Google Analytics Update

Google Analytics Update

The newest Google Analytics update almost completely demystifies social media marketing ROI.  Where once before companies large and small had to blindly hope that the goals behind their social media marketing campaigns were being accomplished now with this Google Analytics update these goals can be clearly tracked through extensive (yet easy to read) graphs and reports.  Although social media marketing analytics tools have been present for quite sometime, the new Google Analytics update fills in essential missing elements according to Techcrunch:

Group Product Manger Phil Mui says the new reports take a different approach than most social analytics products, which are more focused on “listening” — counting mentions, retweets, analyzing sentiment, and so on.

“Those are important metrics for sure,” Mui says. “But how do these metrics tie to the bottom line of a business? That’s what the CEOs most of the Fortune 500 folks that we talk with want to know.”

So companies using the new social reports can tell Google the goal that they’re interested in, whether it’s making a purchase, registering a user, or just having someone click on their about page. Then Google will show you not just how many visits are coming in from social networks (and which social networks in particular), but also how many of those social visits are “converting” to that goal. Mui says the reports also examine the impact that social networks have on a company’s “upper funnel” — in other words, the harder-to-measure cases where they don’t lead directly to a conversion, but may contribute indirectly. So if someone visits your website by following a link from Twitter, then returns in a week to buy something, Google will track that too.

Lets take a look at these new functionalities individually so that all of us will be ready to use the new Google Analytics update when it rolls out in the next few weeks.

Google Analytics Update on Social Media Marketing | Overview Report

Of course the software wouldn’t be so easy to navigate and make sense of without including a mini-dashboard overviewing all of the reports to be found within the social media section of Google Analytics.  So we’d recommend using this to display overall results to clients before going into more detail.

However we’re most excited about the Social Value visualizations that show website conversions that come from social media sites.  Check out this graphic courtesy of MarketingLand in their recent report on the Google Analytics update:

Google Analytics Update Social Value

Google Analytics Update Social Value

 

Google Analytics Update On Social Media Marketing | Sources Report

Simply knowing how much traffic your site is receiving from social media pages really isn’t enough information to influence your social media marketing campaigns, right?  What you really need to know is where your company needs to focus most of their social media efforts.  Hence another one of our favorite parts of the Google Analytics update, the Sources Report.

You see the sources report compares website traffic from social referrals and normal traffic.  However social sites belonging to the “Social Data Hub” provide more information and sorry guys, this doesn’t include Facebook or Twitter, unfortunately.  Check out the graphic from MarketingLand, and notice the black three-prong symbol next to the names of certain social sites.  These are the sites in the Google Analytics update that include more information.  Surprise, surprise, Google+ is definitely on the list.

Google Analytics Update Social Sources

Google Analytics Update Social Sources

Google Analytics Update Social Sources Drill Down

Google Analytics Update Social Sources Drill Down

Google Analytics Update on Social Media Marketing | Other Updates

While we only delved into a few features of the Google Analytics update, there are a few other features worth checking out that will actually show what social sites drove conversions to your website depending on the goals for your social media marketing campaigns.  So do you think that this Google Analytics update will change the game for social media marketing?