GA4: What Shopify stores should do TODAY to keep up with the new version of Google Analytics
Setting up Google Analytics 4 (GA4) on Shopify is easy with the right tools, but there is a lot of confusion in the marketplace right now. There are apps offering "GA4 setup" that can't actually help you with tracking (getting accurate data into Analytics), and there are agencies offering detailed GTM tag setup guides for GA4 without mentioning that there are automated solutions for GA4 conversion tracking. This is all very exciting...but also not necessary. The truth is that you don't need custom tagging or reporting, just the right Shopify tracking app for GA4. What is GA4? It's Google's answer to the modern data stack, in some ways a complement to it (eg. GA4's BigQuery connection, which used to be reserved for GA 360), and in others a replacement for multiple expensive tools that haven't always worked well together. The move toward GA4 started with Google's interest in offering better cross-device and cross-channel tracking, and has been refined with a focus on user privacy -- in other words a world without third-party cookies. As a result, using the right Shopify and GA4 connection now lets you start capturing data about your Shopify store performance that is by default more complex and dynamic than what you might be currently tracking in Universal Analytics (UA, the current version of GA). GA4 can save you time and money versus a complex analytics setup, while offering visibility into the entire customer lifecycle, from organic and paid channels through complex browsing behavior and -- essentially -- customer lifetime value (LTV) and purchase count. But at the very least you need to start capturing that data. [note]This doesn't only apply to Shopify stores! If you're on BigCommerce you can use our server-side BigCommerce to GA4 integration[/note] Google has also built in data-driven models for both comparative attribution reporting and predictive analytics, such as in-app purchase probability and overall purchase probability. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. First you need to capture the data. We expect some brands to just ignore GA4 until the last minute (I'm expecting some not-so-fun Memorial Day Weekend parties next year in NYC...), but we've also noticed that the top ecommerce managers and data scientists are all doing the same thing: tracking in parallel today, so they will have at least six months of data before making the full switch to GA4. Here's a quick guide to help you make the right moves too. 1. Stop procrastinating Is Google really getting rid of the old version of Google Analytics? The answer is a definitive yes. They are sunsetting the old version of Google Analytics in 2023. You need to be ready, but what does that mean exactly? Is there anything you can do today? Track in parallel today so you will have at least six months of data before making the full switch to GA4 Google formally announced the shift to a new version of Google Analytics back in November 2020, but many DTC brands are still putting off the shift to GA4. While moving to a different version of a tool most online marketers use weekly (if not daily) might sound a bit intimidating, there are two points to remember: Google is one of the most user-friendly companies on the planet and they have already added a bunch of functionality and default reporting templates in GA4 You need to capture data before you can analyze it! As our agency partner CXL writes in their ultimate guide to GA4: "Unlike previous upgrade iterations, GA4 is a brand-new product. This means starting afresh, with a new learning curve to navigate." But at the same time, as they say, "it promises to be the future of analytics, with cross-platform tracking, AI-driven data, and privacy-centric design." We couldn't agree more. Littledata's top 10 reasons to switch to GA4 include both custom funnels and predictive insights. This is especially important for ecommerce brands that want to building shopping funnel reports and LTV cohorts in GA4 that fit their particular business model and customer base. So what should you do today to take advantage of this powerful, free ecommerce reporting? First of all, create a GA4 property! 2. Create a GA4 property Google will not be allowing anybody to import historical data from UA into GA4, so you need to create a Google Analytics 4 (GA4) property today if you are serious about seeing performance over time. Luckily, adding a GA4 property is surprisingly easy. Current GA users (that's most of you) can just head to their Analytics accounts and use the setup assistant. You should add at least one data stream. (Don't worry, you can add more later.) Data Streams in GA4 replace Views in Universal Analytics, but they're a bit different . Data streams can be any website (or blog, microsite, country store, etc) or mobile app (iOS or Android), and they can be viewed in aggregate or individually. Adding a data stream might sound intimidating, but this can be as simple as adding the URL for your website (eg. "littledata.io"). [tip]Whether you're new to Google Analytics or a longtime user, we recommend turning on the Enhanced Measurement settings, which include useful defaults.