you need to measure against your goals. The dashboard can show how your content is performing and whether you are tracking toward your goals.
A1. Google Analytics helps to understand:
High & low performing content
Which content helps achieve goals
Data useful for continuous improvement and determining ROIA dashboard can provide a performance overview. Your GOALs determine what to include. #ContentChat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
A1. With Google Analytics, marketers can:
-Get an overview of all channels that are directing traffic to your site.
-Track conversions.
-Track customer engagement.
-Find out what devices your visitors are using to get to your site.
And more..#ContentChathttps://t.co/Fw5sD3eGjm— Dianna Albanese (@dialbanese) March 18, 2019
Dashboards give a simple look at the KPIs that matter to your company decision makers, and Google Analytics can be the key to communicating your marketing ROI.
A1. Having @GoogleAnalytics is important + fundamental in tracking website performance + tracking marketing ROI – having a dashboard showing metrics / reports that are tied to your job are important. This includes traffic, site KPIs (TOS, BR, etc), + conversions. #ContentChat
— Patrick Delehanty (@fulldelmonte) March 18, 2019
A1 Easy sharing with execs and people you need to influence. Maintain a high-level dashboard, and separate dashboards for deeper dives that influence awareness and revenue goals #contentchat
— Dan Goldberg (@Jonas419) March 18, 2019
The data also provides audience insights, including how people are discovering your content and what content they engage with. This can help guide your content roadmap to reach your goals.
A1: By using Google Analytics, you can see where your content is coming from so you can learn how your audience discovers you.
You can also see which content performs the best on your site, which indicates what you might want to create more of. #ContentChat
— Express Writers (@ExpWriters) March 18, 2019
“which indicates what you might want to create more of”
I totally agree. This allows #marketing to be continually improved. #ContentChat https://t.co/zV9yn2Csgy
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
So true. Otherwise, you are just creating content for yourself, and not to meet your audience needs. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Content Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) March 18, 2019
A1. I’m a huge pessimist, so I see the biggest benefit of setting up a dashboard in seeing what’s wrong. What’s up with bounce rate at certain content pages, how much time people spend there —> all that to make assumptions about the tweaks to make. #contentchat
— Pitchbox App (@PitchboxApp) March 18, 2019
Q2: What are Goals in Google Analytics, and how should I be using them?
Your Goals in Google Analytics should ladder back to your larger business goals. The Google Analytics Goals can include page views, form submissions, downloads, link clicks, and other user actions.
A2. Goals help determine how your website helps achieves business goals. Examples:
Get leads from WOM? Goal: # of pageviews > 6.
Need leads from the website? Goal: form fill.
eCommerce? You’ll likely get more useful info from Analytics Ecommerce tools. #ContentChat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
A2. Goals in Google Analytics track important website actions and touchpoints such as sales, downloads, views, link clicks, and more. You should use these to track the important actions you want your users and visitors to conduct. #ContentChat
— Patrick Delehanty (@fulldelmonte) March 18, 2019
A2. Goals can be any user actions you want to track on your site. Button clicks, submissions, etc. that’s the GA representation of conversion. #contentchat
— Pitchbox App (@PitchboxApp) March 18, 2019
Goals will vary based on your company’s unique customer journey. When you’re just starting out, keep it simple and refine as you go.
Every business and customer acquisition process is different. It starts by understanding the customer journey and mapping what you do to help move it along.
You don’t need a detailed customer journey to being. Keep it simple. #ContentChat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
a2) The best use of @Google #analytics is knowing how you define #conversion and tracking the path to that conversion through the tool. #ContentChat pic.twitter.com/PJCFQIkunW
— Dan Willis (@MLLNNLmotivator) March 18, 2019
A2. Goals in GA help measure ‘actions’ or ‘conversions’ and can help contribute to your overall success #contentchat pic.twitter.com/FT5kdNcUbC
— PathFactory (@pathfactory) March 18, 2019
Q3: What are some campaign and channel attribution strategies I should be using?
Google Analytics will give you a look at campaign and channel performance. Assisted Conversions and Top Conversion Paths are valuable sections to explore.
A3a. Leveraging Campaign and Channels in Google Analytics allow you to determine:
CAMPAIGN PERFORMANCE. A single campaign can utilize many channels.
CHANNEL PERFORMANCE. You can measure the effectiveness of a channel across all traffic.
#ContentChat— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
A3b. #Marketing #Attribution requires as much judgment as it does analysis as each #customerjourney is unique. #ContentChat pic.twitter.com/OhKseufdhz
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
A3c. Don’t rely on a single Attribution Model, especially with long sales cycles.
First Interaction ↔️ AWARENESS
Last Interaction ↔️ REVENUE
Since you can’t get revenue without awareness, compare other models to Linear and look for differences. #ContentChat pic.twitter.com/1132HlIUzC
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
A3. Depending on how your campaigns are setup, I would look at your Assisted Conversions under your Conversions in Google Analytics, as well as your Top Conversion Paths under Conversions as well. It’s important to have full scope of how your campaigns work together. #ContentChat
— Patrick Delehanty (@fulldelmonte) March 18, 2019
Keep your different audiences in mind when developing your strategies.
A3. Isn’t this very dependent on what channels your potential audience/buyers are using? For us, we have different audiences on different channels: thought leaders and specialists on Twitter, patients more organic search and PPC #ContentChat https://t.co/dzAKRfjJSt
— Jen Brass Jenkins (@chrliechaz) March 18, 2019
It’s great you realize the differences in your audiences. If you don’t know this you’re just doing stuff. #DontJustDoStuff #ContentChat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
Mapping your content to the #CustomerJourney makes it easier to create effective content that has a purpose. It also makes it easier to prioritize what to improve and what to replace. #ContentChat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
UTMs are also a critical element of any strategy.
