Web Analytics Strategy – How to Use Google Analytics to Gain Actionable Insights

by Eric Tsai

Web Analytics Strategy: How to Use Google Analytics to Get Actionable Insights
Effective Internet marketing strategies are built via insights from web analytics strategies. The goal is to abstract insights from web analytics to improve your campaign continuously. A simple way of looking at is to understand how media (or traffic) flow in and out of your website.

In fact, media can generally be categorized into paid, owned, and earned media concept.

Understand Paid, Earned, Owned Media

The idea is simple, paid media is anything you pay for to gain reach, traffic, viewership, or awareness via search, display, television, radio, print, or direct mail.

Earned media is basically PR you get when someone mentions your brand in the public arena which includes word-of-mouth that can be stimulated through viral and social media marketing, conversations in social networks, blogs and other communities. However; it still requires an investment to generate the PR.

And finally owned media is just media owned by the brand. This includes a company’s websites, blogs, mobile apps or their social presence on Facebook, Linked In or Twitter. Offline owned media may include brochures or retails stores.

The bottom line is that paid, earned, and owned media dictates how marketing budgets are allocated and web analytics can help you gain insights to make better informed decisions on budgeting, reporting and investing across all media.

the_converged_media_imperative

Moving forward, these types of media will converge more and more and it’s important to have intimate knowledge of how each media interacts with each other. If you’re interested to learn more, I encourage you to take a look at the latest report by Altimeter Group below called “The Converged Media Imperative: How Brands Must Combine Paid, Owned & Earned Media“.

Web Analytics is Business Analytics

Web analytics are NOT just for the reporting team or the “experts”, it should belong to everyone. This will enable participation from all departments to slice and dice data about their part of the business and more importantly, act on it!

When it comes to web analytics tools, there are many choices such as Woopra, Clicky, Tableau, Omniture SiteCatalyst, and Coremetrics Analytics.

Since I’m not trying to compare the different web analytics tools, I’m going to focus on Google Analytics because it’s simple to learn and easy to use which I personally believe should the goal of all analytics. In addition, there is already a ton of resources out there about how to utilize Google Analytics so if you ever run into trouble, just Google it.

Another nice feature about Google Analytics is that it integrates nicely with other Google applications such as Google AdWords for paid search (PPC), or if you’re doing search engine optimization (SEO) it also provides Google Webmaster tool access.

However; the true power of Google Analytics is the ability to quickly identify your traffic behavior, media effectiveness, and conduct deep dive analysis for actionable insights.

Inside your web analytics you will find data such as keywords that drive traffic to your website, referral sources that sends you traffic, and how your PPC campaigns are doing from a lead and sales perspective.

If you know how to interpret the data, you will be able to understand how your paid, earned, and owned media interacts with each other. This allows you to focus on doing things that work and stay efficient with your time and resources.

Simply put, in today’s online marketing world, web analysis is business analytics.

I’m going to go through some simple way to get you started and for those of you that are already familiar with the basic stuff, I encourage you to go through Google’s own Google Analytics training course, which is the study material for GAIQ (Google Analytics Individual Qualification) certification.

Understand Traffic Behavior

Everyone knows the importance of ranking for certain keywords, but do you know why you should or shouldn’t rank for certain keywords?

How can you tell if you’re getting the right traffic or not when someone links to you?

Do you know why your PPC brand campaigns racked in 50% more sales when you didn’t make any significant changes to the campaign?

Google Analytics can help you isolate and identify what’s going on with your media.

In Google Analytics, there is a section called Traffic Source, this is where you’ll find what channels are sending you traffic. The goal is to have a good balance of traffic acquisition strategy.

Working heavily in the search engine marketing arena, I often see large investments in paid search, and then followed by organic search, then display, email, and content.

The reason is simple, paid search will provide the fastest return on investment, it’s fast to setup, easy to test, and you’ll get results immediately.

Below is an example view under Traffic Source > Overview.

Google Analytics Traffic Source

Typically you want to start by looking at a large time frame from 30, 60, 90 days to 6-12 months. This allows you to add seasonality and shift in budget (media strategies) into consideration.

The goal is to get familiar with each traffic source the website gets and their behavior. As you can see in this particular example, this website gets 72% of its traffic from search!

The positive is that it has 20% from direct traffic source (people typing in the website URL or came back via bookmarks) and I know this client does a lot of radio and TV ads (offline paid media), so it’s good to get some solid data that shows those efforts are paying off in the form of direct traffic. In addition, with increase in brand recognition and awareness offline, there often will be a halo effect that will help fuel brand searches online as well.

However; the downside is that this business is essentially “renting traffic” because if you parse out the different between organic and paid, you’ll find that paid is about 46% of total traffic and organic is about 25% of total traffic. (Go to Search > Overview, then click on advanced Segment and select paid search traffic and non-paid search traffic).

