using metrics to improve website engagement
Post on 11-Jun-2015
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Using metrics to increase
website engagement
Brad Smith
An introduction
Brad Smith - @bradman
– Nearly 7 years at the Red Cross
– Assistant digital media manager
– Search engine optimisation/ pay per click
specialist
– Analytics expert
– Manage our mobile apps
– Bit of a geek
What I’ll cover
– Defining your metrics
– What we measure at the Red Cross
– How we improve conversions
– Top tips to take away
Preamble
Why metrics matter
– You can measure your success
– Tells you what’s working well
– Tells you what’s working badly and if to stop
– Helps you prioritise your workload
– Helps you contribute to the big picture
– Focusses your internal clients on what really
matters
– Helps you win friends and influence people
How we measure
at the British Red
Cross: Google
Analytics
Google Analytics
> Free statistics package
> Tells us what our users are doing on the
website, and where they’ve come from
> Tells you see the popularity of our web pages
> Informs us as to financial data (but not 100
per cent accurate)
> Throws up the odd surprise
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Ideas for use
> Get a yardstick of what users want
> Prioritise work on particular projects – find out
what needs promotion and what doesn’t
> Find out which of your pages are most
popular
> Measure the impact of your work!
Step one:
Define your
metrics
Step two:
Measure them!
Some ideas…
Website visits
Website visits
> Simple, but effective
> You’ll hopefully see an uplift over time
> Don’t forget to measure desktop vs mobile
Bounce rate
Bounce rate
> For any given page, indicates how many
people are bouncing straight off your page
> High number (> site average) could indicate
people less engaged
> Low number (< site average) could indicate
people more engaged
But look at bounce rate in
conjunction with other stats.. > Low bounce rate and high exit rate means
people are leaving your site at this point.
> High bounce rate + clear call to action may
mean the user has found what they’re looking
for.
Some examples…
Page Title Pageviews
Unique
Pagevie
ws
Avg.
Time on
Page Entrance
s Bounce
Rate % Exit
Test your first aid skills | First aid tips from the British Red Cross
#quizResults 1572 1257 82.45 1 100.00% 38.74%
Emotional support for someone who is distressed or upset teacher
briefing 948 885 250.20 840 92.62% 89.03%
Ride London 100 | British Red Cross 506 475 146.19 388 91.75% 79.05%
The social model of disability teacher briefing citizenship 726 646 282.91 612 89.87% 85.40%
As easy as alfa bravo charlie citzenship lesson resource nato phonetic alphabet quick activity 596 538 137.90 438 88.13% 72.32%
Greater Manchester Marathon 2013 | British Red Cross 917 837 148.36 768 87.76% 79.72%
First aid and whisky - British Red Cross blog 707 609 71.84 609 86.70% 86.14%
Road safety activities based on the shared space approach to
Exhibition Road in London 560 521 224.15 504 86.11% 86.79%
Vomiting and diarrhoea | First aid tips from the British Red Cross 561 504 83.08 104 83.65% 28.88%
Sponsored silence | British Red Cross 534 465 91.13 431 82.13% 76.78%
Pupil, Citizen, Life-saver | Support the British Red Cross campaign |
Step 2 1555 1457 134.75 11 81.82% 74.73%
Exit rate
Exit rate
> Tells you the pages where people are leaving
your site most
> …but you need to review it in context.
> Are visitors at a natural exit point?
> If not, tell them what you want them to do!
Exit rate
Emotional support for someone who is distressed or upset teacher
briefing 948 885 250.20 840 92.62% 89.03%
Road safety activities based on the shared space approach to
Exhibition Road in London 560 521 224.15 504 86.11% 86.79%
First aid and whisky - British Red Cross blog 707 609 71.84 609 86.70% 86.14%
The social model of disability teacher briefing citizenship 726 646 282.91 612 89.87% 85.40%
Letters home from a First World War nurse - British Red Cross blog 651 539 270.04 537 79.52% 82.33%
Greater Manchester Marathon 2013 | British Red Cross 917 837 148.36 768 87.76% 79.72%
Ride London 100 | British Red Cross 506 475 146.19 388 91.75% 79.05%
Road safety worksheets | British Red Cross 712 597 854.26 586 25.94% 76.83%
Sponsored silence | British Red Cross 534 465 91.13 431 82.13% 76.78%
Earthquake and tsunami in Japan: lesson plan and teaching activities
for schools 784 668 273.10 602 77.91% 76.40%
Mobile phone recycling | British Red Cross 1448 1167 256.51 1096 57.12% 75.14%
Pupil, Citizen, Life-saver | Support the British Red Cross campaign |
Step 2 1555 1457 134.75 11 81.82% 74.73%
In figures: east Africa one year on | In figures 2811 2599 308.38 2126 21.50% 73.39%
RedRoom and Redmail | British Red Cross 16501 12969 332.09 10489 20.14% 72.36%
What you should do
> Put a call to action on the page if there’s not
one there – e.g. sign up for an alternative
event
> Alter the design/ make calls to action more
prominent
> A/B test alternative layouts for increased
conversions
Website speed
Why it matters
> Big search ranking factor
> Visitors don’t hang around – you have
seconds to impress them
> Slow sites don’t lead to conversions
Conversion rate
Small gains make a big
difference > Increasing a conversion rate of 2 per cent by
just 0.1 per cent could mean £100,000s
> Use A/B testing to measure what works for
you and optimise accordingly
A/B testing ideas
> Call to action on left of page vs right
> Single page form vs multiple page form
> Red button vs black button
> One version of copy vs another
> One image or another
A/B testing examples
A/B testing examples
ClickTale
> Professional usability tool
> Tracks mouse moves, mouse clicks and more
> Can also tell you what fields are causing
users to drop out of forms
Internal search
Do you know what your users
are searching for on your site? > If not, it’s dead simple to set up in Google
Analytics
> High results page view per search figure, that
could mean users aren’t finding what they’re
looking for
> If users use search from a landing page a lot,
they’re not finding what they’re looking for
Page views per search
> Indicates how many search results pages
users are viewing to find the result they’re
looking for
> Look at your most searched for items, and
check whether they’re showing up in the
search results or not.
