Search Marketing Insomniac…The Blog of Adam Henige

Of all the additions to Google Analytics within the past 12 months, none have made waves with analytics professionals more than the segmentation tool.  Obviously, this provides a million different ways for users to slice up data, but for beginners (and I run into this regularly) all of the possibilities can be confusing.  So now that you can create all of these segments, what are some practical ways to use segments?

One of the first things I point out to people is the ability to understand user intent.  What do people want when they come to your site, and how well are you connecting with them?  This is good information to know, and segments can give you some great information in this regard.  I will use the Netvantage site as an example.

We offer three primary services, obviously - SEO, paid search management and web analytics.  We target a variety of terms in each category from an SEO standpoint, and with that comes an assortment of long tail terms as well.  Our paid search management page will bring in traffic for terms like “paid search management“, “ppc michigan”, etc.  All of these terms imply a basic need for paid search management and it’s valuable for us to know if our landing page is engagin our visitors.  So here’s what we do in such a situation.

As you can see above, I’ve added three variations of terms that land on our paid search page.  This segment will cover all users who have landed on our site from a search containing the terms “paid search”, “ppc” and “adwords”.

Applying this segment will allow me to look at these users from an aggregate as well as a refined level with ease.  At the highest level I can look at the segment’s overall bounce rate and begin identifying if there is room for improvement.  If so, I can look at the keyword report and start breaking it down further to individual keywords and see if there are issues between sub segments - which may require me creating new segments.  If at first glance of the keyword report I notice that Adwords related keywords are underperforming, I may break that segment out individually and compare it to the other subsegments.

In the case that we have poorly performing visits for Adwords related terms, then it would make sense to start experimenting with the page to speak more directly to users who may not be familiar with terminology like “PPC” and “paid search” (a distinct possiblity).  Again, these people have the same intent (a need for our services!) but we may not be addressing them correctly.  Using Analytics, however, can help us uncover these missed opportunities and push more users through the conversion funnel.

As one of the holdover companies from the IndexTools days, I’ve been waiting to hear more on the re-launch as Yahoo Web Analytics, and it’s been a long time since I’ve made a peep about it. You may recall a good long time ago when I decided to give people an introduction to what YWA (well, still IndexTools really) had to offer.  I definitely lauded it at the time, but while I’m sure Mr. Mortensen and his team have been doing their darndest to roll out a fabulous product, I’ve found myself moving almost exclusively to Google Analytics, as they have been beefing up their offerings at an incredible rate.

That said, some potentially exciting tidbits came recently in the form of an email from YWA that I thought I’d share with those who have been anxiously waiting, or those who may just be slightly curious.  It went like this:

These bullets definitely got my head spinning a bit.  Let’s take a look one by one…

1. Demographics.  REALLY???  While this is a marketer’s dream, I approach this with the utmost in skepticism.  What exactly does this mean?  Where does the demographic data come from?  What level of detail?  I will temper my expectations, as MSN tried to offer something similar in their beta launch, and I got such highly actionable data as this:
   
2. Oodles of custom variables?  AWESOME.  IndexTools had a lot of flexibility advantages over Google Analytics a while back, and this should put them back in the game.  I’m excited to tear into this, particularly for our ecommerce clients.
3. 50 actions?  Wow, this is a major expansion over what IndexTools offered in its days as a paid service.  That’s impressive.  For those keeping score at home, Google only offers four goals to track in a single profile.  If you have a complicated site with lots of potential goals/goal pages, this will be a godsend.
4. I’ll wait and see on the charts, but adding notes, if done properly, could make reporting a helluva lot easier for some clients.
5. I haven’t needed more flexibility than what they offered as IndexTools, but I’m sure greater control will be a nice addition for many agencies.

Wow (I keep saying that), it’s been a while since I had a post focused almost totally on analytics.  It feels good…my blood’s flowing again.  I’m just realizing the content of my blogging largely relates to whatever my day to day focus has shifted to.  As you may have noticed, I’ve been doing a heavy load of SEO lately, so that’s been reflected here.  I have a big analytics consulting project tying up in the next few weeks, and depending on when this drops, hopefully I’ll have more to report soon…an updated review of new features perhaps?  Stay tuned.

Google Analytics’ addition of advanced segments allows for nearly limitless slicing and dicing of data. But if you’re not an experienced hand with analytics, you probably don’t have time to fuss with it to learn EVERYTHING that can be done with the tool, you just need to know how to get some real value out of it quickly and easily. With that in mind, here’s a quick tip.

Whether you’re starting out a new SEO campaign, or have been working on one for some time, it’s always valuable to segment your organic traffic to see who’s coming in via branded terms (your company name, or the brand names of your products and services) versus more general terms. Most likely, you rank out well for your branded terms, but a significant value of SEO is to create awareness and capture potential customers who are not yet aware of your brand name(s). Using Google Analytics, you can set up a filter to continually track your non-branded traffic, and this is a great metric to look at to see if you are getting some tangible benefit from your SEO work as far as engaging new potential customers. Ideally, you want this number to grow over time.

Here’s what you need to do :

1. Open the advanced segments tab (in the upper right corner)
2. Click on “create an advanced segment”
3. Under Dimensions (in green) click on “traffic sources” and drag the “keyword” tab into the Dimension or Metric rectangle into the ghosted box in the middle of the screen
4. For the value, add your most common branded keyword.  For us, we could do this in one easy keyword “Netvantage“, you may have to add multiple “or” statements for your different brands, so try to be broad but be sure not to add something that will exclude general searches
5. In the “Condition” tab for each, select “Does not contain” and then give your segment a name and  select test to make sure that you’ve set things up properly.  If you see a significantly lower number of visitors in your test segment, you’ve probably done things right.

Armed with this data you can see if your organic traffic, and your SEO campaign, are bringing potential new customers to the table, or engaging those who are already well aware of your business.

Thought I’d try something new and interesting and throw a poll on my site just to see if anyone’s paying attention.  Anyhow, with all of the advancements made available by Google Analytics, I was wondering what people thought about the possible obsolescence of the long standing web analytics players.  Can Google push them out of the market?

Please share your thoughts…

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My next poll?  Do people like taking polls?  Keep your eyes peeled for that one!