Google Analytics Search Traffic Overview

Why may this be a potential downside?

Basically if you stop doing paid search, you’ll stop getting sales because traffic volume = sales volume. Keep in mind that you should always focus on “relevant traffic” not any traffic because all traffic are not created equal.

In the case of paid search, you’re buying (or bidding) on keywords that are proven to convert.

Another way to view all your traffic is by selecting Paid Search Traffic, Non-Paid Search Traffic, Direct Traffic, and Referral Traffic in the Advanced Segments section since it’s basically PPC, SEO, Direct, and Referrals (people linking your website).

Google_Analytics_Advanced_Segments

Then go to the Audience > Overview section to view the behaviors of each channel.

This is where you’ll find interesting data comparing, visits, visitors, pageviews, pages/visit, average visit duration, bounce rates, and percentage of new visits.

Using the data below as an example, you’ll find that not only does paid search brought in more traffic, the traffic looks to be very relevant because traffic that came in via paid search shows a higher number of pages per visit, stays longer, and has the lowest bounce rate.

Google Analytics Audience Overview

And with the same Advanced Segment selected, you can click on the left navigation area to go to Conversions section to view either goals or ecommerce sales numbers.

Goals are typically used for a set of “desirable actions”, so it can be a sale, a lead, a download, viewing of a page, viewing of a video, etc. It’s commonly used for lead generation clients. And ecommerce is usually for financial transactions typically for retail or anyone selling products or services online.

The example GA account here happens to be an ecommerce business so we can view sales data under Ecommerce > Overview to see if those engagements data above turned into sales (for viewing the data in the chart, I recommend to view it under transaction to see sales volume, default sets it to conversion rate).

Google Analytics Ecommerce Conversion Tracking

Looks like Paid Search’s conversion rate is about 5.33% which is much better than SEO (Non-Paid Search) and Direct traffic, but how come referral has such as high conversion rate at 25%?

Which website is sending traffic to us that’s converting at a rate of 1 out of 4? Can we put more money behind it?

The answer is in the chart.

You can see that there are 4 spikes in the last 6 months from referral traffic (purple), those are actually an internal email deployment which is why you see a spike in conversion rate (select Ecommerce Conversion Rate).

Google Analytics Ecommerce Conversion Rate

Interesting enough, when those internal email campaigns were deployed, there appears to be a spike in direct traffic sales as well.

This is because those that received the email may click on the email (which then gets tracked as a referral), came back to the website via a bookmark or they type in the website address directly (then gets tracked as direct) to complete their transaction. Or they may not click on the email and simply go directly to the website or search on Google for a coupon and gets captured by the paid media campaigns.

And since Google Analytics tracks the conversion funnel you can verify this by isolating the date range and visit one of my favorite features of Google Analytics under “Multi-Channel Funnels“.

The Conversion Funnel (Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels)

The conversion funnel basically speaks to the concept of “the converged media”, people don’t just convert on the first time they engage a media because media is fragmented just like our attention online.

This is why it’s important to understand your conversion funnel as part of the pursue to excellence in web analytics.

Inside Google Analytics, under Conversions > Muti-Channel Funnels > Top Conversion Paths, you will get data on how conversions happen from first to last click in a given timeframe.

So for us to verify that this client’s referral traffic has an impact on other channels, we need to isolate the timeframe in which the internal email was deployed versus the same time range in the previous weeks.

Then isolate the conversion types you want to see by typing in “referral” in the search box, it will then reveal all conversions that contain referral clicks in the conversion funnel (see below).

Google Analytics Top Conversion Paths

What you’ll see is a positive increase in conversions across the board for all conversion that contains “referral” in the funnel. And since we don’t expect to see 300+% increases in conversions every week, it’s safe to assume that it’s due to the internal email blast as other channels that came in contact with referral also saw a lift.

You can also track it by tagging the email campaigns correct, just go to “Secondary Dimensions” and select Campaign.

Google Analytics Conversion Paths Secondary Dimensions

Tag & Track Campaigns: Google Analytics Custom Campaign Parameters

If you want to learn how to tag your campaigns, simply use Google’s URL Builder, follow the instructions below and tag all your campaigns to see them in detail in Google Analytics.

  1. Go to Google Analytics Custom URL Builder.
  2. In the Website URL field, enter the destination link you plan to send users to (typically it’s somewhere on your website).
  3. Fill in the Campaign Source to identify the origin of the visit (Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Email vendor’s name like Aweber or MailChimp, etc.).
  4. Fill in the Campaign Medium to identify the channel for link delivery (cpc, organic, email, tweet, etc.).
  5. Campaign Term and Campaign Content input fields are not required, only use this if you want to identify specific keywords and ads associated with your campaign. (e.g. you can give certain campaign your brand keyword because you want to view the data that way, or give the dimension of your banner to identify which banner was clicked on).
  6. Fill in the Campaign Name to identify the campaign that the link is associated with so it may have multiple links rolled up under one campaign. (e.g. NewYearPromo1 or FebSale3).
  7. Click the Generate URL button and Google will create the URL based on all of the campaign parameters specified above.
  8. Add the new URL in a spreadsheet so you can keep track of the campaigns and be able to see how the various parameters are named.
  9. Use this custom URL when sharing links for your campaigns.