[/tip] When you add a data stream, you will have the option to enabled Enhanced Measurement settings. This is highly recommended. Here's more info on what Littledata lets you track automatically in GA4 -- examples include product views, product list views, checkout funnel events and purchases -- and which events are tracked with Enhanced Measurement, such as page views, site search and form interactions. Now that you have set up a GA4 property, it's time to set up your ecommerce tracking. [tip] Use our complementary instant order checker for GA4 to check your property [/tip] 3. Track in Parallel Tracking UA and GA4 in parallel means that you can send data to both destinations at the same time. This lets you capture browsing behavior and sales performance in both places, so you can analyze the data, build comparative attribution models and start to get a sense for how Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 are different -- as well as where they converge. The most accurate way to do this is to use an ecommerce data platform like Littledata to capture ecommerce events by default, including both sales/conversion tracking and marketing attribution (stitching sessions together). We send data directly to GA4. Because we have a pre-built GTM data layer, you don't need to add tags manually! Use a pre-built data layer for GA4 so you don't have to add tags manually Littledata's tracking schema works out of the box to capture both major and minor touch points in the ecommerce journey. When you install Littledata, we instantly start tracking all of the key ecommerce events for you in both UA and GA4, so you'll have the data you need when you're ready to dive into week-on-week and month-on-month analysis. Here's a quick video on tracking in parallel. To get something similar to Enhanced Ecommerce reporting, you'll need to build reports yourselves, so we've also put together a few videos on building ecommerce reports in GA4. These reports are more flexible and dynamic than anything available in UA. It's like having Google Data Studio within Google Analytics for complete reporting. There's even more free content available for subscribers in the app :) Wait, so GA4 is pretty different? GA4 is based on a different type of tracking called event-based tracking, which is is exactly what it sounds like: a more flexible and comprehensive way of tracking everything so you can build granular reports and predictive models based on the endless flow of events and attached parameters. The UA data model focused on sessions and pageviews. GA4 focuses on events, and sessions are no longer broken by a change in campaign "source" (GA4 continues tracking the same session as well as the change in source). But those sessions will not be stitched together automatically with purchase data and Shopify customer IDs. And many Google Tag Manager solutions for GA4 are missing out on the basics, like purchase events, revenue and conversion tracking. If you aren't capturing purchases, how are you supposed to know if your marketing is working? Using Littledata's solution is quick and easy, with both low-code and no-code options. Our ecommerce tracking is deep and comprehensive. When you start a free trial you can choose to send data to both UA and GA4 at no additional cost, with server-side tracking to guarantee accurate data. [subscribe heading="Top-rated GA4 tracking for $99 a month"] Want to know more? Book a free data audit with one of our Google Analytics experts today!
3 steps to great email customer support
As a consumer brand, is there a better way of getting customers to refer you business than offering excellent customer support? My inbox this afternoon showed two polar opposites of handling support by email and illustrated what great support looks like. I can sum up the differences: Ditch the "you're in a queue" email Really listen to the customer Offer further advice Ditch the "you're in a queue" email My depressing email exchange with Swiss Airlines starts when I tried to complain about the £4.50 credit card charge. I would normally never pay it, but their debit card payment route was broken, so to book the flight I had no choice. Dear customer, thank you for your message. We will get back to you as soon as possible. The response time may vary depending on the amount of research required. Please do not reply to this E-Mail. Use for your feedback our page: www.swiss.com/contacts We thank you for your understanding. Yours sincerely, Swiss International Air Lines Ltd. Let's unpack the sheer hostility of this: "thank you for your message" = we care so little we couldn't be bothered to add a capital letter "as soon as possible" = nor do we have enough staff to answer today "Please do not reply to this E-Mail" = we can't even be bothered to install a smart ticketing system Really it would be better not to send me an auto-response at all - just get back to me when a human is ready. Let's compare that with an email I get from TransferWise, which was my good experience of the day. At first glance, this looks like an automated response, but then I realise it's signed by a real person - and they actually want me to reply to the email. TransferWise are having to deal with genuinely onerous FCA anti-money laundering rules - and offering a helpful way to get around it. Really listen to the customer The Swiss conversation goes downhill from there. OK, I'm a bit smart Alec about the transaction fee - but it's a well known scam. On 24 Feb 2016, at 05:51, contactus@swiss.com wrote: Dear Mr. Upton, Thank you for writing to us with regards to your query and we apologizes for the inconvenience caused. We would like to inform you that GBP4.50 is the fee charged directly from the bank/bank fee. Therefore, we cannot grant a refund with regards to the above mentioned fees. We trust the above information will be of assistance and are available to assist you with any further questions at any time. Thank you for choosing SWISS and we wish you a pleasant day further. Kind regards, Miriama Consultant Customer Travel Services / R1S ----- From: Edward Upton [mailto:edward@edwardupton.com] Dear Miriama, That is absolutely untrue. MasterCard charges you 0.3% for the transaction, which in this case is 51p https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/about-mastercard/what-we-do/interchange.html So please can you refund me GBP 4? regards, Edward Upton ----- From: contactus@swiss.com Dear Mr. Upton, Thank you for writing to us. We have reviewed your request regarding your reservation. Please