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Analysis Focus – Revenue Metrics
Goal Value
The Goal Conversion tab displays a metric called Per Visit Goal Value. This metric is calculated based on the goal values that you set on the Goal Settings page.
Revenue
The Ecommerce tab displays three revenue related metrics: Revenue, Average Value, and Per Visit Value. These metrics are calculated using the revenue that is recorded by your Google Analytics e-commerce code. So, what is the difference between Per Visit Value and Per Visit Goal Value on the Goal Conversion tab? Per Visit Value is calculated using e-commerce revenue. Per Visit Goal Value is calculated using static goal values.
Goal Value + Revenue
There are a few places where Goal Value and Ecommerce Revenue are summed. On the Clicks tab, the Revenue per Click, ROI, and Margin are based on the sum total of Goal Values and Ecommerce Revenue. In the Content reports, the $ Index metric is also based on the sum total of Goal Value and Ecommerce Revenue. We’ll look at $ Index next.
What is $ Index?
The $ Index metric appears in most of the Content reports and it allows you to identify the pages that have the most impact on site profitability. A single $ Index value by itself doesn’t tell you much — it’s most useful as a way of ranking pages. By sorting your pages from highest $ Index value to lowest $ Index value, you’ll be able to identify your most important pages. Let’s look at how $ Index is calculated.
$ Index Calculation
The calculation for $ Index assigns the highest values to pages that are frequently viewed prior to high value conversions or transactions. In contrast, pages that aren’t viewed prior to conversions or transactions will have the lowest $ Index values. To calculate the $ Index for a page, total ecommerce revenue and goal value is divided by the number of unique times the page was viewed prior to the conversion or transaction. For example, let’s say that there were 4 visits to your site and 2 visits resulted in a $100 purchase. So, you made a total of $200 from these four visits. If on every one of these visits, the visitor entered your site through the home page, the $ Index value for your home page would be $200 divided by 4 page views. So the $ Index value would be $50. On the 2 visits that included a purchase, the visitor also went to your Features page before purchasing. So, the $ Index value for your Features page would be $200 divided by 2 page views. The $ Index for your Features page would be $100.
Important Points About $ Index
You’ll notice that the calculation for $ Index uses unique pageviews. This means that a page is only counted once per visit, even if a person views the page multiple times before converting. Also, only pageviews that precede the conversion or transaction are counted. If you aren’t tracking ecommerce revenue in Google Analytics and you haven’t assigned values to your goals, all of your $ Index values will be zero. Finally, $ Index is most useful as a point of comparison or a ranking metric, not as a standalone number. It’s designed to help you identify the pages on your site that are most valuable.
Analysis Focus – Funnel Visualization
Funnel Visualization Report
If you define a funnel for a goal, Google Analytics populates the Funnel Visualization report, shown here in the slide. On the left, you can see how visitors enter your funnel. On the right, you can see where they leave the funnel and where they go. The middle shows you how visitors progress through the funnel, how many of them continue on to each step. In this example, we can see that there were 9,283 entrances at the top of the funnel and 187 completed orders at the bottom of the funnel. This report is very useful for identifying the pages from which visitors abandon your conversion funnel.
Finding the Report and Selecting a Goal
To find the Funnel Visualization report, look in the Goals section. Once you are in the report, you can select the goal you want to analyze from the Select Goal drop-down menu.
Funnel Entrance Pages
The boxes along the left side of the funnel show the pages from which visitors entered the funnel. (entrance) shows the number of times that the funnel page was a landing page. In this example, 11,514 visitors came to the View Product Categories page from the home page.
Funnel Exit Pages
The boxes on the right show where visitors went when they abandoned the funnel. For each step, you can see the pages that visitors went to. (exit) means that the person not only abandoned the funnel but also left your site. In this example, there were 1,423 funnel exits from the View Product Categories page that went to the software.asp page.
Programming Through the Funnel
In this example, only 29% of visits to the View Shopping Cart page actually proceeded to the login page. The remaining 2,418 times, the person either left the funnel for another page or left the site entirely. This data is valuable because you can use it to see what pages of your site may need to be altered. For instance, in this example, you might want to improve the design of the the “View Shopping Cart” page so that more visitors log in and continue. You can also see that only 41% of visits to the Login page continue on to the Place Order page. So, the Login page may also need improvements.
Understanding the Numbers
Let’s look at all the numbers in the report. Here is the number of funnel entrances to the first step of the funnel. Here is the number of funnel abandonments that occurred from this step. Here is the number and percentage of funnel entrances that continued on to the next step. Here is the number of funnel entrances to the second step of the funnel. Here is the number of visits to the second funnel step. It includes those who proceeded from the first step and those who entered the funnel at this step. Here is the number and percentage of visits to the second funnel step that continued on to the next step.
