Making the right moves can be difficult without the data. Perhaps this is why we thrive off intuitive interfaces and data-packed spreadsheets on a daily basis. When it comes to conversion rate optimization, however, this requires specialized tools and reporting features beyond what AdWords alone can offer. Fortunately, Google Analytics offers up several powerful measurement and analysis tools that can help us solve that dilemma.
In this installment of our CROLP (Conversion Rate Optimization/Landing Pages) series, we will cover the types of goal conversions and some of the reporting features you can leverage in Analytics to help improve conversion rates on your website.
ANALYTICS GOAL CONVERSIONS
Goals track the actions you want users to take while visiting your website. Typically, these are classified as being either micro (social interactions, etc) or macro (transactions, etc) conversions. Analytics currently offers four types of goal conversions:
- Destination: A specific location, like a web page (or virtual page) or an app screen, has loaded.
- Ex: Thank You/Confirmation webpages after placing an order, etc.
- Visit Duration: Visits that lasts a specific amount of time or longer.
- Ex: Browsing a particular product page for more than 2 minutes.
- Pages/Visit: A visitor views a specific number of pages or screens in a visit.
- Ex: Users that browse three or more pages during a single visit.
- Event: A visitor triggers an action you’ve defined as an Event.
- Ex: Facebook “Likes” or button clicks.
These can be arranged into four different sets (5 goals per set) for a total of 20 goals per profile. As you might imagine, these are quite versatile and allow Analytics to measure how well your website or app fulfills your objectives. More importantly, they enable powerful reporting features that can be helpful for improving conversion rates. Lets take a closer look…
LEVERAGING ANALYTICS TO IMPROVE CONVERSION RATES
- Product Performance
The product performance is one way to find new ideas for improving conversion rate. In the example above, I can easily determine that the pinpoint oxford button-down shirt drives a lot of volume and revenue for the account. In an effort to improve conversion rate, I might consider highlighting this particular product on my landing page or breaking it out into its own campaign with a dedicated budget. In this fashion, you can do the same analysis for products on your own site, which can be beneficial for Ecommerce advertisers trying to improve conversion rates.
- In-Page Analytics
The In-Page Analytics feature is another powerful reporting tool that can help improve conversion rates. Essentially, it allows you to perform visual assessments of how users interact with your website. In the example above, we’re viewing the percentage of revenue generated by each link on the page. You can also view click, transaction and goal value data here as well. With this information, you can then gain insights into the overall effectiveness of your page content. Which links are most popular? Are your visitors finding what they’re looking for? Is my call-to-action above the page fold? In-Page Analytics helps you answer important questions like these in order to help improve your conversion rates.
- Content Experiments
Formerly known as Website Optimizer, Content Experiments bring website testing directly to your Analytics interface. This is an awesome new feature that allows you to create A/B and multivariate landing page tests that can help improve conversion rates. Setup is also quick and easy as well, and only requires a slight modification to your Analytics code snippet. The only other catch is that you must have goals defined in your Analytics account, which the system will then use to monitor the statistical significance of each page and determine a winner. In this way, Content Experiments can help you improve conversion rates on your website over time.
- Funnel Visualization
The funnel visualization tool can be helpful for improving conversion rates because it allows you to visualize exactly where visitors are dropping off your goal conversion path(s). In the example above, I can see that only 16.7% of visitors actually sign up. In an effort to improve this, I might consider running tests on different styles and lengths of submission forms. For Ecommerce accounts, Funnels can provide insights towards improving your checkout process. Ecommerce or not, this feature helps improve conversion rates in the long run because you can pinpoint the weak areas of your conversion process and diagnose them. Amanda covered Analytics Funnels in her post earlier this week, so be sure to check that out for a more in-depth look.
In closing, making informed decisions can be difficult without the data. Fortunately, Google Analytics offers up several powerful measurement tools that can help us solve that dilemma and allow us to improve conversion rates over time. We’ve discussed a handful of these today, but this list certainly isn’t exhaustive. So, how do you use Analytics for improving conversion rates? I would enjoy hearing your feedback, so feel free to leave any commentary below. Thanks for reading.
