How to know your customers with Google Analytics and fulfil their expectations

Google Analytics is a great tool that is free and user-friendly in accessing cool data on visitors’ behaviour who may be prospective customers on a website and harnessing them with important strategies.

Tools like Google Analytics are indispensable in calculating the ROI (return on investment) accruing from each campaign. All campaigns involve considerable planning, huge money and time. Therefore, results matter.

In all campaigns, including SEO Google Analytics tracks the performance. Sometimes keyword may be the base for it. Analytics throws open a huge wealth of information on the website’s potential by giving the pull exerted on prospective customers. This data will be based on the performance of a slew of parameters.

Some benefits of Google Analytics reports include the following:

There is no cost involved as it is free yet and offers as much functionality as any other paying tool.

Sources of visitors

Other than core keywords, the analytics report also offers information on keywords that were used by visitors in discovering a particular website.

The reports carry information on pages and links that are drawing maximum traffic usable for optimizing campaigns.

Visitor segmentation: The insights on the number of new visitors that a campaign has gifted are very valuable in planning. Segment wise analytic results show trends of new and returning visitors based on referral sources and topography.

Opportunity to fine-tune website: The analytic report helps to improve pages can change fast and ways to attract quality prospects and customers.

It is a fact that business owners need fresh and critical data for informed decisions. For online businesses, this data comes from Google Analytics. It is comprehensive because all vital trends are there which can be suitably used for applying strategies to take the business forward.

Data on Five Metrics

The Google Analytics data is a visually rich document that carries loads of data on important metrics such as the source of visitors, actions, goals and site performance.

The five categories are the following.

• Real-Time
• Audience
• Acquisition
• Behaviour
• Conversions

Real-Time: This part reveals data on website visitors and/or customers who are currently active on a website.

Audience section: Here details on website owners are offered.

Acquisition section: It displays information about where exactly the website traffic is emanating.

Behavior section: It offers in-depth details about web pages, site speed, and a visual behavior flowchart.

Conversions: This report is vivid on Goals and E-commerce as well as non-E-commerce conversions. Goal Flow shows visitor interactions to the final goal.

The steps or actions related to goals are available on the Goal flow panel. The details are typically reserved for businesses with specific needs.

Site performance:  Google Analytics serves as a quick reference base for precise information on visitors. It updates how visitors interact with a website, pages doing well and pages which are underperforming.

It is advisable to save these custom reports as shortcuts for quick reference and pass on to persons who are monitoring the website for marketing purposes.

Each report has charts that contrast and compare various actions.

Google Analytics also tracks real-time sessions, page views, unique visitors, session duration, and locations of visitors.

See Website Visitor Traffic

The data from Google Analytics also tells how a business is performing from the visitor or customer point of view. It mainly answers the following points:

• Response of visitors to a website
• Quality level of content and the results thereof
• Behaviour of site visitors vs. expectations of web owners
• Rate of conversions in terms of purchases or goal achievement
• Completion of conversions– first time visitor to returning visitors
• No of returning visitors and their stay on the site compared to first-time visitors

Sources of Visitors

The Analytics data can also update on traffic sources. The best behavior from a visitor will happen when the content is effective.

Fluctuations in Traffic

Google Analytics data will also reveal the fluctuations in traffic from different sources. This can be used to update a page with suitable links so that more visitors are attracted and more related pages can be supplied to boost conversions.

Visitors’ interaction patterns: Google Analytics report highlights traffic sources, main pages visited, and pages with least traffic, pages where visitors mostly enter and the last page viewed before quitting the site.

Compare Traffic data: The date range selector allows quick comparisons from different periods and the progress is visitor traffic can be monitored.

It also gives a proper understanding of the customers’ journey and the way they interact with content. There are also many most liked pages and sections across the site.

Process Analysis Plan: Since the Analytics data delivers insights into actions and behavior it is easy to bring about changes by maintaining shortcuts to different traffic data.

This will cut the tedium of peering through a sea of other data.

The chief merit of analytics data is that it gives a crux of what is really happening or not happening on a website in a measurable manner.

Action Suggestions; Thanks to the analytics data suitable modifications in font size, contact forms, new buttons, call-to-action text, images, discount codes, and even videos are possible.

Expectations and Real Action by Visitors: By giving a new attention to the website’s design, there is the opportunity to move more customers or visitors to predefined actions such as online purchases and submitting a form on products or services. Even the offer of a free download of a PDF or video can be part of that.

Google Analytics allows tracking of forms as a goal for both eCommerce and Non-eCommerce websites. The data documents traffic in a clearly segmented way. There may be different channels from where visitors descend on a site.

Organic Search traffic involves visitors coming from search traffic sources like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines.

Typing a website’s address directly, without going to a search engine is direct traffic.

Referral traffic refers to clicking links housed on other websites and users landing on the website.

Visitors also come from the ads appearing on search results at Google.com via AdWords.

Display traffic also contributes visitors who are guided by the ad at the Ad Network of Google AdWords.  Social traffic refers to social media-induced users coming from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google +.

Benefit for E-Commerce

Businesses vary in nature. That is why the efficacy of an analytics report is related more to the domain where the company operates. E-commerce companies need a close watch on sales and traffic sources with a clear idea of the percentage of customers making purchases. The segmented data will tell what percentage of sales has been coming from first-time visitors.

Conversion Rate: The ease of gleaning conversion rate from website traffic data is really important. In E-Commerce sites, the conversion rate is calculated by dividing visitors who make purchases with the total number of visitors landing on the site.

More data on conversion rate trends can be sourced from custom goals configured in the Admin section of the Analytics account.

Create Reports to Monitor Online Objectives

Creating shortcuts help in keeping a tab on visitor actions and promotion of the website, sales, and higher conversions.

In increasing visitors and hastening conversions, assess what is there on the site and what more is needed. Also, make comparison of data between various ranges in the date.

But bear in mind that Google Analytics data will start flowing only from the day the account was created and tracking code was inserted to the site. That means no historical data can be mined prior to the date of account data.

About Author –

Udit Khanna is a Digital marketing professional at Expert Training Institute, he has written many blogs on Digital Marketing like Scope of Digital Marketing, Career Options in Digital Marketing, Who should pursue Digital Marketing etc. Previously, Udit worked as a marketing professional for various startups and tech companies. He graduated with B.Sc from IGNOU with a dual degree in Business Administration (Marketing & Finance).