note that in regards to your request we will not be able ot refund the OPC. Please note this (GBP4.50) is a charge placed by the credit card company and it applies as per the point of commencement of your ticket. We hope this information is useful. Please do let us know if you need additional information. Thank you for choosing SWISS. Kind Regards, Alexander Consultant Customer Travel Services / R1S This feels like someone has cut and pasted from a standard response list. It's robotic. And given that the original issue was actually about their website being broken, there is a total lack of empathy for the issue - just some 'apologizes' (sic). Offer further advice Often companies have to say no to refunds and extra requests, but at least be gracious. And sometimes the company can offer you something that benefits both parties: a guide to how to avoid needing to email in the future. Here is the exemplary reply from Transferwise Hi Edward, I hope you’re doing well! Thank you for getting back to us, and confirming that we can change the name on the payment ###### to your personal. I shall quickly pass this on to my colleagues, who are able to make the change and proceed with the transfer. As soon as the payment is sent out from our end, we shall send you a confirmation e-mail, like always. All you need to do is check your inbox every now and then.:) Just in case, I will explain how you can choose to use both your personal and business profiles on TransferWise. Once you log in to your TransferWise account, on the upper right corner you should see a logo (like a man in a circle). When you click on the logo, you should see: Use as Edward Upton Use as Littledata Consulting Ltd Therefore, if you want to set up a personal payment, and you’re planning to send money from your personal bank account, please make sure that “Use as Edward Upton” is ticked. And if you’re planning to make a business payment and send money from your business bank account, please make sure to choose the second option. If anything was left unclear or you would need help with something else, please don’t hesitate to get back to us. We are always happy if we can help! I hope you have a lovely day, Eliisa, TransferWise Support Which company do you think I'll recommend in the future? Comment below!
New in Littledata: better reports, customisation, and more
We’ve just released a bunch of improvements for Littledata software to improve your data analysis and reporting. Grab yourself a cuppa and read on to learn what’s new, including the ability to choose which reports you want to get, updated spam filter, and more. Settings improvements We want to give you more control over your subscription so we've added further customisation options to your settings. Update subscription name You can now update your subscription name to be something more descriptive than the default property name we select. If you have multiple views for the same website or a very long property name, you can change the name to something more snappy and understandable. Select which reports you want So far you've been getting a set of standard reports without being able to pick which reports are important for you. That's changing! You can now select the metrics and segments you care about and want to get reports on, and turn off the ones you don't. You can do this by going to your subscription settings, and updating the Metrics & Segments sections. Report improvements We believe that analytics reporting should be simple, clear and unpolluted with unnecessary details so we've made your reports easier to understand. Simpler report titles With a lot of changes to the website traffic, the interface can get quite busy with numerous reports trying to get your attention. We made the titles much simpler by focussing on the main change that the reports are about, thus allowing you to skim your reports and see what's happened more quickly. Time tag Our trends reports look currently for daily and weekly changes in your website traffic, and previously you had to rely on the report title to see which time comparison the specific report is for. To make it clearer, we have taken this information out of the titles and added time tags instead. Now you can quickly see which reports are daily or weekly comparisons. Don't let spam referrals skew your data I have previously written a guide on how to remove spam referrals and I know from experience it can be time consuming and frustrating to set up. You have to identify these spammers in your data first, then check other more common ones to add to the list, write a regular expression, then create one filter, then another and so on. Did I say it can be frustrating? Our spam correction feature takes the exasperation out of this process by adding filters to your analytics view once you authorise the fix. Whilst we've had this feature for some time now and it's as popular as ever, we have updated the list with many more spam referrals. We'll send you a tip report if we find fake referrals in your traffic, and you can clean up your data by clicking on 'Fix this now'. Feel free to ask questions or send us your comments either below or via the Intercom Messenger available when you're logged in. Further reading: Under the hood of Littledata New in Littledata: tailored tips, new report and more (
How to trust your Google Analytics data setup
