In this project, we implemented Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce features to better understand audience interests, engagement and readership levels for a content-rich, non-profit website.
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The client, Naître et Grandir, is funded and published by the Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon, a Quebec philanthropic society whose mission is to prevent poverty.
Naître et Grandir mission is to support Quebec parents in their role, from conception to 5 years with reliable source of information and scientifically validated content.
They are independent in regards to its content and has no profit objective or commercial interests. In this context, we considered articles to be their "products" - a powerful way to measure and demonstrate the value they offer to their audience.
3. Naître et Grandir is funded and published by the Fondation Lucie
et André Chagnon, a Quebec philanthropic society whose
mission is to prevent poverty.
Naître et Grandir mission is to support Quebec parents in their
role with their children, from conception to 5 years with reliable
source of information and scientifically validated content.
Naître et Grandir is independent in regards to its content and has
no profit objective or commercial interests.
We implemented Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce
features to better understand their audience interests,
engagement and readership levels.
Project Background
4.
5.
6. Audience,
Credibility,
Authority
• Traffic volumes and articles readership
• Newsletter subscritions
• Magasines distribution
• Frequency, Recency
• Cited as a source in authoritative publications
• Social media mentions
Establish “Naître et Grandir”
as a trusted and reliable
authority for information
about kids development
from pregnancy up to six
years old.
The site is rich with lots of content, news, blogs, videos, activities, tools, contest, newsletter subscription, site search, etc.
But contrary to media websites, they do not have any ads, and contrary to other non profits, they do not solicit donations.
The site is rich with lots of content, news, blogs, videos, activities, tools, contest, newsletter subscription, site search, etc.
But contrary to media websites, they do not have any ads, and contrary to other non profits, they do not solicit donations.
Measuring success is really about measuring their core value proposition: articles of quality
Indirectly, newsletter subscription and social media are other means to increase readership and demonstrate value.
Engagement is somewhat of a buzzword in our industry. Is engagement merely a factor of time on site or number of page viewed?
We opted to use enhanced ecommerce to track real engagement on articles – the core content of the page, excluding top navigation and page footer.
What are the meaningful and significant steps that demonstrate true engagement?
Pageview is tracked as usual
Scrolling is an initial (albeit weak) signal of interest
Reaching 1/3, 2/3 and 3/3 are other signals of interest.
Reaching the end of the article (not the end of page), and considering a reading speed of 150 to 250 words per minute, we can asses how long it would typically take for someone to read a specific article.
If we consider an article is a product, it opens a whole world of possibilities!
Conversely, those signals can be tracked using GA enhanced ecomerce as follow:
Product detail view
Interest is akin to Add to Cart
1/3, 2/3 and 3/3 are really like Checkout Steps
And finally, our approach of scroll to end of article & time on page given length of article is our Purchase
Considering an article as a product is a powerful way to convey the value of the website.
We now have access to ecommerce reports that clearly demonstrates how visitors navigate through their “consideration” (whether an article is interesting or not) and true readership (purchase).
These ecommerce reports also enable a whole new type of analysis: which articles are most considered vs. those most read.
Do long articles have lower readership level?
Notice the value of the article/product is determined by the article length (/100)
We can also leverage enhanced ecommerce product lists to measure how relevant articles are impacting total reading levels.
We have impressions and clicks, and from there, we can asses if people glimpse or fully read those articles.
Of course, internal promotions – another feature of enhanced ecommerce – are also leveraged to measure monthly contests and other relevant promotions found on the site home page.
Of course, internal promotions – another feature of enhanced ecommerce – are also leveraged to measure monthly contests and other relevant promotions found on the site home page.
Akin to an ecommerce website, our products/articles have meta-data such as category, sub-category, topic, and of course, each article needs to have a product id.
Although there is no login on the website, newsletter subscribers are assigned a specific id and receive a weekly newsletter corresponding to their pregnancy week or the age of their children.
The user id coverage report gives us another segmentation opportunity for subscribers vs non-subscribers recency, frequency and overall readership levels.
Of course, we also have device overlap – in the current case, we can clearly see how mobile and tablets are the primary devices used by their subscribers, and how there is relatively few overlap between devices. This could serve as additional guidelines for future newsletter and site design improvements.
In the end, this advanced implementation allows Naître et Grandir to better understand their audiences and learn more about their subscribers.
The can better understand their interests and learn how to better serve their audiences.
…and ultimately demonstrate the value they bring to their primary audience: pregnant mothers and mothers of young kids.
Thanks goes to the Naître et Grandir team for their willingness to be bold and implement more advanced audience tracking.
Naître et Grandir also allows the students enrolled in my graduate-level class to access their data so they can have a real-life, reach and interesting environment to learn about the concepts of digital analytics and online marketing.