Google Analytics URL Builder

I highly recommend that you do this for all your paid, owned, and earned media as much as possible.

This means when you provide a link in social media, you should tag it. When you provide a link for your affiliates to use, tag it, or have them tag it the way you can identify them. When you’re deploying emails or inputting destination URL for your paid search campaigns, tag it!

Once you tagged your campaigns with Google Analytics URL Builder, you can then go to your Google Analytics, under Traffic Source > Campaigns to locate and analyze your campaigns.

Switch between Site Usage, Goal Set, and Ecommerce to view data for each campaign.

You can see a great example below on how each campaign is identified by the source/medium here.

Google Analytics Campaign Source

And again, utilize the Secondary Dimension option to pivot other data (such as ad content, keywords, geographic locations, or visitor behaviors like visit duration, page/visit etc.) against each one of your campaign for even deeper analysis!

Finally once you tagged your campaigns you will be able to fish them out of the Multi-Channel Funnel by creating your own channel grouping with your campaign naming conversions so you can actually see for example, the specific paid campaign was clicked on after viewing a display banner ad from a specific source.

Google Analytics Assisted Conversions Report

A well-defined channel grouping should contain enough data so you can easily identify how your campaigns are doing holistically from SEO to PPC, from email to display, you should be able to see how your channels interact with each other and utilize that information to optimize for better performance.

Here is an example channel grouping that I’ve created.

Google Analytics Custom Channel Grouping

After you’ve done all of the above, you’ll get a much better view of your campaigns without doing a ton of data pulling or having concerns about piecing together assumptions without reliable data.

Example below showing a report of a conversion funnel that contains 2 or more touchpoints.

Google Analytics Conversion Paths with Channel Grouping

So how can the multi-channel funnel data be useful? Better yet, can it be actionable?

You bet it can!

In fact, to better understand how multi-channel funnel report can be actionable, we need to understand attribution modeling.

Attribution Modeling: Last-Click versus Reality

It’s a known fact that the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) standard for attributing a conversion is measured on the last-click basis. This means that all of the credit of a single conversion goes to the last channel that converted.

Take the below conversion path as an example.

Google_Analytics_funnel

Although display initiated the engagement with the prospect and contains 2 out of the 5 total touchpoints, on a typical SEM report, paid search would get 100% of the credit.

And for many years, the search marketing world has debated many different ways of attributing credit via what’s called “attribution modeling” methodology.

The problem with attribution modeling is that it still doesn’t give you 100% of the picture even though Google works very hard to provide us as much transparencies as possible.

The truth is, there will never be a 100% way to do attribution modeling because true attribution modeling is basically calculating ROI (return on investment) on marketing analytics, not just web analytics. And Google Analytics focuses mainly on web-analytic-based attribution modeling.

This means that the attribution may become more bias towards what’s happening on-site instead of a more holistic approach looking at offline and off-site related marketing efforts. It can be very challenging to attribute offline sales to online efforts and vice versa, not to mention there will often be a disconnect between multiple devices within a true conversion funnel (smartphones, tablet, PC).

Now that I’ve provided some arguments against attribution modeling, now let’s look at the positives of trying to give credit where credit is due.

  1.  By doing attribution modeling, you will at least start to consolidate all your media starting with everything online and on-site
  2. Attribution modeling will provide you a holistic view of your paid, earned, and owned media
  3. Google Analytics makes it simpler and easier with the new Attribution Modeling Tool

Let’s take an example using the Assisted Conversions report below.

Google Analytics Assisted Conversions

This report reveals how many conversions were assisted by each channel (Assisted Conversions), how many were completed by each channel (Last Interaction Conversions), and ratio between these conversions (Assisted Conversion Value and Last Interaction Conversion Value).

The ratio of Assisted/Last Interaction Conversions reveals the strength and weakness of each channel’s ability to assist another channel to convert.

Basically, the higher the Assisted/Last Interaction Conversion ratio is, the more that channel shows up in the conversion path of another channel, resulting in higher assisted conversions than last interaction conversions.

Looking at the above report, you’ll find that the highest assisting channel is Google Display Network (GDN). This can mean different behaviors but mainly it’s a good sign that the display channel (banners or text ads on another website) for this business helps to fuel sales to other channels.

In fact, it doesn’t convert very well within its own channel because it received less total last-click conversions than assisted conversions.
Ok great, so now I know which channel helps other channels but how can this be actionable?

