Conversion Tracking
One of the most important features of Google Analytics is conversion tracking. However, if you want to get it right, it will require a bit of time and effort. Even when you set it up, it is not always clear how you can extract data from it. We at Guttulus have simplified this process and turned it into a few tips you can utilize.
Setting up conversion tracking
Before you begin your conversion tracking, you will need to decide which conversion you will track. One of the most obvious things to track is site purchases. However, that is not the only conversion you can track. For instance, you can track visit duration, engagements, newsletter sign-ups, and account creation. These are just a few of the conversions you can track.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that the conversion you choose to track should align with the goals of your business. For example, if your aim is to grow an email list, then sign-ups to your newsletter could be important. Besides that, if your focus is sales, then you could track conversions to the “Thank You” page.
For you to begin conversion tracking using Google Analytics, you will have to add a tracking code to you Analytics property. Numerous sites online can help you learn how to do this. After you set up site tracking, you will probably find the following tips quite useful.
- Know your conversion goals
For a retailer, the most important conversion is when a shopper is done with a purchase and goes to the “Thank You” page. However, research has shown that there are many other micro conversions, which shoppers make before getting to the final purchase page.
Fortunately, Google analytics will let you set various conversion goals. In fact, Google will let you track goals for things such as account creation, time on the page and total pages viewed.
- Utilize the full potential of destination goals
Another way to track conversions is by tracking destination goals. For a destination goal, you have to enter the URL of the page into Google Analytics. From there, anyone who lands on that page will be tracked as a conversion.
- You need revenue tracking
Tracking micro conversions is important. However, at some point, you will need to measure how much revenue you are making. Unfortunately, revenue is tracking is quite complex, unless you only have a few products being sold on the site.
If you only sell a few products, it will mean that you only have a few possible price points. For instance, if you only sell three products priced at $50, $80, and $120, you will only have three possible prices on your site. In such an instance, you can give each price point a completion page. It will allow you to track the revenue from each variation and the total revenue as well.
However, this is not the case at most stores. For such stores, Google Analytics has two tools: E-commerce Tracking and Enhanced E-commerce.
E-commerce Tracking
With this type of tracking, the tool simply tracks data for when users get to the “Thank You” page. In this type of tracking both item data and transaction data is tracked. Together, this data can provide some insights into which products, campaigns, and channels are helping to grow revenue.
Enhanced Ecommerce
This is more complex to set up but also offers more in-depth data. The data includes things such as user interactions with products, products impressions, refunds, adds to cart, and product clicks. This data provides even more insight. However, it also requires more custom coding for it to work.
- Use conversion goals to improve the analysis
This is the step where all your hard work to set up conversion tracking will start being valuable to you. In Google Analytics, there is the “conversions” tab that lets you explore and have an overview of your goals including abandonment rate, goal conversion rate, and goal locations.
For the goals that have been pre-defined to include a funnel, you can visit the funnel visualization tab. Here you will get to see how users are moving down the funnel. This data can be quite useful in helping you identify any areas that need improvement. For instance, if you have been having a conversion rate of 15 percent and it drops to 5 percent, you can start checking out what is going wrong.
Google analytics lets you examine goals conversion via source or channel. You will be able to understand which sources or channels have been responsible for most of your conversions. For example, by examining organic traffic, it can reveal the most important keywords. If you check conversions by referral traffic, you can identify the URLs that bring you the most traffic and conversions. This is just a scratch of the surface. With conversion tracking, you can be able to get value for money, especially if you have an expert guiding you.