Google Analytics Services - Calibration Techniques

Advanced Google Analytics Content Follows

We have been working with a number of clients who have quite complex goals and conversion funnels....and no staging/test environments. These clients are quite challenging when it comes to refining and testing their goals and filters. As is best practice we always create specific profiles for testing filters and goals. What
we have also done and what I'd like to share today, is our technique for goal and filter calibration.

Calibration Requirements and Challenges

Calibrating a goal or filter in a live environment whilst not impacting a client's GA data set is tricky - more so in high traffic environments. Knowing that a goal or filter works accurately is essential though. We have developed a simple filter based on the IP address exclusion filter most people use already to facilitate calibration. The 'Exclude all traffic from an IP address' filter is provided by default. What we want to do though, is to include data for traffic only from a specific IP address so that we can hit one page, follow one journey through the site or hit the site using a particular user agent and be certain only our traffic hits our profile. This way we know exactly what traffic the goals and filters based on those criteria are going to receive and we know what results to expect - easy calibration.

Setup a new profile to test this

Say we want to test a newsletter signup goal for a new client. First of all we create a new profile for the site in question called something like 'Signup Goal Calibration'.

Setup the filter

Having created the profile, the only traffic I want to appear in that profile is from my PC - let's say by going to http://whatsmyip.org/ or similar that my address is 83.215.34.12 (randomly chosen as an example). I create a new filter called 'CALIBRATION - CAUTION'. The caution note should advise careful use
of this filter...it's potentially quite destructive.

Now, the calibration filter is a custom filter that includes traffic based on 'Visitor IP Address' and the filter pattern would be something like '83\.215\.34\.12'. Of course, a range could be used here but the tighter the range the better when calibrating exercise. So, the filter is applied to the profile and now only I can hit the site and have my traffic data appear in the calibration profile. I can hit the site once, leave - come back after x hours and expect to see 2 visits, 2 page views etc. etc. I would compare the traffic in my calibration profile to other profiles to be 100% certain that the traffic is only me. Perhaps even fabricate a set of UTM tags to fake a spurious traffic source that only I would come from. Basically be certain that your calibration filter is water tight. Now I can follow the newsletter signup user journey and wait for my goal results to appear. Hurrah, the goal works. Now I can try other goals and filters and test them scientifically.

Rinse and Repeat as they say...

Additional Techniques

Depending on your preferences and need for speed, you may also want to use setVar to set the user defined parameter to a unique value for you and segment the traffic based on that value. This neat alternative was pointed out to me by Robbin from Lunametrics - thanks!

Doug Hall
CTO Moneyspyder (Google Analytics Authorised Consultant)
Google Analytics Consultant
GAIQ

Babyetc revamped

Babyetc.co.uk got a face lift this morning.

• Based on data gathered through Google Analytics and our own tracking we have redsigned the presentation of the navigation and Information Architecture.


• The product page has been redesigned as part of a Google Webbsite Optimiser Split Test.


• The basket has been enhanced to ease navigation.


• The promotion engine has had some polish to enable better discounts on delivery methods

Of course there are some (major) behind the scenes updates to the backend regarding order processing and fulfillment. If you want to know more, give us a call!

Moneyspyder has new offices

Last Friday we moved to swanky new offices!

The front:


We have more space and much nicer surroundings to reflect how we are growing:

As you walk in:


The view of the business:


The all important reverse angle:



We have yet to fit out the 'front office' so no pics till then but it will a comfortable 'break out' room. We'll have wireless support for friends and clients of Moneyspyder who would like to visit and need somewhere to do business in London.

The conference room is a good size and with kitchen and bath/shower room facilities we're wondering if we should get into the hotel business!

Moneyspyder joins GAAC Programme

This week Moneyspyder became a Google Analytics Authorised Consultant. We have always subscribed to the fact that if you can't measure something, you can't improve it - especially in the context of online retail. Using Google Analytics to gather data from our clients' online retail sites has always been a key offering from Moneyspyder and is fundamental to our commitment to grow our clients' businesses.

Google have recognised our track record of providing the highest quality Google Analytics implementations coupled with industry leading insight and analysis techniques.

Moneyspyder is delighted to work in partnership with Google on Google Analytics projects. Together, we will raise awareness of the value that Google Analytics brings to online retailers. We will continue to grow our clients' online
businesses demonstrating the power of making business decisions based on web analytics data and analysis.

Making AdWords Cost Less And Earn More

Last week two clients came to us without anyone running their Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaigns. Their biggest problem wasn’t that they weren’t selling much. It was that without someone to look after their campaigns they were losing a lot of money. Our first job then was to put a bandage on the leaking Ad Groups.

If you are in the same boat then the good news is that you are only a couple of simple steps away from effective damage control that will show instant results.

First it is important to get a handle on the data. In the Reports section of your AdWords page you can create a report tailored to fit your needs. It is a simple way to look at the details of all your Ad Groups in one place.



Now, let’s say you are happy to spend 40% of the cost of your product on acquiring the customer. With this in mind it is a simple job to go through your campaign and switch off all the Ad Groups that exceed your margins. This weeding process ensures that only the profitable Ad Groups are left on.

This is all we did for our clients. So what were the results?

These are the results for one of our clients taken from the account snapshot. This first graph shows the Cost Per Click (CPC). We can see that from the 19^th January when we turned off the least effective campaigns there was a marked reduction in CPC. And what’s more, when we got rid of all the campaigns with high Click Through Rates (CTR) and low conversion rates we saw the Conversion Rate leap up.

This was about more than reducing the scale of the campaign. This graph shows that the conversions have not been harmed by the dramatic reduction in number of active Ad Groups and reduction in spending.



Conclusions

By keeping track of your margins and keeping within them you can easily assess whether your Ad Campaign is worth it. Turn off Ad Groups that aren’t doing you any favours and whatever your budget you should see an immediate increase in efficiency.

You might have turned off some Ad Groups that bring you lots of business but at a high cost. The next step is to go through these and tweak them to make them more effective. A good example of this is in refining ad copy.

Some groups will have a high CTR and a low conversion rate which makes them a drain on your AdWords budget. In many cases this is because the copy does not match the landing page. People like what they see in the advert but not on the page. A common problem is that the price is too high when they get to the product page. A simple fix is to put the price in the copy. The result will be that conversion levels will stay the same while the CTR will drop off as people unwilling to pay your prices are put off.