A3. Please, never forget about those sweet sweet UTMs… very critical part of the bigger picture #contentchat pic.twitter.com/vg0IbljmEy
— PathFactory (@pathfactory) March 18, 2019
With the above in mind, A/B test to see where new trends may emerge.
a3 A/B test your #content frequently. Not sure where to acquire #video and #photo assets you can use? @Pexels and @PexelsVideos have you covered. #ContentChat pic.twitter.com/F0kp7O3XYa
— Dan Willis (@MLLNNLmotivator) March 18, 2019
Q4: Let’s talk segmentation. How should I be comparing my paid versus unpaid traffic?
We can’t stress this enough: establish goals before trying to measure your activities. Bounce rate, engagement and conversion rate are all important KPIs to consider.
A4. Establish your goals and strategy before comparing paid vs. unpaid traffic. Compare over-all channel performance but work to continuously improve your ads.
Pay attention to:
Bounce rate
Engagement (page views, duration)
CONVERSION RATE
#ContentChat pic.twitter.com/CScQJG5Ybp— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
A4. Completely depends on the purpose of your efforts + campaigns – if your running branded paid campaigns you’ll measure that differently (position / impressions) than you would unbranded organic (traffic to blog posts, etc.) – know your goals for your efforts. #ContentChat
— Patrick Delehanty (@fulldelmonte) March 18, 2019
A4. Depends on the campaign goals. Branded campaigns, just like Patrick said, have one purpose and should be measured differently. As of organic campaigns, it’s logical to prioritize the efforts based on what’s the purpose of the content. #contentchat
— Pitchbox App (@PitchboxApp) March 18, 2019
I agree… establish your GOALS. Goals allow you to:
Plan what do do; and
Measure how well you’re doing; so you can
Make changes to improve.
#ContentChat https://t.co/wHjkt1IzNl— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
Monitor paid campaigns at least once a week, and unpaid traffic gives clues to your audience behavior.
A4: I think I am more critical of the results I get from paid traffic. Unpaid traffic I am mostly curious about where they naturally go, but if I’m trying to direct paid traffic somewhere, I want to see those numbers pan out to influence future ad buys #ContentChat
— Wicklander-Zulawski (@WZ_Training) March 18, 2019
It’s super important to keep an eye on paid traffic. Every week.
But realize that the content that drives unpaid traffic costs money to create.
#ContentChat— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
Q5: What should I be looking for in comparing converting traffic versus non-converters?
Create segments for your converters and non-converters, and the Acquisition reports can show what is working.
A5. Compare converters and non-converters by making a segment for each. View ACQUISITION reports to compare:
Channels
Landing pages
Source/Medium to get actionable data.Do more of what’s working. Stop or improve on what’s not performing well. Test! #ContentChat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
A5. Converting traffic – did they do what you want them to do (sale, click, download, etc.)? Nonconverting – are they moving through your site? Are they staying on the site and leaving? Know what KPIs matter for both and track / compare to see if efforts are working. #ContentChat
— Patrick Delehanty (@fulldelmonte) March 18, 2019
The Pareto principle applies in marketing, and could be one lens to use when evaluating your data.
A5. I’d look at the traffic source, the demographics etc. to better understand the nature of the better converting audience. It’s important to know your 80/20 Pareto audience. #contentchat
— Pitchbox App (@PitchboxApp) March 18, 2019
It IS a numbers game so paying attention to the Pareto Rule makes sense.
Also realize that that non-converting audience may be referring customers to you without you knowing it. #WOM #ContentChat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
Just out of interest, how would that work? Them sending customers to you? #contentchat
— Pitchbox App (@PitchboxApp) March 18, 2019
If you’re creating and sharing useful content you will create an audience. The audience will:
become customers.
buy from competitors.
just keep reading and doing their own thing.
All of these have the potential to refer you to colleagues. #contentchat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
Q6: Can I use Google Analytics to track offline traffic?
Yes, Google Analytics can track traffic from phone calls, direct mail, print advertisements and more. Use campaign-specific URLs to track (Patrick shares how below).
A6. Use Google Analytics to track:
Phone calls from websites, ads, other channels.
Direct mail
OOH
Sales & marketing collateralUse an easy-to-type URL specific to each campaign and channel. Redirect it to a destination URL with UTM parameters.
#ContentChat— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
A6. You can if your marketing efforts use vanity URLs in billboards or other traditional marketing efforts. This is done with a URL that directs to a URL on your site or landing page – here’s how you do it: https://t.co/0TGsuuIpUe #ContentChat
— Patrick Delehanty (@fulldelmonte) March 18, 2019
Q7: What should I be doing in email signatures to make them trackable?
UTM parameters can be used in email signature links to make them trackable.
A7. Add UTM parameters to email signature links:
utm_source=personal-contact
utm_medium=email
utm_campaign=personal-email ⬅️ change for promotion CTAsDetermine if text or image is being clicked:
utm_content=text-link or utm_content=image-link#ContentChat— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
Q8: Any other attribution hot tips?
Tod and Patrick share their tips:
A8. #attribution tips:
Improve performance with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Long sales cycles, more complex products, industries, and geos require more analysis. Plan and budget accordingly.
Review INSIGHTS regularly.
Test!!! #ContentChat— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
A8. I would sit down with your team and map out user flows, important actions, and what KPIs matter most to your business and marketing success in tracking ROI. This will help everyone agree and understand where, how, and why your Analytics track certain actions. #ContentChat
— Patrick Delehanty (@fulldelmonte) March 18, 2019
I love this idea. It:
Gets everybody on the same page.
Gets people to agree on the usefulness of KPIs.
Prepares people to accept what the data is saying.
#ContentChat— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) March 18, 2019
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