Google Analytics is a powerful tool… when implemented correctly. I can’t even count the number of times we've had enquiries from and spoken to companies who don’t trust the data in their reports because it's incorrect or incomplete. And it all comes down to wrong configuration and setup. Checking and amending correctly the very basics of your analytics setup will provide you with data you can rely on and an accurate foundation for further more advanced configurations, like Enhanced Ecommerce tracking. So here's a list of questions you should be asking whilst checking your Google Analytics (GA) property and view settings. This is assuming you're on Universal Analytics (analytics.js) so not all setup options may apply if your site is on Classic analytics (ga.js). I'll also cover a few common setup issues at the end. GA property settings Go to Admin > Property > Property Settings. Is your default URL set up correctly? The default URL is used in Content and in-Page Analytics reports to display page previews. Do you have a correct default view picked? By default, this will be the first view created at the time of initial GA setup. If you're using AdWords Express or Google Play, then you want to check the view here is the one you want to connect to either of the services. The default view will also show you all the custom and advanced segments you've created in other views. Have you set your industry category? Pick whatever matches your property most closely if you want to be included in the benchmark reports. Have you enabled demographics reports? Demographics and interests reports give you additional insight into your users. Recently I explained how to set this up in Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager V2. Do you need enhanced link attribution? Enable this if you have pages with multiple links that take people to the same destination or a page element that has multiple destinations, eg internal search. This will help with identifying which particular elements or links were clicked. In addition to enabling this in the property settings, you also need to add a line of code to your GA tracking code, or, if using GTM, toggle Enhanced Link Attribution to true in your pageview tag under Advanced Configuration settings. Should you link with your Search Console? Link your Search Console site with your Google Analytics property to see Search Console data in your GA reports, and access GA reports directly from the Links to your site and Sitelinks sections in Search Console. GA view settings Property settings sorted? Great, now go to View > View Settings. Is your view name descriptive? Use easy to understand naming to describe what the view is for, eg excluding admin, domains included, ecommerce data only. Have you set your default URL? Similarly to the property settings, make sure you use the correct default URL here to improve your Content and in-Page Analytics reports. Have you set a correct time zone? The beginning and end of each day for your reports is calculated based on the time zone you have set. If you need to update this, you may see a flat spike in your data caused by the time shift. Do you need a default page? Setting a default page is useful when you have two separate URLs loading the same homepage. Here you can configure those pages to be considered as the same URL. This will affect your reports so make sure you do this correctly Should you exclude URL query parameters? Specify any parameters you don’t want to see in your reports. I've found a blog post from Lunametrics useful for understanding when and how to exclude URL query parameters. Is your currency correct? Especially relevant for sites with ecommerce tracking for making sure that the reports show your order values and revenues in the currency you operate in, and not in $ that it converts to by default. Have you ticked bot filtering option? Whilst this option doesn't help with eliminating all of the spam referrals, ticking this box will exclude at least a few of them. To get rid of all of your fake referrals, here's a thorough guide on how to exclude them with two filters. Get yourself a cuppa if you're going to clean up your data. Does your website have a search function? Enabling the site search is useful for understanding what your website visitors are looking for. It should be pretty painless to set up if you have a query included in the URL, and we've covered the steps to set up internal site search tracking in one of our blogs. Other common setup issues Here are also a few very common setup problems that I keep coming across again and again. Have you got an unfiltered view? It's good practice to have an unfiltered view that you keep clean from any filters and customisation. This way you can always double-check your data if anything goes wrong in another view. Is your bounce rate less than 10% whilst your pageviews have doubled? This may be happening due to pageviews firing multiple times. You can use Tag Assistant plugin for Chrome to check if that's true. Are you getting referrals from your own domain and your payment gateway? This is skewing your data so checkpoints 3 and 4 on how to exclude referrals from your domain and payment provider. Tracking multiple subdomains in the same view? By default, you see only request URI in your reports without a domain, which isn't very helpful if you are tracking more than one domain in the same GA view. You can improve this by adding a hostname to URLs with a custom filter. Check Google's guidance for how to do it. Are you filtering out internal traffic? To minimise your data being skewed by internal colleagues or partner companies you may be working with, exclude their IPs with the help of filters. Are you on top of website traffic changes? OK, so this one isn't quite about the problem with the setup but if data has an important role in your business, you can make your analysis more efficient. Google provides you with the ability to set up alerts for important changes in your data, but our software does the work for you. Instead of trawling your data for hours or spending further time on configurations, you can set up alerts and personalised reports within minutes. Have you experienced other setup problems that aren't covered above? Let me know and I'll include them. Image Credit: Images courtesy of vectorolie and ratch0013 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