Analysis Focus – AdWords
AdWords Campaigns Reports
AdWords-related reports are listed under AdWords in the Traffic Sources section. The AdWords Campaigns report, which is the first one listed, contains performance metrics for your AdWords keyword ads. This report is actually the top level of a hierarchy of reports. By clicking one of of the Campaigns in the table, you drill down to the Ad Groups report which lists all of the Ad Groups in that Campaign. Click one the Ad Groups and you drill down to the AdWords Keywords report which lists all of the keywords in that Ad Group.
Clicks Tab
The AdWords Campaigns reports are unique in that they provide an extra tab labeled Clicks. The Click metrics are extremely useful for optimizing AdWords spending. Let’s look at the first three. Visits is the number of visits your site received from AdWords keyword campaigns. Impressions is the number of times your ads were displayed. Clicks shows the number of clicks for which you paid and which your ads received. It’s normal for Visits and Clicks to show different numbers. In this case, we have fewer Clicks than Visits. The reason is that some visitors clicked on the ad, and then later, during a different session, returned directly to the site through a bookmark. The referral information from the original visit was retained, so some clicks resulted in multiple visits. If you have fewer Visits than Clicks, you may not have the Google Analytics Tracking Code correctly installed on all your landing pages. It’s also possible that some visitors clicked away from your website or stopped that landing page from loading before the tracking code was executed. Also, your visitors must have JavaScript, images, and cookies enabled in their browsers in order to be tracked. However, AdWords will still be able to register clicks from these visitors.
How Many Times Were Ads Displayed and Clicked?
Impressions, Clicks, Cost, and CTR — or Click Through Rate — all relate to how many times your ads were displayed and how frequently people clicked on them. These metrics can help you understand how visible and compelling your ads are to searchers on these keywords. For example, if you want a higher clickthrough rate, you might consider bidding for a higher position or rewriting your ad so that it is more relevant to the searcher. If you are getting all zeros in the cost column, make sure you’ve linked to your AdWords account and that you’ve enabled autotagging.
Which Keywords Are Profitable?
Revenue per Click, Return on Investment, and Margin can help you assess keyword profitability. For example, ROI is useful because it provides a single-metric comparison of how much you spent versus how much you made. An ROI of 0% means that you earned in revenue the same amount of money you spent. An ROI of 100% means that you spent, say $5, and made $10. In other words, you spent X and received 2X in revenue. It’s not uncommon to get 500% or even 1000% ROI. High ROIs simply indicate that your Revenue is many times greater than your Cost. If your RPC numbers are all 0 and your ROI numbers are all -100%, it’s because you have 0 Revenue. Make sure that you’ve set goal values or that you’ve enabled e-commerce tracking.
ROI and Short Date Ranges
Before you delete or pause negative ROI keywords, consider how much you’ve spent and whether you have enough data yet to make a decision. In particular, watch out for short date ranges. It’s generally not a good idea to make keyword changes on the basis of a few days worth of data. Consider return customers — those that find the site via an AdWords ad and then return later to buy again. You’ll miss repeat conversions if you set too short of a date range. Also, it may take days or longer for many of visitors to become customers. So, set a date range that is at least as long as your expected sales cycle.
How Does Ad Position Affect Performance?
If you want to see how ad position affected keyword performance, you can use the Keyword Positions report to find out. The keywords are listed on the left and you can use the dropdown menu above the list to sort them. Then, select the keyword you want to analyze and you’ll see how it performed in each ad position for the metric you select. For example, in the slide, we’re comparing ad positions based on pages viewed per visit. The Side 1 position for this keyword referred visitors who looked at an average of between 20 and 21 pages, and the Side 8 position referred visitors who looked at an average of between 17 and 18 pages.
TV Campaigns
You can upload your TV ad—a video file—to your AdWords account and start a campaign on nationwide TV. You specify the time of day and week, audience demographic, and type of program you’d like to target. Once you’ve set up your TV campaign, you can track it using the TV Campaigns report. You can drill down into specific TV campaigns and see the impressions delivered, number of ad airings, cost and CPM alongside your metrics like visits, time on site, and conversions. For example, this screenshot shows website visits plotted against impressions delivered — the number of active TVs tuned to your commercial. Looking at your web traffic metrics alongside your TV campaign metrics can help you optimize your TV campaigns.
How Well Does Each Ad Perform?
Although it’s not listed under AdWords, The Ad Versions report can help you optimize your keyword ads. Assuming that you’ve enabled autotagging, you’ll see an entry in the table for each of your ad headlines. You can compare site usage, goal conversions, and ecommerce performance for each ad — although there is no Clicks tab, so you won’t be able to see metrics like ROI and clickthrough rate. A limitation of this report is that it can only differentiate ads based on the headline. But if each of your ads has a distinct headline, you’ll see an entry for each ad. Also, note that if you’ve any tagged links with the utm_content variable, you’ll see traffic from those links in this report as well.
