Data-Driven Marketing #semrushchat

Hello SEMrush Blog readers! Hope you had a nice and inspiring weekend and that you're full of energy for applying new techniquess that we are ready to share. Open your Google Analytics and dive into recap of Data-Driven Marketing SEMrush Chat with amazing Annie Cushing, VP of Marketing for YourTango.

Different websites have been created for different purposes. Depending on what goals you’re trying to achieve – to drive more visitors for your blog, to provide potential customers with information, to sell your product - you may find these or that metrics more relevant.

A1 cont. I think this depends on the goals of the site. Before tracking KPIs, gotta know the goals #semrushchat

— Matthew Young (@MatthewAYoung) March 25, 2015

The most useful metrics will give answers to your vital questions.

@semrush #semrushchat A1) Three metrics: 1) goal completions (why the site exists), 2) landing pages (content being found) & 3) exits (why?)— Tony Dimmock (@Tony_DWM) March 25, 2015

Regardless of your ultimate goals, you will definitely want to know how much traffic you receive. This provides you with insight into the success of your strategy.

A1: But my faves are 1) sessions (because the idea of a unique visitor is a carryover from the 90s). http://t.co/UFYNMF9RMk #semrushchat

— Annie Cushing (@AnnieCushing) March 25, 2015

@semrush A1. Traffic (because you want a general idea of how you’re doing), referral and conversion rate. #semrushchat

— DOZ (@DOZCOM) March 25, 2015

Knowing your traffic volume is important, but it is even more important to know how many users leave your website immediately and why they do so. Bounce rate is a metric that actually tells how appropriate, helpful or entertaining your website is for your visitors.

A1: Bounce rate gives us data on whether the content does the job and aligns with the user's intent #semrushchat— Vertical Leap (@VerticalLeap) March 25, 2015

A1: Bounce Rate, Page views & Goal completions! #SEMrushchat— Martin Kelly (@MartinKSEO) March 25, 2015

Every metric - traffic volume, time on page, user demographics - adds another piece to the holistic picture of your strategy or effectiveness. But the key measure of your success is whether or not you achieve your goals and increase your actual profits.

A1: 3) some kind of conversion metric. Revenue and/or goal completions. My fave is $$$. #semrushchat— Annie Cushing (@AnnieCushing) March 25, 2015

A1: Revenue. Revenue. Revenue. #semrushchat— Ian Lurie (@portentint) March 25, 2015

Everyone's favorite equals the most useful. Let’s take a look on the list of popular Google Analytics reports.

Our special thanks to following participants for their answers used for this checklist:

Annie Cushing ‏@AnnieCushing

Automatic Backlinks ‏@AutoBacklinks

Broke Bloke ‏@brokeblokeblogs

Emary ‏@MReeVasquez

Kirill Ougarov ‏@kougarov

Matthew Young ‏@MatthewAYoung

Nitin soni ‏@ntsoni_group

Umar Khan ‏@MUmar_Khan

A3 - Not setting up goals. The amount that you can track is remarkable. But you learn nothing without setting goals #semrushchat

— Kyle ferretti (@Ktferretti) March 25, 2015

If you are going to do something, you’d better do it right. The most common mistake marketers make when performing analysis –forgetting that numbers themselves are just numbers. They only make sense when they are properly mixed up (or divided) and compared.

A3: Not segmenting your data. Data in aggregate is not very actionable. #semrushchat— Mike Goracke (@mrgoracke) March 25, 2015

Let’s take look at other typical (and atypical) mistakes that devalue data.

A3: The biggest mistake I see with just about every account is rogue campaign tagging. #semrushchat

— Annie Cushing (@AnnieCushing) March 25, 2015

A3: If you get medium wrong especially, you can destroy your Channels report (my fave, remember?). #semrushchat

— Annie Cushing (@AnnieCushing) March 25, 2015

For proper analysis, you need clean, correct data. UTM parameters on marketed URLs can help you collect a treasure trove of data. Although, if you are careless and inconsistent, your data will be inaccurate. For more information about setting campaign tagging, read this guide by Annie Cushing: “The Definitive Guide to Campaign Tagging in Google Analytics”.

A3: Incorrect use of filters! Don't trap yourself away from data that can propel rankings and conversions #semrushchat— Martin Kelly (@MartinKSEO) March 25, 2015

Talk about clean data! There is always a way to mess things up. One of them – not filtering. Why should you rely on approximate data, when you can have a real one?

“Not filtering for bot traffic AND self-traffic. Your analytics will be seriously skewed if you count your own visits to your site” - Medium Blue ‏@MediumBlueSEM.

A3: Another biggie: not capturing user ID for visitors who log in. This data is PURE GOLD. #semrushchat

— Annie Cushing (@AnnieCushing) March 25, 2015

And here is an explanation why - “Your user/customer ID data from GA should be married to your CRM data to find out your site's VIPs. See what pages they visit. Segment your email lists. Give top customers special deals. Get jiggy with that data” Annie Cushing ‏@AnnieCushing.

Most common answer that we received to this question – create annotations!

A4: It's essential that you keep track of all changes to your site with annotations. I push these HARD. #semrushchat— Annie Cushing (@AnnieCushing) March 25, 2015

Every single change that you make can influence your results - where there’s a cause, there’s an effect. In a year, you'll totally forget about things that seemed to be important back then; so, without annotations, you can become quite confused, and even lost, in your data.