How to create a strategic marketing plan
You know marketing is essential but have you specified what makes you different and unique, your objectives and how you are going to achieve them? Recently I went to a workshop, organised by Innovate UK and Enterprise Europe Network, to do just that: learn about achieving business goals by using strategic marketing. Strategic marketing is essentially a structured plan that helps you achieve competitive advantage or other business goals through a set of defined activities that are most appropriate for your aims. We were taken through a number of exercises that helped us define how we position ourselves and what we are trying to accomplish, whilst aligning the marketing efforts and tactics with overall business goals. It was especially useful to bounce my ideas off others so if you’re going through similar exercises, I recommend you do the same. It really helps to sense-check your thoughts and how you describe your business with someone outside your company. Below I'll go through my top takeaways and methods that I found most useful when devising a strategic marketing plan. Define the purpose/mission of your business Think about what you are trying to achieve as a business – is it clear or does it need further refining? Why are your services and products needed or wanted, and who are your customers? If you have a clear purpose or a definition of what you’re trying to achieve, it will help you plan your marketing activities and inform other business activities. Having an easy to understand idea of your purpose also helps guide your resources and avoid spreading them too thinly, which is especially valuable if you’re a small business where resources are limited. Define your value proposition A value proposition is what you promise to deliver to your customers through your services or products. Here you need to think what makes you unique, better or different from your competitors. If you struggle to offer a reason why your offering is more valuable than your competitors, then you may get stuck competing on price only. I found the Geoffrey Moore’s model particularly useful for defining the value proposition. It goes like this: The ____________ (product name) Is a ____________ (product category) for ____________ (users/customer segment) who ____________ (statement of desire/problem) that ____________ (compelling reason to use) unlike ____________ (the next best alternative) allows ____________ (the main difference). And here’s an example we were given: The iPod is a portable music player for music lovers who want to listen to their music anywhere, anytime unlike portable cd players or MP3s with less storage the iPod allows easy access to all your music Define your marketing goals We used SMART method to define 3-5 marketing goals for the next 12 months. Being specific about the number of goals you’re trying to achieve within a year helps to focus on specific outcomes you’re trying to achieve. It also helps to measure your success after 12 months or another timeframe you set for yourself. Specific - clearly defined and specific goal rather than a generic and vague one, eg increase signups Measurable - quantifiable goal, eg how much or how many Achievable – realistic to complete within a set timeframe, eg a few months Relevant to you and your customers - choose what matters or matches needs Time-bound - that you have the time, money & resources to achieve your goals within a specific timeframe Define your segmentation, targeting and positioning Segmentation is an activity where you divide the broad market into specific customer segments by their common characteristics, and devise your tactics around targeting each segment. A few ways you could segment your customers are demographics, geography, psychographics, lifestyle, behaviour, etc. Once you have a clear idea of different customer groups, you will be better placed to pick the most attractive or suitable segment to target. When selecting your target segment, see if there are segments that are the easiest, cheapest or quickest to reach, whilst being realistic about your capabilities and resources to target those segments. Positioning your business gives you a distinct image of your benefit(s) to the target audience that you are going to communicate. If you have a number of segments you can target, then define your positioning for each segment. Same applies to the Geoffrey Moore’s value proposition model – write it out for each customer segment. Define your marketing tactics Once you have a clear idea of the customer segment(s) you’re targeting, why they would use your services or products, and what you’re going to communicate to them, you can pick specific marketing tactics that are going to help you do that. Some examples of tactics are producing ebooks, using online ads like PPC, sharing data findings via blog, and organising webinars. If you need inspiration or ideas, there are plenty of resources online when you search for marketing tactics, marketing strategies, growth tactics and similar. Define your marketing KPIs Decide on a set of metrics that you are going to use to measure the success of your marketing efforts. By having the right KPIs, you can evaluate if you’re on track towards your goals, and adjust your activities if necessary. To give you a few examples of what you could measure: Cost per lead or enquiry Average order value Landing page conversion rate Customer lifetime value Impressions / clicks / visits I hope this has helped you to start thinking about defining your business and marketing activities more strategically and in line with the over-all goals. There are lots of great templates online that you can use to assist with outlining your plan - for example, check out Smart Insights resources bank that has lots of useful PDFs for marketing planning and more. If you'd like to discuss further, comment below!
