As you navigate the ever-evolving world of digital marketing, it can sometimes be difficult to tell which strategies are effective and which are missing the mark. Thankfully, Google Analytics is here to save the day. With its tracking superpowers and infinite insights, this online (and free!) tool can help you boost your ROI and take your digital marketing to the next level.
If you’re new to Google Analytics, you might be wondering where to start. Michelle Ponti, image.works’ Digital Marketing Team Lead, is here to help you gain a better understanding of the platform and explain how you can use it to improve your digital marketing efforts.
Those examples are really just the tip of the iceberg. I recommend checking out this page for a more thorough breakdown of Google Analytics’ features.
A: Yes! As long as an organization has a website and is able to add a tracking code to that website, they can use and benefit from Google Analytics. Google provides good instructions to help you set up an account.
Insights is another great tool that was added to Google Analytics a couple of years ago. You can use Insights to view key data and recommendations from Google. It’s a good way to see what Google is suggesting to help improve your site.
A: Digital marketing is all about tracking, converting, improving and always analyzing what can be done better. Because Google Analytics has the power to provide you with so many valuable insights, it’s important to have your account set up correctly – to ensure the data you’re seeing accurately reflects your digital presence. For example, make sure you have views and filters set up to exclude bots and internal traffic. Also be sure your Google ads account is linked and pulling in the right data, so you can accurately see which ads are performing the best and reallocate budgeting to the most effective ads. You can even track the value of marketing components that aren’t exactly ads, like social media, and evaluate how those platforms are contributing to your website goals.
Also, adding events and goals in Google Analytics will help track and keep an eye on specific objectives. Let’s say you want people to visit your site to schedule an appointment. Using event and goal triggers, you can track how many people visited your site, left right away, navigated to the scheduling page and completed your desired action. Knowing these measures can help you fine-tune your messaging across all digital platforms and focus your marketing dollars on the areas that are providing the most ROI.
We can also point you to helpful resources to get your account up and running. I think this checklist is a great reference for those just getting started with Google Analytics.
If you’d like to learn more about Google Analytics and how it can work together with your digital marketing efforts, reach out today!