Web analytics and goal conversions can be used to measure the contribution of communications to an organization's bottom line by showing metrics like traffic, leads, and sales generated from PR campaigns. Google Analytics provides many default metrics and the ability to track custom goals. Goals should have a monetary value assigned. Case studies show how PR optimized for SEO generated traffic and leads for a university's new online master's program, helping to boost enrollment by $1.4 million.

1. Using web analytics and
goal conversions to
show your contribution
to the bottom line
Greg Jarboe
President and co-founder of SEO-PR
Measurement Base Camp 2021
February 2, 2021
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2. Both Katie and I worked for a CEO who thought
Advertising Value Equivalency was a bogus metric
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• 35 years ago, the CEO of Lotus
Development Corporation looked at
my AVE calculations for 700 magazine
and newspaper clippings and said,
“Jarboe, if I could deposit these little
pieces of paper in a bank, then I’d
know what they were worth. But,
until you can measure the impact of
PR in cold, hard cash, don’t waste my
time with these so-called reports.”
• Today, I often use web analytics and
goal conversions to measure SEO-PR’s
contribution to the bottom line.
Source: Greg Jarboe, The Measurement Advisor, “Measuring the Effectiveness of News Releases – a Case Study,” Feb. 17, 2016

3. Just as history is written by the victors, the history
of web analytics was authored by Google Analytics
• After acquiring Urchin, Google
launched Google Analytics at Pubcon
Las Vegas on Nov. 14, 2005.
• I was there with a client, John Marshall,
the CEO of ClickTracks Analytics, which
cost $495, $1,195, or $3,495.
• We learned Google Analytics was “free.”
• Back then, the market for web
analytics was very fragmented.
• Today, Google Analytics is used by 84.1%
of all websites for which the traffic
analysis tool is known, according to
W3Techs’ market share report.
Source: PRWeb, “ClickTracks Ships Version 6 of Its Web Analytics Software,” Oct. 13, 2005 3

4. Google Analytics provides many metrics right out of
the box that communications professionals can use
ACQUISITION
• Users: The number of unique visitors
to your website.
• New users: The number of first-time
users to your website, according to
Google’s tracking snippet.
• Sessions: The number of individual
visits initiated by all the users of your
website.
BEHAVIOR
• Bounce rate: The number of single-
page sessions divided by all sessions,
or the percentage of all sessions on
your site in which users viewed only a
single page.
• Pages/session: The average number
of pages viewed per session.
• Avg. session duration: The total
duration of all sessions (in seconds) /
number of sessions.
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Source: Google Analytics Help, Glossary

5. Go to Acquisition, Channels, Referrals and you can
find out how many users a story drove to your site
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Source: Google Analytics, Acquisition Report, Channels, Fast Company, January 1 through July 31, 2019

6. But, you must define your goals and estimate their
goal value before Google Analytics can report them
• Goal conversion rate: The number of
goal conversions divided by the
number of sessions, times 100.
• Goal completions: The number of
completed activities that contribute to
the success of your business.
• Goal $ value: When you set up a goal,
you have the option of assigning a
monetary amount to the conversion.
• Each time a goal is completed by a user,
this amount is recorded and then added
together in your reports as Goal Value.
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Sources: Google Analytics channel, “How to set up Goals in Analytics (7:32),” June 9, 2017

7. A micro conversion, like signing-up for your email
newsletter, can be translated into a dollar amount
• One way to help determine what a
goal value should be is to evaluate
how often the users who complete
the goal become customers.
• For example, if your sales team can close
10% of the people who sign up for a
newsletter, and your average transaction
is $500, then you might assign $50 (i.e.
10% of $500) as your newsletter sign-up
Goal Value when users complete the final
newsletter sign-up page.
• In contrast, if only 1% of signups result in
a sale, then you might only assign $5 to
your newsletter sign-up Goal Value.
Sources: Google Analytics channel, “Goals,” April 11, 2013 7

8. Google Analytics has a template for standard goals:
Revenue, Acquisition, Inquiry, and Engagement
• Google Analytics has Goal templates
to help you set actionable goals for
standard organizational objectives.
• You can edit any template field.
• The 4 goal categories are: Revenue,
Acquisition, Inquiry and Engagement.
• Use them as an organization tool to think
about the purpose of your goals.
• Create at least one goal for each
category to understand of how users
interact with your content.
• These categories don’t affect any data.
Source: Google Analytics Help, Create, edit, and share goals 8

9. If you get Edit permission in Google Analytics,
let me show you how easy it is to create Goals
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10. You can also track and measure ‘events’ like form
submissions, downloads, link clicks, and video plays
• Events are user interactions with
content that can be measured
independently from a web-page or
screen load.
• Form submissions, downloads, link
clicks, and video plays are all examples
of actions you might want to analyze
as Events.
• You need to add code to your site or
app in order to see data in your Events
reports.
• Setup tags with Google Tag Manager.
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Source: Google Analytics Help, About Events

