Segmenting And Analysing Traffic To Increase Online Conversions

Online marketing is driven by  data segmentation, analysis and constant refinement. With so much data available you can easily track exactly what channels are bringing you the best conversions, sales, overall profit etc. This fact, along with natural market shifts is what is pushing businesses to invest more and more in their digital assets.

The amount of customer interaction data available varies from industry to industry. For example an ecommerce business such as Amazon which sells goods online will have a lot more data on what channels directly drive sales. The user takes a trackable action (completing an online checkout) in order to bring revenue to the company.

Other industries that are service based may find it more difficult to track ROI. The user may have to call in or arrange an appointment before committing to a purchase/transaction making the conversion process indirect. In such cases it can become a little more blurred which sources actually put money in the bank. But there are work-around techniques which can help pin-point revenue sources.

The majority of small to medium online businesses don’t look beyond the broad statistics when checking their website traffic flow. There is a large focus on vanity statistics such as overall visits or “hits” as they’re commonly referred to by non-technical staff. This type of data is good to know and it is definitely important; but by no means is it the be all and end all. In most cases only a tiny fraction of your overall traffic will convert; as a decision maker it is your job to identify that money-driving traffic amongst the noise.

If you can find common characteristics among the traffic that is converting, you can fine tune your marketing spend to get a better return on your investment.

User Tracking

So how can you do this? The best way to do so it by the use of ‘Goals’ in Google Analytics. Goals are trackable actions that can be recorded in Google Analytics when the user does something specified by yourself.

The simplest and easiest way to do this is to create a confirmation page for the action you want to track. So for example if someone purchases a product make sure the checkout process takes them to a thank you page once the transaction is complete. You can then set the URL of this thank you page as a goal. Every time a visitor reaches it a goal completion will be recorded.

Alternatively if you run a business that is not ecommerce based you can set goals for other actions that may lead to a sale. The most common one being an enquiry form submission. If you take users to a confirmation page after the enquiry has been sent then this too can be set as a Google Analytics goal. You would then have data on what type of traffic is bringing in enquiries.

What does this goal completion data mean? It means that you have conversion data that can be cross referenced with almost every other data segment in Google Analytics! This allows you to drive down as deep as you like into the data to find common characteristics among your converting visitors.

See below some of the top data segments to cross-reference with Google Analytics Goal completions:

PPC

Pay Per Click traffic is costly and demand for it is on the increase. As an advertiser you are therefore in a market where costs are soon set to rise even further. This makes it absolutely critical to opitimise your campaigns and make sure each click is best positioned to convert to a sale.

Cross referencing the incoming PPC keyword data with your goal conversions will show you exactly what keyword bids have worked for you (within the selected time period). This will allow you to compare certain campaigns or ad groups on a broad level, or go through your keyword bids with a fine toothcomb.

Paid Third Party Advertising

Paid adverts are often a grey area for businesses as to what exactly (if anything) is driving sales, what is good for brand awareness etc. Goals can help to answer some of those questions and allow you to rearrange your paid ad distribution accordingly.

It is good to be able to check the conversion rate of banner ads and the likes against each other. But what you can also do is compare entire channels against each other. For example banner ads versus PPC; but remember to factor in cost as well as % returns as we’re looking at ROI here.

Search Landing Page

The search engine landing page is one of the best replacements for the organic keyword data Google has recently (not provided). By looking at your organic search traffic and adding the secondary dimension ‘landing page’ you will be able to see what areas of the site visitors are reaching via search engines. You will not know exactly what keyword they used to get there; but it’ll give you an idea.

Having conversion data on your organic search traffic is good as you’ll know which areas of your site to promote, build links to, work on in future campaigns etc.

Email Campaigns

Email marketing campaigns can be one of the most costly ventures that provide little return. If you ever pay for one of those mail blasts you’ll certainly want to use it as a learning experience to pick up some data. In general unless you’ve approached the mail provider to get a paid slot in one of their newsletters the return figures won’t likely make good reading.

If you have managed to build up your own email list then by all means send them regular interesting updates. The goal data you’ll want to set for this will probably not be conversion based (seen as how these people are probably already your customers). Engagement is a more reasonable goal to go for with email campaigns. This can be done by setting a certain time on site, pages per visit or something similar. That way you will know what email content is keeping the visitors on your site once they click through.

Device

We’ve all heard that mobile and tablet browsing is on the increase; but do you know how it performs against your desktop traffic? Most people will not, and looking at the data can give some insights as to why. Perhaps you site isn’t responsive or mobile optimised? Maybe the enquiry form is difficult to fill out on devices with smaller screens? These are all questions you should be asking yourself if you mobile traffic is performing poorly.