Data is an essential part of modern marketing. We no longer have to take a spray-and-pray approach with marketing efforts. In a world where every action is tracked and quantified, we can make marketing even more effective with data-centric approaches.
If you’re investing in marketing at all, and especially in content marketing, analytics data should be your best friend.
Marketers are collecting analytics and data left and right, which is a good thing. The problem is that many marketers don’t know how to use data to glean actionable next steps.
This results in making the same mistakes over and over, seeing little return on your efforts. Don’t waste your time and resources when the answers are right in front of you. Become a data-whisperer to fix your site before it’s too late.
The Power of Google Analytics for CRO
Many webmasters and marketers use bounce rate to measure their site’s effectiveness. In Google Analytics, or GA, a user bounces when they look at one page and don’t interact further with your website.
Although bounce rate shouldn’t be your main metric, it does have implications for your SEO and PPC campaigns.
For example, a high bounce rate might indicate to search engines that your site has a poor UX. The high bounce rate could ding your search ranking, which is a scenario nobody wants.
However, bounce rate shouldn’t be your focus. Sometimes a high bounce rate doesn’t mean anything.
A high bounce rate doesn’t always mean something is wrong with your site. If you send an email newsletter about a new blog update, a high bounce rate shouldn’t concern you. The user visits your site, reads the blog, and leaves. If there’s nothing keeping users on your site, they’ll leave.
If anything, your analytics should center around conversions instead of bounce rates. When you engage and delight users, they stay on your website. This, in turn, decreases your bounce rate. And when they aren’t bouncing from your site, they’re likely converting.
How to Boost Conversions Through GA
Conversion rate optimization, or CRO, is a delicate science. The best and most affordable way to do CRO is to use Google Analytics.
The catch is that you need to understand not only how to navigate GA but how to use the incredible data that’s at your fingertips.
GA enables you to see how people use your site, what content works, and where you lose users. GA can’t tell you precisely why users leave, though, so there’s an element of detective work in CRO, too.
Stop wasting time on strategies that don’t work. Use these three GA features to optimize your site for more conversions.
1. Look at Each Page Separately
Your GA dashboard automatically displays aggregated figures for your website. You might see you have a 30% bounce rate and a 4% conversion rate overall.
If you just look at this averaged data, it’s unlikely that you would find anything that needs adjusting. However, it’s important to drill down and look at the data for each page on your website.
Check your page-level content by going to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages in GA. You can sort by pageviews, time on page, bounce rate, and any other metric.
This allows you to check for pages that aren’t up to snuff with the rest of your website. You can also take into account the goals and purpose of each page.
For example, your contact page and blog page will have very different numbers. That doesn’t mean there’s a problem with either page; each needs to be considered independently, though, so you can make data-driven decisions.
2. Segment Your Audience
Users should be the main focus any time you design a campaign. That’s why you also need to focus on user data in GA. Instead of looking at aggregated user data, break your audience into segments.
GA allows you to segment users by age, gender, interests, location, technology, and so much more.
The Audience > Overview area will only tell you so much. Explore Demographics, Interests, Geo, Behavior, and Technology for better insights. You can even create custom segments under Audience > Custom > Custom Variables for better data.
It’s so, so important to view your audience data by segment. For instance, your site might be really popular with senior citizens, but not with your target market of 18-25 year-olds. You’ll never know unless you look at the right data.
GA data and segmentation help you find important conclusions and take the steps to fix the problem.
3. Set Goals
Your GA data doesn’t mean very much if you don’t set Goals. The Goals tracking feature allows you to see the exact path users take to a conversion on your website.
You can track goals not only for lead magnets but also contact form submissions and email subscriptions to your blog. If users take any action on your site, you can measure it in GA.
Go to Conversions > Goals > Overview. If you’ve already set up a Goal, you can see it here. If not, click on Set Up Goals.
You can set up Goals in a few ways; the easiest are through a URL or the Google Tag Manager. Learn more about GA Goal tracking methods to choose the right Goal for your website.
The Bottom Line
GA data can plainly show how users aren’t converting. Although the data can speak to the facts, it can’t tell you why something is happening. Marketers still have to get your hands dirty to figure out where, exactly, all of your users run off to.
Analytics help you fix your site; you just have to understand how to use this data to your advantage. Data helps you boost conversions, decrease bounce rate, and boost marketing ROI.
Get a data-driven idea of why conversions happen on your site. Integrate GA insights into your ongoing efforts to improve UX and drive for conversions.
If you’re staring at GA right now and don’t know where to start, don’t worry! Logical is your trusted partner for all things Analytics. Partner with us to improve your website and score more conversions.
