As this post goes live I am presenting on Overlooked, Underloved & Unknown Analytics at SMX London 2012. I wanted to share my slides and resources as there’s a lot of information in them and I only have 12 minutes to cover it all! I’ve also set up custom reports and dashboards which are linked to here.
Taking the ‘unknown’ element from the title of the session, I have looked at some of the new features within Google Analytics and focussed on the new Social Reports that have been introduced and are unlikely to be widely known about at this early stage. As Google Analytics is the most common analytics platform for websites and social media continues to grow and grow, it’s good that we can finally start working out the ROI of social media, so I want to share this with people who can benefit from these reports.
Slides
Each slide has a reference at the bottom to show the path you need to take to access the data shown; some are complicated, which is why I’ve included the navigation slide which should explain how to get to each area for those people not familiar with the depths of analytics.
Read the notes below to find out what each slide shows you, what the benefit of this data is, how you can use this data and what return you might get from using it. Hopefully this will help you understand both how and why to use these reports and how to make sure you’re making the most of you social media budget.
Social Media Giveaways!
It wouldn’t be a presentation without some freebies, so you can find my custom reports and my social media dashboard for you to use below. Sign in to Google Analytics then click each one to access it and then save it to your chosen account.
It would be great to hear what ideas you have for custom reports and other dashboard widgets so please share your ideas and links in the comments below.
Slide Notes
Slide 6: Stats Per Socially Shared URL
Social > Pages
DATA: Shared URL with visit statistics
BENEFITS: Score the interactivity and value each link has brought socially
ACTION: Understand which URLs work well socially and which aren’t worth the time sharing
RETURN: Improve interactivity and social sharing success by utilising what works well
Slide 7: Compare Data to Site Average
Social > Pages > Compared to site average
DATA: Shared url visits compared to site average
BENEFITS: See quickly and easily which pages have been successful in bringing visits to the site via social media
ACTION: Share these more, identify pages which haven’t worked so well
RETURN: Share successes with people who don’t understand tables of numbers, identify areas to push more
Slide 8: Off Site Social And Linke Activity Per URL
Social > Pages > URL > Social Network and Action
DATA: See what activity has happened on social networks for specific URLs
BENEFITS: See how well each URL has been engaged with in different ways
ACTION: Identify where to promote this URL further and what will work for future URLs similar to this one
RETURN: Get the best results from each URL and stop wasting time promoting activity that doesn’t work
Slide 10: On Page Social Activity
Social > Social Plugins > Social Source and Action
DATA: See what activity that has happened on social data hubs for your site’s URLs
BENEFITS: See how users have interacted with your content off site on social networks, see which platforms work for you
ACTION: Invest more in social platforms that are seeing good levels of user engagement
RETURN: Encourage more activity in the platforms that show potential, stop investing in platforms that do not work as well, improve your social return
Slide 11: Which Pages Have Good Social Interaction?
Social > Social Plugins > Compare to site average
DATA: Social actions per page shared
BENEFITS: Quickly see which pages have encouraged social actions
ACTION: Push successful pages more and push lower performing pages to see if they can improve
RETURN: Know which pages do and don’t work, move to making sure every page shared creates a good volume of social interactions
Slide 13: Which Social Networks Convert?
Social > Conversions
DATA: Last interaction was social and led to these conversions and conversion value
BENEFITS: See which social networks are most valuable
ACTION: Identify what is working, what’s not working and what needs to improve
RETURN: By knowing what’s working and what’s not, you can increase ROI by focussing your efforts
ALSO: Show your boss what % of conversions happen through social media to convince them of the value of social media. You currently can’t export and can’t use in API.
Slide 14: Social Media’s Share Of Conversions
Social > Conversions > Percentage Pie
DATA: Conversions by social network, shown as a pie chart
BENEFITS: Quickly and visually shows what amount of conversions are social
ACTION: You can easily see whether social has a big impact on your conversions
RETURN: Use this to convince your boss to invest in social
Slide 15: Social Media’s Share Of Conversion Value
Social > Conversions > Percentage Pie > Select value from drop down
DATA: Conversion values by social network, shown as a pie chart
BENEFITS: Quickly and visually shows what amount of conversion total value is social
ACTION: You can easily see whether social has a big impact on your conversion value
RETURN: Use to convince boss to invest in social media
Slide 16: How Social Media Assists Conversions
Social > Conversions > Assisted vs. Last Interaction Analysis
DATA: Social Media visits that assisted conversions, which have assisted more than being the last touch (over 1 in final column)
BENEFITS: Identify hidden value of social media and what to continue investing in if something has low last touch conversions
ACTIONS: Push some networks more, give up on ones which are not working for assists or last conversions
RETURN: Know where your money is achieving a good return and where it isn’t so you can improve profits
Slide 17: How Social Media Assists Conversions
Social > Conversions > Assisted vs. Last Interaction Analysis
DATA: Assisted vs. Last Interaction Analysis (instead of just last click) to see how social has helped conversions before the end of the journey
BENEFITS: This shows the hidden value of social media
ACTION: If last click conversions from social were not enough to convince your boss, this should be!
RETURN: Identify which networks assist and how much value social media adds to your conversions
Slide 19: How Social Fits In To Conversion Journey
Social > Conversions > Secondary Dimension = Keyword (Or Source/Medium) Path
DATA: Full path containing social network, keyword and source/medium information alongside conversion data
BENEFITS: Understand user journeys
ACTION: Use channels in combination to encourage repeat visits and conversions
RETURN: Optimise multi channel marketing more effectively
This. Is. Awesome.
Thank you.
Hi Anna thanks for pointing me this way for the GA Social Reports – they’re really cool.
The slides and write-up here are useful too, helps put another perspective on the value of social media and to actually create some meaningful insight
Fantastic work Anna. I love the amount of data we can now get from social reports, especially the information on top sharers. For anyone building a community it’s vital information.
It is however weird to see so much personal data, when you consider the (not provided) privacy issue. This is far more revealing information that a list of keywords ever was.
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