Search depth
> Tells you how many pages users looked at
after searching
> Consider in conjunction with other metrics.
Look at what users want!
> If they’re struggling to find something, write
some content and link to it prominently.
> Tell your marketing teams what users are
searching for digital marketing campaign
purposes
Some examples…
Search Term
Total
Unique
Searches Results Pageviews / Search % Search Exits
% Search
Refineme
nts
Time
after
Search Search
Depth
poster 7 3.71 42.86% 11.54% 307.29 3.14
donation 6 3.33 16.67% 20.00% 896.00 9.83
poppies 11 3.09 0.00% 5.88% 635.00 5.45
olympics 11 3.00 27.27% 9.09% 350.18 4.73
policies 10 2.80 50.00% 14.29% 161.40 0.60
news 5 2.80 20.00% 14.29% 338.00 9.00
seizure 7 2.71 14.29% 26.32% 164.14 3.00
war 16 2.44 18.75% 10.26% 319.44 4.13
e-learning 10 2.40 0.00% 37.50% 195.10 4.00
nose bleeds 5 2.40 20.00% 25.00% 171.80 3.20
What people search for on our
website
Search Term
Total
Unique
Searches Results Pageviews / Search % Search Exits
% Search
Refineme
nts
Time
after
Search Search
Depth
redmail 1342 1.19 76.23% 3.69% 195.52 0.58
redroom 893 1.27 2.58% 8.31% 196.86 1.92
jobs 515 1.25 5.05% 9.81% 169.81 3.55
red room 398 1.14 2.51% 7.93% 153.98 1.94
red mail 201 1.18 89.55% 3.80% 121.59 0.23
wheelchair hire 195 1.35 5.13% 4.94% 229.65 6.57
wheelchair 170 1.24 8.24% 9.52% 261.78 6.38
google 152 1.28 90.79% 2.06% 201.35 0.57
first aid 120 1.28 7.50% 19.48% 427.73 7.03
Document downloads
Document downloads
> Sometimes, you just want people to download
something
> Use event tracking in Google Analytics to
measure downloads
> May require some intervention from your
technical teams
Be aware:
What matters to
us, might not
matter to you
So..
Define your
metrics!
When to measure
When to measure
> I look daily
> We have funnels set up to act as a good
guide – but I prefer getting stuck into the
detail
> Use custom alerts to monitor for change (but
don’t rely on them!)
When to measure
> Report on your KPIs monthly
> Share your successes
> Learn from your mistakes
Example custom alerts
> CPC spend increases compared to previous
day
> Bounce rate increases/decreases by more
than x per cent compared to previous day
> Referrals from your top referring site drop by
more than x per cent
Using dashboards
> Good for an overview
> Beneficial to business unit owners who may
have a specific interest
> Allows you to keep an eye on the metrics that
are important to you
Using funnels
> Again, good for an overview
> Not 100 per cent accurate, so don’t rely on
them
> I use ecommerce conversion rate for
individual conversion paths and use financial
reports for accurate figures
Apart from
metrics..
Know what your users
want
Know what your users want
> Use Google AdWords keyword selector tool
> Use Google Trends to see what your potential
audience want
Google Adwords keyword
selector tool > Uses Google’s database
> Tells you language your users are using
> Should influence what you write, rather than
you writing what you think your audience
wants
Set row count = 50000 to get more data
out of Google Analytics
Google Trends
> Shows interest for keywords over time
> Helps you identify seasonality
> Tells you can get ahead of the crowd.
> E.g… when does Christmas start?
Social proof
> Look at popularity on social media to find out
what people like
> Product reviews and ratings sell more
products
> Submit ratings as search rich snippet data for
more traffic benefits
Tips to take away
Top tips
> Be more social
> Use conversion code tracking from marketing
providers (e.g. AdWords)
> Brush up on your web writing skills
> Make your site responsive
> Limit your calls to action to ones that are
relevant and effective on that page
Top tips
> Define your metrics
> Look at them daily, assess them monthly
> Report your successes – and failures
> Learn from your mistakes
> Annotate big events in Analytics for the
benefit of other internal users
Set row count = 50000 to get more data
out of Google Analytics
Thanks for
listening.
Any questions?
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