Google Analytics is one of those digital marketing tools that is a must have – the true OG of marketing analytics and frankly, a really great tool to have. Not only does it allow you to track and understand how your digital visitors are navigating to and spending time with your content, it lets you know what’s working, what needs work on and how you’re scaling digital traffic and engagement over time. Once you identify what draws customers to your brand, producing more of it and tracking progress are two critical components to future marketing initiatives.
To ensure that you’re achieving the goals you set, it’s critical to track what has been working so you can draw your attention in that direction and set yourself up for success. We call this the refining period. Drilling down to see from which sources and to which content are two critical pieces, but so is geographic location, device usage and page engagement. Put your best foot forward and get the most eyes on your brand by understanding the needs of your audience and your goals. (Achieving Optimal Growth: Three Steps to Ensure A Healthy Business) Our team recently put together this list to help you understand what you can gain insight into with Google Analytics and get your brand on its upward trajectory.
Get to Know Your Web Audience
You can identify web user demographics like location, gender, and age through Google Analytics which can help you create a stronger target audience. You can also get to know them by seeing where they spend the most time on your website or what page they exited from and optimize content and/or paid distribution channels accordingly. Understanding what actions they take and figuring out why will undoubtedly work to maximize brand visibility and provide a top-notch digital experience.
We love a good drill-down by traffic with a secondary view into source/medium. This view allows you to see not only which pages are engaged with the most, but how digital users have navigated to them. The secondary view is a great addition to Google Analytics page views since you can also sort data by campaign, landing and exit pages to build a full campaign view from entry to exit.
Mapping How Digital Users Find You
People can digitally stumble across your brand in a variety of ways from things like organic SEO, social media (Best Times to Post on Instagram and Hashtags to Use), paid campaigns or other inbound marketing. Understanding what keywords, phrases and ultimately the digital context they used to bring them to you is invaluable information. This knowledge allows you to use resources towards this channel for a chance to increase exposure even further.
Tried and true UTM links are a great way to operationalize your campaign building in Google Analytics to truly be able to see digital source origination, engagement, conversions and visibility. It’s also valuable to track traffic sources over time since this will show you how users have navigated to your site and at what percentage any one (or many) sources have shifted in dominance.
Understanding What Type of Content Your Users Want
Google Analytics has the ability to track what pages people visit most, and ultimately what content they’re frequenting. When you see that your blog was more enticing than the case study that required a much more significant amount of time, you’re able to adjust your time appropriately to give the people more of what they want. Once you start to understand who your audience is, what they want and how they’re finding it, you can start to repeat this content development process.
Knowledge is power to let your brand evolve into the exact space and place you want it. Getting in the mind of an ideal customer let’s you set your brand apart from others as you work to become your industry’s go-to resource, thought leader and influential. We’re big believers in setting up for success and Google Analytics is an incredible digital marketing tool that will help you scale your business.