11. Google Analytics can show you what visitors
do on your website, but it can’t tell you why
• Google Surveys offers a free website
satisfaction survey that asks visitors:
• What is the purpose of your visit to our
website today?
• Were you able to complete your task
today?
• If you were not able to complete your
task today, why not?
• How satisfied are you with the overall
quality of this website?
• You can create additional surveys with
customized questions for $0.01 per
response, or $5.00 for 500 responses.
Source: Google Surveys Help, Website Satisfaction

12. Many organizations are focused on driving traffic to
their website, generating leads, or increasing sales
• This includes:
• Media companies.
• Colleges and universities.
• Ecommerce companies.
• But, other organizations are focused
on increasing brand awareness,
generating social media engagement,
or driving foot traffic to stores.
• So, you can use web analytics and goal
conversion to show your contribution
to the bottom line for many, but not
all, organizations.
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Source: Katie Delahaye Paine, Measure What Matters, February 2011

13. Communications professionals with limited budgets
can also measure the brand lift of their campaigns
• Ask your target audience up to 10
questions before your PR campaign.
• Unaided brand awareness: “When it
comes to <category>, what brands come
to mind?”
• Consideration: “How likely are you to
consider [brand] when making your next
<category> purchase?
• Purchase intent: “How likely are you to
purchase [brand]?”
• Favorability: How likely is it that you
would recommend <brand> to a friend or
colleague?
• Ask your target audience the same
questions after your PR campaign.
• We did this in 2019 for Rutgers University
and pre- and post-surveys cost <$2,000.
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Source: Greg Jarboe, Search Engine Journal, “No-Click Searches Require a New Way to Measure SEO Results,” Jan. 14, 2021

14. You can compare the engagement rates and
economic value of all your social media accounts
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Source: True Social Metrics

15. You can use unique products or coupons to track
offline conversions like store visits or phone calls
• A video news release for Jazzy Nola
featured their Roger Goodell voodoo
dolls and unique wine tumblers made
in a distinctly New Orleans style.
• The voodoo dolls sold out in a matter of
days and the media asked Goodell about
them at the press conference before
“The Big Game.”
• He joked that he’d read about them, but
there were no stories; just the release.
• The wine tumblers, which were great for
tourists and visitors wandering the
French Quarter during “The Big Game”
also sold out.
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Source: Jamie O’Donnell, Business Wire, “Get City Dealz, SEO-PR, and Business Wire Win SNCR Award,” Nov. 11, 2013

16. I helped to launch the Rutgers Online Professional
Master’s in Human Resource Management in 2019
• In 2019, SEO-PR helped Rutgers
University launch an Online
Professional Master’s in Human
Resource Management program.
• Our objective was to generate 30
applications by August 1, 2019.
• Students can complete the 12-course
Master’s program in as few as 18 months
and as long as 5 years.
• Tuition is $3,174 per 3-credit course, or
$38,016 for 12 courses.
• So, 30 applications represented up to
$1,140,480 in tuition for Rutgers.
Source: Greg Jarboe, The Measurement Advisor, “Rutgers Master’s Launch Optimized by SEO-PR Boosts Enrollment by $380K,” Sept. 30, 2019

17. The launch was a team effort, but Debbie Vogel of
Rutgers and I were two-thirds of the small team
• Debbie Vogel, Director of Marketing
and Communications for the Rutgers
School of Management and Labor
Relations, created a landing page for
the new program, created a video for
our news release, and posted a copy
to the news section of the website.
• I conducted market research, created
an optimized news release, managed
SMLR’s ad campaigns on Google and
LinkedIn, as well as analyzed results
from Google Analytics.
Source: Greg Jarboe, The Measurement Advisor, “Rutgers Master’s Launch Optimized by SEO-PR Boosts Enrollment by $380K,” Sept. 30, 2019

18. We used keyword research to learn what people
were searching for, but Google Surveys told us why
• Survey found target audiences
included personnel, staffing &
recruiting, and talent acquisition as
well as human resources.
• Respondents with 4 or more years of
HR experience said the follow factors
were important when selecting a
university:
• “Fully online graduate program.”
• “Flexible schedule/completion time.”
• “No GRE/GMAT required.”
• “Top-ranked university.”
Source: Greg Jarboe, The Measurement Advisor, “Rutgers Master’s Launch Optimized by SEO-PR Boosts Enrollment by $380K,” Sept. 30, 2019

19. We emphasized three of these important factors in
the subhead of our optimized multimedia release
Source: Business Wire, “Rutgers Launches Online Master’s in Human Resource Management Program,” Jan. 17, 2019

