Sept 2013

Posted by Carlyn Foshee Chatfield on September 13, 2013

Google Analytics - Beginnings, Resources

Due to flooding in Colorado, the Coffee Shop ended up being a phone conversation and the three panelists agreed to come back in October to give their presentations. In September, we had a phone conversation discussing both resources and tips to consider as we plan our campaigns.

Think about Landing Page Optimization

Map out a plan

    • Consider the function of your website. Is the site is a "general information" site (how to connect to network) or is it a task oriented site (fill out form, download form)? The statistics you track will be very different for these functions - even something direct like time spent on a page.

    • Pick a simple question to answer first, to narrow your focus in the beginning. It is easy to get overwhelmed!

    • Google's Help Center is fairly succinct and good about explaining terms. It is updated frequently and should be fresh. It may have changed even since the last time you checked it!

    • Non-techies will get pretty good data from Real Time - under the Reports section in Google Analytics.

Bounce Rate

Rather than a negative measure, why is a person dropping into your site, and then leaving? That may be acceptable behavior - say if someone is just applying for housing. You want to get that person to get to that form easily and be done. Sure they might hang around and browse, but if they accomplished what they wanted, that is not a bad thing for your site. The bounce rates for some of UMW's blogs run 70-90% which is a "good" thing. You usually drive traffic to a blog through links. People go read what they want and leave. Take the dining menu. You want folks to get the daily menu and be able to leave. They might subscribe later, but that bounce traffic should not be considered negatively.

On the other hand, the Edublog service works very differently at University of Oregon. These university blogs are used for everything from recipes to course discussions.

Longitudinal Data

We also use DRUPAL at Oregon, one of the big advantages for our advancement folks is the opportunity to track analytics across the campus. Important to work right up front with the web development people on campus. This also works for longitudinal data. Get the Google Analytics code on the site in the very beginning. Even as the site grows, the analytics keep pace.

Digging Deeper

    • what are students doing "10 clicks out" - do they end up at the performing arts page when they started in housing or vice versa?

    • Web steering committee: different unit managers coming together for a campus-wide data mining collaboration

    • Visitor flow - shows how/where people EXIT the site. From housing or admissions, are people abandoning us by the fourth click? Helps identify the holes that need patching.

Unlikely Matches

What if your bookstore isn't linked to your main campus Analytics? You may be missing patterns and trends. Non-community members may shop online at the book store, then become interested in other aspects of the campus.

Future

There are two versions of Google Analytics that are supported today, the one they acquired and we all know as Google Analytics, plus the one they've developed and call Universal Analytics - which may be even better. The difference? Most of the Google Analytics technology came through their acquisition of Urchin several years ago. The new one combines what we have come to know in Google Analytics and binds it to brick-and-mortar marketing tracking. They want to provide off-line (mobile devices) tracking as well. What if you could establish a profile of a person regardless of which device they are using? Some of the engineers at Google have shown in the new analytics tool that you can actually track devices - like someone is at a coffee pot. Really, Google took a Raspberry Pie device ($25), plugged that into a coffee maker connected to a network, and they could track who was at the coffee pot! Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C27yMQOS8n0

Resources:

Web Analytics Books

Google Analytics Books

Blogs:

Twitter:

    • @justincutroni

    • @avinash

    • @danielwaisberg

    • @kristaseiden

    • Hashtags #measure, #googleanalytics, & #ganalytics

Google+ URLs

YouTube Channels:

Regular Expressions (RegEx): GA supports RegEx and permits more powerful, granular implementions. This is important if you are NOT the administrator for your main campus GA account but have access to run reports. Lunametrics' Regular Expressions PDF is a great overview to RegEx in GA.

Google's IP tool to remove campus traffic from your reports: GA IP Filtering tool

We shared that as you begin to work with your campus website's analytics you will become more aware of SEO and Tag Management. While Google's Tag Management *may* be primarily aimed at Marketing teams their strategy of merging Tag Manager and Analytics is worth a view. Google's Analytics Case Study for Higher Education PDF Rasmussen College