You'll find more information in this article by Annie Cushing - How and Why to Use Annotations in GA.

Also, annotate more than the changes that occurred without your participation.

A4: I also use them to document anything that might have caused a huge spike or dip in traffic. #semrushchat

— Annie Cushing (@AnnieCushing) March 25, 2015

Well, everything that is related to changes is a high priority. Google Analytics has a fantastic feature – Google Intelligence Alerts, which will warn you about certain changes, so you’ll know right away.

“Analytics monitors your website's traffic and detects significant statistical variations, and then automatically generates alerts, or Intelligence Events, when those variations occur.” - Google Analytics Help Guides

You want to know more? Check out this article - Become Intelligent: Use Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts to your Advantage. 

Every change has to be documented – we’ve learned this already, but remember that they also have to be shared.

A4) beyond annotations having a project plan is very important. SEO doesn't live in a vacuum. Teams need to be able to view too #semrushchat— Altos (@altos) March 25, 2015

Another key to proper tracking is regularity.“Check Google Analytics daily. Monitor users trends, demographics and behavior” - Ayesha Ambreen ‏@AyeshaAmbreen.

A4. Regular crawls and analyzing the changes over time for the most important structural and onpage factors. #semrushchat

— Himanshu Suri (@DM_Suri) March 25, 2015

A4: I also use these daily tracking sheets, combining GA, GWT, AHREFs & other data (example attached) #semrushchat pic.twitter.com/nblQbeZIaM

— Eric Lander (@EricLanderSEO) March 25, 2015

Influence of social media can’t be underestimated; it’s a big topic and we already discussed it during one of our Twitter Chats - Social Media Impact on SEO. Let’s take a look on different reports which can help us to measure this impact.

A5: I prefer going to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels and then drill down on Social. http://t.co/dpl5rYsCrx #semrushchat

— Annie Cushing (@AnnieCushing) March 25, 2015

Main principle of social media impact measuring is the same as for any other data measuring - keep data clean and filtered. If you using Google Analytics, “DON'T get social data from your Referrals report. Social data often comes from multiple sources” Annie Cushing ‏@AnnieCushing.

Here is the illustration in difference between two reports.

You canget even more explicit data if you apply deeper segmentation. 

A5: I like Acquisition report again, because you can divide social traffic into platforms, and then (1/2) #semrushchat— Sergio Redondo (@sergio_redondo) March 25, 2015

Another important aspect - attribution. General flow is important, but closer look to conversion path will provide you with highly important information which can influence your strategy in the future.

A5: I like to look at attribution reports to see if people interacted on social before converting #semrushchat

— Chelsea Hunersen (@ChelseaLikeNY) March 25, 2015

Google Analytics is not the only helper you have - there are plenty of other tools which can give you deeper understanding of engagement and point out main influencers, which drives up your content sharing, etc.

A5: Besides of course Google Analytics I also like Twitter insights, @Buffer's analytics and our stats :) #semrushchat— Mention (@Mention) March 25, 2015

A5. We are using Track Maven to track engagement and other social metrics. Referral traffic is also key #semrushchat— Matthew Young (@MatthewAYoung) March 25, 2015

A5: Betedubs, huge shoutout to @portentint for helping us move all of our event tracking to Google Tag Manager. #semrushchat— Annie Cushing (@AnnieCushing) March 25, 2015

Ok, now we are coming closer to the the most difficult topic - how to measure word-of-mouth marketing. It’s vague and uncertain, but really important channel for any business.

You can start with the easy and general metrics.

A6. Impressions, clicks for branded queries, direct traffic is a good indicator as well, referral traffic #semrushchat— Matthew Young (@MatthewAYoung) March 25, 2015

For brand mention tracking you can use Google Alerts, Moz Fresh Web Explorer or Mention.

If people are talking about your brand, they're also searching for it in on the Web - reading reviews, visiting related websites and your website, of course. If you want to narrow down your metrics, you can measure impact of more specific queries. If you started a new campaign or just launched a new product, this approach can be useful.

“If you're measuring response on a very specific campaign, specific queries/urls might work”- Ian Lurie ‏@portentint.

@semrush #semrushchat A6: (linked to offline promo) Custom URL ref tracking, "New Visitors" correlation to offline efforts, "Event" tracking— Tony Dimmock (@Tony_DWM) March 25, 2015

You can also ask users how they found your company.

Q6: on the conversion end, a "how'd you hear about us" field although the UX experts could chime in on forms #semrushchat

— Emary (@MReeVasquez) March 25, 2015

Social media - is another communication channel you can use for word-of-mouth impact.

A6: Listening to your social channels for brand mentions is a great way to gain insight into WOM #semrushchat— Vertical Leap (@VerticalLeap) March 25, 2015

Although be aware, that all this methods make sense just when you work with a small amount of data.

A6: You may have more success measuring word of mouth with smaller sites. The bigger the site, the more you have going on. #semrushchat— Annie Cushing (@AnnieCushing) March 25, 2015

That's it for today! We hope to see you this Wednesday at the same time - 4 pm UK/ 11 am ET/ 8 am PT. Check your local time with World Time Buddy if you are not sure. This Wednesday we are going to have an April Fool's special - don't miss it!