Google Analytics Audiences and Acquisition Data
In this article, we’re looking at Google Analytics Audience and Acquisition Data. Specifically Google Analytics Referral Traffic Sources as well as Devices and Location data. These metrics very useful to help gauge WHO is interested in what you have to offer and WHERE do they come from?
This is the fourth in a series of four short articles dedicated to improving your website effectiveness and website ROI. By improving your Google Analytics understanding.
The ‘Traffic Source’ is the way people find your website. Google Analytics tracks how people landed on it.
Here are the three main (non-referrer) Traffic Sources
- Direct Traffic: visitors who arrive at your website by typing your URL directly into their browser or via a bookmark they previously saved.
- Organic or Search engine Traffic: visitors who arrive at your website from a search engine like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Your customers come to you, and it’s usually the result of good SEO.
- Paid Traffic: this is the result of a marketing strategy, where you pay to promote your business through Facebook or Google Adwords. In this case, you are going out and finding your customers.
Google Analytics Referral Traffic
‘Referral Traffic’ is effectively a recommendation from one website to another via the form of a link. When the link is clicked the source site becomes ‘the referrer’ and the destination site acquires a new page view. This can happen as a result of you creating banner ads, campaigns, blogs or linking with affiliates.
For example, you may recommend a product on your site (the source site) and create a link to an Amazon page. If anyone clicks on that link, Amazon’s analytics reporting would see your page as the referrer. (If the link is configured as an affiliate link and the visitor purchases, Amazon would also reward you with a commission).
Other Referral traffic sources include campaigns you may have run via email or direct marketing. Or they could come via tracking code placed on other websites, including banner ads such as AdWords, that include a referral code linked to a specific marketing campaign.
Likewise, you can also think of Social Traffic as a form of referral. Meaning visitors who arrive at your website from networks such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter can be considered referrals. Or other platforms such as Pinterest, Quora, Reddit, etc.
Google Analytics Device ID
Google Analytics cross-device tracking gives you the ability to separate out desktop, mobile and tablet traffic. Likewise, it can tell you which browsers and screen resolutions people use when visiting your site!
Google Analytics Location Report
Google Analytics determines locations from a visitor’s IP addresses and where internet service providers assign those ranges. It cannot be relied on 100% of the time but remember we are only after trends. Not a specific measuring tool.
Data at the country, region or state level is pretty accurate worldwide; Google says that mobile devices and VPNs may report inaccurate cities.
Why is a Google Analytics Audience overview (and Acquisition) important?
Google Analytics Referral Traffic & Traffic Sources
Because Google Analytics looks at the source of all the visits to your site, this means you can get some powerful marketing insights. In particular, useful data related to WHERE and WHO is giving you a return on your marketing investment dollars.
By understanding where your traffic comes from (direct, organic or paid), you can refine your marketing tactics and strategies accordingly. If you find that most of your clients come to you through Facebook ads, it gives you clues as to the strategies you may want to implement in the future. If, for instance, most of your traffic is direct, it is excellent feedback on the great networking job you’re doing.
Why is Device data & Location Traffic important?
A MASSIVE part of marketing is understanding our customers.
Nowadays, the global combined number of mobile and tablet users is higher than the number of desktop users and this upward trend is continuing.
For most websites, the number of visitors on different devices is not as important as how well visitors on different devices convert.
Imagine knowing the percentage of users per device who perform a desired action. Knowing this sort of information can significantly increase your confidence in making marketing decisions. For example, how would you alter your ad spend if you could confidently say “For every 100 desktop or laptop users we have just over 3 sales? But for every 100 mobile or tablet users, we have nine sales; i.e. triple the conversion rate!”
Google Analytics Location Data
The place where one lives can have a profound effect on what one buys and how one shops. Whether you live in a busy city or in the middle of farmland country will definitely influence your purchases and behaviors.
