The Tracking Concept – How to Plan Your Web Analysis

After covering important tools for web analytics and a clean basic configuration of Google Analytics in the last two articles The best tools for a successful introduction to web analytics and Google Analytics Basic Configuration – what you should pay attention to, we now need to plan the further tracking implementation.

There are often various reasons to extend Google Analytics' standard tracking. As an agency, we are frequently asked whether it is possible to analyze specific website elements such as buttons, sliders, videos, or similar using Google Analytics. Tracking external campaigns or newsletters is also part of it, as is setting up goals in Google Analytics.

This is exactly where the tracking concept comes in. It ensures that everything necessary is examined and evaluated. It also ensures that users don't get lost in too many metrics and thus overlook important evaluations. This guarantees that every employee receives precisely the data they need and that tracking is constantly monitored. Google itself describes the Measurement Plan as follows:

1. Document your business objectives.

2. Identify the strategies and tactics to support the objectives.

3. Choose the metrics that will be the key performance indicators.

4. Decide how you’ll need to segment your data.

5. Choose what your targets will be for your key performance indicators.

However, it is important to note that creating a Measurement Plan is only part of implementing clean tracking.

The Measurement Plan from Google (As of: 11.12.2015)

Before we talk about the individual points of the tracking concept, it must be emphasized again how important it is to ensure that all data is collected correctly. If necessary, collect fewer metrics and ensure that the collected metrics are correct and error-free. Furthermore, it is crucial to gather data consistently. This means ensuring, for example, that every Facebook post or every link in every newsletter is consistently marked if you are tracking Facebook posts or newsletters. No gaps should arise here.

But what does the tracking concept look like?

Step 1: Document your business objectives

The beginning of the tracking concept is always understanding the workflows and goals of the company. Questions that can be asked here include:

• What is the company's goal? What does it really want to achieve?

• Are there different departments within the company? If so, what do they contribute, and how is this contribution classified concerning the company's objectives?

• Which management levels exist in the company?

• What is the motivation for web analytics?

• etc.

Especially for us as an agency, this information is extremely important as it enables us to develop an understanding of the processes and their relevance. But these questions are also relevant for online marketing employees within companies, as very few employees deal with this matter. Only when a complete understanding of the subject is established can we move on to the next step. We work very closely with our clients at this stage to ensure that no aspect is forgotten.

Step 2: Identify the strategies and tactics to support the objectives

This step is about identifying methods and tools that support achieving the company's goals. It is important to consider this very broadly so that all instruments are taken into account. As an example, the results of this step may include the following topics:

• There is a website

• AdWords is used

• Search engine optimization is continuously implemented by a five-member SEO team

• There are regularly changing discount promotions in shops

• Customers can now pay with smartphones in shops

• Using beacon technology, users receive marketing information at specific locations within the store directly on their smartphones

• Flyers with QR codes are printed for individual campaigns and distributed on the shopping street

• Quarterly conference calls between the executives and department heads are conducted

• A web analytics tool is already in use but only utilized by one online marketing manager

• There are collaborations with external companies

• etc.

This stage requires discussing all the company's measures. Once these are known, discussions can follow about which measures and tools make sense to track in the future. At this point, it's especially important to use informed judgment. Many users say that all metrics need to be collected. As an agency, we often intervene and argue that this only results in users becoming overwhelmed by the masses of metrics, getting frustrated, and subsequently not using web analytics at all anymore. This condition can even financially impact the company if, for example, it’s not checked in a third tool like Google Analytics whether AdWords traffic still performs as well as AdWords indicates. Potential problems may not be identified because web analytics is left out.

Step 3: Choose the metrics that will be the key performance indicators

If the goal of using the web analytics software is as a pure reporting tool, simple KPIs can be defined here. Classic examples include:

• Number of sessions

• Pages/session

• Bounce rate

• etc.

If event tracking is utilized, metrics from these can be used as KPIs as well.

If comprehensive web analysis is planned using Google Analytics, determining KPIs for regular performance checks is still worthwhile. KPIs are particularly useful for higher management levels like executives or directors. This is especially true if they can easily be presented in dashboards or automated reports. Online marketing managers can then spend more time on the actual web analysis, following up only with the reporting of metrics.

Step 4: Decide how you’ll need to segment your data

This is where it gets serious! If, for example, it was decided in one of the upper steps that scroll depth should be measured and used as a KPI, it makes sense to define it additionally as a segment. Data could also be segmented by region or gender. Another example comes from Enhanced E-Commerce and might state that only users who drop out in the third step of the checkout process should be considered.

In general, it is true that those who want to work precisely and securely must segment, segment, segment!

And this must be depicted here. How should the data be divided so it provides end-users the information and insights necessary for their work? Considerations here must again include who works with the data, where the respective person is positioned within the company, and how the general workflow for the employees should be structured. Which segments should be created and used company-wide, and which are relevant only for individual employees?

Step 5: Choose what your targets will be for your key performance indicators

Now that we know what the KPIs will be and how the data should be segmented, it's time to define what goals the individual KPIs should achieve. This can be anything but must be very precisely specified. Examples are:

• A specific URL was accessed

• Users were on the website for a certain period

• A specific document was downloaded

• A certain scroll depth was reached

• A video was watched for at least 2 minutes

• A form was filled out

• etc.

When these specifications are set as goals in Google Analytics, they can be much more easily checked and correlated with other data. Additionally, individual goals can be assigned a monetary value, allowing even better measurement of the website's financial success using an event value.

Please keep the following in mind

The procedure explained here must be strictly adhered to when defining clean tracking that goes beyond standard reporting. However, some points of this concept also cover aspects of standard reporting. For instance, even with standard reporting, it must be determined which metrics are used as KPIs or which employees receive which reports, etc. Moreover, we have omitted some topics in this brief explanation to avoid overwhelming you, the reader, with too much information. For example, discussions are needed on questions like:

• Should there be custom channel allocations

• How reports are delivered

• Whether custom dimensions are needed

• etc.

Therefore, much remains to be done before tracking is fully and correctly implemented.

What we can do for you

Would you like to have your tracking reviewed, or are you unsure whether you are utilizing the full potential of Google Analytics? Have you identified opportunities to enhance your tracking to increase leads? Do you want to use web analytics to optimize future online marketing measures more effectively? Then please contact us and we will discuss together how collaboration might look to effectively extend your tracking.