This is the beauty of Google Analytics Attribution Modeling Tool.

If you go to Conversion > Multi-Channel Funnels > Attribution Modeling Tool, you’ll find several attribution models awaiting for you.

These are the default attribution models provided in Google Analytics.

Google Analytics Attribution Modeling

Here’s more information on Google Analytics Attribution Modeling.

So now with the same custom Channel Grouping selected, I can select up to 3 different attribution models to compare and get an idea of the shifts in conversions (and conversion values).

Google Analytics Attribution Modeling Tool

As you can see from the attribution model above, GDN (#9) stands to gain the most with both the time decay model and the position based model.

Let’s take time decay attribution model as an example. The 32% increase shows that GDN played a significant role as “assisting touchpoints” to the time of conversion but not effective as the last-click touchpoint conversion, otherwise it would not have a rather large increase in conversions from this attribution model.

Looking at the position based model, you can see that GDN is supposed to get a whopping 41% increase in total conversions!

This is because position based attribution model often assigns 40% credit to the first, 40% credit to the last interaction, and 20% credit to the interactions in the middle. A simple way to looking at it is that it focuses on both the “introducer” and the “closer“.

And since we know from the Assisted Conversion report that GDN doesn’t convert well as the closer (last-click), this means that GDN is more likely seeing the increase in conversions as the “introducer” (first touchpoint) while other channels were more effective in closing the sale (last touchpoing).

Pretty insightful right?

You can then proceed to down the above data to a spreadsheet, add the marketing cost associated to each specific channel, and re-adjust how you credit each channel and voila: a different way to look at CPA, CPO, CPL, or whatever ROI metrics you want.

You can even drill down to specific campaigns using the Secondary Dimension feature if you tagged your campaigns properly!

Now we understand how channels affect sales through attribution modeling, this means that you are one step closer to what’s REALLY working and what may not be working as well as you thought (like how brand search campaigns are almost always overrated!).

Last but not least, keep in mind that like all web analytics system, there are limitations with Google Analytics.

For example, the look back window is only 30 days. For businesses with longer sales cycle, especially those with high average order value (AOV), 30 days just isn’t enough. And you also need to realize that Multi-Channel Funnels do not take the campaign cookie into account when reporting direct traffic.

Looking at what the industry is doing you can see just how attribution modeling have an impact on marketing budgets according to a study done by Google.

The take away on Web Analytics & Attribution

It goes without saying that data integrity is essential for marketing analytics, not just attribution.

You do attribution because you want to get to the bottom of your marketing efforts. It’s a complex process of giving credit to your paid, earned, and owned media. It’s about translating the value of your marketing programs.

We’re talking about segmentation, media buying, content management, optimization, and a whole lot more!

And don’t forget whatever metrics you’re tracking and measuring, they must align with business objectives, agreed upon across departments (or at least as many as possible).

Web analytics is part of marketing analytics, it requires new process and technology; but most importantly it requires change – you, your team, your management, or your organization must understand and support the adoption of utilizing analytics for it to be effective and actionable.

And ultimately attribution modeling should be part of your marketing efforts to break the department (channel) silos and move towards integration.

Truly integrated marketing campaigns will have great marketing analytics with sophisticated attribution modeling.

I hope you find the above information useful, feel free to share your thoughts on Google Analytics below!

Bonus Google Analytics Resources

Now that you’re totally in love with Google Analytics, here are a few more resources to help you become a GA ninja!

9 Keys to Increase Website Conversion Rate and Turn Visitors into Customers

by Eric Tsai

9 tips to effectively increase your website conversion rate

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you might remember a post I wrote recently called Why Attention is the New Currency Online. When I wrote it, I had been working to create a process to audit website conversions.

Ultimately it turned into an article about capturing attention online because without attention there would be nobody looking at your links, images, videos and compelling content.

And without people reading your content, you certainly won’t get any clicks. When people read your content online, links and clicks follow.

However; you don’t want just any click, you want qualified prospects clicking on your links, visiting your website and consuming your content.

Let’s be clear, getting attention is only part of the equation to help you increase conversions but it does not automatically equals to conversion.

For those of you who don’t know why qualified traffic is important, let me just say that if you want to increase conversions of your landing page or your ecommerce store, this is crucial.

What is a Conversion?

How does the value of a conversion relate to the return on investment of a marketing campaign?

Basically a conversion is an action a user takes on your site that has value to your business.

Typically it’s a sale but it can also be a newsletter sign-up, a download of a file, viewing of a video, or a request for more information.

If you know what a conversion is worth to you, and the percentage of traffic visiting your conversion page versus the traffic that do convert (the conversion rate), then it is easy to calculate your return on investment (ROI) for just about any marketing campaign.

