8 tips & pitfalls when measuring online conversions

1. TIPS & PITFALLS WHEN MEASURING WEBSITE CONVERSIONS Béate Vervaecke e-Zen RelationshipMarketing Congres 20 mei 2010

2. e-Zen? Freelance online marketeer Specialized in: E-mail AdWords Google Analytics Past Technopolis: first website in 1998 Kluwer: e-channel marketeer

3. Pitfall nr. 1 Setting up goals & funnels incorrectly: Forgetting about goals Forgetting about paths to certain goals

4. Pitfall nr. 1 What is a goal? Thank you page of an order, of a registration, of a request for information, Page to locate nearby dealers About us page ...

5. Pitfall nr. 1 What is a funnel? The pages one has to pass in order to reach a goal

6. Pitfall nr. 1 Forgetting about paths to certain goals – not including them in the funnel 2002

7. Open funnel Pitfall nr. 1 130

8. Pitfall nr. 1 Closed funnel

9. Pitfall nr. 1 Solution Start with an open funnel when unsure about the path Have an open funnel in a separate profile

10. Pitfall nr. 1 Solution Check the path through the navigation summary in the Content section Check the url (or parts of it) in the Content section, and see how many url’s are returned

11. Pitfall nr. 1 Solution Check with back-office conversions – they should be in the 10% range of the conversions via GA

12. Pitfall nr. 2 Sticking to averages Beate@e-zen.be 5-mei-09 12

13. Pitfall nr. 2 Solution: Traffic sources report Use campaign tagging!

14. Pitfall nr. 2 Solution: use a segment

15. Pitfall nr. 3 Beware of a sole focus on percentages Day 1: 4% conversion rate 5.000 visits => 200 sales Day 2: 10% conversion rate 1.000 visits => 100 sales

16. Pitfall nr. 4 No focus on optimizing the end of the funnel

17. Pitfall nr. 5 Beware of a sole focus on 1 metric Even with high bounce ratesa source can be profitable in cost/conversion => Look at a mix of website usage and conversion rate

18. Pitfall nr. 6 Beware of returning visitors and the time to conversion 72% convert in 1 visit or in next visit on the same day

21. Pitfall nr. 8 Know thy statistics and it’s signifance Don’t act on only 50 visits When comparing, check the statistical significance of the needed sample size => advanced AB calculator Buldog solutionshttp://events.bulldogsolutions.com/newsletters/articles/calculator_0408.html

22. Sources Setting goals & funnels http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/goals/index.html http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/interpreting_reports_funnel/index.html Traffic sources http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/interpreting_reports_trafficsources/index.html Adding campaigntracking http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/campaigntracking_adwordsintegration/index.html Beate@e-zen.be 5-mei-09 22

23. Sources Segmenting: http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/advanced_segmentation/index.html Google Analytics Conversion University: http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=iq_learning_center.cs Beate@e-zen.be 5-mei-09 23

24. Thank you!Questions?Béate Vervaeckebeate@e-zen.be0486 85 15 48