5 Takeaways from Sydney Google Analytics User Conference

Loves Data was a presenting partner at Australia's first Google Analytics User Conference last month.  

We'd like to share some of the technical insights and analytics tips our analytics, search and social media teams took away from the Google Analytics event.

1. Optimizing Internal Site Search

Site search visits are usually small and easy to miss but often valuable, so use the site search usage report to see the percentage of visits compared to the percentage of conversions your site has, both with and without search, to see how much time you should spend optimizing.

To work out where your site search yields poor results, use the percentage search exits and percentage search refinement columns.

If you have ecommerce tracking on your site, use the per search value column to flag searches that don't perform well. Consider revising and optimizing these landing pages.

2. The Value of Testing

Site speed is important! Did you know that for every second of load time, your conversion rate lowers by seven percent? Test and optimise the load speed of your pages to ensure you're not turning away a chunk of your audience.

Test different call-to-actions because even the smallest change, from a slight wording change to changing the color of the 'submit' button, have proven to dramatically increase conversion rates.

Many companies don't budget enough for website optimization, considering marketers spend $92 to acquire traffic and only $1 to optimize it (Adobe 2012 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey).

3. Tracking Mobile Apps

Google's newly released Mobile SDK enables you to structure tracking by what you define, such as aspects of interaction, as tracking pages isn't ideal for many applications.

Also, it is essential to plan ahead and structure your tracking in relation to your app's interaction points for tracking that accurately reflects usage.

4. Improving Marketing ROI with Google Analytics

Even if you don't have ecommerce on your website, you can attribute value to your goals so you can better calculate return on investment and allocate your marketing budget across digital channels accordingly.

Not all conversions carry the same weight. For example, a purchase or donation is typically worth more to your business than a free white paper download. Take different types of conversion into consideration when assigning value to goals.

5. Assigning Value to Social Media

In terms of bringing in revenue, social often only receives credit as the last point of interaction before a conversion, though in reality, assists many more conversions as an information touchpoint for consumers. Therefore, compare assisted social conversions with direct social conversions for a more accurate view of how social impacts your business and return on investment.

Additionally, social can help with SEO, contributing to organic traffic. Even paid social insights can help improve organic search engine results.