Conversion Rate and ROI Calculation

From the calculations above, you may think that if you want to increase ROI, you just need to increase CR right?

You’re on the right track but that’s not the entire story here because conversion rates typically depend on two factors:

  1. Qualified traffic – The goal is to capture only traffic that’s more likely to convert. This is where direct marketing is heavily used to grab the attention of the visitors. A valuable piece of content, a paid search ad or recommendations from social media channels are just a few ways you can use to obtain qualified traffic.
  2. Landing page – A landing page is a specific area of your website where traffic is sent (via links from online advertisements, organic search results, social media or email) specifically to prompt a certain action or result.  And since a visitor usually lands on a page after clicking on a link, it’s important that the links you use to send traffic to your website is relevant to what that person is looking for. Once on your landing page, it’s basically a tactic of one-on-one selling so if it’s not what people are looking for, you will likely get a low conversion.

There are tons of strategies to get qualified traffic (paid search, SEO, email, display, affiliate, etc.), but today we’re going to look at things that you can do to your website to help you improve your conversion rate.

These tips are easy to implement and can start improving your results immediately.

9 Keys to Increase Conversion Rate

I’m going to give you my recommendations, I also want to share a few principles that I believe are crucial in building a website that attracts thousands of high quality links.

The following steps can also be used for your landing page audits.

Use a simple scorecard format to quickly determine what you may need to do to increase your conversion rate.

Here is an example of a score card (you can download the landing page audit scorecard here)

landing page scorecard

1. Know Your Audience

The most important thing that you can do to increase your conversion rate is to know who you’re targeting and tailor your content for that person.

When a new visitor lands on your site for the first time and clicks on a link or goes to your product page, and doesn’t buy anything (or fill out a lead form), then you’ve probably lost them for good.

In my own testing I’ve found that addressing your message to a specific demographic can give you a nice life in conversions.

In fact, when I tried to cover as much features and benefits as possible (thinking that’s just adding value), I tend to get less clicks and low conversions.

2. Focus on Positive User Experience

A landing page is tailored to fit the specific call?to?action (that you designated) and is often the first page a visitor sees when clicking on a link. The challenge is to ensure that you are optimizing an exceptional online experience for visitors and also producing high ROI.

So what is considered an exceptional online experience?

It’s basically providing visitors with accurate, relevant and useful information to meet their needs. But do it in an entertaining and engaging way to differentiate yourself.

None of the bait-and-switch tactics or hype that’s overpromised and under-delivered.

positive user experience ads

A positive user experience usually focuses on a single message with a strong call-to-action that are written in plain language with no more than 7-12 words.

Don’t make the mistake of trying to combine all the features and benefits of your offer, instead focus on the highest value outcome.

Once you have a clean and precise message, you can make it credible with branding elements such as logos and security icons (third-party verifications) or use stories and testimonials. This will give confidence to the visitor which can have a positive impact on conversion as well.

Perfecting, or at the very least improving, customer experience has replaced customer loyalty as the ultimate corporate PR and brand reputation.

Put yourself in your visitor’s shoes and ask: would I scroll down and read this?

Would I fill out this form and give my personal information?

Why would I click here?

3. Develop Your Value Proposition

A value proposition is basically your offer. What are the main selling points? Why should the visitor buy right there and then? It may sound obvious to you but a clear value proposition is the foundation to your conversions.

Your landing page should address the top questions and concerns prospects have about your offer. And it usually goes back to the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place and promotion.

Too often, marketers focus too much on “promotion” instead of combining the other three Ps.

You may find after studying the competition that increasing or decreasing your price is likely to result in better conversions, for example. Perhaps there is a distribution channel, such as the social networks or email marketing; you haven’t fully integrated into your marketing mix.

And with products, developing a new product or re-package an existing product may provide a lift to your overall conversion as well.

You are likely to increase the chance of conversion if you have a clear value proposition that pushes the visitor to take action with your offer.

Ask yourself whether your landing page is helping people to make their decision.

If it’s not, then why should people do what you ask of them? (Purchase a product, sign up for newsletter or request a demo…etc.)

Don’t forget to research your competition so you know how your value proposition stacks up.

The new consumer-led digital revolution is all about exceeding customers’ expectations via influence.

Simply put, influence is conversion rate.

4. Cater to Online Reading Habits

What doesn’t get read doesn’t get clicked on. This is a simple logic that many marketers failed to recognize that there is a fundamental difference between people reading online and offline.

Accordingly to Dr. Jakob Nielsen’s eye tracking studies, “People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences.”

Unlike traditional media or what he calls “linear media” such as print and TV, people expect you to construct their experience for them. Basically readers are willing to follow the author’s lead.

However websites are considered “non-linear media“, where the rules reverse. Users want to construct their own experience by piecing together content from multiple sources, emphasizing their desires in the current moment.