Know who converts on your site with Google Analytics goals
Wouldn't you want to know how well people convert on your site? Setting up basic conversion goals will enable you to measure site engagement – based on time on site, destination page or particular events - and what drives that. Below I’ll cover the reasons why you should set up goal tracking in your Google Analytics, different types of goals available, goal value, and then explain how to set them up. So why should you track goals? Goals are great for tracking important actions that are crucial for your business and understanding how people convert on your site. Once you set up goals, you will be able to analyse conversion rates in the Goals reports. Conversion data will also appear in other Google Analytics reports, like the Attribution and Acquisition reports. This will help you identify which marketing campaigns and channels get users to complete the goals you have previously defined. The destination goal also allows you to set up a funnel to visualise the path people take through your site towards completing a purchase, signing up or another conversion. Seeing how people navigate through your site in a visual way makes it easier to identify where they drop off. If you see a lot of exits on particular pages, then review those pages to see if you can improve them to minimise the exits and guide more people towards converting. If you see a lot of people skipping certain pages, then your path to conversion might be too long or contain unnecessary steps. For more info on flow visualisation reports, check Google’s help pages. What kind of goals can you set up? You can set up a destination goal to track how many users reached a certain page, eg thank you, purchase confirmation or pre-order request pages. Then there’s a duration goal that tracks how many users stayed for a specific amount of time, eg for at least 15 minutes. You can also set up a pages/screens per session goal to see how many users view a specific number of pages during a session. An event goal is for when a user triggered certain events on the site that you have already set up, eg clicked on an ad, submitted a form or saved a product. What else should you know about goals? Goals have a few limitations in Google Analytics: You can set up only 20 goals per view. If you need more, you can either create another view or repurpose existing goals. Goals apply to the data after you’ve created them. Goals can’t be deleted; but you can turn them off if you don’t need them. Use names that make sense so that anyone using your Google Analytics data can understand what the goals are for. Keep track of when you changed the goal by adding annotations to your reports. Do you need the goal value? Setting up a goal value is optional. You should set a monetary value for your goal when you want to track how much you earned from converting users and you’re able to calculate the worth of each lead. If you know that 5% of people who sign up on your site end up buying your service, and the average value of your service is £1000, then you can set £50 as your goal value (5% of 1000). When setting up a goal value, make sure the currency corresponds to what you use on the site or are familiar with. You can do this in Admin > View > View Settings. Are you an ecommerce site? If you’re an online retailer, then instead of using goal values you should be using Ecommerce or Enhanced Ecommerce tracking for Google Analytics. These reports will be much more insightful for tracking your store performance. So how do you set up goals? You need to set these up at the view level. Go to Admin > View > Goals, and click New Goal. Google has added some goal templates that you can choose from if you’re happy to use their naming. Alternatively, select 'Custom' at the end of the list and click ‘Continue’ to the goal description. For your goal name use something that is easily understood by others using your Google Analytics account, and the goal details will depend on the type of goal you're setting up. Setting up destination goal You can follow the blog I've previously written on setting up the destination goal and funnel. Setting up duration goal Click ‘Continue’ and specify the minimum amount of time you want to track. Setting up pages/screens per session goal Here you specify the number of pages someone viewed per session. Setting up event goal Set the event you want to track as a goal by using exactly the same category, action, label and value as in the event. If you want to use a goal value here, you have the option to use the event value you’ve already set. Verify your goal - click ‘Verify’ to check if it works. If the goal has been set up correctly, you should see an estimation of the conversion rate your goal would get. If you’re not getting anything, check each step carefully and Google's help pages on why your conversion tracking might not be working. Once you’re happy with the setup, click ‘Create goal’ and check the results in your analytics reports after a few days or weeks, depending on the amount of traffic you get. If you need help with the setup above or have another way of using goals, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
A win for the UK digital sector: UK sites perform better than US sites in benchmark
