Analytics | October 30, 2014
8 Easy Ways to Impress Your Boss with Google Analytics
Google Analytics may seem like a massively confusing system that you’ll never get your head around, but once you understand the basics it’s pretty easy to navigate. Here are a few simple ways marketers can impress senior management with their Analytics knowledge:
1. Tell your boss how people find your website
It’s easy enough to just assume people find your business’ website through typing in the URL or searching the company name in Google. But is this how your customers actually find you? Where are the cold hard facts?
Google Analytics provides you with data, so you can show your boss exactly how the website is being found. It will tell you exactly what search terms have led to the site, and give you an idea of which keywords should be used to optimise the site copy.
2. Tell your boss if social media is working
Most businesses will now have company social media accounts set up. If you don’t, do it now! When looking at how people find your website, take a look at these accounts and see what your return on investment is like. Are you spending way too much time on them for little custom, or maybe you don’t post or interact enough?
Knowing how successful your social media campaigns are can mean the difference between hiring a social media assistant or not. It may also give you an idea whether social ads would be worth investing in or not.
3. Tell your boss what’s making them money
If you run an eCommerce site then you cannot only check where your traffic comes from, but you can create a custom report on how this is (or isn’t) making them money. This can be automatically emailed to your superiors then at a scheduled date – perhaps at the end of each month.
4. Tell your boss which pages are most popular
Your homepage should be your most popular page, after all it is the gateway to the rest of the site. But after this, what is the second, or even the third most viewed? Google Analytics will be able to tell you this.
Once you know which pages are clicked on the most, (and are leading to conversions) you can analyse them. What is this page doing that others aren’t? Is it more visually appealing? Or maybe more relevant? With this information you can also see if your optimisation is directing traffic to the right pages, or whether you need to pitch a change of plan to your superiors.
5. Tell your boss who your target audience is
You may have a persona that you would like to target your business at, but are these the type of people who actually use your service or products?
Google Analytics can provide you with an Audience report, which will show if you have the right idea when it comes to your target market. These reports can provide you with information such as where your customers are from, how old they are, if they’re male or female, as well as their interests.
This is invaluable data that can ensure you are creating the best ads, blog posts and general campaigns you possibly can.
6. Tell your boss if your email marketing is working
Google Analytics isn’t only for analysing your website, you can also monitor how successful your email marketing is. Google Analytics can tell you which links, in what emails, have increased traffic and conversions. And once you know what works (and doesn’t) you can tell your boss where they need to spend their money, to make money.
7. Tell your boss the cost of each customer
How much does it cost you on marketing for every customer that you receive? Of course your boss would want this to be as low as possible to maximise profits, so any help with putting a definite figure together would be helpful.
The cost of each customer per channel is the average amount spent on marketing campaigns to attract new customers. Knowing this value will help you understand which methods have been most successful and will inform future marketing campaigns.
To work out your ROI through cost per customer, you will need to do the following calculation:
ad spend / lead = cost per lead
8. Tell your boss today – it’s free!
Google Analytics is completely free, so why not give it a go? You have nothing to lose.