Do I need Google Analytics for my website?

Do you like wasting money?

Of course not.  No one does, but it happens all the time.  Especially because we are busy managing our business and juggling many tasks.  We need to spend money to make money.  Lets just be smart about it by using analytics.

If you are looking to provide a service and acquire more customers you’ll need to generate leads.  You’ll need to drive traffic to your website and then convert the traffic into leads by calling or filling out a contact form.  Here was the measurement plan we created (in a previous blog post):

Business Objective = Increase client base
Strategy = Generate more website leads through a landing page campaign
KPIs = Total leads generated & conversion rate percentage
Segments = Sources (organic search, pay per click ads, social media posts, email newsletters)
Targets = >10 new leads per week
Implement the plan
Analyze the reports and refine based on the data

Lets say our fictional business above is an accounting firm.  They want new clients.  They will generate new leads through their website for a tax season promo with a landing page campaign.

Part of the strategy is the tactics of Pay Per Click ads, Remarketing, display ads on a local newspaper websites, and social media marketing.

Lets say we have $500 per week to invest in the campaign over a month/4 weeks.  Start by putting $100 into each of the 4 tactics.  After the first week we have your 10+ leads.  Where did they come from?  We’ll look at our analytics data and based off our campaign tags, the segmentation of source will tell us how the converted leads got to our CRM and the conversion rate of the traffic.

Google AdWords PPC – For $100 we received 100 clicks, Avg Cost Per Click of $1, from the ads and 3 people contacted us with the website form.  Thats 3 leads and 3% conversion rate, cost per lead is $33

Facebook Ads PPC – $100 spend, 200 clicks, $0.5 CPC, with 4 leads and 2% conversion rate, cost per lead is $25.

Banner/Display Ads on local newspaper website – $100 spend, 10 clicks, $5 CPC, 1 lead, 10% conversion rate, cost per lead is $100

Remarketing – $100 spend, 100 clicks, $1 CPC, 10 leads, 10% conversion rate, cost per lead $10

So far the campaign is very successful based on our targets of 10+ leads, we now have 18, but now we need to invest that extra $100 per week from the total campaign budget.  Where do we spend it?

Based on the analytics data for cost per lead, don’t invest it in the newspaper banner ad.  Put it into the remarketing and facebook ads.  Facebook is generating you a lot of clicks but with low conversion rates, still netting us more leads.  Remarketing is netting the most leads, and probably converting those bounced visitors from Facebook, Google after they leave your site to continue browsing other websites.

Remarketing, if you are not familiar, is a way to “follow” people with ads after they leave your site.  They found your website and left, but will see your ads on other sites they visit as long as those sites display ads from the google display network which is over 2 million websites covering 90% of internet users.  Yea its big!  The beauty of remarketing is the viewer has already shown interest in your business.  The remarketing ads should have a higher conversion rate because the audience is looking for your business offering.

So analytics will tell you all this information if you set it up and implement it properly.  You become a much smarter marketer and business will grow at less of a cost.

Famous retailer and marketing pioneer of the late 19th century, John Wanamaker, once said “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”

If John lived to see the internet and all that analytics can provide, he would have been a very happy marketer.

We can set up and configure Google Analytics for your website and apps, check out our page on analytics services