In fact, Dr.Jakob conducted an eye-tracking study and found that people are read in F-shaped patterns when reading web content.

F-shape reading pattern

This is why you should use attention call-outs such as headers, subheads, paragraphs, and bullet points with words that users will notice when scanning down the left side of your content in the final stem of their F-behavior.

The idea here is to layout your content so the readers will WANT to read but keep in mind that the F-pattern should be considered descriptive, not prescriptive.

It’s all about giving you the highest chance of grabbing attention.

5. Create Compelling Copy with Clear Headlines

The first things a visitor reads after landing on your page is your headline. This is when you need to pass the smell test.

If your headline is anything less than clear, informative and compelling, you  will bore or confuse your visitors into leaving.

On the other hand, a well-written headline can drive your visitors to take a closer look even if it’s just text.

Have you noticed how some landing pages are super long?

These landing pages are called “long-form” sales letter that typically consists of a title, subtitle, bunch of paragraphs, images, testimonials and a few buy buttons on a plain-looking page that you have to scroll on and on.

Think about it, if it doesn’t convert well why would there be so many long-form landing pages online?

The truth is people only read what they’re interested in even if it appears to be too long!

The key is to do so in an engaging way that will connect with your audience, it can even be fun and entertaining.

One of my ways to start creating engaging copy is to use the five W’s and one H technique. Here is an example of this:

  • Tell them why they’re about to read the page
  • Tell them who’s it for
  • Tell them what’s in it for them
  • Tell them where they’re at or where they can get it
  • Tell them when they can get it (i.e. limited time offer)
  • Tell them how it works or how it relates to them

The goal is to focus on everything you think will push them one step closer to taking your converting and nothing more.
Make sure you get to the point with actionable content (tell them what to do next) that focuses more on the outcome rather than the feature.

You may want to check out the following articles to help you create compelling content:

How to Create Magnetic Copy to Maximize Your Content Appeal.

7 Ways To Elevate The Perceived Value Of Your Content.

If you know your customer well enough, you should know what they want.

Focus on wants at the beginning not needs.

6. Leverage Image or Rich Media to Direct Attention

Images, videos or testimonials can motivate visitors and trigger emotions. This can have a positive impact on viewers to want to read more about your product and explore the site longer.

Studies have showed that people perceived websites as more “professional” or “trustworthy” when they had images of people on the site.
However; you don’t want to just take any stock photos that relates to your message and load it up on your site.

Instead images can be used to effectively change visitor behavior substantially.

According to a study by Bunnyfoot, subtle changes such as using the right images can direct and guide the visitor’s eyes where you want them to go.

Visual Eye Tracking Study

I thought this was an interesting study and one that you should consider when adding images to your landing page.

When using images and videos, ask yourself whether that piece of content is drawing attention away from your persuasive message or adding to it.

7. Create Content with SEO in Mind – SEO Copywriting

A great tactic that you should put in practice is to integrate your copywriting with SEO (search engine optimization).

SEO copywriting is a technique that tries to optimize your site around a keyphrase that can send you organic search traffic. Done right you can even turn research-intent traffic into converting traffic.

The goal is to get search engine rankings for a relevant phrase around what you’re trying to rank for that can bring you “qualified” traffic.

For example, if someone is looking for “men’s running shoes review” and your online store happens to have a blog with articles comparing all the latest running shoes on the market, the visitor may read the article and decide to bookmark and come back later. Or better yet, the visitor reads the article ended up buying a pair of shoes from your online store.

Obviously you need to know the keywords that your audience uses in order to rank for those keywords.

You can get an idea on the competitiveness of your keywords by using Google’s Keyword Tool to see what phrases are popular and the volume of searches on them globally and locally.

Once you have those keywords, simply remember to use it in your content in addition to HTML areas such as the title tag, meta tags, anchor text in links, and permalinks.

Here is an example of my SERP result, notice the bolded words that highlights the keywords that’s in my title and descreption.

SEO copywriting title descreption

If you use a platform like WordPress (what I use), then all you have to do is install one of those All-in-One-SEO plugins and you’re set.

8. Test, Adjust and Repeat

The golden rule of any direct response marketing is to ensure you evoke a measurable, tractable response.

This means constant testing of your landing page using methods such as a/b split testing or multivariate testing.

The concept is simple.

You want to have variations of the page to be tested on an ongoing basis so you can improve conversion rate.

  • What is an A/B split test? A classic direct marketing tactic, A/B testing is a method of marketing testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples in order to improve response rates It’s typically performed to determine the better of two content variations
  • What is a multivariate test?
    A slightly more complex test, multivariate test is a process by which more than one component of a website may be tested in a live environment. It can be thought of in simple terms as numerous A/B tests performed on one page at the same time.

By conducting tests on your landing page, you will be able to determine which headline is more effective or what layout works better.

