The Wonderland of #Google Tag Manager
You may have come across Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager during your foray into the world of Conversion Tracking. If that’s the case, then this blog will probably have you salivating in anticipation for this instalment by the Bearded Dragon (TM), me.
If you’ve already put the Conversion Tracking code on your “thank you” page, excellent, I have taught you well, young Padawan, you will go far. If you haven’t, I’m not mad, just disappointed. There is hope to redeem yourself, though.
Go to www.google.com/tagmanager while using your Google Account and create an account (yes, at present there is a lot of account creation; an issue I’m sure Google is working on). It’s relatively simple, once you’ve created the Tag Manager account, it provides a piece of code that goes on every page of your website, just after the opening <body> tags.
If you have difficulty, you probably should have your web developer put it on. Don’t feel bad, there are so many different types of websites out there that the simple instructions above can’t service them all.
Google Tag Manager houses other pieces of Google code, allowing you to add Analytics, Remarketing and our old friend, Conversion Tracking, without having the code of your website looking like an extended version of War and Peace written in Wingdings.
So now we have Google Tag Manager installed, I’m going to bypass the fiddly details of installing Analytics, Remarketing, and Conversion Tracking into the Tag Manager, despite it being one of the most exciting things I do. There’s information out there, but I want to talk about something more important to a business owner; the analysis. Let’s say that your Online Marketing Magician waves his wand in a SFW manner and suddenly your GTM is loaded with all the pieces of code, including Analytics. You can see real time tracking of people viewing your site, but you notice that while there are many people visiting, none are contacting you. It puzzles you, but you understand that the internet is subject to trends and one day is not able to represent any meaningful data.
You return in a week, because you’ve read somewhere, like here, right now, that allowing data to accumulate over a decent period of time gives a better understanding of what is happening in the website. Here are a few simple tips for initially reviewing data in Google Analytics:
- Bounce Rate.
If the bounce rate is above 60%, something is awry on the site. I like to see a 40% or lower Bounce Rate. Maybe your clients are being greeted with a wall of text; maybe they aren’t being greeted with enough information. This is one of my first indicators of whether a website is ‘working’ and is relevant to the interests of the person who has found your page.
- Time Spent on Site + Pages Visited.
If people are visiting many pages and spending many minutes on a page, your website MUST be working, right? Not necessarily, especially if they jump off your site after doing their research without leaving their contact details. It is possible to gain these clients back using a Remarketing strategy, however, I would first look into why they are spending so much time and not contacting you. Maybe your website is a ‘brochure site’, giving people all the information they need to make a decision. If you want people to get in touch with you, you may need to revamp your website to be a ‘sales page’, in that it provides just enough interest to whet the appetite and leave them begging for more, where the only way to find out more is to contact you.
3. Channels
This is where your traffic is coming from and can indicate what advertising strategy is working best for you.
- Goals!
Like Conversion Tracking, only more in depth and across all of your channels. You can set up Goals and Goal Funnels, giving an insight into the behaviour of people on the site when it comes to getting in touch with you. If you are an e-commerce site, Goal Funnels may display to you the choke point in your sales process. Some of my clients have complained that they were getting many abandoned shopping carts, but after taking a look in Analytics we have found the drop off point and determined there was a glitch, a bug or even something as simple as requiring too much information of the potential client.
There are so many factors that influence the behaviour of people on the internet. Analysing data over weeks, months, and years will assist in figuring out the right strategy to catch new clients. Install Tag Manager, as I’ve recommended, as the possibilities for Tracking are growing within it. An as always, if you’re keen to get started sooner rather than later, then get in touch with the team here at Get More Traffic on 1300 332 256 today.