20. We used the Google Campaign URL Builder tool to
add campaign parameters to URLs in the release
• We used Google’s free Campaign URL
Builder tool to add campaign
parameters to URLs in the release to
track our Custom Campaign in Google
Analytics.
• This enabled us to track the number
of users, new users, sessions, bounce
rate, pages/session, average session
duration, conversion rate,
conversions, and goal value generated
by our optimized multimedia release
on a daily basis.
Source: https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign-url-builder/
Source: Greg Jarboe, The Measurement Advisor, “Rutgers Master’s Launch Optimized by SEO-PR Boosts Enrollment by $380K,” Sept. 30, 2019

21. The campaign included an optimized landing page
about the new Online Professional MHRM program
Source: Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, Online Professional Master’s in Human Resource Management

22. We shared the optimized release with Emily Bader
of ROI-NJ and David Hutter of NJBIZ under embargo
Source: Greg Jarboe, The Measurement Advisor, “Rutgers Master’s Launch Optimized by SEO-PR Boosts Enrollment by $380K,” Sept. 30, 2019

23. A copy of the optimized release was posted in the
news section of SMLR’s site without multimedia
Source: Rutgers SMLR News, “Rutgers SMLR Launches Online Master’s in Human Resource Management Program”

24. Google chose the Rutgers news version of duplicate
content to show in its search engine results pages
• Doug Lederman, the editor of Inside
Higher Ed, wrote a roundup story on
Feb. 20, 2019, which included a high-
quality, relevant link to the copy of the
release posted in the news section of
the Rutgers site.
• Although the optimized multimedia
release was also distributed to 271
news sites, Google only showed the
one without multimedia on the
Rutgers site in its search engine
results pages, not the “duplicate
content” on the 271 other sites.
Source: Greg Jarboe, The Measurement Advisor, “Rutgers Master’s Launch Optimized by SEO-PR Boosts Enrollment by $380K,” Sept. 30, 2019

25. Our marketing campaign increased ‘familiarity with’
and ‘likelihood to recommend’ Rutgers University
• In late June, we used Google Surveys a
second time to measure the impact of
the integrated marketing campaign.
• The percentage of respondents who said
they were “familiar with” Rutgers
University had increased from 13.8% pre-
launch to 18.5% post-launch.
• The percentage of respondents who said
they were “very likely” to recommend
Rutgers to a friend or colleague had
increased from 16.7% pre-launch to
19.0% post-launch.
• So, you can measure brand lift instead of
using advertising value equivalent (AVE).
Source: Greg Jarboe, The Measurement Advisor, “Rutgers Master’s Launch Optimized by SEO-PR Boosts Enrollment by $380K,” Sept. 30, 2019

26. Our launch campaign generated 8,337 new users,
85 leads, and 38 applications worth $1.4 million
• Our integrated marketing campaign drove 8,337 new users to the Rutgers Online
Professional Master’s in Human Resource Management landing page.
• Our optimized landing page generated 85 leads (clicked on the Apply tab in
navigation).
• We also evaluated the source/medium of the new users and leads in Google
Analytics:
• LinkedIn ads generated 81% of the new users, but 66% of the leads.
• Google Ads generated 11% of the new users, but 8% of the leads.
• Google organic search generated 3% of the new users, but 7% of the leads.
• Optimized multimedia release generated 1% of the new users, but 13% of the leads.
• More importantly, the campaign generated 38 completed applications, worth up
to $1,444,608 in tuition over the next 18 months to 5 years.
Source: Greg Jarboe, The Measurement Advisor, “Rutgers Master’s Launch Optimized by SEO-PR Boosts Enrollment by $380K,” Sept. 30, 2019

27. Optimized multimedia release generated 90 out of
8,332 new users (1%), but 11 out of 85 leads (13%)
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Source: Google Analytics, Acquisition Report, Channels, Business Wire, January 1 through July 31, 2019

28. Inside Higher Ed story generated 17 out of 8,332
new users (0.2%), 0 leads, but an authoritative link
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Source: Google Analytics, Acquisition Report, Channels, Referrals, Inside Higher Ed, January 1 through July 31, 2019

29. In 2019, our Rutgers case study was shortlisted in
two different categories for the US Search Awards
• We were a finalist in the Best
Integrated Campaign category for
demonstrating that PR, SEO, display
advertising, and PPC advertising can
increase brand awareness and
generate leads at the same time.
• And we won in the Best Use of PR in a
Search Campaign category for
demonstrating that an optimized
multimedia release and duplicate
content in the news section of SMLR’s
website generated 4% of the traffic,
but 20% of the leads.
Source: Greg Jarboe, The Measurement Advisor, “Rutgers Master’s Launch Optimized by SEO-PR Boosts Enrollment by $380K,” Sept. 30, 2019

30. Web analytics and goal conversions show your
contribution to the bottom line better than AVE
• Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) is
a bogus communication metric.
• If your organization is focused on
driving traffic to your website,
generating leads, or increasing sales,
then you can use web analytics and
goal conversions to show your
contribution to the bottom line.
• But, you need to use other tools and
techniques to measure brand lift,
social media engagement, or foot
traffic to stores.
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