I love Google Analytics!
I can’t remember a day at work when I didn’t use it. It is insanely useful. And it’s free!
But it is a skill which I see sharpened far too rarely in digital marketers, never mind more generalist marketers. And don’t even get me started on C-suite ‘I know websites’ types. Which is a great shortcoming of our industry that, if I’m honest, embarrasses me a little bit. But the people who should really have some understanding of the metrics that Google Analytics provides, are you guys — business owners.
I’ve heard owners of SMEs (with huge turnovers, might I add) quip ‘I can log in and see how many visitors I had on Tuesday, it’s piss easy’. OK, now tell me what those visitors did, exactly? It’s a conversation I’ve had more times than I can recount. And it doesn’t seem to be changing. Even the likes of Shopify (“making ecommerce easy since 2006!”) shows you revenue when you log in — but certainly doesn’t easily show you the source of the revenue.
Google Analytics is really, an incredible tool when you think about it. If GA doesn’t tell you something about your website, it’s hardly worth knowing. But more often than not, busy people in senior positions just want the hard numbers. And sure, it can give you that too. Sometimes though, a deep dive is required to really understand what the numbers are actually saying.
You just can’t afford to not understand what your site is really doing
— Me, 2021
Which is why GA is still my ‘go-to’ tool for so many things, not just plain old monthly reporting. Off the top of my head:
- Diagnosing complex website problems/brick walls (which pages/segments are causing drop-off?)
- Figuring out if that social content that you spaffed a fortune on is working or not (which pages are driving useful further engagement?)
- Determining individual channel performance (which channels are underperforming vs. their cost?)
- Understanding your ecommerce funnel (whatdya mean, people don’t wanna pay P&P?)
- Breaking down a specific user’s behaviour (they visited how many times before purchasing?)
- Determining where in the world you see a lot of traffic, but fewer orders
- Seeing which pages are really yielding that cold hard cash
That’s not even scratching the surface. The thing is, they just don’t teach the useful parts of Google Analytics at even an advanced degree level, and honestly, it’s a difficult skill to ‘teach’ someone in the workplace. I’ve tried. Multiple times.
Thinking about taking a course on GA? Great! It’ll teach you the basics and the ‘core fundamentals’, but my advice is always to just dive in and have a look. You can’t (easily!) break anything.
Data analysis takes time
However… This poses its own problem. Even the most passionate MD hasn’t got the time to be figuring out how to set up a content grouping using regex, or understanding why Twitter performance always spikes on a Monday morning, or whatever the (often masses of) data may be saying (or not). These tools are getting better at contextual queries, and using machine learning to give you tangible, useful insights, but they’re still more Johnny 5 than Agent Smith.
It’s like taking your car to the garage for a squeaky brake noise. Sure, you could figure out the problem with some trial and error, and some Googling & forum delving. But a good digital marketer with a strong grasp of GA will be able to give you the answer just as quickly as your mechanic could about your squeaking problem. We very often share the old ‘knowing where to knock’ analogy.
This is where your marketing agency comes in
‘Why has my organic performance dropped off this week’
‘Why are sales of [product x] up so much?’
‘We’re hammering this product on social, why’s it not selling’
‘What parts of the site are leading to all these newsletter signups?’
Are questions digital marketers love to hear! As a marketer, Google Analytics is a soft skill that in my view is an essential part of your toolkit. As a business owner though, it gives you unparalleled access to the critical metrics that matter most to your business. Providing value is always the name of the game when it comes to the agency/client relationship, and being able to offer some real insight to a business owner into how their business is operating online is more often than not invaluable.
Whether you’re a marketing manager who just hasn’t got the time to be crunching data, or you’re a busy MD who just frankly wants the numbers put into their lap once a week, get in touch. We’d love to help. Want answers, yesterday? Just grant google@befoundbechosen.co.uk access to your GA data and we would love take a look. Seriously. We’ll be talking about it all week.