UK-based websites are 5 percentage points better than their US peers at keeping mobile users engaged (with a lower bounce rate), and 2.5 percentage points better at keeping the users from desktop / laptop computers engaged. For bounce rate from email marketing, the difference was also 5 percentage points (a 14% better performance from UK websites). The comparison is based on the Google Analytics data from 209 UK companies and 95 US companies collated by Littledata. The British web industry has benefited from earlier smartphone adoption in the UK (81% vs 75% in the US; source: MarketingLand), and overall greater internet usage from UK consumers (source: Econsultancy). That should put UK-based developers in a great position to sell their experience to other countries with increasing internet adoption An example is MADE.com, a London-based furniture retailer which has used superior online customer acquisition to drive growth across the UK and continental Europe. Littledata founder, Edward Upton, explains: “It’s usually hard to get a hold of industry data to compare digital product performance against similar companies, but Littledata’s benchmarks provide a simple way for companies to find website features that are underperforming.” If your website beats those benchmarks that should not stop you improving. Whilst it’s great to know you’re doing well in a particular area, there are many comparative metrics you can check with our benchmarks to fully understand your performance overall. If your site is struggling with engaging users, then check out our suggestions on improving your bounce rate . Want to know how your site performs? Head over to Littledata Benchmark page and click 'Benchmark your site' to check your performance against others. How Littledata benchmarks work? We gather data from thousands of Google Analytics profiles, and anonymise them in a series of benchmarks, to give insight into how your marketing efforts are paying off. With this benchmark data, you can stop being in the dark about how your website performs and sign up to see how your site compares. Our customers also receive daily insight into site or app performance with our actionable trends reports. You can explore these and other benchmarks via Littledata Benchmark index page. How would you use benchmarks in your daily work? Leave your comments below.
Why should you tag your campaigns for Google Analytics?
Google Analytics custom campaign tracking is essential for measuring the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Let's say you were promoting your new ebook across social media and emails, how would you know which social post or email blast was the most effective? That’s where Google campaign parameters come in (also referred to as UTM). You simply add them to your URLs, which are then used in your web-based, email or ad promotions. When someone clicks on them, the custom information linked to these URLs via parameters is sent to your Google Analytics reports. If you don’t tell Google the specifics of your campaigns, then they will be rolled into existing buckets without the ability to identify them. This most commonly happens with emails and social posts that by default get classified as referrals. But once you start tagging your campaigns, you will see those social initiatives and email newsletters separated by campaign names and other information you provided. Tagged up links can also be used in email signatures, listings on other sites and social media profiles. By using campaign tagging you will understand better which URLs have been most effective in attracting users to your site or content, for example you'll see which: Email newsletter brought you the most traffic Ad was best at bringing you converting visitors Facebook post engaged the most users If you have goals set up, then you will also see how visitors from individual campaigns convert on your website. Using custom campaign data in reports You can access custom campaign data in Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns report, where you will see your various campaigns based on the parameters used in URLs. You can also switch between viewing your campaigns by source and medium tags that you’ve used. Another report you can use is the Assisted Conversions (under Conversion > Multi-Channel Funnels) that summarises how your channels, or campaigns, contribute to your conversions. To see the campaigns, you need to click on 'Other', find 'Campaign' and select it. Now you will see data related to your campaigns only. Check Google's guidance on understanding the Assisted Conversions report. Be consistent Consistency is very important in campaign tagging so make sure that the parameters you use in your campaigns are exact. For example, if you use email, Email and E-mail, Google Analytics will record them as three different mediums in your reports. So, set your naming conventions and if you have a bigger team, then agree on what they are and make sure everyone is aware of them. What tags can you use in your campaigns? There are five types of information you can pass on with the tags/URLs. Three of them should always be used: Campaign source (utm_source) - identifies where the traffic comes from, eg newsletter, google. Campaign medium (utm_medium) – advertising or marketing medium, eg cpc, email. Campaign name (utm_campaign) – what the campaign is called whether it's a promo code or specific promotion, eg winter sale. The other two, whilst not required by Google, are useful for tracking additional information: Campaign term (utm_term) - identifies paid search keywords if you’re manually