Google Analytics Premium Best Tool to Roadmap Product Funnel
May 07, 2014

Google Analytics Premium Best Tool to Roadmap Product Funnel

Ty Swartz, CPP, USN Ret. | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Google Analytics Premium

The city of Virginia Beach is a local municipal and does not sell products but we provide information to residents and visitors. The main website that we use Google Analytics Premium, VBgov.com, on average receives 5 million visitors per year with over 20 million page views. Over the years the website has grown into a massive site with nearly 3,500 pages linking information to 27 departments and events. Even with a great team managing just the website is time consuming and labor intensive. We needed to find a product that allowed us to better identify what our customers was looking for and how can we help with that discovery process. Using Google Analytics Premium allows us to take the data generated from each visit and analyze how we can better serve visitors.

Prior to developing a measurement and reporting standard we knew people were using smartphones and tablets to visit the site but didn't really know where they were coming from, how long they stayed or if they were able to find the information they needed. Through the variety of tools offered by Google Analyics Premium we are now able to identify that 36.4% of our monthly visitors arrive using a smartphone or tablet, what OS, browsers, and where they exit. This is critical because we now know that our site wasn't smartphone or tablet friendly and are working to create a solution. Since we started tracking data and have this information we also know that 25% of our normal desktop traffic has shifted to using mobile devices. If we want to best serve our customer we must transition with them by recognizing a new trend and getting ahead of suggested changes. Our customers deserve to have the best experience we are able to provide.

Pros

  • Improved data collection that is easily translated and available to the entire team. The openness allows for better brainstorming sessions for improvements or teamwork to solve a trending issue that normal channels wouldn't detect.
  • Many marketers talk about funneling but few are able to quickly identify what is happening within a website that forces customers to get frustrated and stop searching or take the requested call-to-action desired. The tools that Google Analytics Premium provides is perfect even for the novice user and actionable on a variety of levels within the team.
  • Because we have so many content creators we have to review how the information is shared and where we are going to develop the call-to-action. Google Analytics Premium allows up-to-date data that is easy to decipher making date checkpoints possible and greatly improving our site but reducing 404 errors or alerts to help identify other identified problem areas important to our visitors.

Cons

  • One of the ways that I would like to see Google Analytics Premium improved is a way for us to capture ROI for government use. This has always been a challenge for organizations that don't really sell a product but still have a reason to have websites and social media content. It's easy to say that we did this much work and provide these services at $$$ cost to the company and this amount $$$ is the direct result of the efforts. It would be nice to identify what product is of great value and worth the time and effort invested or if we are wasting time providing information that no one read. And, yes we do have a few pages that has had zero visitors. When we start looking at redesign in a couple of years it would be great to have that type of information available. Having tools like this would greatly improve non-profit organizations' ability to track data as an ROI data point.
  • By far our customer service has improved. We are now looking at what is important to our customers, taking that information, and improving the content and how we communicate. Since using this product, we are able to leverage more data points and test ideas in a sandbox to see how our targeting will work, look and achieve our goals. Before we started using, we guessed at what and how we should create content. By tracking how we create and present, we are better able to identify what people are looking for and how they are looking, along with the amount of time they are willing to invest searching for information.
  • Because we have identified the importance of content and how it is created, we are now speeding up how our employees are using this information to generate stronger and more actionable content. This is important because they are now faster and have created standards that are easily tractable.
  • When you are pressed for time, having the dashboard is very important because you are able to set up event tracking that is important to you and helps with report generation. I used to spend hours writing reports that sometimes people had trouble understanding because they were not trained to look at why an event was important. Having a quick easy to use dashboard allows me to visually and statistically create reports in minutes and ad hoc on-the-fly demonstrations that really inform decision makers.
Companies have to have a purpose for a website but not all companies know what that purpose is and sometimes will create a site because that is what everyone else is doing. The best use of Google Analytics Premium is the identification of specific product lines and how those are positioned for sale in an online environment. When companies have that purpose in mind they will create a website that has purpose and then develop their use of Google Analytics Premium to not only identify their audience but leverage that information to make a better user experience. Part of team building is developing a useful website that is balanced between user friendly and calls-to-action. Personally I want to know if people are leaving before they purchase or at time to click the purchase button. What can we do better or get them to take that final leap. Google Analytics Premium is a perfect tool when used appropriately and with purpose.

Companies who use Google Analytics Premium to capture data points and not take action on the information as soon as possible are not using this tool to it's full potential. Using this product requires commitment and dedication to the whole process and willingness on managements part to believe the data and empower teams to make changes as needed to improve results. Sometimes additional people outside of the team are hindrances to the process decreasing efficiency.

Using Google Analytics Premium

I was informed that we are going to use as part of improving the search engine capabilities and continue to improve how we monitor the use of the website. It is also important that part of our marketing and communications strategy to maintain knowledge of how user are using the site and what we can do to continuously improve customer service. I wouldn't recommend to non-tech companies because the learning curve is hefty but the returns are great. The other consideration is the price. I like the fact that it's one price for all the tools and you are not put on a scaled version based on what you are able to pay.

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