Location data can be extremely useful for understanding who you are reaching with your current marketing initiatives. Which in turn, can help you more accurately target your marketing and advertising spend.
For example, if you’re a landscape gardener or an event planner, it’s highly unlikely you’d want your online presence randomly spread across continents. But that can happen.
The location metric can help also you identify trends. For example, word of mouth may be spreading around the country which could present unexpected growth opportunities.
How to use the benefits of Google Analytics data to improve your website effectiveness and ROI
Google Analytics Referral Traffic & Traffic Sources
Is one source of traffic better than another? It depends on your industry, your budget and how much available time you have. If people lock themselves out of their apartment, they are more likely to google ‘Locksmith’ than to remember an ad campaign on Facebook – maybe you’re better off working on SEO and organic traffic than on running ads.
If you find out, for instance, that search engines prefer your services page and are sending your customers there (instead of your homepage, like you thought), you can adjust your services page in order to get better results and conversions.
Here are a few tips to potentially increase Referral Traffic by increasing engagement and spreading your reach to more people
- Offer to write guest blog posts or articles. That increases your exposure and widens the circle of people who will know about you.
- Send out relevant and regular newsletters via email. How often you do this will depend on a number of things but in our experience, we suggest shorter and targeted emails based on good segmentation of your list. (if you need help doing this, call us).
- Use social media – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, StumbleUpon, etc
- Join Pinterest, and connect with other bloggers and influencers. Pin their content – and yours. If you promote someone else’s content, they usually promote yours.
- Use YouTube! Create powerful video marketing. YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web – it processes 3 billion searches per month. You can repurpose your blog’s content immediately.
- Investigate using platforms like Triberr to organically grow your audience.
- Curate useful content from your web searches and share it with your followers
- Join blog community sites that are relevant to your niche. You can cross-pollinate with other bloggers. Regularly comment on a few relevant blogs too. Become known as someone who leaves thoughtful comments, not one-liners
How to use Device data to improve website effectiveness and ROI
First of all, don’t ignore the statistics about global mobile users. Regardless of whether you think you’re attracting mobile visitors or not, Google is still likely to penalize you in the search ranking results for not being mobile-friendly.
Google Analytics recently launched mobile-first indexing that looks exclusively at the website experience from the mobile user’s point of view. Mobile users who are not enjoying their experience are less likely to answer a Call to Action, purchase anything, spend time on the site or return to it.
For you, identifying a significant difference in engagement between mobile and desktop/laptop users is an important marketing indicator. So pay attention to the use of things are your website that may not translate well from laptop to mobile experience. For example widgets, pop-ups, small text, and overlapping elements which make clicking impossible.
Carry out some testing on your site using various smartphones and tablets and look for discrepancies in display or functionality. Do this yourself if necessary. Or ask someone to surf your site while you observe how they navigate and what issues they may find (if any).
How to use Location data to improve website effectiveness and ROI
Because Google Analytics has the functionality to tag users from specific locations you now have the ability to use ‘remarketing’ techniques in your advertising spend. Remarketing means your ad spend prioritizes people who have already visited your site at some recent point. Which in turn should significantly improve both effectiveness and ROI.
Here are a few examples of scenarios that lend themselves to make smart use of the remarketing cookies that tap into Google Analytics location data.
- You have a new store opening
- You’re considering discounts in a specific store
- You want to offer some new/limited product lines in specific locations
- You want to remain competitive while other local sales are on
- You’re staging an event at a specific store; e.g. a book signing
- You’re offering free delivery to some new locations
Conclusion
Wow! That pretty much wraps our four-part series designed to improve your website effectiveness and website ROI.
Improving your Google Analytics Referral Traffic understanding should give you endless ideas you can use to radically change your marketing mix.
At the same time, if you can see the benefits of having access to Google Analytics but find the data or the process overwhelming, know that you’re not alone.
If this is you, feel free to reach out…
Our goal is to simplify analytics reporting so it’s useful to a small business person.