Google Analytics Audit NOT USED
Google Analytics should be your go-to tool for any digital marketing. You wouldn’t hire an employee and ignore their performance for 2 years, so why do this with your website? You’ve probably invested a lot of time and money in your online presence, so wouldn’t you like to know how it’s performing for you, and what you can improve?
The good news is you are not alone. The vast majority of businesses don’t track and measure digital metrics like they should, but why’s that great news for you?
It means there’s plenty of scope to measure what your competitors aren’t, and get ahead of them by using Google Analytics to help you :
- Improve the user experience and guest journey on your website
- Justify your marketing spend and report on performance (and get more for what’s working!)
- Understand which marketing channels are working (and as importantly, which ones aren’t!)
- Discover demographics of your website visitors
- And a whole lot more!
The problem is, most analytics installations are not configured correctly. Usually all your web developer does is add some tracking code to your website and that’s it. That’s a bit like handing you the keys to a Ferrari, but limiting its performance to that of an electric disability scooter.
Without correct configuration, there’s a good chance the data Google Analytics is reporting is misleading at best, and incorrect at worst. This will lead you to unwittingly making the wrong interpretation, or decision based on incorrect data.
Even worse, if you’re in Sales or Marketing, it may make your performance look worse to your boss as your conversion data may be under reporting.
Common Google Analytics Setup Problems
If your Google Analytics isn’t configured correctly, there’s a good chance you are suffering from some of the common issues below.
- Your agency controlling your account and data due to incorrect setup
- Key goals and metrics not being recorded
- Spammy website referrers inflating your visitor data and killing your bounce rate
(I’ve seen this artificially inflating visitor numbers by up to 70%!) - Internal users warping your average visitor time and bounce rate
- Personally identifiable information like email addresses being recorded
(This is against Google’s terms of service and could lead to your account being shut down) - The same page being reported in many different ways meaning it’s hard to see the most popular pages
Common Problems In Tourism & Hotels
If you’re in tourism you’re probably very keen to improve the number of direct bookings. You may think your booking engine will tell you how many bookings are direct vs via third parties but it won’t tell you where the source of that direct booking came from. A correctly setup Google Analytics will so you’ll know whether it’s the paid traffic, social media, or articles on your regional tourism website bringing the bookings.
Did Your Website Developer Break Your Analytics?
Good web developers have a lot of things to think about, but the majority of them are not analytics experts, not should they be – they have enough on their plate. Unfortunately due to this, a great number of websites are built without considering tracking and analytics, and choices are often made that make it very hard or impossible to track things properly, particularly when it comes to integrating third party booking engines, whether that’s appointment booking, or hotel room booking.
Would You Like Me To Perform A Google Analytics Audit For You?
I’ve done analytics audits before and heard feedback like “I had no idea that’s who was buying my products, I thought they were way younger than that”. If you want better insights into your data, let me do a full Analytics audit for you.
The investment in an Analytics audit often allows you to take steps to significantly improve your website’s performance and tracking, ultimately leading to more revenue for your business. This is where I’d start even if I was building a new website.
Get in touch today to booking in your Google Analytics audit, and let’s start making your website work better for you.