tagging your paid keyword campaigns, eg red shoes. Campaign content (utm_content) – helps differentiate between same type of content or links, useful when doing AB testing or using multiple calls to action, eg logo or text link. How to tag your campaigns? It’s easier than you might think. You can do it manually if you know how, but the available URL builder tools online make it super simple to tag your links correctly. But if you're using Adwords or Bing then you can enable auto-tagging so you don't have to worry about tagging them. For websites use the Google URL builder tool to append URL parameters. For Android, use the Google Play URL builder tool to append URL parameters. You also must have Google Play Campaign Attribution set up in your Android SDK. For iOS, use the iOS Campaign Tracking URL Builder to append URL parameters. You must use Google Analytics iOS SDK v3 or higher for this to work. For manual tagging, you need to enter a question mark after the URL and before adding your parameters. Then pair up the parameters with their values, eg utm_source=newsletter, and separate campaign parameters with an ampersand. After the question mark, parameters can be placed in any order. You'll end up with a link that'll look something like this: http://www.littledata.io/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=welcome, which is ready for use in your promo activities. Auto-tag your campaigns To make campaign tracking and tagging simpler, we have created a tool in Google Sheets that automatically creates a tagged up link. You'll need to fill the values for parameters and the formula will do the rest for you. To use it, you'll need to make a copy to store in your own Drive (via File option). Get campaign tracking sheet with URL builder Got questions? Comment below or get in touch!
How to set up demographics and interests reports in Google Analytics
Demographics and interests reports in Google Analytics give you additional insight about your users, allowing you to do analysis based on age, gender and interest categories. You get a much better idea of who your users are and the setup is so quick to do, there's no reason not to. To get this information, you need to do minor tweaks to your Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. Those changes will allow Google to share anonymised data about your site or app visitors, and once set up, you can use this information to understand the behaviour patterns of your users by different profiles. You will be able to see: If a particular age group converts more Whether you get more visits from males or females from a particular country or city If your users are more into travelling, movies or social media You'll also be able to: Build remarketing lists Build segments for more detailed information about your users Target your ads to specific users What reports will you get? Demographics Overview: snapshot view of your users by age and gender Age: Acquisition, Behaviour and Conversions metrics by age group (below 18 are not included) Gender: Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions metrics by gender Interests Overview: top 10 interests of your users in 3 areas: Affinity Categories, In-Market Segments and Other Categories Affinity Categories (reach): view of users by their lifestyle with Acquisition, Behaviour and Conversions metrics broken down by Affinity Categories In-Market Segments: view of users by their product-purchasing interests with Acquisition, Behaviour and Conversions metrics broken down by In-Market Segments Other Categories: more specific view of users with Acquisition, Behaviour and Conversions metrics broken down by Other Categories How does Google get this data? Google collects demographics and interests data from the third-party DoubleClick cookie for web traffic and anonymous identifiers for mobile app activity, like the Android Advertising ID and the iOS Identifier for Advertisers. But Google is unable to collect this data if the cookie or anonymous identifier isn't present, or if there's no profile information available. As a result, this data may only be available for a subset of your users. This will be shown on the report as a % of traffic the report represents. When is threshold applied? There are occasions when data is withheld from your reports to ensure the anonymity of users. For example, this might happen when you don’t have enough data for a particular age range or gender. When the threshold has been applied, you will see a notification below the report title. 3 simple steps to set this up 1. Enable the feature in Google Analytics Go to Admin > Property > Property Settings. Scroll down to Advertising Features, and set the option to Enable Demographics and Interests Reports to ON. Now save. 2. Enable the feature in Google Tag Manager Go to edit your GA pageview tag > Configure Tag. Under the tracking ID, tick the Enable Display Advertising Features box. Save the tag, and you've got one last step to do. 3. Enable the report in Google Analytics For this go to Audience > Demographics > Overview report. Click Enable, and you're all set. You should see your demographics and interests data within 24 hours of enabling the feature. We also provide consultancy services if you need help with more advanced setup. Further reading: Tracking registered users with Google Analytics and GTM V2 How to use demographic targeting in AdWords
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