Here is an example case of an A/B split test that I did on my email marketing.

The objective was to determine if removing the sidebar would result in a better overall performance. I also tested two different email subject line to see which one opens better.

split test email

The obvious winner here is the control version. The result indicated that the new version (without sidebar) has a higher open rate compare to the control version (email with sidebar), but the conversion rate was substantially lower.

Keep in mind that with testing you want to make sure you gather enough data (sample size) to ensure that your tests are statistically relevant.

Sounds complicated?

Well, thanks to Google, you can use their Google Analytics Content Experiments to conduct both of these tests for free!

Or for more advanced folks, you can try Visual Website Optimizer, UnbounceMonetate, or Sitespect.

When it comes to testing, here are some ideas you can use:

  • Test different headlines, sub headlines and ad copy
  • Test different version of the same logo, icons, layout of testimonials and even colors
  • Test different call-to-actions and buttons (i.e. try this vs. buy now)
  • Test different images or videos (swap image for video and vice versa)
  • Test different forms (embed in different areas of the site, reduce required fields)
  • Test different offers (use incentives to see how discounts or coupons work differently)
  • Test long versus short sales page
Checkout WhichMVT for a full list of reviews and comparisons on testing tools.
And for case studies and test ideas, visit WhichTestWon.

9. Track and Analyze Your Landing Pages

One thing that you can do to benchmark your landing page is to install Google Analytics. If you are using Google Analytics you will know that it’s an invaluable tool that’s again – totally free!

By using Google Analytics you will know the sources that deliver traffic to your landing pages from pay-per-click (PPC), email marketing, social media, organic searches or even offline advertising channels.

Knowing the source of your most profitable traffic is the key to increase ROI.

The more detail you get with where traffic comes and goes the more clear you will see how visitors reacts to your offer.

There are many ways to aggregate your website data from Google Analytics but if you want to focus on conversion rate, start by looking at the following areas (just to name a few):

  • Traffic source – where are people coming from? This is your channel acquisition strategy.
  • Visitor loyalty – How long do people stay? How many pages do they visit and how many times do they visit between two or more times.
  • Bounce rate – How relevant is your landing page? Bounce rate measures the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from where they landed on. The more relevant your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert
  • Keywords – This shows you what queries (keywords) are mapped to your landing pages that sends you traffic. This is a good indicator of what keywords your website is ranked for and how search engines interpret your content.

There are so many important variables to consider when tracking your pages, you can also track clicks or heatmap on your layout and navigations via Google Analytics (In-Page Analytics section) or something like Crazy Egg, Click Density, Click Tale or Attention Wizard.

heatmap analytics

Last but not least, listen and learn from your customers to make sure what you’re tracking matches to the story your data is telling you.

It’s as easy as picking up the phone and call the customers yourself!

If you aren’t able to do that, try conducting regular online surveys or implement some type of post-sale customer feedback system.

The Take Away

In the era of engagement, consumers no longer separate marketing between in-store or online experience—it is the experience.

Whether you’re making a sale in person or receiving a conversion online, conversion rate is the vote of confident that creates personal relationships.

It is trust, likability, authority and ultimately, influence.

Nothing prevents you from trying to increase your conversion rate. If you do nothing, your conversion rate will normalize over time (stays the same).

However; while conversion is an important factor to the profitability of your marketing, you shouldn’t lose sight on the big picture – that’s building your brand equity.

When you have brand equity, you have top-of-mind recalls.

This means you command attention and your message will have a higher chance of cutting through the noise of the increasing irrelevant landscape of “push” advertising.

Conversion rate will eventually reaches the point of diminishing returns – when your investment yields progressively smaller profits.

That’s when you need to take your budget and put it into a higher ROI marketing vehicle.

Until then, keep testing.

 

A Holistic Approach to Marketing: Integrating Social, Search and People

by Eric Tsai


As the dust begins to settle on the endless possibilities of social media, marketers are gearing up for the next wave of digital growth.

From Google’s report on mobile is finally making an impact on search to how social media is used by 25% of the companies worldwide, I’ve always focused on opportunities that align with business objectives. Especially if there is a win win situation for both consumers and brands.

As the demand for businesses to be more transparent and social media becomes mainstream so has the technology that supports it. This is happening both in B2C (business to consumers) and B2B (business to business) verticals creating a massive disruption to challenge traditional business models.

It’s also the reason why the future of marketing will require media channels to integrate into a dynamic attribution model that supports business intelligence.

Information influence learning and learning = behavior change

Today, consumers demand quality services, accountabilities and value for money.

Whether you’re an agency, a consultant or a business owner (trying to do your own marketing), marketing now demands you to back up your assumptions about your customers with data and actionable insights.

Effective marketers are already using direct response tactics to abstract data  for re-targeting and segmentation.

