measuring social media impact with google analytics
TRANSCRIPT
Measuring Social Media Impact with Google Analytics
Matt AsterManager, Inbound Marketing
Precision Dialogue
Data Attribution
If you’re main KPI for social is revenue in Google Analytics, you’re going to have a bad
time.
Instead, look at overall contribution
Agenda• Best practices for social data in Google Analytics• What is _trackSocial, and how do I use it?• Standard reports that include social data• Attribution modeling• Social media impact to website engagement• Online/Offline Reconciliation
10+ years experience in online marketing
Data background from Goodyear & Progressive
Manager, Inbound Marketing at Precision Dialogue, a Forrester ranked Customer Engagement Agency
I create strategies and optimize campaigns by using both new and existing digital techniques.
About Me
@MattAster
Today You Will Learn
• How to accurately measure social media traffic to your website.
• Where to look to determine possible attribution paths.
• A technique for syncing your online data in Google Analytics with your offline CRM (which will ultimately allow 1:1 social mapping)
Agenda• Best practices for social data in Google Analytics• What is _trackSocial, and how do I use it?• Standard reports that include social data• Attribution modeling• Online/Offline Reconciliation
Track your URLs
• Utilize UTM tracking– http://bit.ly/GABuilder– Ensure that “social” is in the medium
• Ideally build your own shortener/redirect– Edit links after launch– Insert forgotten parameters
Best Practices (continued)
• Keep your data clean– Remove dev/test– Exclude your IP(s)
• Establish goals (think microconversions)
• Withhold judgment!
Agenda• Best practices for social data in Google Analytics• What is _trackSocial, and how do I use it?• Standard reports that include social data• Attribution modeling• Online/Offline Reconciliation
_trackSocial
_trackSocial(network, socialAction, opt_target, opt_pagePath)
Useful for seeing total actions taken, that’s about it right now.
http://bit.ly/SocialInteraction (link to documentation in GA help)
Agenda• Best practices for social data in Google Analytics• What is _trackSocial, and how do I use it?• Standard reports that include social data• Attribution modeling• Online/Offline Reconciliation
Reports That Include Social Data
Create an Advanced Segment
• If you didn’t set up campaign tracking the way I suggested, you’ll need this regular expression
facebook|twitter|myspace|linkedin|stumbleupon|digg|youtube|flickr|pinterest|etc|etc|etc
• If you did set it up the way I recommended
Use The Advanced Segment
INSIGHTS!
Alerting
Real Time Reporting
Move The Needle
Move The Needle
Go find out your social contribution to your site.
Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi Channel > Top Paths
If you’re ecommerce look at Year over Year difference in revenue.
Discover your Social Contribution
Agenda• Best practices for social data in Google Analytics• What is _trackSocial, and how do I use it?• Standard reports that include social data• Attribution modeling• Online/Offline Reconciliation
Attribution is not easy
• Attribution modeling is not easy, but spend some time understanding what’s happening on your site
Conversion Segments in GA
• Build hypotheses and create segments
Agenda• Best practices for social data in Google Analytics• What is _trackSocial, and how do I use it?• Standard reports that include social data• Attribution modeling• Online/Offline Reconciliation
What and Why?
• Google Analytics can’t hold any PII– Creative alternative is to insert a unique
identifier into GA as a proxy
• Match your records offline to the data in GA using the unique identifier– If you have offline conversions you’ll know
their traffic source– Begin understanding lifetime value
Rough Schema
Googlecv #AB12
Your Website
CRMID #AB12
Cookie: <deleted>Cookie: <not present>Cookie: ID AB12
Cookie: ID AB12
I’ll explain more in second half
Know your key performance indicators Keep them realistic and actionable
Be realistic with goals and expectations
Data is your friend
Be consistent How you tag How you report Metrics
Key Takeaways