As the adoption curve is changing how consumers engage brands online, the value proposition is changing.

And if the value proposition is changing, can you sell in the same way?

Your marketing strategy should emphasize on getting more insights on your target market to help you improve your value proposition. (what does your customer want today vs 3 years ago?)

Besides the ROBO (research online, buy offline) and TOBO (try offline, buy online), you now have social influence, digital word-of-mouth and public reputation records.

This is why I’m a big believer in a balance portfolio of media acquisition from search, social to SEO.

Paid search: Google, Bing and Facebook

If you want to get immediate, relevant traffic, I invite you to check out paid search such as Google Adwords, Microsoft AdCenter (Bing) and Facebook Ads.

If you don’t have any affiliates or email lists but you want rapid result, there is nothing better than putting some money to work for you in terms of testing your hypothesis on where to get your traffic.

Especially with Google and Bing, you will be able to target those that are either doing research or those that are ready-to-buy but just fishing for the best deal. People submit a search query and you display your direct response ad copy to see if they click on your link.

So why would Facebook ad qualified as paid search?

Well it’s because Facebook is the latest hybrid of search and social.

Although Facebook users are passive, it offers mass reach with hyper-targeting opportunities based on a user’s profile, “likes,” and interests.

You see if you’re logged in to your Gmail while searching on Google, your search results are ‘personalized’ for you. On the other hand you friends’ recommendations show up in real time when you’re logged in Facebook while searching on Bing.

The search engine is becoming more tailored towards user interests and the influence of their social networks for even better direct response and behavioral targeting.

Although Google is still the dominant force in search engine marketing, I must say that Facebook is facilitating a new kind of marketing online leveraging social interactions.

An easy way to look at it is to understand that in Google you’re targeting people that are further down the sales funnel while Facebook targets the entire conversion funnel that includes demand harvesting demand generation.

I see the viral potential via the social factor in Facebook as a good enough reason for brands to start building a fan base while the cost is still low.

Like Adwords, the cost of Facebook ad will only going up as it’s already been reported by Efficient Frontier that the CPC (Cost per click) has gone up 40% from last year’s Q1 to this year’s Q1 as competition heats up.

I will go into more detail on Facebook marketing in upcoming post.

Content marketing: Social media and SEO

Content marketing has long been about creating quality content as leverage for SEO to build and raise an online profile. This is why content distribution and syndication tactics were widely used in the past few years to create inbound links that build authority in the eyes of the engines.

Although seemingly low cost compare to paid search, SEO isn’t just about links or quality web content because you pay on the backend in the form of time and up keeping of your links.

Think of it as getting a really good deal on an expensive car, there is still the cost and risk of ownership and maintenance.

In fact, generally SEO is a far more profitable strategy for long term lead generation especially if you can corner a niche with little competition for certain keywords, you will be able to show up on the first page of Google with little effort.

And now, the search engines are adding social signals to the mix as an additional measure of quality and relevance.  Social content such as images, articles, video, tweets and even comments directly correlates to search queries are now inbound link in organic search results.

Let’s look at an area that I think are widely overlooked by marketers.

For example, explore local searches via social profiling (name, address, phone, site, social links, etc.) to boost the visibility of your local site on the web.

Start with Google Places Listing if you want to be listed locally then go through other categories on the side bar of Google searches.

From my observations in Adwords and SEO, geo-local keywords aren’t yet as saturated compare to general keywords which presents a lower barrier to entry if you combine it with your “brand” keywords.

Identify the keywords you want to rank for in top search engine results page (SERP) and often you’ll find low-hanging fruits in longtail keywords that aren’t as competitive especially in niche markets.

And finally, search Google with keywords that your customers would use in another state to see if you can tie localized keyword in there. You’d be surprise on how different the search results may be.

Don’t forget the social factor in SEO. The fact that Google and Bing organic links can display peer recommendations is another attribution to conversion.

The take away: Advertising online is easy, you place an ad on Google or send out a tweet on Twitter or even leaving a comment on a blog can bring you traffic.

Acquiring quality traffic that will help you achieve your goal whether it’s to build your email list, sell your products or call you for a consultation, it simply has to be relevant. Combine search, social and SEO is the optimal way to get the most out of your Internet marketing efforts.

For short-term validations, pay per click (PPC) in any form is one of the most cost effective online advertising methods to test out your hypothesis.

For short-term campaigns, add social media to your targeting strategy will help you abstract more data about your target audience.

For long-term sustainable ROI, I recommend incorporating SEO strategy to help you reduce affiliate leverage and take control of your overall marketing costs (think diversification).

It’s indicative that marketers should incorporate a holistic approach to gain full visibility of the marketing funnel.

This meaning to attribute the proper “assists” across all the touch points from social to search.

At the end, it’s all about having the right data that tells you what people actually do so you can make better business decisions to optimize and engage.